The sermon titled 'Gospel Disturbance' by Peter Allison focuses on the events in Acts chapter 4, where Peter and John faced opposition from the religious leaders for preaching the resurrection of Jesus. The sermon emphasizes the exclusivity of truth, asserting that truth by nature is exclusive and cannot coexist with falsehood. It draws parallels to modern-day Christians who may deny the exclusivity of the Gospel, citing a study showing a significant number of professing Christians not believing in absolute truth. Various sins are discussed as denials of the truth's exclusivity, such as theft, idolatry, and false worship. The sermon critiques pluralism, arguing that it cannot work since it denies the exclusive nature of truth. It also emphasizes the power of the Holy Spirit in the success of the Gospel, despite opposition, and encourages believers to expect opposition, not be ashamed of the Gospel's exclusivity, and not fear opposition, as God is with them.

Please turn to Acts chapter 4. I'd like to read the first 22 verses for the context. We are continuing, 3 and 4, continuing the same account of Peter and John have gone up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour, and healed a lame man who had been lame from birth over 40 years. And that resulted in an opportunity for preaching. And So we pick up the account here in Acts 4 verse 1 as they have been preaching.

Now as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. However, many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about five thousand. It came to pass on the next day that their rulers, the elders and scribes, as well as Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John and Alexander, and as many as were of the family of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, By what power or by what name have you done this?

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, Rulers of the people and elders of Israel, if we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone. Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled, and they realized that they had been with Jesus. And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it. But when they had commanded them to go outside of the council, they conferred among themselves, saying, What shall we do to these men?

For indeed, that a notable miracle has been done through them is evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But so that it spreads no farther among the people, let us severely threaten them that from now on they speak to no man in His name. So they called them and commanded them not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.

So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way of punishing them because of the people, since they all glorified God for what had been done. For the man was over forty years on whom this miracle of healing had been performed." May we love His Law such that it is our meditation all the day. Heavenly Father, Your Word is truth. Please sanctify us by that Word this morning. Please open our hearts and our minds that we may understand Your Word, that we may understand the things that are spiritually discerned.

And please sanctify my sinful lips to proclaim the gospel of truth. In Jesus' name, Amen. This was a gospel disturbance. A gospel disturbance that happened in the temple. A few years ago, Summit Ministries, their organization in Colorado that was founded by David Noble and a generation ago was teaching young people a Christian worldview back before it was a thing.

Back before it was a catchphrase. In partnership with Summit Ministries, Barna recently conducted a study among practicing Christians in America. And they defined practicing Christians as those, for the purposes of this study, as those who went to church at least once a month. We might differ with that definition, but that's their definition of this survey. They conducted a study among these people to gauge how many still believed the exclusivity of truth and the Gospel.

Of these people that they polled, who went to church at least once a month, 23% stated that what is morally right or wrong depends on what an individual believes. Right or wrong just depends on the person. Fifteen percent asserted that if one's belief offended or hurt someone else's feelings, then it was wrong. So the definition of truth was whether it hurt somebody else's feelings. And 19% didn't even think one could know the truth.

If you add up those numbers, I believe That's over 50% of people that are professing Christians denying the exclusivity of the Gospel. And really denying the exclusivity of truth itself. The book of Acts, with its one account after another of bold confrontation of unbelief and of error stands in stark contrast to the church described by this poll. That doesn't even think we can know the truth, let alone confront error with the truth. But see, this is what we see time and time and time again in the book of Acts, as the apostles Confront first the apostate church and the Jews with the truth, and then confront unbelieving Gentiles with the truth of the Gospel.

See, truth by its very nature is exclusive. That's what truth is. It's a fundamental characteristic of truth. It's exclusive. Two competing Claims cannot both be true.

They can both be wrong, but they cannot both be true. It's kind of like if you keep bees, you know that beehives cannot have two queens. If there are two queens in a beehive, they will fight to the death. Because you can't have two queens in a beehive. Truth is the same way.

It's exclusive. There's one truth. And Jesus said, I am that truth. I am that one truth. And there is no other.

Jesus said, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. And Peter, we just read in verse 12, proclaimed to these unbelieving Jews that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Truth is exclusive. And Jesus Christ as the truth is exclusively the way. And the Scriptures proclaim this gospel of truth.

There is no other. Speaking of the Judaizers, Paul says in Galatians 2, he says of them, "...to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel might continue with you." He's saying we didn't yield, we didn't acknowledge, we didn't get along with these Judaizers for the sake of the truth. We confronted them. In fact, he even confronted the Apostle Peter in this same context. He said, when I saw that they weren't straightforward about the truth of the Gospel, He said to Peter before them all, if you being a Jew live in the manner of Gentiles, and so on.

