The sermon by Peter Allison, titled 'The Clash of Powers - 2,' focuses on Acts 5 and the conflict between the apostles and the Sanhedrin. The apostles were imprisoned for preaching and performing miracles, but were miraculously freed by an angel to continue their ministry. The Sanhedrin, driven by indignation and fear of losing control, used unlawful commands, imprisonment, manipulation, and physical torture to suppress the apostles, but failed. The apostles remained obedient to God, rebuked the Sanhedrin respectfully, and continued to preach boldly. Gamaliel's advice to the Sanhedrin, which suggested passivity to see if the apostles' movement would fail on its own, was critiqued for replacing divine truth with success as a measure of legitimacy and for advocating abdication of judicial responsibility. The sermon emphasizes the importance of obeying God over human authorities, regardless of the consequences, and encourages believers to find joy in persecution and remain steadfast in their faith.

Well, please turn to Acts 5 as we continue the account of their apostles preaching powerfully and performing many signs and wonders, and casting out many demons and unclean spirits. We begin at verse 17. Acts 5. Then the high priest rose up and all those who were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees, and they were filled with indignation. And laid their hands on the apostles and put them in the common prison.

But at night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said, Go, stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life. And when they heard that, they entered the temple early in the morning and taught. But the high priest and those with him came and called the council together with all the elders of the children of Israel and sent to the prison to have them brought. But when the officers came and did not find them in the prison, they returned and reported saying, Indeed we found the prison shut securely, and the guards standing outside before the doors, but when we opened them we found no one inside. Now when the high priest, the captain of the temple, and the chief priests heard these things, they wondered what the outcome would be.

So one came and told them, saying, Look, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people. Then the captain went with the officers and brought them without violence, for they feared the people, lest they should be stoned. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest asked them, saying, Did we not strictly command you not to teach in His name. And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's blood on us.

But Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him. And when they heard this, they were furious and plotted to kill them.

Then one in the council stood up, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, held in respect by all the people and commanded them to put the apostles outside for a little while. And He said to them, men of Israel, take heed to yourselves that you intend what you intend to do regarding these men. For some time ago, Thutus rose up, claiming to be somebody, a number of men, about four hundred joined him. He was slain. And all who obeyed him were scattered and came to nothing.

After this man, Judas of Galilee, rose up in the days of the census and drew away many people after him. He also perished, and all who obeyed him were dispersed. And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if This plan or this work is of men. It will come to nothing. But if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest you even be found to fight against God." And they agreed with Him, and when they called for the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them go.

So they departed from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name. And daily in the temple and in every house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as Christ. May we love His commandments and treasure them more than the finest gold. Heavenly Father, Sanctify us by Your Word. Your Word is truth.

Open our hearts and our minds to hear, to understand, to believe, and to obey all that You teach us in Your Word. And sanctify my sinful lips to proclaim the riches of Your grace. Lord, may You be glorified. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, last week we looked at the power God exercised in and through the church.

The power of the preaching of the Word. The power of the signs and wonders that the Apostles performed. And God's power that He displayed through His judgment as well. Well, this message is titled Clash of Powers Part 2 because the Sanhedrin also has power. And they exercise their power in the service of their master, the evil one.

Jesus told Paul that he was being sent to the Gentiles to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God that they might receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Christ. See, Satan has power. That's what Paul's mission was, is to turn people from that power to Christ. And he told the Colossians in chapter 1, 13, He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. He's delivered us from the power of this darkness.

You see, this power, this power of darkness, this power of the evil one is ordained by God. It's not a power that is in any way independent of God. In fact, just the opposite. Romans 9, 17 is very explicit that these powers are ordained by God. Romans 9 says, For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, for this purpose I have raised you up, that I might show My power in you." God raised up this evil power, this wicked King Pharaoh who subjugated the children of Israel and put them under harsh cruelty, harsh servitude.

God says, I raised Him up. I created this power and caused it to be exercised against the church so that I may show my power in Him and that my name might be declared on all the earth." So this chapter, this account continues, this clash of powers, the power of the evil one as it's being exercised by the power and the Sanhedrin against the church. You see, the Sanhedrin recognized that this power in the Apostles' preaching, which was not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power that this preaching was being exercised against them. They were losing followers. They were losing their prestige in Jerusalem.

Every time someone believed. Remember, people are believing in multitudes. By the hundreds and by the thousands, They're coming into the church. See, they recognize that their kingdom was under attack by the work of the apostles, by the preaching of the apostles, by the signs and wonders that they were performing. They realized they weren't able to control the apostles.

