The Sanhedrin's Snafu

The word jealous is typically a negative quality, but God's Word sometimes uses it with a different connotation. Do you not think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires the Spirit which He's made to dwell in us.

It's interesting, He uses that word now for God. While you jealously pursue the things that you would heap upon your own pleasures and lusts, He said, God is jealous over you that you might be dominated by the Spirit. So I guess the question could be, what is it that you and I are really jealous about? Are we jealous for those things that others have that we don't? Or are we jealous to have the Spirit of God dominate our lives?

So what is it that you're truly jealous for? Today on Wisdom for the Heart, we're going to see that while the early church was consumed with pleasing God, the religious leaders of the day were consumed with putting an end to Christianity. The Sanhedrin just didn't get it. They witnessed Christ perform miracle after miracle and still concluded that His power came from the devil.

They were blind to the truth. We're continuing today with Stephen Davies' Vintage Wisdom series from the book of Acts. Stephen called the lesson you're about to hear, The Sanhedrin's Snafu. I read that one of the words that might have been characteristic of your week was generated out of World War II. The word snafu, recognize that it's actually an acronym the Pentagon created. S-N-A-F-U that stands for situation normal.

Stay with me. All fouled up. We have that many people in here that fought in World War II. That's amazing. Well, the Pentagon scrapped that and eventually came up with another one that did not really catch on. It's the word FUB. And that's another acronym which simply meant fouled up beyond belief. Maybe that was your week.

I don't know. It's probably going to get worse. Well, as I studied this particular chapter in Acts, if there could be any word that could underline the thought and activity of the Sanhedrin, it must have been something like situation normal all fouled up or fouled up beyond belief because it got worse and worse. The apostles simply wouldn't go away. And there are people defecting now to Christianity, including priests who are claiming this risen Christ to be their own personal Lord. So I want us to pick up our story where we left off at Acts 5. And we'll pick it up with verse 14, which is where we left off the last time.

Acts 5, verse 14. And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women were constantly added to their number to such an extent that they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and pallets. The word cot refers to a small couch or bed that was a particular piece of furniture of the wealthy. The word pallet referred to the straw mattress commonly used by the poor. So what Luke is giving us insight here into is the fact that rich and poor were both together wanting to be healed by the apostles.

So they laid out their cots and pallets so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on any one of them. And also the people from the cities in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together, bringing people who were sick and afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all being healed. What you have here is a picture that as we've studied before is this magnificent, although temporary power that God gave his early apostles as he established this new era and all of the errors that God established from Genesis onward were miracle errors that validated the message of those servants who spoke in his name.

You can't imagine the electrifying scene here. There are no long prayers. There's no faith that anyone is mustering up. In fact, the Bible tells us that all were healed.

There were no failures. In fact, we're not even told that there was faith in Christ among those who were healed. They simply put their cots and pallets out, and God was validating the message of this new church, this new organism, to be true by the fact that Peter could even walk by in a shadow fall on one. The implication is that one could be healed.

Well, something has to happen here. Verse 17 tells us, the high priest rose up along with all his associates, that is the sect of the Sadducees, and they were filled with concern for the truth. They were filled with care for the nation Israel. They were filled here, did you read, with righteous indignation.

No. They were filled with what? Jealousy. Don't overlook the motive for everything they did. They were intimidated and jealous of the power and might of the apostles as they had been of Jesus Christ. In fact, in Matthew chapter 27, we learn that jealousy rears its head as Jesus Christ is standing before the multitude and Pilate is declaring him to be innocent. And the Bible tells us in Matthew chapter 27 that Pilate knew they delivered him up for envy. You read in the book of Acts, and I just got out my concordance and started tracking that word jealousy or envy through. You come to Acts chapter 17 and Stephen stands before the Sanhedrin and he delivers his one and only message to them and he tells them of how the patriarchs delivered up Joseph out of their envy. And the implication is obvious. He is saying you are delivering your redeemer up for the sake of envy.

