215 - No Reply (28 Sept 2024)

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. So Peter and John have just done a very public miracle that healed a man who'd been crippled from birth. And the passage says that the religious leaders were greatly annoyed. Why do you think made them so mad?

Why are they mad? Well, let's find out today on More Than Ink. Well, good morning. Here we are again at the dining room table with our Bibles open, and we're so glad you're with us. This is what we love to do, is open the Word together and read what God has to say to us.

So last week, we, oh, what? Need to introduce yourself. Oh, I'm Dorothy. And I'm Jim. Okay, now.

Sorry, I think they know that by now. Well, you know, we might have strangers at the table, so we just got to. You're right, you're right. Okay, I'm Dorothy, and he's Jim. So last week, we listened to the sermon that Peter gave after he. We just get too excited to read the Bible, and so we can't, okay, go ahead. After that lame man was healed, right? And Peter very clear about the fact that Jesus did it. He didn't, Peter didn't do it.

Jesus did it. But he kind of, the center point of that sermon is when he says to the Jews, repent therefore, and turn back that your sins may be blotted out, and times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. So that's in chapter three of Acts. So Peter just barely finishes his sermon, right, when he says the same thing over again, right? God came first to you Jews to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. And then we start today, as while he was still speaking to the people, the priests, the religious authorities come to arrest him. We know that he attracted a huge crowd when this guy was healed. And so the crowd, which is actually going toward the temple for the prayers in the afternoon, turned around and came back to the entry of the temple area.

And so it. Or they stopped the traffic, so there was a big kind of a knot, right? They should have been entering the temple area. I'm sure all the religious leaders who were there at the temple are saying, what? What's going on over there at the gate?

Yes. So, and then they overhear what Peter says, and now, now we have our confrontation with this leadership. And it's with all the leadership. So they don't. Well, because they're right on the temple grounds and they're clogging up the gate. And they're proclaiming Jesus to be the Holy One of God. And that, to them, is sacrilegious.

And they're going to shut this down. So today, we look at the interaction between Peter and John and the lame man who now walks and all the religious authorities in Jerusalem. So here we go. Well, the issue is, who is Jesus? Who is Jesus? The name of this one. And if they hadn't invoked the name of Jesus, this wouldn't happen.

Okay. Here we go. Chapter four. Chapter four of Acts. And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because they were teaching people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. But many of those who had heard the word believed.

And the number of the men came to about 5,000. How about them? Yeah.

Yeah. So yeah, surely they not only attracted the attention of the people who were coming to pray, now they've attracted the attention of the leadership. And I like it too, they were greatly annoyed. Because they're teaching the people, right?

These uneducated men are teaching the people. And they're proclaiming in this Jesus, the resurrection from the dead. Right. This is a big deal.

This is a big deal. Well, what's interesting is the Sadducees don't even believe in a resurrection from the dead. Exactly. But they're mentioned here as coming upon them and being annoyed. In a way, they don't even care about the fact it was Jesus. They're just annoyed that they're talking about a resurrection. But the resurrection was something that was being talked about quite actively at the time. It had happened and there had been many appearances of Jesus after the very public execution. It had only been a few weeks.

Just a few weeks. So when Peter says, we're talking about Jesus and he has raised from the dead, all the religious leaders who thought they had put Jesus away finally and the whole thing has passed and now we can go back to our normal lives. Here's these two upstarts out here claiming that this healing was done in the name of the resurrected one. They all know it's worse than ever. Right. They thought it was the end of the story, but it's not the end of the story. So it's getting toward dark.

So because they can't be out and about after dark, they lock them up. But it's interesting that Luke tells us here, because remember this is Luke who's writing Acts, that many of those who had heard the word believed. So it almost would read as if once Peter and John were locked up and taken out of the scene, those people who had heard the sermon and seen the miracle come to faith. Yeah.

Yeah. And I like how he says it. He doesn't say many of those who saw the miracle believed. He says many of those who heard the word. The miracle is a way to attract the crowd and to bring attention to who Jesus was and then instruct them about who Jesus is as God's holy servant, his holy one. And that's what they believed. Instead of dismissing who Jesus is.