He confronted another fellow apostle because of the exclusivity of the truth. James says that of James 1.18, of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth. We have been brought forth by this word of truth, this exclusive truth in Jesus Christ so that we can be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. Or Paul told the Ephesians the same thing, in whom in Him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation." This exclusive truth was the means was their salvation. "...in whom you having believed, you were then sealed with the Holy Spirit, " he told them.

Paul told Timothy. In 2 Timothy 2.15, to be diligent, to present himself approved to God, a worker who doesn't need to be ashamed because he could rightly divide the word of truth. He could rightly make distinctions. He could rightly proclaim its exclusivity. He could distinguish truth from error.

And he could therefore confront the errors with the exclusivity of the Gospel message, the gospel of truth. You see, sin is really a denial of the exclusivity of the truth. Sinners want to believe and live contrary to the truth. And in their sin, they are really denying the exclusivity of the truth. The thief wants to say that your money may be yours, but It's also His.

That's your money, but it's also mine. And I have a right to take it." That's what he's saying when he takes it. He may acknowledge it's yours, but he's saying it's also His. The idolater wants to say that Jesus Christ is not the way, the only way, but just a way. That's what idolatry is.

Jesus Christ is maybe just a way, but not the only way, not the exclusive truth. The false worshipper wants to say that there are many acceptable ways to worship God. I can do it my way, you can do it your way. The false worshipper is denying the exclusivity of The word of truth. The blasphemer says that God is not holy.

That He is not completely set apart from His creation and separate from it and distinct from it and above it. The blasphemer says no. God's name can be used like any other name. There's not just one name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. His name is not exclusively the truth.

It's just one common name. God said He's holy. He's set apart. The Sabbath profaner says God does not have an exclusive right to my time. He doesn't have an exclusive right to my time.

He doesn't have an exclusive right to direct what I do with my body. My body is mine, and I will determine how I spend my time. That's what the Sabbath profaner is in a sense saying. God is not the exclusive owner and doesn't have an exclusive ownership of us and therefore the right to direct how we use our time. The murderer denies God's exclusive ownership of all things, saying in effect, I have a right to control your life just as much as God does, and I'm going to exercise that control right now.

I'm going to take it. You see, unrighteous anger arises when sinners lose their control of other people. You know, most anger is a result of a loss of control. People that get angry or upset because they've lost control, or control they thought they had. And that's why Jesus connects anger with murder in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.

He said, You've heard it said that if you murder, then you're guilty of judgment. But Jesus said, but I say to you that if you hate your brother or become angry with your brother, then you're guilty of judgment. The adulterer denies the exclusivity of the marriage relationship, much like the thief denies the exclusivity of private property. The thief wants to say, well, what's yours is also mine. The adulterer says of his neighbor's wife, what's his is also mine.

The liar blatantly denies the exclusivity of the truth and wants to say, well, this is true and this is also the case. But the exclusivity of the truth is such that sinners cannot maintain their denial of the exclusivity of the truth. That is a key point. The exclusivity of the truth is such that sinners cannot maintain their denial of it. You cannot maintain denial of the exclusivity of the truth because it's a fundamental characteristic of truth.

The thief cannot maintain his belief that your money is yours but also his. You see, the thief quickly moves on to believing that your money is not your money, but his money. Exclusively. His money. If the thief really believed that your money was yours and his at the same time, he wouldn't object to you taking your money back.

Would he? Try to take your money back from a thief. He'll probably fight you. Because he believes it's his exclusively. That's the exclusivity of the truth.

You see, no thief can deny the exclusive nature of all reality and all truth. It's impossible to live in the denial of the exclusivity of the truth. What the thief does is to change the truth into a lie and say that your money is really my money. And in their sin, you see all sinners do this. We all do this.

It's the root of sin, the replacement of the truth with a lie. And we could go through all those sins again and see how the truth is replaced by a lie in each of those cases. And this is how Paul describes the sinner who is under the wrath of God in Romans 1, isn't it? In Romans 1, 24, speaking of these sinners who are under God's wrath and condemnation. And he goes on to tell that's all of us.

He says, Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lusts of their heart to dishonor their bodies among themselves who exchanged the truth of God for a lie. And they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Paul likes to use amens when he has stated something very important. Amen is not something you put on the end.

Amen is something that we say and we can say when we hear truth. Jesus would say amen, amen before He would give a truth to the people He was speaking to. And so Paul puts an amen right in the middle of that paragraph. He's not ending anything. He is putting an emphatic exclamation point after this truth that he just said, which is that sinners change the truth of God into a lie.