He didn't like that too much. You go to Acts chapter 13 and you read that on the Sabbath near the entire city has assembled to hear the word of God. But when the Jews and the leaders of the Jewish people saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. In Acts chapter 17, Paul and Silas are preaching and the city is assembling to hear them and it tells us that the religious leaders and the people are filled with jealousy. And so they incited the mob into action against them.

What's the crass motive behind it? Their territory is being attacked. They are more concerned with job security than they are in truth. And so the leaders of the Jewish people motivated by jealousy and hatred and envy didn't like the fact that attention and power was being stolen away from them.

So they said, let's do away with them. Aren't you glad that Christians don't struggle with jealousy? Isn't that great?

You know, we're just talking about the Sanhedrin here. Aren't you glad that the church is not a place of competition or envy or jealousy, that it's a place where we all automatically serve one another and esteem the other better than ourselves? Isn't that great? It's kind of like there are big erasers at the front doors and when you walk in, it just sort of wipes out all competitiveness and jealousy and envy in your heart and you sit here. Isn't that wonderful?

And then when you walk out, it kind of puts it back on you and then you kind of go out in the workaday world. It's wonderful to me to consider, oh no, far from it. Paul had to denounce the early church in Corinth for their divisive envy and jealousy.

Are we jealous for those things that others have that we don't? Power, position, reputation, popularity, things, stuff, or are we jealous to have the Spirit of God dominate our lives? Acts chapter five, verse 18. What's the Sanhedrin going to do? Well, the text tells us they laid hands on the apostles and put them in a public jail. Now what's happening here is in an effort to disgrace the apostles, they placed all twelve of them in a public jail.

You know as well as I do that whether you're innocent or not, this will disgrace these apostles. Now these apostles have a criminal record. They've done time in the slammer.

And those who are weak or timid, thinking about possibly becoming converted to Christianity, now they'll say, but you know what? Those leaders, they've done time. They're convicts.

Surely they can't be telling us the truth. That was their attempt to take steam out of this explosive movement. Now at this point, God reveals what I believe to be a wonderful sense of humor. He created laughter and humor. And this is one of those passages where it just comes out of the page. If you remember from our former study, the Sadducees did not believe in the supernatural and because of that they were sad you see. Remember that little clue?

You never forget that. They were the religious liberals of Christ's day. These were men who were supposedly spiritual, but they denied the supernatural and so denied that Jesus could be God in the flesh because that would certainly be supernatural. What's interesting to me is here God, as it were, looks down and says, okay, I'm going to get my apostles out of jail.

How am I going to do it? Well, we'll do it through some supernatural means. Could be an earthquake. He did that with Paul and Silas where the earthquake rumbled the walls and loosened the chains. But what I think is wonderfully funny is that he says, no, I think I'll use an angel. And it's funny to me because the Sadducees did not believe in the existence of angels. They didn't like to talk about angels. One of their pet peeves was the thought that angels could exist. So here God says, I'm going to do something to get them out of jail.

I think I'll use an angel. You know, it's kind of like, take that Sadducees. All right, verse 19. Let's get back to the text here before I get into my stroll.

But an angel of the Lord during the night opened the gates of the prison. Taking them out, he said, now follow this, he said to them, run for your life. Don't miss this.

He said, go your way. Stand and speak to the people in the temple of the whole message of this life. In other words, don't back away from it. Don't take away from it.

Don't water it down to make it more comfortable for people to hear. You continue delivering the whole message of this life. Warren Wiersbe writes in his commentary on this text, an illustration of something happening, or something that happened to him. He says, well, I was ministering to the Moody Church in Chicago, where he pastored for a number of years there in historic Moody Church in Chicago. He says, it was my joy to lead a pastor to Christ. You heard it right, a pastor to Christ. There are men, by the way, who stand in pulpits who are not saved. They have an interest professionally in the sacred, but they do not have a relationship with the Savior. He happens to lead one of these pastors to Christ. He says, he was a gifted man who ministered to a wealthy congregation. He went back to his church and began to share Christ and numbers of his people were saved. Then the denominational leaders stepped in and started to threaten him with dismissal. What do I do, he asked me, and I said, stay in there until they throw you out.

