Acts 5:12-42

Acts 5:12-16

Today’s sermon is about fear. Fear, and, specifically, how fear can destroy and how fear can save.

It could be said that the Church comes into being formally at Pentecost, but you could also say the Church becomes fully formed when Ananias and Sapphira are rebuked and killed by God. Because this moment marks the realization of the Church community that the Church, while it will have preachers and missionaries and deacons and so forth, is really in the end led by God, who is holy and just. And so, the final ingredient, if you will, in forming the church is the Fear of the Lord...

...and great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.

Fear. A Fear of God that saves and protects.

Not coincidentally, this is the first time that the word ‘church’ is used in the book of Acts. That’s right- it takes 5 chapters before the word ‘church’, ekklesia, is used in Acts, and Luke’s use of it here is probably intentional. There were many new believers in the Church at this point, thousands even. They understood what Jesus had done for them on the Cross; they were renewed in their spirit by the Holy Spirit who had begun a work in them, and they were living with this new kind of brotherly sisterly love with their fellow believers. All of this is very heady stuff, and in any church it could easily spin out of control into a kind of Utopian ‘heaven has arrived now’ mindset that does not take our sin seriously enough and/or God’s holiness seriously enough.

There are indications, in fact, that this sort of thing happened sometimes in the early Church, Paul tells us in 2 Timothy that Hymenaes and Philetus had ‘swerved from the truth’ and were telling people that the resurrection had already happened- basically that heaven could be experienced here and now!

To live in righteous Fear of the Lord is to know that this is not the final realized Kingdom of Heaven. When we are in right relationship with the Lord then the Kingdom of Heaven is indeed among us, for Christ is present and the Holy Spirit has residence within us, but it is ‘among us’, it is not us. It is not full here or fully realized. Sin is still present and God’s judgment in this world is still active as the death of Ananias and Sapphira prove beyond any doubt.

We still sin in this world and so we still experience the judgment of God. This is not about salvation. This is not about forgiveness. This is about a proper sense of awe and repentance before the God who made all things and is perfectly holy.

Now why am I harping upon this?

In our modern context the ingredient of the Fear of the Lord is often diminished.

In fact, when I read any Christian literature or sermons or poems or anything written before say the 1960s or so I am frequently struck by how prevalent the feeling, the experience, of the fear of the Lord was then and how absent it feels now. God is no longer feared greatly in our midst.

Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”

My sense sometimes is that the Churches of North America anyway value insight and intelligence, but have fallen away from reverence and the fear of the Lord, generally speaking. I am not entirely sure why that is, although I have a few theories, which I won’t mention here because I am not confident in them, but I stand firmly by my analysis that the Fear of the Lord is far from much of our worship.

In the church services that I see in my culture I see a lot of positive messaging, positive worshiping, positive thinking, and a strong assurance of salvation for those who confess Christ which is not a bad thing at all, except when its paired, subtly, with the belief that therefore God is not to be feared, that the Lord is now your buddy.

Fear of the Lord has not so much fallen out of favor as it has fallen out of practice. Many churches still give lip service to the concept of course or even preach on it, but one does not get the sense that many people actually live in Fear of God. And there are those who would say we shouldn’t fear God, that Christ on the Cross let’s us live without shame before God. Which is true, but fear and shame are not the same thing.

Philippians 2:12–13

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

I often think back to the beginnings of Cornerstone Fellowship and in my memory one of the most significant services we ever had was a repentance service- a service that was simply for us to repent before the Lord for our sins, individually and corporately. And something changed for us as a church after that service- I remember the morning after the service feeling as though something had changed, something good had happened. And a repentance service is a response to God’s sovereignty and a somber acknowledgment of our holy fear of our holy God.

Let us come before the Lord with joy and gladness to be sure, but let us also come into this holy space with fear and trembling. Because...once the Church was reminded of God’s power and sovereignty and fear of Him was established in the Church, then the power of the Holy Spirit came to bear all the more powerfully.

Acts 5:12–16 “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. None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, 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. The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.”

The Apostles were given tremendous power, more power than any other humans before them or that would come after them. Not the power to destroy armies or overthrow Kings, but the power to heal, to give concrete shape to God’s desire for His people which is that we would be healed, from the very depths of our soul to the tips of our fingers that we would be healed and made whole.

This power to physically heal people was a reflection, a sign, a physical sign, of the significantly more joyful, eternal, profound healing that was taking place invisibly (although you could see its fruit) in the souls of those who were setting themselves under the rule of Jesus Christ.