And they worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. You see, truth confronts sinners with its exclusivity. So we see that truth divides the sheep from the goats. Because the exclusivity of the truth is offensive to those who do not know the truth, to those who have exchanged the truth for a lie. They're offended at that.

Why? Because the truth is exclusive and you're proclaiming a different truth from the one they were trying to proclaim. And that's offensive. Christ's sheep believe the truth. They love the truth.

And so the truth divides those who love the truth from those who have changed the truth into a lie. And so these church leaders who don't have the truth are disturbed by the people that are taught by those who do. This proclamation of Peter, this sermon that he's been giving, that we looked at the last couple weeks. This disturbed them. And it brought these rulers upon the apostles even publicly as they are preaching with violence.

They laid hands on them. That's anger fueled violence. Anger fueled violence. They were angry. Luke says they are angry and disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people.

The apostles were going around the leaders of the church and going directly to the people. You see that? The priests, the captain of the temple, that's possibly a Roman, because they're trying to arrest people and so on. They may have gotten Roman authority involved. There was a fort at the Temple, Antonia, where there was a garrison of Roman soldiers at the temples.

This captain of the temple may have been a part of that Roman leadership, but it's the priests and the Sadducees that came upon them being greatly disturbed that they taught the people. Now why would they be so greatly disturbed that the people are being taught? Why wouldn't they be happy that somebody is helping them out with their job? If you're washing the dishes and somebody comes along and helps to wash the dishes with you? You don't get angry at them, do you?

Why are these people whose job is to teach, why are they upset when people are being taught? They're upset because They've lost control. They're angry because they've lost control. But it's not just a loss of control. You see, the Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection.

And the apostles are proclaiming the truth of the resurrection. So they're being greatly disturbed. They taught the people. That's the first thing that's mentioned. They taught the people.

So they're going directly to the people, they're going around the leadership, and they're teaching. So that's the thing Luke mentions first. But the second thing is that they're upset because they preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. See, the Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection, and the apostles are proclaiming a resurrection. See, by the Sadducees' standards, the apostles were in error.

Now, if you're the ruler of the temple, if you're charged with maintaining the teaching in the church, that's your responsibility. That was their responsibility. If you're the ruler of the temple, if you're charged with maintaining the teaching in the church, that's your responsibility. That was their responsibility. If you're the ruler of the temple, would you let People proclaim error to thousands?

Well, if you're a good ruler, you won't. You will go in and stop that. That's what they did. So Here we have religious leaders, the leaders of the Christ Church putting Christians in jail. This isn't pagans putting Christians in jail.

This is the church putting Christians in jail. The leaders put Peter and John in prison for preaching the Gospel of Truth. Now why is there such a strong reaction to the proclamation of the Gospel of truth. It's because the truth is exclusive by its very nature. Competing claims to the truth cannot coexist.

And that's why pluralism and pluralistic society cannot work. Because pluralism tries to deny the exclusivity of The truth. In his book, The Bloody Tenet, Roger Williams, Mr. Roger Williams, who was far, far, far from being a hero of religious liberty, essentially charges Americans with having oppressive governments because they do not tolerate other faiths. And he's not talking about differences maybe within Christianity, but other faiths.

He wants to quote Jeremiah 29, 7, which talks about praying for the peace of the city. Civil peace he writes is a peace of the city. And pray for the peace of the city so that the peace of people compacted in civil union may be entire, unbroken, and safe." So that the many thousands, and he references the time in Babel on there, where many thousands of God's people, the Jews, were in bondage. And so the command there in Jeremiah is to pray that they would either be constrained to the worship of the city of Babel nor restrained from so much of the worship of the true God. He's saying that's what they were to pray for, the peace of the city.

So you could have this plurality of religion in the city. And the Christians, the Jews, wouldn't be persecuted. Rutherford answered in his book, A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience. And there were other people that answered it too. John Cotton answered him and his book was the Bloody Tenet, and Cotton's book was the Bloody Tenet washed white in the blood of the lamb.

But Rutherford answered, peace is commanded in the New Testament, he agreed with that, but no word of toleration of diverse religions, which are the seminaries of discord between the seat of the woman and the seat of the serpent. So he says there's no word of toleration of diverse religions in all the New Testament. Nowhere is it to be found by precept, by promise, by practice, or by any ground of repealing judicial laws for punishing seducing teachers." He goes on to say, "'All this to prove that there may be no breach of city peace or civil peace, where there are multitudes of sundry religions. No man, sorry, the man should remember that there is a Christian external peace which in an ordinary providence cannot be kept where there are diverse religions and sundry ways of worshipping Christ. And he says, we believe our Savior intends so much.