Be loving and kind, but don't give in. Eventually, he was forced out of the church, but not before his witness had influenced many in the church and in the community. Peter, John, Andrew, Matthias, all the men are there.

Go back and continue speaking the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Verse 21, and upon hearing this, they entered into the temple about daybreak and began to teach. Now, when the high priests and his associates had come, they called the council together, even all the senate of the sons of Israel, I love this, and they sent orders to the prison house for them to be brought. They didn't know they had gotten out. But the officers who came did not find them in the prison and they returned and reported back saying, we found the prison house locked quite securely and the guards standing at the doors, but when we had opened up, we found no one inside.

Now, you get the picture here. The doors are still locked from the outside. The guards are still standing at their posts. Nothing's happened here. They unlock all the chains, bolts, they take it all the way, open the doors and nobody's in there. And there was no way for them to have gotten out except through that front door that was still locked. Now, when the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests heard these words, they were greatly perplexed about them as to what would come of this.

Now, in the original language, this is a conditional clause and I'll amplify it to try to translate it here. You look back at your Bibles, you could add the words, they were greatly perplexed about them as to what would come of this, should it continue to go on. All of these men are kind of muttering out, snafus, snafus, snafus. It's getting worse all the time for the Sanhedrinists. And while they're standing there muttering fub under their breath, verse 25, someone came and reported to them, behold, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.

Oh, this is fouled up beyond belief. They would say, we have got to do something. Well, the captain went along with the officers and proceeded to bring them back without violence, verse 26 tells us, for they were afraid of the people.

Unless they should be stoned. And when they had brought them, they stood them before the council and the high priest questioned them saying, we gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name. Now, be alert here, what's missing? How about the question, how did you fellas get out? We put you in prison, we locked the doors, the guards are still there. How did you get out of there? Wouldn't that be the first question out of your mouth?

You want to know how you did it. No mention of that. The truth is, they didn't want to know.

So they didn't ask. Any of you ever seen that old show, Hogan's Heroes? You remember Schultz who could be bribed with food? Whenever he'd see the little Frenchman coming out from underneath the doghouse or he'd see Hogan dressed up in that Gestapo uniform in town, he always did the same thing, didn't he?

He closed his eyes real tight and he said what? I see nothing. You've been watching too much TV, all of you knew that.

I see 72 men here doing the same basic thing. They know the truth, they know something's up and they close their eyes as tightly as they can against the truth and they say, we see nothing. And so they totally ignore all of that and they simply say, didn't we tell you to not teach in this name? They can't even bring themselves to say the name Jesus, by the way.

They can't acknowledge another undeniable proof of yet another miracle. And they scold the 12, behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. Now the Sanhedrin is basically announcing that they are guilty of three things. You might write these three words into the margin of your Bibles. First of all, the apostles are guilty of insubordination. We told you not to speak in this name and there you go again teaching.

Second, they are guilty of indoctrination. You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the town council of Cary called us in there and they were able to say, you have filled this city with your teaching? How would that make us feel? Oh, we're sorry.

We'd be excited, thrilled that unbelievers, a council of Sanhedrinists would be able to say Jerusalem is being filled with your doctrine. Third, and here's the real rub of the matter. Here's the real problem. They are guilty of implication. That is you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.

See, that's the rub. Have they forgotten their own words? In Matthew chapter 27, when the crowd was crying for Barabbas to be released, Pilate said, I see nothing wrong with this man.

He is innocent. And they, the religious leaders and the nations screamed back at Pilate the words, may his blood be upon us. And they have been overwhelmed with guilt since that afternoon. Every time they close their eyes, they see the face of that blood stained man whom they knew was innocent. And these apostles are doing nothing more than taking the dagger of the truth and piercing their hearts with it. Their consciences are guilty. They know it's true.