The apostles weren't falling into line with their ungodly commandments that they had given them in the previous chapter in Acts 4. And that is why they become indignant in verse 17. And that is why they exercise this excessive power against their preaching. They became angry. See, unrighteous anger is about control.

The next time you become angry unrighteously, ask yourself, what is it that I'm not controlling? That in my sinful nature I want to control? Unrighteous anger is about control and imposing their will upon other people. They realized they were losing control. And it made them angry, unrighteously angry.

And so they began to assert their power. Because it is real power. They begin to assert that against the church and against the apostles. Now, what are those powers that they attempt to wield against the power of Christ's church? Well, The first thing we see is unlawful commands.

Unlawful commands. Evil by law, the Scriptures call it. Laws that make it difficult for people to do what is right. Laws that justify wickedness. Laws that condemn righteousness.

We have a lot of those kind of laws today in our land, don't we? Laws that make it difficult for young men to work, to learn the skills to support a family. It's difficult for them. And of course, there are all sorts of things, reasons why it's difficult for them to learn to work, and they're all in the name of protecting them, keeping them safe. They're unable to work.

So is it any wonder that we have lots and lots of young men that live in their parents' basement, right, on video games? That's a consequence of evil laws that forbid or prevent or make it difficult. Don't make it impossible, but they make it difficult for young men and young women to learn to work. So These Jews, these Sadducees, had commanded the apostles not to preach. It's an evil law.

They commanded them not to do what God had commanded them to do. And as I said, these kinds of laws are all around us today. All around us. And I think it takes great discernment to see where these laws are preventing us from being, or hindering us from being able to do what is good and right. Even zoning laws can be used to restrict preaching and the gathering of Christians.

The second thing when they see that this had no effect, the second thing is physical restraint. They put them in prison to diminish their influence by restricting their ability to preach to just one location. They couldn't stop them from preaching, but they thought if they put them in prison, they could restrict them and that influence to just one location instead of all across Jerusalem. Of course, that didn't work because the next morning they're right back in the temple preaching again, just like we saw last week. God didn't need even one of them to unlock the door.

He didn't need them to turn traitor. He simply unlocked the door himself and sent his angel to deliver them from prison and put them right back in the temple the very next morning. And so they call these apostles and haul them before the Sanhedrin once they figure out where they are. They didn't know where they were initially. People came back from the prison and said, well, the doors are locked, the guards are there, but there's nobody in there.

So they were wondering what to do. Then as soon as they're done hearing about that, somebody comes in and says, what these people are preaching in the temple? So they have them brought back without violence because they fear the people. And they attempt their third and fourth and fifth and sixth methods of power against them. And the third one is ungodly manipulation in accusing them of propagating misinformation, fake news.

They say you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine. Your doctrine. It's not our doctrine. It's your version of the truth. You've filled Jerusalem with this misinformation.

And that's an attempt at ungodly manipulation of them. They also attempt to manipulate them with a false accusation. Their consciences are convicted by Peter's bringing to mind their murder of Jesus Christ. And they say, you intend to bring this man's blood on us. That's another example of ungodly manipulation.

Actually, the Apostles' intentions were the exact opposite of bringing Christ's blood upon their head. Their hope in preaching was that their hearers would be saved from God's wrath, so that Christ's blood would not be on their heads. That was the point of their preaching. And there were, Acts says, many priests that did believe. And Christ's blood was not on their heads.

But this is an example of an ungodly manipulation, twisting things, twisting the truth and making a statement in an attempt to discredit, in an attempt to manipulate and put them on the defensive. And make them seek to justify what they are doing. Make them feel little. And make them feel like They're the bad people. In other words, to make them feel like they're the ones doing wrong.

The fifth use of power against them was to beat them. Physical torture. They beat them probably with a beating with 39 strokes, one less than what the Scriptures allowed, allowed up to 40 strokes. They used one less so that they would not inadvertently exceed the forty stroke limit. But these are very painful beatings.

These are the kinds of beatings that can leave people crippled for life. They were carried out with a leather whip, and sometimes when the Romans used it, they would put things in those whips to dig out the flesh. But they beat them. Pain is a very powerful motivator. It can be used for good things, to bring attention to something that needs attention in our body.

That's the right use of pain. If we didn't feel pain, we wouldn't know when things were wrong. So it's not the pain that's wrong. It is a very powerful motivator. It's when it's used to motivate people in the wrong way that it's wrong.

And so they use physical torture, beating them, in an effort to dissuade them, to break their power, to stop them from preaching. And they even desire to kill the apostles. In their rage, in their uncontrolled, wicked and unrighteous anger, they wanted to kill the apostles. That's the ultimate power that they have. The power to take a life.

