Learn to Love the Battle. Acts 5:33-42

We are all living in a battle. Some of us are fatigued, weary. Some are weary and some are full of energy in the battle, it just depends on what your battle is and how you are facing it. Fatigue and weariness often becomes as much a test in the battle as the battle itself and we have to learn to love the battle. In saying that, the first part is learning to love the battle. We don't just love the battle. It is not just about loving the battle for the battle's sake. We are learning to love the battle because of what the end game is and what comes with victory. But we are in a battle and Ephesians 6:12, 13 talks about this: ^NASB "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual {forces} of wickedness in the heavenly {places.} Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm."

The battle is sometimes in overt, sometimes covert. Some times we are attacked specifically because we are standing up to the Christians faith, standing up for the truth; and sometimes the battle is more covert and it is just because we are living in a fallen world and Satan's fallen system and therefore we are going to come under opposition, adversity, testing just because we are in the devil's world.

Jesus addresses the overt aspect in John 15:18-21 ^NASB "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before {it hated} you…."  That indicates not just the cosmic system but the people in the cosmic system, and because you are a Christian—and sometimes whether a person realizes we are a Christian or not—there is just something about what we stand for that makes us a target. "If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you."  The is the universal principle: because we are out of the world the world system will hate us—even if we are a carnal believer. If we are a believer the world is going to hate us at some point, we cannot escape the battle. We are in a spiritual battle and we are facing spiritual enemies that are not the overt enemies that we think in terms of people in specific circumstances. "Remember the word that I said to you, 'A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you…" In other words, if they are committed to the world's system and you are following Me there is going to be persecution—maybe passive, or it may be more overt and active. "…if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me." That is a critical statement: "for My name's sake." We must understand that the issue in the battle is the glory of God and that the mission that Jesus Christ has given us is fulfilled.

Then in John 16:33 ^NASB "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation [adversity], but take courage; I have overcome the world." Not long after Jesus had spoken these words (this was the night that He was arrested; He was on His way to Gethsemane, and He was telling His disciples that they were going to come under opposition and overt persecution from the world) Jesus was going to be arrested and the disciples just ran and hid. They are just scared to death with the fear of persecution. They just become the poster children for spiritual cowardice. Yet three days later when Jesus is raised from the dead they become the poster children for courage. That is a great evidence that something more than just a psychological shot in the arm happened on resurrection Sunday: that what they saw was something more than just an apparition, more than the result of a spiritual pep talk, but that they saw something that was so profound, so real, so life-changing because of what it truly was, i.e. someone who had died and was brought from the grave and was now before them in His resurrection body, that all of them were radically changed in terms of their mental attitude and their courage. They understood now why the battle was being fought. They had a clear picture of the end game; they understood where things were headed; there was an experiential reality now to what they had been taught that completely changed and refocussed their entire mental attitude. We see and example of that here in Acts chapter five in this second trial. 

Acts 5:33 ^NASB "But when they heard this, they were cut to the quick and intended to kill them." We heard this same kind of language earlier as they reacted to Jesus' teaching. We saw the Pharisees, the scribes and the chief priests begin to plot among themselves as to how they could kill Jesus. Now we are getting a repetition of that pattern. The words "they were cut to the quick" is a translation of the Greek diaprio [diapriw] which Has as a literal meaning, to saw something in two. It is used in 1 Chronicles 20:3 to describe the sawing in half of a prophet. In the New Testament it is used with a metaphorical sense and is applied as becoming angry, to cut to the quick, and the reaction to that. The idea is that they become enraged, they respond in a purely emotional way. They have been convicted emotionally; they know they are wrong, and yet they refuse in arrogance to admit that they are wrong. We see something happen in this verse 33 that is a really interesting shift taking place and it foreshadows a division among the Sanhedrin that will be exploited more and more by the apostle Paul as we go through the rest of Acts.   

Acts 5:34 ^NASB "But a 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." In the Council there were basically two groups. It was dominated by the Sadducees but there were also members of the Pharisee party. Among the Pharisees and the Pharisees there was a great disagreement theologically. The Sadducees were aristocrats and had a more liberal view of theology. They did not believe in resurrection, in angels; they believed that only the first five books of the Old Testament were authoritative. They undercut the authority of Scripture and were not very different from liberals today who question the accuracy of the text, who are sceptical that the Bible is what it claims to be: which is the Word of God. The reason people reject the validation and verification of Scripture is because they have already made a decision in their own souls that they don't want to have anything to do with God. This is what Paul describes in Romans chapter one that even with the evidence that God has provided there are those who are suppressing the truth of God in unrighteousness.

But the Pharisees were not a whole lot better. When we look at the New Testament we see the Pharisees as a somewhat powerful movement. But when we look at the culture that existed in Judea and Galilee in the first century they weren't that powerful. There were approximately three million Jews living in Judea and in Galilee during this time but there were also Greco-Roman cities that existed in that area and they were secular. The Jewish culture began to be Hellenized. The judgment of AD 70 wasn't just because of the rejection of Jesus as Messiah. They had basically rejected God.

