Hello, my “Walking with Jesus” friends on this Friday,
What happens in your soul when you see the black clouds beginning to gather and the wind start bending the trees around you and maybe the rain starts pelting down on you? Do you get excited knowing you are about to experience a powerful lightning and thunderstorm demonstration of God’s power? Do you close windows and doors and maybe take cover? And what would such an event look like if it was a spiritual storm rather than a rainstorm?
Join me again back in Jerusalem, 2000 years ago, in Acts 5, in the Bible. Yesterday we watched a shocking event as Ananias, and his wife Sapphira were actually struck dead by God as they brought a large financial gift to help the needy in Jerusalem! In fact, Acts 5:11 tells us, “Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.” If you missed that dramatic event you might want to go back and listen to “Walking with Jesus” yesterday.
In the shadow of that stunning event, the Acts 5 record tells us the ‘Great Awakening’ which was spreading through Jerusalem, and surrounding towns and villages, continued with great momentum as “more and more men and women believed in the Lord Jesus and were added to their number.” (Acts 5:14) Now, if these followers of Jesus were estimated to be 3000, who were baptized in Acts 2:41; and then a few days later ‘5000 men’ in Acts 4:4; how many do you suppose this movement might include by the time you reach Acts 5:14? Had it doubled or tripled in size?
May I ask you, what’s the largest church you’ve ever been part of? Some of you men might remember the “Promise Keepers” movement of the 80’s & 90’s when large crowds of 80,000 men would gather in stadiums for worship events?
In Acts 5 this phenomenon was more than worship events. Acts 5:12 reports: “The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people…Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.” (Acts 5:12,16)
Now I have some important questions for us to consider today: What was happening here? What power were these apostles using to heal sick people and drive out demons? How similar or different was this from what Jesus had been doing? Are such things happening today?
Do you remember resurrected Jesus had promised His disciples, while they were together in the upper room before His crucifixion,: “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in Me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12) As you remember Jesus had promised that after He arrived in heaven with His Father, Jesus would then send the Holy Spirit to fill His followers. (John 15:26) That, of course, was their life-changing experience that Pentecost day, when the Holy Spirit came with wind and fire and anointed them! (Acts 2:1-4)
But Jesus had also promised the Holy Spirit would come upon them with great power. (Acts 1:8) This power was not only the miracle of speaking the Gospel in languages they did not know; (Acts 2:7,8) it was also a Holy Spirit courageous power to stand boldly and speak God’s truth when threatened by the religious leaders who had tortured and called for Jesus’ death. (Acts 4:8-21) And as we saw in Acts 3, when Peter called a crippled man to stand and walk, and now here in Acts 5, it is clear this Holy Spirit power upon the apostles, was very similar to how the Holy Spirit empowered Jesus! Sick and crippled people were miraculously healed and demon possessed people set free! How is that possible? What does it mean for them then and for you and me today?
I have three important concepts for us to consider as explanation.
First, these apostles were unique among all other people because they had been the men Jesus had personally selected to spend many months with Jesus watching and listening, learning and being profoundly impacted by Jesus’ life, miracles and teachings. They were the men Jesus then commissioned to spend the rest of their lives telling Jesus’ story and ‘making disciples’ of others by teaching them to know Jesus as they knew Jesus. (Acts 1:8; Matt. 28:18)
Second, Jesus had told these men that He would empower them to do many of the same miraculous things He had been doing so that as they proclaimed the truth they had learned from Jesus their words would be validated as truthful by the miraculous things the Holy Spirit would enable them to do. That would be some of the evidence of their ‘vine – branches’, ‘much fruit bearing’ relationship which Jesus had taught them about in the upper room. (John 15:1-8)
Third, Jesus had told His disciples that the Holy Spirit would enable them to remember what Jesus had taught them so they could teach others and also write down for future generations what Jesus had done. (John 14:26; 19:35; 20:30,31; Matt. 28:19; Acts 1:8)
The religious leaders who had arrested and condemned Jesus to death and then arrested Peter and John and warned them to stop speaking about Jesus, now found themselves backed into a corner by this spiritual tsunami led by these apostles. Obviously neither their killing of Jesus nor their threats to Peter and John were slowing this ‘great spiritual awakening’ in Jerusalem!
Acts 5:18-28 describes a remarkable turn of events. The Sanhedrin religious leaders arrested all the apostles and put them in jail. But during the night an angel from heaven came to Jerusalem and led the apostles OUT of the jail and instructed them: “Go stand in the temple courts and tell the people all about this new life!” (Acts 5:20)
The next morning as the Sanhedrin met to interrogate the apostles and sent for them to be brought from the jail, stunned officials came to report: “We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened the doors, we found no one inside.” (Acts 5:23) And then suddenly someone burst into the room to report that the apostles were fearlessly in the Temple courts area preaching boldly to crowds which were gathering! (Acts 5:24-26)
Now that, my friends, is a God induced jailbreak!! Do you see the power of the Holy Spirit of God being demonstrated all over Jerusalem in a wide array of different ways? Do you see God defeating the opposition to Jesus and awakening an insatiable spiritual thirst to know God and experience His life changing work?
We need to pause right here to give our minds and hearts time to understand and embrace what God was doing in Jerusalem, and ask ourselves if we see it happening in our day, anywhere in the world, and if not why not? So, I urge you to read Acts 5! Tomorrow we’ll look at what the Sanhedrin did to try and stop it, and what God did to keep it going!
The ‘lessons learned’ notes at the link below will help you wrestle with the power of Acts 5 and draw you to more deeply understand what God was doing. The worship song will invite you to a few moments of worship and I’ll be getting ready to meet you here again this weekend.
Today’s Scripture: Acts 5.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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