He says there cannot be civil peace where you have these diverse truths because the truth is exclusive. And that's what we're seeing here in Acts chapter 4 where the leaders of the church are arresting other teachers who are teaching the truth because they didn't believe the same thing. He says that our Savior didn't intend for there to be pluralism. Matthew 10, 34, Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth. I came not to send peace but the sword.

For I am come to set a man at variance against his father and the daughter against his mother." In Luke 21, 16, he quotes saying, "...and you will be betrayed by both your parents, brethren, kinsfolk, and friends, and some of you they will cause to be put to death. Why? Because of the inclusivity of the truth. And what is the quarrel, Rutherford goes on to say, but different religions and ways of worship about Christ. And so Paul exhorts to Christian peace in Ephesians 4, verse 3.

We're to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. But that's not a call to, Rutherford says, that's not a call to contrary religions and to tolerate error and heresy. Religions and, he's not saying religions and sex are not to be tolerated in meekness and mutual forbearance. Because in verse 5 of Ephesians 4, there is but one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and but one religion. And since the Apostles and Christ in the New Testament so often recommend peace and never once insinuate forbearance in diversity of religion, and all the Apostles and apostolic church have but one religion, the toleration of many religions is not a part of New Testament liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, because that's a liberty to be free from the ceremonies of the Mosaic law.

And it's not a repealing of law in the New Testament about toleration of false religions. He goes on to say, Our adversaries are obliged to give us a precept, a promise, or a godly practice. Why a moral sin forbidden and severely punished in the Old Testament should yet remain a moral sin in the New Testament and yet not be punishable by men or churches." He said, you've got to show us where in the Scriptures do we have a precept, a promise, or a godly practice of this occurring. Did not Solomon's toleration of idolatrous worship provoke the Lord to anger? How can one then maintain that his wife's consciences should not have been compelled to leave off worshipping of the gods of the Moabites and the Ammonites?

Romans 14, 19. Let us follow after the things that make for peace, said Paul. But toleration of many religions is contrary to peace. If one of them be the only way, the rest are all false ways. The mixture of two contrary seeds, the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman must be against peace." And Paul exhorting to union and Christian peace, thinks that many sex and opinions, tolerating many sex and opinions is actually contrary to the peace.

1 Corinthians 1, 10. I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. You can't have peace with truth and error, trying to co-mingle. He says, as for Mr. Williams, Roger Williams, He says, we leave it to Himself.

The peace of God, the people of God was to pray for in Jeremiah 21 was outward prosperity, freedom from the sword of Egypt and other nations, that the captive church might also partake that peace. But I hope, Jeremiah, abate not the people of God in Judea, follow a heathenish peace with toleration of diverse religions or a church peace that stands with many religions. Christians who have one God and one faith and one hope are to follow more than a civil and heathenish peace. Libertines give us heathenish, not a Christian peace, under many religions. This is a concept that I think is very, maybe shocking, certainly foreign, to our thinking today, because we've become so deeply immersed in the idea of pluralism, and the idea that We need to give space to all these false religions around us.

But you see, we are reaping the consequences of our denial of the exclusivity of the truth. The Gospel message is exclusive. And we should not be ashamed of the exclusivity of that message. And that is why pluralism always results in persecution of whatever faith is not dominant. It can't be anything other than that.

If the Sadducees thought the resurrection was in error, then why would they tolerate the proclamation of error? Why would they tolerate the people being taught error? Well, if We are in that same position, and we should not tolerate error anymore either. Now, I'm certainly not speaking about persecution. Under the Gospel, there is great liberty, more individual liberty than in any other way.

But there can never be a liberty to be publicly proclaiming what is an error. You just can't have it. There can never be the liberty to publicly and formally worship foreign gods or idols. So another thing we see here in the example of the Apostles is that opposition should not stop the bold proclamation of the Gospel of truth. The Apostles confronted everyone with the Gospel of truth.

With boldness, they repeatedly told the people that they had killed the Messiah. Remember, telling somebody they're a murderer is not an easy message. It's not an endearing message to accuse somebody of murder. And yet, that's what they do in Acts 2. They told the people that they were preaching to their own Pentecost that Christ was delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, and that they, that you, have taken by lawless hands and crucified and put to death." And here in Acts 3, the last chapter here with Peter's sermon, Peter said the same thing.

You denied the Holy One and asked for a murder to be granted to you, and you killed the Prince of Life. That's what he told them. And then in this chapter, Peter goes on to do the same thing in verse 10. Where he told the leaders, Let it be known to you all and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified. Stephen did the same thing in his defense.