Today we have people who have sold out to the culture. They have a veneer of going to church and being a Christian that is enough to satisfy them and they deceive themselves in to thinking that is okay, they are Christians, they are going to X-Y-Z church. It is nothing more than a secular psychology wrapped up in Christian garb and being promoted from the pulpit. It is not biblical Christianity. But this is nothing new; it has happened down through the centuries and is a part of the battle. It is part of the battle that occurs in people's souls. They have to decide what they are committed to. Do they really want to know the truth? Are they willing to discover the truth and to find the truth? Or do they just want to find something that seems to make things work for them right now?          

This was something the Pharisees reacted to initially and they tried to take a stand and call the people back to a Torah standard. The problem was that as time went by they began to codify that Torah standard in an additional 10,000⁺ commandments and became locked down in to an overt form of legalism that had a righteousness that was the result of obedience to their traditions.

Gamaliel was considered to be one of the foremost rabbis in this period of history. He was the president of the Council of the Sanhedrin and was the apostle Paul's teacher and mentor. He died eighteen years before the destruction of Jerusalem. When he stands in the Sanhedrin we see that he is highly respected and people listen to him. Acts 5:35 ^NASB "And he said to them, 'Men of Israel, take care what you propose to do with these men.'" He offers wise council. The question comes up: How would Luke know about this? Probably because Paul was there—Saul of Tarsus—and Luke learned this from him.

Then he reminds them that there had been other false Messiahs who had come up. Acts 5:36 "For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a group of about four hundred men joined up with him. But he was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing." According to Josephus in his Antiquities that there was a Theudas who rose up in the forties, in the fifth or sixth year of Claudius: "… a certain magician whose name was Theudas persuaded a great part of the people to take their effects with them and follow him to the river Jordan where he told them he was a prophet and by his own command would divide the river and afford them an easy passage over it, and many were deluded by his words. However, Fadus would not permit them to make any advantage of his wild attempt and sent a troop of horsemen out against them; who falling upon them unexpectedly, slew many of them, and took many of them alive. They also took Theudas alive, and cut off his head, and carried it to Jerusalem. That was what befell the Jews in the time of Cuspias Fadus's government." This sounds similar to Gamaliel's description of Theudas. But Gamaliel locates this (v. 37) as being before Judas of Galilee rising up in the days of the census. That puts it back to about 4 AD. So if that is referring to the Theudas before Judas of Galilee then that is forty years earlier than the Theudas that Josephus mentions. So liberal scholars say Josephus was right and Luke was wrong. But maybe neither one of them are wrong. Let's assume that these writers of the ancient world know something about the truth and historical sources. The assumption that underlies a lot of liberal scholarship today is that they have scholars who think that we living 2000 years later know a lot more about what actually happened than those people did, and that is just the height of arrogance. It is very likely, because there was a large number of these pseudo-messiahs, revolutionaries that came along in the early part of the first century, that this Theudas that Gamaliel describes is much earlier and a different Theudas than the one who shows up in 40, and there is not just one person by this particular name.

Acts 5:37 ^NASB "After this man, 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." So what Gamaliel is saying is: We have had these kinds of people come along before and it doesn't amount to anything. [38] "So in the present case, I say to you, stay away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or action is of men, it will be overthrown; [39] but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them; or else you may even be found fighting against God." But Gamaliel doesn't test the evidence of the resurrection, he doesn't consider the truthfulness of the claims of Peter and the apostles that Christ was raised from the dead, how doesn't look at the validity of the signs and wonders performed by the apostles; he just wants to calm things down a little bit and not cause more of a disruption. 

Acts 5:40 ^NASB "They took his advice; and after calling the apostles in, they flogged them and ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and {then} released them." This is simply an overt persecution on Christians to discourage them from pursuing victory in their Christian life and fulfilling everything that Christ had told them to do. So we see their reaction to this in vv. 41, 42 "So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for {His} name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus {as} the Christ." They were rejoicing. So instead of discouraging them this just motivates them. This is how suffering or adversity is to impact the Christian. We have to learn to love the battle. When we engage in the battle it is not to discourage and to come back beaten and defeated and saying how can we win? When we engage in the battle it is supposed to cause us to say: Wow, this is great because it gives me an opportunity to glorify God in the Battle. So they ate motivated, stimulated, and it pushes them forward. And that is how we should respond. This is an opportunity to suffer in the cause of the gospel, whether it is overt or covert in terms of the battle with the world system, and it just gives me a further opportunity to glorify God in the battle whatever the opposition is and not let it discourage me and drag me down. 

This had a consequence because the people were so changed by their response to adversity this became evident in terms of their witness: "every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus {as} the Christ." What happened is that we see in the first verse of the sixth chapter. "Now at this time while the disciples were increasing {in number…" So the church continues to increase in its growth. They begin to face another problem and that is organizational and administrative problems within the congregation.