Yeah. So remember what the miracle was. This man who had never walked and was clearly publicly validated as having been there all their lives, never walked. Peter just reaches out to him and says, I'll give you what I have.

In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, rise up and walk. And he does. And he does.

He does. And it is, we'll see in a second, it is such an undeniable miracle. That's right.

So public. I mean people could debate about the resurrection if they had not seen Jesus. They say, well I haven't seen him so I'm not sure. But there's no way of discounting this. I mean this guy was a fixture for four decades.

Right. So they knew who he was. They knew him by face. They knew his affliction and they knew he'd never walked. And then yet here he is standing and walking. I mean. Well, he's not just walking, he's leaping.

Well he's using his legs quite well. But I mean this is a messianic picture, right? It is.

That term of leaping about with joy is attributed to what happens when Messiah comes. Right. So keep track of where the healed man is as we go into this conflict.

Because this is a fascinating thing. So we're going to have our next day conflict of the rules. I'll read for us.

Okay. We're in verse five. So the next day dawns. On the next day there are rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem with Annas the high priest. Who had been part of the group who crucified Jesus. That's right. That was part of those trials. Caiaphas and John and Alexander and all who were of the high priestly family.

So we're talking about the highest mucky mucks here. Well and these guys are named because they were the ones who were present at the Jewish trial of Jesus. Yes. Right.

And so you wonder if they hadn't been talking about it among themselves all this time. Yeah. Right.

So here they are. Well and in the minds of Peter and John who are now on trial themselves. Right. It's the same guys who crucified Jesus. So this is not lost on them. That's right. So verse seven. And when they had set them in the midst, they brought them in, they inquired so by what power or by what name did you do this? I'm going to stop there for a second.

So I got to notice they didn't dispute that something miraculous had happened. That's right. I mean but they just want to know what the authority, what the power was, where the power came from. Right.

That's what the... By what name? Whose authority? Because it's not ours.

That's the implication. You didn't ask us. You didn't ask us. And we didn't okay this so who did okay this? That's right. And nothing happens here on the temple grounds without our permission.

This is our turf so who gave the permission and who gave you the power to do this? Okay so then Peter responds in verse eight. So Peter, by the way, filled with the Holy Spirit. Very important. We'll get back to that. Said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man by what means this man has been healed, well let it be known to all of you 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 is standing before you well. Let's just stop there. Right in your face.

It's very bold. So if you're asking us why we did a good deed today and how we did this good deed, oh it was Jesus. You asked for the name. It was this Jesus that you thought you had killed and done away with.

Right. But you crucified but God raised from the dead. God raised him.

God reversed what you did. So again, this is the centerpiece of his preaching. It's all about Jesus. It's all about Jesus. It's all about Jesus. He was dead but now he is still alive and he's still doing stuff.

Right. And he's really cutting to the heart of the issue. Again, I don't think the leadership would have reacted to this if Jesus' name hadn't been proclaimed in the midst of the miracle. But since Jesus' name had been, that really tweaked them. So first thing Peter gets to is yes, we're talking about who is Jesus.

And we talk about this a lot, not only in ministry and philosophy of ministry and stuff like that, but we have to get back to saying we need people to come to this confrontation. Who is Jesus? Who is this Jesus?

That's right. Because the Old Testament and the New is all about who this Jesus is as God's holy one, the one sent by God, the one to bring salvation in the midst of this culture of sin we live in. We really need to talk about who is Jesus.

Because everything else is secondary until you can get that. So in this confrontation, he says, well, just letting you know, it was Jesus who did this. You want to know, he says, by what power and whose name? Well, the power and the name was Jesus. Jesus Christ, the sent one of Nazareth, that guy. Right.

There's no question about it. The human, the guy from Nazareth, the guy. So there's no debating the identity here. So Peter steps in it big. And a lot of us in this kind of confrontation would know that if we mention the name of Jesus in front of these rulers who just killed Jesus, it would probably get us in trouble.

So we'd think twice about mentioning him so boldly. But Peter, because he's filled with the Holy Spirit, is very bold and says, Jesus is the one. That's fascinating because last time Peter was face to face with the religious authorities, Jesus was the one on trial and Peter denied him.