Of course, God says don't fear people that can only take your life. Fear God who has power over body and soul. But they are, interestingly, prevented from exercising this power by God who holds all hearts in His hand. And we'll see that in a minute. But how do the apostles respond to this exercise of power against them?

The power unrighteously used? Well, the first thing is that they are not intimidated. They are not silenced by the physical pain, by imprisonment, they aren't put on the defensive and intimidated by the manipulation. Just the opposite. They believe God's Word when Jesus told them in Matthew 10, do not worry or be afraid when people try to intimidate you.

Behold, He says, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves." That's saying you're going to be in intimidating situations. It's intimidating for a sheep to be in the midst of wolves. It's intimidating for a person to be in the midst of wolves. Jesus said, Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless of doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and will scourge you in their synagogues, and that's exactly what's happening.

And you will be brought before governors and kings for My sake as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles." They recognized their purpose was being fulfilled. They were being brought before the rulers as a testimony to them. But when they deliver you up, Jesus says, don't worry about how or what, you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you shall speak. For it is not you who speaks, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you." And the apostles in this moment believed this word.

And this is what they did. They weren't intimidated. They didn't stop preaching. They didn't become defensive. Rather, they responded to rebuke the Sanhedrin's misuse of their authority.

They respectfully rebuke the Sanhedrin, stating that the duty that God requires is that They obey God rather than men. See, that's the opposite of being intimidated. That's the opposite of being silenced, to turn around and bring a rebuke in the name of God to these people who are wielding this very significant power against them. Their rebuke is respectful and it is gentle. It's not a harsh rebuke.

It's not a reviling rebuke. It doesn't mock them. It doesn't belittle them. It's not hot-headed. It's not intemperate as we see many times today.

It's a mild rebuke. They put into practice Proverbs 25.15, By long forbearance a ruler is persuaded, and a gentle tongue breaks a bone. There's nothing intemperate or hot-headed. Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men." There was no name-calling. There was no provocative denunciation of them.

Rather, a simple rebuke, a gentle rebuke, bringing to them the requirement of God's Word. We ought to obey God rather than men. Now many will turn this statement slightly to say that when the civil magistrates forbid what God commands, or command what God forbids, then we must disobey. But that is not what the Apostles say. Look closely at what they say.

They say we must obey God rather than men. Now the context is certainly here, one where they were being forbidden from doing what God has commanded. So it's not wrong, certainly not wrong, to say that we must obey God rather than men when men command what God forbids or forbid what God commands. But the Apostle's statement is more. We must obey God rather than men.

In other words, we must obey God and not men as men. We must obey God, it says, rather than men. There's no qualification put on that. That you obey God sometimes, or obey men sometimes. Rather, we must obey God rather than men.

What they're saying is we must always obey God and never obey men as mere men. They're saying that our obedience must always be to God and never to men. We are always even to work as pleasing God and not men. And so we are always to obey God and never to men as men. We obey men only because God commands us to obey men.

Our obedience to other men and to other authorities is and flows out of our obedience to God. And when we obey other men and other earthly authorities, and there are other earthly authorities, we are first and foremost obeying God. And that's the only reason we are obeying or ought to obey other men. Our obedience is always in the Lord. The only authority any man ever has is from the Lord.

And if the Lord hasn't given someone authority, they don't have any authority. And if the Lord has given them authority, then the authority that we are obeying is the Lord. And so the apostles are saying here, we must obey God rather than men. There are many, many, many examples of this principle. The French royal edict in 1562 allowed Protestants, so France persecuted most strongly the Protestants, And the Protestant Reformation had a very strong grip in the Huguenots, but the church was basically destroyed in France in the massacre.

But in 1562, the Edict allowed the Protestants to meet and to preach, but it forbade them from meeting in church buildings. They said, okay, you can preach and meet and you can teach your doctrines openly in your meetings, but you can't meet in our buildings, in the church buildings. So the pastors met in the city of Montpellier to discuss how they would respond to this edict. And they sought the advice of Pierre Verre, who recommended that they obey this edict and recognize the right of the civil magistrates to control these buildings. And the pastors at Montpellier adopted his advice, and in January of that year, they turned over the keys to the church buildings to the authorities, acknowledging their power over those buildings.

Pierre Verre said this was a secondary matter, and he advised them not to fight it. But later, about five years later, when the council at Bern tried to regulate what pastors preached on, and when they tried to point pastors themselves and remove pastors themselves, and when they tried to decide who could partake of the Lord's Supper and who couldn't take of the Lord's Supper as civil magistrates, then he strongly protested and he refused to obey or to accept those demands. And he was banished permanently for life from his church and from his homeland because he refused to obey those unlawful commands. He was seeking to implement, we must obey God rather than men. And our obedience to men is always in the Lord.