So healing reflected the heart of God Himself. This power accomplished 2 other goals as well. For one, it protected the early fledgling church as we shall see. Healing made the Church popular with people, so popular that the ruling authorities felt constrained when it came to just ordering soldiers to kill all of them. But secondly and more importantly, this healing power was concentrated in the hands of the Apostles, which confirmed their unique status and authority in the Church which lay the groundwork for their most important work that would bring salvation to every continent- the Bible. It was the Apostles who were given the authority to inspire the Bible. Paul was an Apostle, although untimely born as he says, and he was given immense power to heal, and this power gave them such authority that their writings, or the ones who took down their Words, such as Luke and Mark, were given canonical status very quickly and by the time the last Apostle (probably John) died we have the Bible. The authoritative writings that the Holy Spirit uses to draw people into saving belief in Jesus Christ.

Speaking of Satan’s designs from generation to generation, among the many things we learn from the Book of Acts, we learn of the schemes and plans of Satan in this first generation of Christians, whose target from the moment of the Ascension on, is the Church and so it will be until Christ returns in power and glory.

There are three main attacks that Satan uses in these opening chapters of Acts and they are persecution, corruption, and distraction.

You may recall that persecution was the first threat to the Church. Peter and John were arrested along with the paralytic man that they had healed. And they were threatened with death should they continue to preach Jesus Christ.

So at that time the Church prayed for boldness, and received it.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

29 And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, 30 while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

Corruption was the next scheme of Satan, and this came in the form of Ananias and Sapphira attempting to appear Godly in the eyes of the Church so as to gain some influence and power. This threat was so grave and so insidious that the Holy Spirit Himself acted as Judge, Jury and Executioner and reminded the Church of the power and sovereignty of God and how Christ was still the head of the Church- not Peter, not John, not some group of elders, but Christ Himself.

Now we are back to persecution, but this time the tension is even higher, if that is possible, because Satan has given the high priest a new motivating emotion- jealousy.

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

Things are getting personal. It is one thing to stamp out some minor heresy in Jerusalem with a handful of followers, but now the Christians are making the High Priest and the Temple hierarchy as a whole look spiritually ineffective as the Lord heals people through His Apostles but even more threatening than that- the Apostles are teaching that sins are forgiven, once and for all, through Jesus Christ. What need, then, would there be for the Temple? For the Levitical priesthood? Jealous indeed, for if the Christians are right about what the Lord is doing, then the entire priesthood has no reason to exist as such anymore. That is not only spiritually humbling, but also this is how they earn their living. People bring sacrifices to the Temple to support them- this is what they do, their entire lives revolve around it.

Don’t be too quick to judge is my point. This was a sea change, a radical departure that would leave no aspect of the Jewish nation untouched. Imagine if the Lord did something different in the Church (I don’t know what) but before He returned He did something that meant pastors were no longer needed. No pastors at all. No elders, no teaching or worship pastors, no deacons. Everything, gone. Lord, what am I to do?

So we should not too quickly judge those who were shocked at this new way of being and resisted it. But, on the other hand, they did indeed, because of their concern for their personal kingdoms, they did indeed MISS the Kingdom of God. They missed it. And it is better to lose the whole world and gain a savior, because everyone needs a savior. And of course the Chief Priests and Levites of the day were, like Paul, highly skilled in their knowledge of Scripture, and if they had put that knowledge in service to Christ I have no doubt that He would have provided for His servants as He always does. In the end there is never a sufficient excuse for not following the Lord when one sees Him beckoning.

One almost feels some sympathy for the Jewish priests and rabbis. For over a thousand years they had relied upon the Temple sacrifices and the officiating priesthood for worship as indeed the Lord had ordained for Israel! They were in the unenviable position of being the first generation of priests, of the establishment to experience the new age, the birth of the Church, the arrival of the New Covenant that was sealed by the blood of Christ.

They could no more have put an end to this movement than a mosquito could take down a raging bull. God had done something new but they refused to see it and convinced themselves that all they needed to do was bring their power to bear and everything would go back to the way it was before. As Gamaliel points out in the speech he gives, if the Lord is behind something, you can either get on board or be run over. He doesn’t exactly say that, but that is what he insinuates. But we will get to that in a minute.

Acts 5:18–32 “they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said, “Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.” And when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach. Now when the high priest came, and those who were with him, they called together the council, all the senate of the people of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought. But when the officers came, they did not find them in the prison, so they returned and reported, “We found the prison securely locked and the guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them we found no one inside.” Now when the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these words, they were greatly perplexed about them, wondering what this would come to. And someone came and told them, “Look! The men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.”…”

Acts 5:26–32 “Then the captain with the officers went and brought them, but not by force, for they were afraid of being stoned by the people. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest questioned them, saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.””

Persecution (Peter and John arrested for healing and preaching)

Corruption (Ananias and Sapphira)

Persecution (intensified- they are very nearly killed)

Distraction

We are in Persecution (intensified)

Acts 5:12–16 “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. None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, 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. The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.”

*Apostles held in high esteem