As he's standing before those angry scribes and Pharisees, angry Jewish Sanhedrin, He said, which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the just one of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers. He said that as they were picking up stones to stone Him. See, these apostles were willing to face opposition for the sake of the truth. The truth was not so dear that they were willing to compromise it for peace.

They faced opposition. You might even say they invited it by proclaiming boldly the truth, even when they knew that truth was contrary to what the people that were listening to them believed. But the other thing we see is that opposition cannot stop the success of the Gospel. The power of the Holy Spirit is behind gospel preaching. And so here you have Peter and John, the preachers being arrested with violence.

They laid hands on them and put in prison in front of everybody. And what does that do? Does everybody immediately run away? Afraid? No, it's just the opposite.

We read that however, after seeing these people who proclaimed the gospel of truth arrested, however, many of those who heard the word believed. And the number of men came to be about 5, 000. Opposition to the Gospel cannot stop the success of the Gospel. Binding the hands of the heralds doesn't stop the work of the Holy Spirit going through His Word. Paul said to Timothy, I suffer as an evildoer even to the point of chains, but the Word of God is not chained.

You can't chain it by tying up the herald's hands. Several thousand people believed as a result of this message, or at least some large number, Because the total number of believers in Jerusalem was now 5, 000. About 5, 000. Now that's a successful church, even by today's mega church numbers, that's a successful church. 5, 000 people in one city.

Given that Jerusalem was smaller than many of our large cities today, it's an even more astounding number. The success of the Gospel is not stopped by human opposition. And we should not be discouraged by it. If the success of the Gospel is not stopped by that opposition, we shouldn't be discouraged by that opposition. We shouldn't be afraid of that opposition.

So what can we learn? What can we take away? I would say three things here to remember from these four verses. First is, we should expect opposition to the Gospel. We should expect it.

We should not be surprised by it. We should rather be prepared for it. We know that the Gospel of truth is an exclusive message, and that it will incite to anger those who are opposed to it, those who have replaced the truth for a lie. It will make them angry. We shouldn't be surprised by that.

We should expect it. We should be prepared for it, mentally. Be ready for it. And that's hard to do. It's hard to do.

I was at somebody's house, another Christian believer's house, and they had a big land, you know, 70 some acres. It was fenced off with a locked gate and the sheriff came to the gate because we were shooting on the property. Now there was nothing wrong by any measure of any code, any law, even the bad laws. And the gate was locked. There was absolutely no reason why we had to let him on.

And we both knew that. Somehow that guy got on the property. Why? Because in the moment, we can forget. We can be caught off guard and not prepared.

We need to expect opposition to the Gospel. Secondly, we should not be ashamed or embarrassed in any way by the exclusivity of the Gospel of Truth. Jesus Christ is the only way, the truth in the life. And yes, that means to our Muslim neighbors that that is wrong. They're wrong.

Allah is not another God, another way to God. There is no other way. Even if that angers people, even if that makes us the only voice, we should not be embarrassed or ashamed by the exclusivity of the truth, Jesus Christ. And thirdly, we should not be fearful of opposition. All authority, Jesus said, on heaven and earth is given to me, and I am with you wherever you go.

If God is for us, who can be against us? We should not be fearful of opposition. And that's why I think our proclivity to fearfulness is why God has given 366 commands and promises in Scripture. Not to be afraid. One for every day of the year, including leap year.

I didn't come up with that. Richard Wormbrant noticed that. Maybe others too, I don't know. It's so easy for us to be fearful. Jesus was continually telling the disciples, do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid. And He rebuked them for their fear. Their fear of a storm that could sink the boat. We would say, well, that's an acceptable fear. Jesus said, why are you afraid?

The Master of the universe was right there in the boat with you. Why are you afraid? Well, Jesus is with us today, no less than he was with those disciples in that boat. He is with us. He's present.

He's present at this table, but he's he's present with us. And He gives to us the Holy Spirit. He gives to us every resource, every tool, every spiritual tool that we need for any challenge, any situation, any opposition that we can ever face. So we should not be fearful of opposition to the inclusivity of the truth. May God make that so in our lives.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for your many comforting promises that call us not to fear, but to faith. Not to discouragement, but to hope. And not to doubt, or to be ashamed of You, the way, the truth, and the life. Father, may You give to us a boldness as these apostles had, For they were emboldened by the same Spirit that lives in us. That we have too.

Help us Lord to possess what You have given us in Christ. Help us Lord to walk in the power of Your Spirit. To speak in the power of Your Spirit. For we have died and our life is hidden with Christ in You. We ask this through Jesus' name.

His strong name. Amen. His name, His strong name, Amen.