Have
you ever noticed that people aren’t always receptive to the Good News of the
Gospel? We’re living in a world where it is increasingly forbidden to share the
Good News with a desire to win converts. The situation is getting to the point
where the only place where the Gospel can be proclaimed in in a church.
This
problem isn’t new. The disciples were some of the first victims of this type of
persecution. We heard an example of this persecution in Acts 5:27-32. Peter and
John were arrested for preaching and brought before the Jewish authorities.
They were released with orders not to preach-orders they promptly disobeyed.
They were arrested again, and when they were asked why they disobeyed the
order, Peter made a speech similar to the one he made on the Day of Pentecost.
The
problem the Jewish authorities had was not what the disciples preached but how
they did it. They were drawing public attention to the message of a Jewish man
who was executed on a Roman cross. That message was contradictory to common
ideas about God’s anointed Messiah. Their message challenged claims associated
with Roman rule. The authorities failed to realize who the apostles were
because they failed to recognize who Jesus was.
Peter’s
claim that the disciples had to obey God instead of man was a continuation of
the tradition of appealing to a higher authority to support or challenge
actions. He made the same points that he made in the speech he delivered on the
Day of Pentecost:
1.
Christians must
obey God rather than men
2.
Jesus the Messiah
is alive.
3.
Jesus lives in
us.
Peter
and the disciples knew that following the outdated rules and regulations of the
Jewish authorities would not lead to the forgiveness of sins. Only Jesus can
provide forgiveness.
God
calls on us to make disciples of all nations. This will likely mean that we
will be persecuted, but the end result might be a period of revival. We are not
alone in facing persecution. Our Christian brothers and sisters in the Third
World face extreme forms of persecution such as death-all because of their
faith.
As
Christians, we must acknowledge that there is a tension between obeying God and
obeying civil governments. God, not government, is to be obeyed when it comes
to the mission of the church, which is to spread the Good News of the Kingdom. Civil
governments might seem to be the answer to all of our problems, and they might
even seem to be the potential saviours of our world, but they aren’t. Civil
governments must be obeyed except when they overstep their bounds by trying to
stop the work of God. When that happens, governments must be disobeyed. When injustice and oppression are part of
religious, social and political systems, nothing short of mass activism will
transform them.
God
wants us to acknowledge that God is sovereign and trust him instead of rejecting
him and following our own plans. The disciples decided to follow God’s plan,
and in doing so they set a good example for us to follow. If we are ever asked
to do something that would cause us to disobey God or violate our conscience,
that is where we have to draw the line. Our conscience tells us what is morally
right and morally wrong, and if we go against our conscience, then that is sin.
Our allegiance must be to God and not to man, because God is the ultimate
authority that we must answer to.
God
is in charge of our lives. He has rescued us from the bondage of sin, forgiven
us and brought us into his family. The proper response is for us to be so
grateful that we will spread the Good News in spite of opposition. God calls us
by our baptism and authorizes us to keep doing what the apostles were doing.
The Holy Spirit calls us by the gospel, and the gospel creates hearts that are
obedient to God. We are latter day apostles. We get to follow the first
apostles and speak the gospel to people who are gathered in places where anyone
can come.
1.
Jeremiah,
David: The Jeremiah Study Bible, NKJV (Brentwood,
TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013)
3.
T.M. Moore,
“When Not to Obey.” Retrieved from www.colsoncenter.org/the-center/colummns/viewpoint/18240-when-to-speak
6.
Kyle
Fever, “Commentary on Acts 5:27-32.” Retrieved from www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1616
9.
Preaching
Magazine, January/February 2016 (Nashville, TN: Salem Publishing; p. 52)
10. Mitzi J. Smith, “Commentary of Acts 5:27-32.”
Retrieved from www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2824
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