Lechem Panim #142 "The Greatest Escape Act” (Acts 5:12-21) Pastor Cameron Ury

Hello and welcome to Lechem Panim. I’d like to start out today by reading the opening of the passage we will be discussing today; and that’s…

Acts 5:12-16 (ESV)— 12 Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon's Portico. 13 None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. 14 And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, 15 so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. 16 The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.

Signs, Wonders, & The Gospel— Now in this passage we see that signs and wonders are being performed through the hands of the apostles, as everyone who came to them with all sorts of diseases and illnesses were healed. And this wasn’t just for the people of Jerusalem. [Additional people from the cities in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together, bringing people who were sick or afflicted with unclean spirits; and they were all being healed. This is the first record of the church’s influence spreading beyond Jerusalem. They were beginning to fulfill the Lord’s charge to be His witnesses not only in Jerusalem but also “in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).] And this was glorious to see. The worst conditions imaginable were leaving the people by the hands of the apostles. And this demonstrated not just that God’s power was at work through them, but also that God was authenticating by these glorious displays of His power the name they were proclaiming; the name of Jesus, the one whom the people had crucified. And we see that it is that element of their ministry (the central element; the message of the Gospel) that causes such a strong reaction against them from the Jewish leaders; particularly the Sadducees. It says in…

Acts 5:17-18 (ESV)— 17 But the high priest rose up, and all who were with him (that is, the party of the Sadducees), and filled with jealousy 18 they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison.

Satan’s Counterattack— Now anytime the Gospel is preached, Satan will always launch a counterattack of persecution. And as difficult a reality as that is, it simply goes with the territory. Jesus Himself had said in…

Matthew 5:10-12 (ESV)— 10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. {(By the way, it’s interesting He says “when”, not “if”. If we follow Christ, persecution is going to happen. But Jesus says in the midst of that persecution:)} 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Opposition from The Sadducees— And so it is no surprise, then, that those in power respond to this dynamic moving of the hand of God is a wave of opposition. And that wave comes mostly from the Sadducees. [While the Pharisees led the opposition to Jesus in the gospels, the Sadducees were the chief opponents of the early church.] And they are in opposition to the Church for three reasons. First, because Peter and John had not submitted to their authority in that they continued to preach and teach the Gospel. So they were (in the minds of the Sadducees) in open rebellion. But secondly, what they were teaching was at odds with the the theology of the Sadducees because the apostles were proclaiming that Jesus (though He had been dead and buried) was now alive, which (if true) would undermine their disbelief in a resurrection and an afterlife. But third (and this is something our text today highlights) they were also filled with jealousy. And the reason for that was that these apostles (who were untrained, unauthorized, ordinary men) had so quickly won such a great following; something that they themselves (with all their traditions and religious prowess) had been unable to do. They had had a hold on the people, but that hold was fragile; because at any moment the Romans could sweep in if they caught even a whiff of insurrection and take away their place of prominence. And so the Sadducees disguise their jealousy under a garb of concern for “doctrinal purity” and arrest the apostles (this time all 12) and throw them into the public jail, which is where the common prisoners were kept.] And notice again how the apostles are now living in the pattern of Jesus. Isaiah 53 had predicted that Jesus would be numbered with the transgressors (v.12) and that He would be chastised (v.5). And so the apostles are sharing in that same persecution. They are also numbered with the transgressors and (by the end of the passage) we will see also that they are chastised as well. Now you would think that after all the miracles that the Sadducees had seen they would have come to understand that prison bars could not hold them. If death couldn’t hold Jesus, certainly flimsy old prison bars would not be able to hold back the hand of God moving through His followers. And that is what we see. It says in…

Acts 5:19a  (ESV) — 19 But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out,

