JUN 23 2024 | Acts: The Dawn of the Church S1E5 | Impossible NOT to Speak

Sea Change Church · JUN 23 2024 | Acts - The Dawn of the Church – S1 Ep 5: Impossible NOT to Speak
Acts 4:13-22
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Lord, we thank you for being such a generous God of provision. We thank you for the community here that you've given us at La Jolla Christian Fellowship and just an amazing, wonderful network of people who have similar values, Lord, and want to serve you. I pray that you'll receive today's offering and use it to expand your kingdom. We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen. The book of Acts, chapter 4, verses 13 through 22. When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished, and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say.

So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. What are we going to do with these men, they asked. Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name.

Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, Which is right in God's eyes, to listen to you or to him? You be the judges. As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. After further threats, they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them because all the people were praising God for what had happened.

For the man who was miraculously healed was over 40 years old. This is the word of the Lord. It was a beautiful day. Don't let it get away. Beautiful day. I was studying here in the church. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Our title of the message this morning is Impossible Not to Speak. That's from verse 20 of the passage it's read, which literally says that we are not able not to speak the things that we have seen and heard.

And that's really where we're aiming at this message is just to see if we can come to that same place. We're so filled with the Holy Spirit that we just can't help but bubble over with what God has done for us wherever we are. I saw four questions arose from this passage. You have them in your notes there. First question is, Why were Peter and John so bold and courageous before the rulers in the trial that they were being brought to here?

What made the rulers not able to repent even though the lame man was standing right there? They couldn't deny it at all. It's evidence. Why did they not just repent and say, We believe in Jesus. It wasn't the name of Jesus. He was healed. We repent. And thirdly, Why did Peter and John not have to obey the rulers' commands? And the fourth question, Which we're going to get to, Is what can make you and I Not inwardly restrained From being able to proclaim the gospel?

We only have time pretty much for the first, Verse 13 and 20 there, But let's see where we go. I wanted you, In your notes there, You have a statement that says, See all the knots in this passage. I'm just going to read it. What's there? Peter and John were not learned or cultured. The rulers were not able to speak against the miracle And did not know what to do.

And were not able to deny it. So they ordered the disciples to not speak or teach in Jesus' name. And Peter and John answering that they could not not speak of Jesus. And the rulers were not able to find a means of punishing the two. With the result, They were not able to not release them. Lots of negatives in there. Nothing's knots and no's are there.

Why was that? Well, I think there's a message in this. This is the, These chapters, Two, Three, Four, Five, And so on in early Acts, Are talking about the transition from the dispensation of the law Into the dispensation of grace. And those who are holding to the dispensation of the law Are going to resist that transition, Of course. And so this is the, The Lord is saying to them, No, No, No, You can't go on with what you're doing.

And yes, Yes, Yes to the church, You can go on and proclaim the gospel to all of the creation. So what brought about this? Caiaphas had a, Or when Jesus was brought to the trial before his crucifixion, Caiaphas, The high priest, Challenged him during that trial. And he says, Truly, If you are the son of the, If you are the son of God, No, Sorry. If you are the, If you are the Messiah, The son of God, I adjure you to tell us that.

And Jesus said, You've said it. And from henceforth, You're going to see the son of man sitting on the, On the throne in heaven and coming with clouds of glory. And the priest at that moment, What did he do? He took his robe, Or he took his garments, And he ripped them in two. And that, Taking that, That ripping action was something that told, That symbolized that the era of the law was done.

Those garments were called the garments of beauty, And, Sorry, Grace and beauty, Glory and beauty in the Old Testament. They represented the high priesthood of God. And so, The high priest was ripping those garments, And saying, No more, We're no longer going to be, Representing God's high priesthood. It's now the high priest, Jesus, Is the high priest of our confession, In the order of Melchizedek.

It was the end of the Aaronic order. It was the end of the era, Of the dispensation of the law. And it was the beginning, Of the age of grace. So, That's what happened. And so, Jesus, The rulers call Peter and John into their assembly, And they're there with the priests, And all the rulers there. And, What happens is that Peter and John make a statement, And they're talking to them, And they're basically saying this, Hey, There's a new sheriff in town.