Peter denied him three times. But no more. Right. He is the Holy Spirit and he has seen the risen Christ and been restored from his season of denial. Right. His event of denial.

Right. And what a contrast too. Peter was denying Jesus in the face of the attention of servant girls and now he's standing in front of the highest leadership authority in Jerusalem that can get him killed. Pretty amazing.

The difference? The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was going in.

Okay. And in the previous speech and actually his first speech right at Pentecost, he kept saying this Jesus, this Jesus, this Jesus. So here he says it again in verse 11. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone and there is salvation in no one else.

For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Hey, wait. He's quoting the Old Testament. Oh. He's quoting Psalm 118.

Very famous. Oh my goodness. It's so worth reading Psalm 118.

Read all of Psalm. I'll read you a little snippet. Okay.

Please do. Yeah. So I'll read 118 verses 22 and 23. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The chief cornerstone. Right.

The chief stone that you start the building from, 23. And this is the Lord's doing. It's marvelous in our eyes. So the very cornerstone, the most important stone in the construction of a building, the start of a building has been overlooked, has been rejected. That's okay. This is the Lord's doing.

It's marvelous. So this rejection of the cornerstone Jesus is something that God foresaw these men would do. And now he's clearly saying, Peter is clearly saying, you know that Psalm 118, the people who reject the very important stone of God, you are the guys who did that rejection.

Ouch. He's quoting the Old Testament back to us. So let's talk about the cornerstone for a minute because even today a cornerstone is the first piece of the foundation laid and from that everything else is measured. Everything comes from it.

You know where the right angles are, you know how many feet to go in what direction. It sets the whole order and structure of the foundation of what's to be built on it. Yep, yep. It's the first stone laid. It's the foundation of everything.

It's the most important stone. I mean, there's just no doubt about that. And they were building a kingdom of their own.

So they rejected him. Yep. Yep. Peter just lays it right at their feet and quotes the Psalm to them. Yeah. They were rejected by you, the builders. That's right.

Wow. I mean this is just very straightforward. In fact, you don't hear Peter's voice here. You hear the Holy Spirit's voice here when he's saying this. He quotes them in 118 which the leaders in Jerusalem at the time saw that as a description of the enemies of God, the enemies of God. They saw themselves, the nation of Israel, as being the cornerstone. But they were totally wrong.

This is about them. And the Holy Spirit is very clear in how he says it. And in 12, here's the answer to anyone who says Christians are so narrow-minded about Jesus.

I mean, it's always about Jesus. And so here, again, the Holy Spirit is speaking through Peter, there is salvation in no one else. No other name. No other name under heaven given among men which we must be saved. So there is one way. There's only one way. And it reminds me, Jesus says, I'm the way and the truth and life.

No one comes to the Father except by me. The way. The truth.

The life. And it's interesting that in Psalm 118, right before the passage you read, in verse 19, it says, Open to me the gates of righteousness, and I shall enter through them. I shall give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous will enter through it.

Right? Jesus said, I'm the gate. I'm the gate. I'm the way.

Right? It's just so evident that we're talking about the one way. I am the way. I am the truth.

I am the life. So that's why we're very narrow-minded on salvation. There is no other way.

Not because we are narrow-minded, but because in obedience to what Jesus says and the Word says, He's the only way. There is no other way. There aren't multiple paths to God. It's only through Jesus Himself. Through the one God has sent. Through the one God has sent and has made provision for all of us that anyone can take part of this. Well, and we should probably say here, there are many, many approaches to Jesus, but only one approach to God, which comes through Him.

The narrow way. Right. Right. So, should we read on?

Yeah. Let me read 13, because now we get to the reaction. That was such a very Spirit-inspired statement, Peter, very boldly said to them.

So 13. So now when they saw the boldness. Wow.

What do you think? We need that in capital letters. When they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. So they knew they were witnesses.

14. But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. You think?

I'm just going to stop right there. So they make several observations before they have any snappy comebacks to what Peter had just spoken through the Holy Spirit. I mean, for one, they recognize his boldness. For two, they recognize this doesn't fit the uneducated fisherman.

These are common men. Right. How are they speaking this boldly? They're even quoting Psalm 118 and accusing us, but Psalm 118.