We are obeying men only insofar as they have authority from the Lord to command obedience. The third thing that the apostles do after rebuking, not being intimidated, and rebuking the Sanhedrin, bringing to them God's commandment, is that they witnessed to the Sanhedrin, pointing out their sin of murder and that they had murdered Jesus whom God had raised up and exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior and pointed them to Christ as the one who came to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of their sins. They are appealing to them, to their duty, to repent of this sin of murdering their Messiah. God has exalted this one you murdered to his right hand to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things.

See, this is a very effective method, biblical method, of responding to manipulation. That's what they were responding to, this attempted manipulation by the Sanhedrin. They stated what the scriptural command, the duty is, that was applicable in that situation, and they appealed to them to do their duty, in this case to repent. And through their resistance to the manipulation of the Sanhedrin, God raised up a voice from within the Sanhedrin itself that restrained them from their desire to kill the apostles on the spot. Remember, in fact, it's in the next chapter, they're going to get enraged again because of their inability to control Stephen.

And God does not restrain their vengeful and wicked desire to kill Stephen. But in this case, God raises up from within the Sanhedrin a voice to restrain them. Gamaliel offered some advice. He said After he put them out, which was a wise thing to do in the circumstances, he went into executive session. He's going to speak in what might appear to be a defense of the apostles, so he didn't want the apostles in the room.

It would make it easier for the people who wanted to kill them to change their mind. So he put them out, not for the apostles' sake, but so that the people in the room might have an easier time. And then he offered this advice that he cited some historical examples of where people rebelled against the Jews, the Sadduceean order, and it came to naught. Nothing. Their movements died out.

And he said, so if this movement is another one of these movements, if it's not of God, it's going to die out, and if it is of God, then you don't want to be found fighting against it. Now that might initially sound like some really good advice. It might sound like maybe wise advice. But it's really, I think, quite bad advice. First reason it's bad is it replaces the Word of God as the standard of truth, with outward success as the standard of truth.

His reasoning is basically, if it succeeds, then it must be of God, and if it fails, it's not. If it's not true, it's going to fail. If it's successful, on the other hand, then it must be true and you don't want to fight against it. But that's a horrible standard, isn't it? Truth is not determined by apparent success.

Truth is not determined by the popularity of something. Lots of things are utterly false that have the outward appearance of success. Lots of things. If we're going to take that measure, then we would say that the truest church is the church with the most number of people. And if the churches that have the fewest number of people must not be true churches.

It's a bit like trial by ordeal, which is instead of trial by the standard, the objective standard of the Word of God. There are many, many examples of righteous men not being outwardly successful, at least as far as they could see. In the early part of the 20th century, the Presbyterian Church rejected the Bible as the Word of God. They said you didn't need to believe in the virgin birth, the miracles of the Bible, you didn't need to believe in those. Jesus was God.

Well, that wasn't necessary to believe. You could if you wanted to, but you didn't have to. This was the era, remember, of the Scopes trial, where an elder in the Presbyterian church, William Jennings Bryan, on the stand was unable and unwilling to defend the Genesis account of creation. He didn't believe it. He's trying to prosecute somebody for evolution, but he didn't believe the Bible himself.

And it was in that era that J. Gressam Machin stood for the truth of God's Word. Both in the church and in the state, he testified in this era to the Congressional Committee on Education, to the necessity of Christian education. But he also stood against this unbelief in the church. And he was persecuted for it.

He was defrocked for it. And he ended up in 1936 starting, Because he was defrocked and kicked out of this unbelieving church, he started a Bible believing church that continues today. But you know, there weren't very many people initially that joined it. It didn't look huge and successful. Many many people that were somewhat sympathetic to him just didn't join him.

And he died in 1937 in North Dakota. And if you were to look at His life from the human perspective of outward success, you would say, well, maybe He wasn't very successful. But that's not the measure of what's right and wrong. That's not the measure of truth. And because of His stands, there is a faithful church today that exists.

And many, many, many people have been saved through that. The second problem with Gamaliel's advice, not just replacing the Word of God as the standard of truth with outward success, but it advocates their responsibility as the Sanhedrin to judge righteously. This was the highest court of the land. It fell upon them. They were duty-bound to judge righteously, to condemn what is wrong and to justify what is right.

That's the duty of a court. And instead of determining what is true and false and then acting on it, Gamaliel is proposing that they don't act. That they abdicate their responsibility as a court to make a determination upon are the apostles preaching the truth Or are they not preaching the truth? If they are preaching a lie, if they are preaching another gospel, then they are false prophets and they should be executed under their own law. If they are speaking the truth, then they ought to repent and believe.