His name is King Jesus. And there's a new law in town as well. It's not the old Aaronic law. It's not the Mosaic law anymore. It's the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, And forgiveness and grace. So, It frees a person from the oppression, Of the ruling cast that had been ruling, Over the Holy Land. Now, What had happened is that Peter and John, And the lame men were brought before the rulers, To explain themselves.

And that's exactly what Jesus had prophesied, Would happen. He wrote in Matthew 10, And I think that's in your, About bulletin as well. On my account, You will be brought before governors and kings, As witnesses to them, And to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, Do not worry about what to say, Or how to say it. At that time, You'll be given what to say, For it will not be you speaking, But the spirit of your father, Speaking through you.

Now, This, I've known these, This verse, Or these, Yeah, These verses for a long time. Now, But if you had asked me a week ago, Even a week ago, What does Jesus promise, If you're brought before kings and rulers, Because of his name, What will happen? And I would have very confidently said, Well, It's very clearly written, That you'll be given what to say, By the Holy Spirit, And not to worry about it.

And I would have been wrong. Why was I wrong? Because I left out the little word, How. Now, It's important to understand, That the how, And the what, Go together. Not only are you told, What to speak, You're told, How to speak it. And that's, And it's the combination, Of the what, And the how, That makes the message. It communicates, What the word is. So, So when we look at these scenes, Peter and John, And the lame man, Before the rulers, You see boldness, And you see courageousness, On the top, On their part, And they're going to speak, Boldly to them, The word of the Lord.

But it's the combination, Of what they're saying, Along with how they say it, That's all important here. And when we see these scenes, We read these things, In the scriptures, We have to always ask ourselves, What's going on? What is, What is the how, Of the situation, As well as, What's the word of the situation? And that's what the Lord, Always tells his servants, When he talks Isaiah, In Isaiah 58, He says, Lift up your voice, Like a trumpet, And proclaim to Jacob, Their transgressions, Israel their sins.

Okay, So like a trumpet, Was the how there. Otherwise, He can speak comfortably, Speak comfortably to Jerusalem, Tell her that her warfare has ended, That she has received double, For all her sins. And then turn around, Next verse, A voice crying in the wilderness. In other words, He's always going to be looking at, The means, Or the manner of transmission, He's going to be directing that, As well as, The word, That is to be spoken.

And that's important, As I say, When you read the scripture, To try to understand that. I've got a certain situation, I guess I call it a malady, I sometimes, I've always, I get a feel, For what happens in scripture, And then I'm invited, Or I see, A video, Or a movie, Or something, Where the scripture has been rendered, And cinematically, And I say to myself, I'm not sure that, That's exactly the way it was.

Many years ago, And I was looking at a video, Or a movie of, Peter, Preaching on the day of Pentecost, Remember, 3,000 people were, Were one to the Lord, And baptized, And all, And here's Peter, Standing up, Day of Pentecost, According to the movie, And, He could have been given, The farm report, Or something like that. It was like, These men are not drunk, As ye suppose, It's only the third hour of the day, This is that which Joel prophesied, And so forth.

And I wanted to, You know, I just wanted to go up to the actor, Grab him by the shoulders, Look him in the eyes. So that's not, How it was done. 3,000 people don't come to the Lord, Listening to the way you were talking. Pastor Jim, A number of years ago, In one of his classes, He was talking about an experience, He had as a pastor, He said, The Lord had given him a certain word, For the congregation, He got up on the pulpit, And he, Very, You know, You know, Everybody knows Pastor Jim, He's affable, And friendly, And imperturbable, And good natured, And all of that.

Okay, It's important you know that. Okay, So he gets up on the pulpit, In the church he was pastoring, At the time, And he says, Dear congregation, I just want to let you know, The Lord's given me a little word, To tell you. Repent! Again, The how was everything there. So, The message is not just the words, The message is the manner of the words, As well as anything else, That's needed to attest to, And establish the word, That's being given there.

It can be signs, And wonders, And miracles, If the Lord wants to bring it to pass, As well. He will do what is ever necessary, If you're brought there, The Holy Spirit will give you the resources, To bring forth the message, That he wants, That his name be glorified, In the situation. The thing with God, Is that words and works go together. Jesus said, Believest thou not, That I am in my Father, And the Father in me?