And then on top of that, what are we supposed to say? The miracle itself is standing right next to them. That's right.

Which, actually, they had had this experience with the man born blind and Jesus healed him a couple years before. So it's like, oh. What are you supposed to say? That's right.

We have nothing to say. But what I'm saying is that there's really two miracles standing in front of them. There's the miracle of the healed man, but then there's the miracle of these two fishermen speaking with such boldness and no reservation at all. In fact, this word boldness, I love this word boldness because it's a compound word in Greek that's it's all and speak. So it means they're telling it all. You're bold when you don't hold anything back. Right.

No holds barred. Right. You say, okay. I'm just going to let it out. So you're bold when you say everything. And that itself is a miracle. It's pretty authoritative.

There is no other name. And these are different men than we expected to be in front of us. So they're seeing two miracles and they just don't know what to say.

So 15, they need to talk about it privately so they got to have a private conversation. So 15, so but when they had commanded them to leave the council, so they sent them out, they conferred with one another saying, okay, what shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them. It's evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and we just cannot deny it. But in order that it may spread no further among people, well, let's warn them. We'll warn them to speak no more to anyone in his name.

That's what we'll tell them. It's in this name. In this name. Right.

In this name. So they're saying, okay, we can't deny the miracle. They tried to do that with Jesus in the resurrection.

Remember that? Oh, well, the apostles, they came and they stole the body. Well, we can't do that with this guy. There's no way we can deny that because all Jerusalem has seen it. Everyone who's a Jew in Jerusalem is coming for prayers that day.

Everyone has seen it. So we can't do that. So let's just warn these guys, leave the name of Jesus out and we'll be good.

What do you say? So that's their plan in 17 and they decided to bring him back in and put that in front of them. Which is very funny. They think if they tell them you just can't use the name of Jesus, then the miracles will stop and the whole thing will be over.

Really? I mean, and it was a miracle. Well anyway, so let's see what happens when they bring Peter and John back in, 19.

Well, 18. So they call them back in and charge them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge. For we cannot but speak of what we've seen and heard. And when they'd further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened. For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than 40 years old.

Which means this is impossible. So we clearly saw a miracle. So they try it. I mean, they come up with their plan, just don't use the name of Jesus. And Peter and John answered. By the way, it shows that John's answering as well, which is nice because John had a voice in this. He says, well, you know, whether it's right from your perspective in the sight of God to listen to you rather than God, okay, that's your deal.

That's your call. But our call, verse 20, we can't but speak what we've seen and heard. I mean, and what he's saying is that we're not the author of what just happened here. You know, we're just witnesses to what happened. Even in this healing of this man, we're witnesses. The power is not ours. So you're telling us not to speak of just what we've seen and heard, but what we have personally experienced?

We're not going to do that. Because we've seen the hand of God move here and we're just going to talk about that. We are witnesses.

Which reminds me, back in Acts 1-8, you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, outermost parts of the earth. So all they're saying is we're just witnesses. We're just witnesses. We're just telling what we've seen. We're not preaching a contrary philosophy to you guys. We're just telling people what we've seen.

And this is what we've seen. It's interesting that it says, and when they had further threatened them, right? We don't know what the threats were, but they let them go. And it just makes me wonder how Peter and John responded to those threats.

You know, like, what are you going to do now? Right? Really?

We have a power that breaks the dead. Yeah. Well, and that word further implies that there was threats before this. So they could have been threatening him to, hey, we're the guys who crucified your Lord.

We can do that again. It might have been that. But this entire time in front of the leadership was really a tactic of fear, to make them afraid.

Right. To intimidate them. Hoping in this show of power and authority in Jerusalem that it would intimidate them. And all they had to do to get out from under this being afraid of these guys was just not to mention the name of Jesus anymore. And they said, nope, not going to do that. Like that worked. Yeah, like that worked.

But it's interesting. It says they found no way to punish them because of the people, for all were praising God. So the crowds were giving glory to God.

The healed man was giving glory to God. And Peter and John were giving glory to God. How would that look if the religious authorities shut the thing down? Yeah, exactly. They could not do it. Right. And they didn't have a legal basis for one. Right. I mean, what, are you going to condemn these guys because they healed a lame man? Well, and if they did punish them, they would get in trouble with the Romans and they would have incited a riot, which is what they were afraid of in the first place when they crucified Jesus.