They're like the man in Edgar Allen's short story who maybe you read it, he killed that man and he buried him underneath the floorboards of his home. But yet he finally was overwhelmed with his guilty conscience because it's as if he could hear that man's heart beating, beating, beating. They are guilty of the blood of Christ. And the real rub of the matter is they are saying to these men, you're just trying to bring guilt upon us.

Well, guilt was already there. Truth makes a man of courage. Guilt makes a man of courage, a coward.

And these 72 men are cowards. Well, Peter and the apostles answered and said, verse 29, we must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you'd put to death by hanging him on a cross. He is the one whom God exalted to his right hand as a prince and a savior to grant repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses of these things. And so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him. See, Peter is declaring that the resurrection of Jesus Christ proves the guilt of the Sanhedrin. You did crucify the true Messiah. And the proof of it is that he resurrected from the dead.

And furthermore, they're going, he's going further in his statement. He is saying, we are witnesses of it. In other words, no longer is the Sanhedrin the guardian of the truth. This new thing called the ecclesia, the apostles who represent the foundation of the ecclesia are now the guardians of the truth. You Sanhedrinists are on trial and you are out of God's will.

We, the 12 and the church we represent now have the truth of God for the nation. Well, they got the point because when they heard this verse 33, they were cut to the quick and were intending to slay them. Reminded me of the verse, the word of God is alive and powerful and what?

Sharper than any two edged sword. When the truth penetrates, a person either repents or reacts. These 72 men react and they will kill these apostles and they would have, but something happened. Verse 34, a certain Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law respected by all the people stood up in the council and gave orders to put the men outside for a short time.

By the way, this is Gamaliel the elder. A lot has been written in Jewish history about this, this man. He was the grandson of Hillel who created one of the two factions of the Pharisaic party.

There were two factions. Hillel was the conservative Pharisee. Gamaliel, the grandson of Hillel became a famous rabbi and teacher and tutor of some of the brightest young men in Israel during the time of this writing. In fact, the Mishnah stated that when Gamaliel died, the glory of the law died. One of Gamaliel's most famous students or pupils was a man who would defect from Judaism. His name was Saul and when he defected, his name was changed to Paul, the apostle. Gamaliel the elder stands and he said to them, verse 35, men of Israel take care of what you propose to do with these men. Now let me give you a little history lesson. For some time ago, Theudas rose up claiming to be somebody.

I like that. Claiming to be somebody and a group of about 400 men were fooled and joined up with him. Jewish history, by the way, tells us that Theudas raised up claiming to have the power of Moses and the ability to part water with his rod. And so about 400 people bought into this and he led an insurrection against the Roman Empire and he went down by the Jordan and he told his followers, don't worry, when they come after us, I'll part the waters, we'll go through, the water will come back on them and they'll die. Just like you heard about in Moses' day. Well, they came after him.

He slaps the water a few times. It doesn't part and they all lose their lives. After this man, verse 37, Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census and drew away some people after him. He too perished and all those who followed him were scattered. Here's a man who said it's God's will for you no longer to pay taxes or to the Roman Empire.

A lot of people thought that was a great idea. It must be the will of God. So they followed him and they lost their lives. So verse 38, in the present case, I say to you, stay away from these men and let them alone for if this plan or action should be of men, it will be overthrown. But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them or else you may even be found fighting against God. In other words, let's just wait and see.

If this is the work of men, it's going to crumble. If it's the work of God, you can't fight against it. So let's not fight it. Let's just stay away from it.

Let's see what happens. Now, while there is truth to his advice, it was tragic advice. It was political. It was pragmatic.

It was weak. The Sanhedrin being the guardian of the truth should have already mounted an in-depth study and search of all of these miracles and all of these evidences. And at that moment in time, they should have been bowing to the throne of Christ, not saying, let's just wait longer.