The words that I speak, They're not of myself, But the Father who dwells in me, He does the works. So, At the beginning of the verse, It says, The words that I speak, But he says, That the Father actually does the works. Why? When God speaks, It creates a work. And that's what we're doing, When we are anointed by the Holy Spirit. We're not just transmitting information, We're transforming the whole world, And we're transforming that situation.

So, Let's look at this, First verse 13 there. If you could bring that up, Of Acts 4 there. It says, When they saw the courage of Peter and John, And realized that they were unschooled, Ordinary men, They were astonished, And they took note that these men had been with Jesus. Now, I want you to get the scene here, Get the feel for what's going on here as well.

If you could show me, Give it a picture of the Sanhedrin there as well. Look at, This is the room, That they were probably brought into. It's just a graphic of that. I don't know, I didn't do enough research, To know how many of the rulers were there. But the ruler, The full Sanhedrin was 71 people. 35 on one side of the room, 35 on the other. And the high priest, Sitting on the bama, Or the high place, At the end.

The little black figure, You see in the middle there, Is the accused. He has to stand there, With 71 eyes, Or 142 eyes, 44 eyes, Watching him. Okay? And, You can imagine what it's like. And this was a very intimidating scene. This was a very intimidating environment. The person that was standing there, They were overawed, Usually by the, By the, By the, The clothing, The long black robes, And the headdress, And the scowling faces, And so forth.

So, Most people would get in there, They'd come in, Hat in hand, And they'd say, Yes, Your Excellency. Whatever you say, Your Excellency. I won't do it again, Your Excellency. You know, Whatever. So, The point was, It was designed to be intimidating. And here we have Peter and John, Coming with the lame man, Standing with him also, Bold, And brave and courageous before them.

So, I want to go through this verse, Line by line. I'll show you some of the Greek words here. This is the only verse we'll do this on. But the Greek word is this. The verse goes like this. And when they, The rulers, Saw the courage of Peter and John. Now, The word for saw, Is not the usual word for to see, Or saw something. This is actually the Greek word, Theoreo, From which we get the word theater.

Actually, Peter and John were on a sort of a stage there, Symbolically speaking. And they were addressing the rulers. They were not entertaining the rulers. They were challenging the rulers by their, By their boldness there. And they, When they saw the courage, That word courage there, Parasia, Is a very important word in Greek culture, Because Parasia, Spoke of, Of the ability to speak candid, Candidly, With total confidence, Confidence, Whatever is within you, Could flow out, Without any restraint whatsoever.

In ancient Greek democracies, Remember like Athens, Any citizen had the right, To speak whatever was on his heart, To the assembly, Ruling the city. Because they all ruled the city there. So this Parasia, Everything could flow out, And that's exactly what they were doing. They had the Holy Spirit filling them, And they were able to, Declare to the rulership there, The word of the Lord.

And it says, They saw the courage of Peter and John, They realized, That they were unschooled, Ordinary men. Their word even realized there, Is a word that says, It gripped them, And they had their attention, And they couldn't lose sight, Of what was going on there. They were totally gripped, By the proceedings at that time. No jaundice looks, No heavy eyelids, No scowls, They were just, They were just gripped, By what was happening there.

And then the word unschooled, They didn't, These two people, Whenever unschooled people were there, They could just say, We're the educated class. Unschooled meant not able to be, Or not schooled in the rabbinic traditions, Sitting at the feet of a rabbi, Or something like that. Here's Peter and John Fisherman and all. And that they were also, Ordinary men, As I think is the NIV there.

Ordinary men, And the word ordinary there, And it's a very interesting word, Adiotos, Or idiotos, And we get the word idiot from it. But it didn't mean crazy back then, It just meant so uncultured, That you weren't connecting to the culture, You were sort of caught up in your own self. Because of this, They were unschooled, And ordinary men, And because of this, The boldness exhibited, Says they were astonished, Astonished.