Right, right. The unrest is what gets you in trouble with the authorities in Rome. So they didn't want that. But really, you know, you see in here that it wasn't just the legal problems they had. You know, it's because of the people. It's because of the people. They were fearful, the leaders themselves, of the opinion of the people. And they knew that if they did something like this, it would cause the unrest.

This is what we call people pleasers. They don't act based on ideals or ethics or morals, you know, things that are foundational and don't move, which is how you should act. You know, they should say, no, we're going to stick to our guns.

You cannot do blasphemy here. That would be doing it based on ideals. But they're saying, no, the people's response is what's changing our mind in all this. Well, it didn't really change their mind. It just constrained them in what they could or couldn't do. It constrained them.

That's what I mean. Because the question arises in my mind, what would it have taken to change their minds? Because Peter had given them ample opportunities and look at the prophets, look at Psalms, look at the scriptures, look at Moses, right?

You guys claim to be experts in those things. And that sent me thinking about that parable Jesus told about rich man and Lazarus in 16. I won't tell the whole story, but at the end of the story, the rich man who is suffering in separation and hell says to the one in charge, says to God, well, then send somebody to my brothers to let them know so they won't have to suffer this. And he says, even if I send someone from the dead, they won't believe. They have the prophets. They have the scriptures.

If they're not listening to them, they still won't listen if someone rises from the dead. Well, here we have it being acted out by the Jewish leaders. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And so that word should be sufficient. It is sufficient, according to Jesus' story, that's sufficient.

But at that point, they've already made their choice. And Peter had clearly absorbed all of that Jesus, the spirit, opening his mind to understand the scriptures because that sermon we read is just suffused completely with Isaiah, with Jeremiah, with all of the prophets and the Psalms. Right.

In a sense, it's a nutshell of all the prophets screaming from the Old Testament about the coming of this one and the fact that they still denied him. Still denied him. Well, let me bring up a little trivia thing to think about right here. You know, here Luke, Luke has written this account and Luke writes his accounts based on interviews he has with people. Right. Who did he interview to find out about this discussion with the leadership? Well- Because Peter and John were out of the room. Oh, well, there must have been someone of the leadership who came to faith. Right. And we have one good example of that.

Paul. Oh. So it couldn't very well. No, I'm just speculating. But- Well, and I was thinking of Nicodemus.

Or Nicodemus could have been in there. Yeah. But- Yeah. But- It's possible. Someone in that room, Luke later interviewed and he says, let me tell you what we talked about. Heard the discussion. Yeah.

So it's a fascinating thing. Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, all the way through these accounts, both in Luke's gospel account and in Acts, it's interesting to ask yourself, who did he interview for this? And in this one, it's got to be someone who's come to Christ who was in the leadership of Jerusalem at the time. Well, and you know, we're going to find out later more details about this, but Luke traveled with Paul, spent extensive amounts of time with him, so he would have had lots of, they would have talked about a lot of stuff.

Right. So if Paul had been in the room for this, which is somewhat likely because he had sort of a leadership role very soon after this point or at this point. It could have been Paul.

Could have been Paul. Oh, that's interesting. Now that's totally speculation.

We don't know. But it's kind of fun to think about because you would think when you read this passage right here, that these guys are really stuck in the mud. They're not going to open their minds to the fact that Jesus may indeed be God's promised Messiah, his holy one, his servant that was sent in Isaiah, but clearly it broke through someone's heart because eventually they told the story of Luke and Luke put it on the page for us. There's great hope. There's great hope even for those who resist. And there's also great hope in terms of sharing the gospel with people, whether you're educated or uneducated. Yes. And you know, I think of a lot of uneducated, famous, modern people like Spurgeon and D.L.

Moody. I mean, guys who had no formal education, but they could speak about the truth of the gospel. By the power of the Holy Spirit. By the power of the Holy Spirit. The gifting of the Spirit.

And that makes all the difference in the world. Well, next time they go back and they report to the believing community what happened and the response is of what's going to delight you next time. And we're going to read that when we come together again on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. Whose name is? We don't know. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.