It had already been validated as being from God over and over and over again. And so the Sanhedrin verse 40 took his advice and after calling the apostles in, they flogged them. That is, they beat them 39 times with rods and ordered them to speak no more in the name of Jesus and then released them. And so they went on their way from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they'd been considered worthy to suffer shame for his name. Don't overlook the fact here, by the way, that they went away rejoicing not because they'd gotten out of prison, not because they'd made it out alive. They weren't rejoicing because, hey, we saw an angel. They weren't rejoicing because we stumped the Sanhedrin.

They were rejoicing because they had been found worthy to suffer shame for his name. Two thoughts for us today as to the believer. This passage teaches us among many things that adversity will be God's stamp of approval. And this particular season especially as those of you go home to unsaved relatives and friends, as you're surrounded by those people at the office parties and maybe you write letters, maybe you receive phone calls from people who know you're a Christian and you're like a burr in their saddle.

Be loving, be kind, be gracious. Represent your Lord well. But know that should adversity come out of it all, that's a stamp of God's approval, not disapproval. As to the message of the believer, longevity will be God's stamp of authenticity.

Jesus Christ said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overpower it. The message will go on, it will go on, it will go on. Over this past weekend, Transworld Radio is beaming the message that is ongoing in spite of everything to millions of people. One of the vice presidents told me as I was driving with him to the cemetery, he said, you know, we're getting 60,000 letters a month from Indians in India. 60,000 a month who are coming to faith in Christ because of TWR. It takes a week's wages to come up with the postage to mail their letter. And 60,000 of them are giving testimony to the message of Christ.

They've already started over 300 churches from what they call radio converts alone. Many of you know that five or six weeks ago I was in France helping missions to military celebrate their 25 years of ministry and I was in Toulon and it's about three hours away from Monte Carlo. And so I decided on the day that we had no appointments or scheduled meetings to get on the train there and travel along the coast of France into Monte Carlo. And so we did that next day.

My parents were with me and my daughter, Candice. It took about two and a half hours to get there and Monte Carlo is significant and the reason I wanted to go there was because that was the home of one of Transworld Radio's outposts. We were met there by Dick Olson, one of the TWR staff members, and he took us on a tour of their transmitter building which is very interesting because it's this massive white column building on a hillside overlooking the sea. It was a building originally built by Adolf Hitler and it was from that building that he intended the message of his false ideology to permeate that particular part of the known world.

One man's message was silenced. And now that building houses transmitters that are used to broadcast the saving message of the god man. When we left the building, we were shown by Dick an interesting sight. He said, look down the hillside there toward the sea. He said, you'll see something white and you'll see columns. And sure enough, we looked down there and we saw it was huge white, massive white columns that were originally built in a circular fashion there on a rocky knoll. He said, let's drive a little closer. And so we drove down to get close to it. Half of the columns had already fallen. They had crumbled.

The other half were still standing. It was absolutely magnificent. This was the monument built by Julius Caesar to honor his victory over France more than 2,000 years ago.

And you can read the words at the base or you can do some rough translation from Latin. You can read where he is declaring his glory and his might. And I thought, how interesting. Underneath the shadows of those antennas lies the ruined monument of a man who had hoped to rule the world and his kingdom eventually crumbled. Gamaliel, you're right. If it is the work of men, their voice will be silenced.

Their kingdom will not last. If it is the work of God, the message will be ongoing. And the kingdom that is being built and will one day rain on earth and throughout the new heaven and the new earth, that kingdom is eternal. Let's live this week in light of the magnificence of our resurrected Lord.

Isn't that a great way to apply the truth of what we've heard today? Let's commit to live out the reality of the risen Christ. This is Wisdom for the Heart, the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davy.

Stephen is the president of Wisdom International and the president of Shepherds Theological Seminary. You can learn more about us if you visit wisdomonline.org. This current series comes from our vintage Wisdom library and is entitled, The Harvest Begins. You can find this series on our website. We'll have another lesson from God's Word at this same time tomorrow. So join us for Wisdom for the Heart. You can find this series on our website.