Astonished here, It was a good word, Marveled or astonished, But the Greek word thomazo, Means thunderstruck, Hit on the side of the head, Unable to not pay attention, Something that was, They'd never experienced before, Thunderstruck by the, Boldness of Peter and John here. And then they took note, That these men had been with Jesus, The word men, With there, Is even the word, It's not just a typical word for with, It means together with intimately, They had the dossiers, Written upon Jesus, And all of his disciples, And they found out, These are the two, That were right with Jesus.

So why were they so bold? They had heard Jesus, Call them scribes and Pharisees, What's the next word? Anybody? Hypocrites! You're of your father, The devil. You seek the praise of men, More than the praise of God. All of these things, Were well memorized, Well known by the disciples, And they just, And that's the way, They looked at them, And they said, So they could speak boldly, The word of the Lord there.

Jesus was with them as well. All right, Going on to the last verse there, Verse 20, If we could put that up, Verse 20, Says again, That, It is impossible for us, Not to speak the things, That we have seen and heard. Is that right? So, That's their final defense, And it says, They, It was, In the Greek, It was not possible, For them, Not to preach, The word of God.

It was not possible, For them not to preach, What God had given them. And so, We have people in scripture, That it's the same thing, It was like that. You've heard of, Of Jeremiah. Jeremiah says, I will not mention his word, Or speak anymore in his name. And then he says, But his word is to my heart, Like a fire, A fire shut up in my bones, I'm weary of holding it, Indeed, I cannot hold it in.

Jeremiah was again, So possessed with the fire, The word of God, That he couldn't hold it in. Amos says this, The lion has roared, Who will not fear? The sovereign Lord has spoken, Who can but prophesy? And Paul himself, First Corinthians 9, He says, But when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, Since I am compelled to preach, Woe to me, If I do not preach the gospel.

The King James says, For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of, For necessity is laid upon me, Woe unto me, If I preach not the gospel. That word necessity, Is anankhe, That necessity, The anankhe, In Greek mythology, Was the goddess of destiny, Or a force, Which could not be resisted. So again, This is what the early church, Was operating with, The Holy Spirit, So filling them, They couldn't hold it back.

And that's exactly, What we're to be looking for as well. In your notes there, With the apostle Paul, Pray without ceasing, To know the Lord, Let his words so fill your heart. Know the Lord, With the power of his resurrection, The fellowship of his sufferings, Being made conformable, Unto his death. And I said here, Remember you are to be a witness. A witness is one who has experienced the Lord.

And if we've experienced the Lord, Then we cannot help but share him. The NIV, And most modern translations, If you could go back, To verse 20 there, It says, We cannot, It is impossible for us, Not to speak, About the things that we've seen or heard. Is that right? Yeah, About what we've seen. Well, Literally what it says in the Greek is, We cannot but speak, The things we've seen or heard.

It's a difference about, Telling a story, Or telling about something, And telling the thing itself. If we're filled with the spirit of the Lord, What we speak, Is going to create. When we speak the gospel, We speak the presence of the Lord, Into the situation. The word of the Lord, Is sharper than any two-edged sword, Convicting between soul, Dividing between soul and spirit, And convicting, And revealing the thoughts of the heart.

So that's what being filled with the spirit is, That we're actually speaking for Jesus, Into the situation that we're in. So I'd like the band to come up please, If you would, And let's stand, And worship for a moment, And then we'll have a benediction, If you, The prayer team please come up as well, And if you're led, You want to come up even now, While the band is playing, You can come up for prayer, If the prayer team could come up as well, At this time.

Please join us just to sing, Worthy of it all again, Just lean back into this song. All the saints and angels, They bow before your throne, All the elders, Cast their crowns before the Lamb of God, And sing, You're worthy of it all, You're worthy of it all, Sing on again. Sing on again. You're worthy of it all You're worthy of it all For from you are all things And to you are all things You deserve the glory Hold out your hands for a blessing, please, and then continue to come forward if you need prayer.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. And by that, Holy Spirit, may you be so filled with grace and glory and the vision of his holiness that you too cannot not speak the things you've seen and heard. And they all said, Amen. We're going to keep singing this song, but feel free to come up for prayer.

Feel free to head out. We just want to send you out with just a blessing. Day and night, night and dayland, incense arise Day and night, night and dayland, incense arise And the kind of the thing. And the thing. ly