Another Display— And so the Sadducees had sought to contain the Gospel. However, they only succeeded in providing God with yet another opportunity to display his power, as an angel comes during the night and sets the apostles free. And [God’s use of an angel to free them was especially ironic, since the Sadducees denied the existence of angels.] And when we come to the section where the Sadducees are questioning the apostles, we will see that never once (amidst all the questions) do the Sadducees ask how they got out. Now I’m an amateur magician; always have been ever since I was a little kid. And what prompted my curiosity was this perpetual need to always know how a magic trick was done. Now what interests me about this passage (and we’ll see this) is that the Sadducees would witness the greatest escape act of all time; but notice how not one of them asks how they did it. Because (once again) their theology can’t handle the weight of the evidence. They were unable to look where the facts are pointing. So once again instead of dealing with the facts, they will look the other way. Now after the angel sets the apostles free, it says he…

Acts 5:19b-21a  (ESV) — brought them out, and said, 20 “Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.” {In other words, “Where you were just arrested from; go right back there and continue preaching and teaching the Gospel. And there’s no protest; no fear. It simply says:} 21 And when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach.

No Conflict Please!— You know it's interesting; there are many different personality types in any group of people. And I don't know if you have ever taken a personality test to see if you are the type a personality or perhaps some other letter. I took one not long ago and it was remarkably accurate and helped me to better understand myself. But no matter what personality you have, there are few people who wake up in the morning and think "boy, I just can’t wait for conflict today!" Maybe there are those kinds of people, but I have rarely (if ever) met one. Usually we shy away from conflict. Now we should try to steer away from unnecessary conflict; and we are to be peacemakers. But we are never to be peacemakers at the expense of the truth. Biblically, we have a mandate to stand up for what is right; and especially when somebody's salvation is on the line. This was what was behind Peter and John’s response when the Sanhedrin had previously said to Peter and John back in chapter 4 to no longer preach or teach in the name of Jesus, it says…

Acts 4:19-20 (ESV)— 19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, 20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”

Truth & Deliverance— Peter and John (and we see here ALL of the apostles) were willing to stand in boldness for the sake of the truth. But there was also something else. They weren’t just concerned about making sure a new mental concept got across to the people in Jerusalem; it wasn’t just a theological debate or them saying, “Hey, here’s a nice new teaching to follow. No, they were concerned about the people themselves; people who would be impacted (eternally) by this new revelation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Burning Beam— This past week my wife and I watched a scene on TV where a boy and his brother had just survived a bombing. And the older brother (after being knocked unconscious) slowly woke up and found around him piles of burning rubble. And he gets up and immediately starts looking for his brother; and finds his brother lying on the ground with a burning beam laying across his burning legs. And the older brother (without hesitation) seizes the burning beam with his hands and pulls up with all his might, freeing his brother. And afterwards, for the rest of his life, he carried those scars (those burn marks) on his hands. You want a picture of the cross this Lenten season? That’s it. Jesus grabbing the beams so that He could lift the weight of sin off our shoulders. We were important enough for Him to sacrifice Himself (His very life) for our salvation. And that reveals two things. First, His love for us…

1 John 3:16 (ESV)— 16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, {But listen to the rest of the verse:} and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

Feeling the Weight— You see, we are to have in our lives that same kind of love. There ought to be in our souls a desperation to see people come to Jesus; a sense of urgency that causes us to move and head directly into the flames in order to pull them from death to life. Well, enter the apostles. These were men who were healing and preaching to the lost not because they thought it might be a good idea to grow their following. No, it was so much more than that. These were men who were awake to the spiritual war going on for people’s souls. These were men who felt on their shoulders the weight of eternity (as C.S. Lewis calls it, “The Weight of Glory”) and they were sold out hook, line, and sinker to their mission. Somebody says, “Sinners are going to hell.” You know what the response of the apostles would have been? “Over my dead body!” And they meant it! And you know, we ought to have that same tenacity when it comes to spreading the Gospel.

Spurgeon’s Passion For The Lost— Charles Spurgeon once wrote: “If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for."

Let Us Proclaim— I love that. And so I want to challenge you today (and myself as well) to refrain from being the silent witnesses of the Church; let us speak out boldly (even in the face of persecution) so that others will come to know the hope that we have in Christ Jesus. Let’s do so. Amen.