And see, his counsel is to completely abdicate as the court. If it's true, they should have supported the apostles. If it's false, they should have suppressed it and used their power justly. Thirdly, this is the kind of advice That's wrong with our politics today. It's based on expediency and compromise.

What's expedient? What's most convenient? He's speaking from a point of expediency. If we kill these apostles, we're going to have a problem on our hands because there's a crowd out there that really likes them. And they have influence and they have power.

And there's power in numbers. Remember, the Sanhedrin didn't take these apostles with violence because they feared the people. And so Gamaliel is not bringing wisdom at all to this. He's bringing expediency. It's not expedient to kill them right now Because we don't have the people with us.

And if we do this, we're going to be unpopular. Then I'm going to have to be unpopular. When I walk down the street, people aren't going to respect me because I partook in this. So what he's advising, it's not wisdom. It's expediency.

It's compromise. If these apostles are in error, they're compromising with error. If they're speaking the truth, then they're not believing the truth. See, that's where expediency and compromise lead you. And that's what we have too much of today.

Expediency and compromise. Because people are unwilling to take an unpopular stand. If these apostles are wrong, they ought to be willing to take an unpopular stand with the people and do what was just. But they chose expediency. So the apostles resist this manipulation, and fifthly, in their response to the unrighteous use of power by the anhedrin, their fifth response is amazing.

They rejoice in their suffering. When they had beaten them and let them go, they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name." You see, we can learn that persecution should not rob our joy. Persecution, physical torture, and pain should not rob our joy. Jesus said in Matthew 5, Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil falsely against you for My name's sake." The Sanhedrin had done just that.

They'd beaten them. They had said all kinds of evil things about them falsely. Jesus says, rejoice then. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." I think this is an amazing and comforting statement. That when we face persecution, when we face physical pain, and even torture, we can rejoice.

The Lord wouldn't tell us to do it if it was impossible. But we can have joy even in these circumstances because of the power of the Holy Spirit. That our joy isn't dependent upon the circumstances in which we find ourselves, even in the face of persecution. And sixthly, these apostles refuse to be intimidated. Despite all of this array of power against them, They do not budge one inch.

They do not yield. They don't become defensive. They don't cower in fear. They don't quit. They don't silently walk away.

It says, and daily in the temple and in every house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ. They didn't cease. They did it more. In every house, preaching from house to house. There were house churches that were started.

When I say house churches, this church in Jerusalem has grown very, very large. Thousands, right? The last number was given was 5, 000, but there are multitudes that are continuing to be added to this church. So it is now breaking off into smaller congregations that are meeting in homes. And the apostles are preaching.

They continue to preach from house to house, from church to church, from congregation to congregation, and in the temple. Doing the very thing that they were beaten for doing, the very thing they were commanded not to do, the very thing they were imprisoned from doing, the very thing that they were belittled and unjustly accused for doing, they continue to do. They are not in the least intimidated. And so persecution, the second thing we can learn is that persecution should never deter us. Oh, it will be tempting to be deterred, because it's easier to quit and to give up.

But it should not deter us, and it should not intimidate us. Peter tells us in 1 Peter 4 and 19, Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good as to a faithful Creator. As to a faithful Creator. Persecution should not discourage us. It should be a cause for rejoicing.

And we can't do that in our own strength. It's not a matter of, well, you just need to buck up. That's totally contrary to everything in our human nature. This is the supernatural power of God that He promises to give to us so that we don't have to fear when we face these things. The Lord says He will give His Spirit.

He will give us the grace in that hour to face that time. We don't need to fear it ahead of time. And thirdly, I think the thing we learn here is not to evaluate the worth of what we're doing by our circumstances or present results. Not to evaluate, not to judge, the worth of what we are doing by the results, the present results or the circumstances. But rather to commit our souls to Him, our faithful Creator, knowing that He has a purpose and a plan that is far bigger than anything we might be able to see in our lifetime, or even experience.

Now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all, that we Ask all that we can hope, all that we can imagine to Him. Be glory in the church by Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for the comfort and encouragement of Your Word. That there is no circumstance, no trial that You have not ordained, and that You do not promise to sanctify to us and to give us the grace to rejoice.

Father, we would boast in our infirmities, in our reproaches, in our needs, in our persecutions, in our distresses for Christ's sake, for it is when we are weak, then we are strong. Father, we acknowledge in our flesh that these things terrify us, that persecution is intimidating, and manipulation and being belittled publicly. Father, we ask for faith to cling to Your Word and to your great and precious promises, which are yea and amen in Jesus Christ. So we ask in Jesus' name, Amen.