The Irresistible Power of God's Saving Purpose

We are in the book of Acts again this morning. We move on a few chapters from where we were last Sunday, which was in Acts chapter 2, when we dealt with the narrative of Pentecost, the arrival of the Holy Spirit. This morning, we are in Acts chapter 5. But before we get to that, there is a story, an ancient Chinese parable, in fact, of a man who owned a powerful spear and a powerful shield. In the story, the man is trying to sell both the spear and the shield.

When asked why this spear is so good and so expensive, he said, "This spear can pierce any shield." Then when he was asked why his shield is so expensive and why it is so good, he replied, "This shield can block any spear." Then one wise person asked him, "What would happen if he was to take his spear and strike his shield?" The seller couldn't answer. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

You may have heard that sort of question at, I don't know, university philosophy 101, or you may have speculated late into the evening about that sort of question. Others have asked me, for example, "Can God, who is almighty, create something that is too heavy for him to lift because he is so mighty?" That is called a paradox. Now this morning, we come to a moment where God's unstoppable will and His immovable judgment is talked about. We find it mentioned in a scene this morning in the book of Acts, where an unknowing witness talks about these sort of elements as he predicts the greatest movement that the world has ever seen.

This truth is expressed from a very unsuspecting, surprising witness, or prophet even. We are going to turn to Acts chapter 5 to read about this, and we are turning to verse 17. Acts chapter 5, verses 17 through to the end of the chapter. The apostles arrested and freed. Verse 17: "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.

"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.' 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 charge 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.'

"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 saviour 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.' When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them.

"But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honour by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. And he said to them, 'Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. For before these days, Theudas rose up claiming to be somebody and a number of men, about 400, joined him. He was killed and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. After him, Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him.

"'He too perished and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone. For if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail. But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God.'

"So they took his advice. And when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. Then they left the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the name. And every day in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus. This is the word of God.

To put our passage in context this morning, we see that from the time of Pentecost, explained in chapter 2 of Acts, from that time until this chapter, chapter 5, the early church in Jerusalem had been experiencing a great time of growth and also relative peace. Everything was going well. People were ready to receive the gospel. Miracles were happening among them. The poor were being looked after.

In fact, we are told that people sold houses and property, giving that money to the church, who in turn gave it to those who had need of it. If you turn a few chapters back to Acts chapter 2, verse 42, we see some of the picture that we have here of this early church, and it was a wonderful image. Acts 2:42: "And they, the church, devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common.

"And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved." It is a wonderful picture of the early church and the blessing that they experienced. But as the months rolled on, we see things starting to change.

The Jewish religious leaders became aware of this movement, and some seemingly grew jealous. They arrested the apostles. Incited by pride and resentment—resentment of being accused of murdering an innocent man, this Jesus of Nazareth—they were about to execute these apostles. But then a wise old Pharisee by the name of Gamaliel stood up and said, "Let these men go, because if their efforts are based purely on human effort, then it will fail. But if it is from God, nothing will be able to stop it.

Certainly not us." This morning, we are going to be focusing on this speech, summarised by Luke, of Gamaliel. Why? Because it forms in the narrative of Acts an important, significant moment. Just like the words of Acts 1:8, where Jesus says to the disciples, "You will be my witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth," which sets the flow, which sets the narrative of Acts.

Here we find some of the irresistible power of this message being explained by this man, Gamaliel. So let us have a look at it. Gamaliel says three things in this recorded statement in verses 38 and 39, which explains the truth of God's mission in the world through the mission of the church. Firstly, he says, human effort will fail. In verse 38, to the council of the Pharisees, after having asked the disciples to be removed, this is in a closed session with all the Pharisees, with all the religious leaders of the time.

And he says to them, verse 38: "If this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail." Gamaliel, the Pharisee, initially asked for those apostles not to be there when he says these things. It has led some to ask, "Well, if Gamaliel said this in a closed session without the apostles, how does Luke know about this in order to be able to write this down?" But we also know, helpfully, from the book of Acts that Paul was a disciple of this Gamaliel. Paul, as Saul of Tarsus, sat as a disciple under this mentor.

So we can either assume that Paul was part of this meeting or that he heard from Gamaliel himself what was said. In essence, Gamaliel begins with a sobering truth. Humanity is flawed. Whether he understood it, whether he and his fellow Pharisees understood themselves as being part of this category remains unanswered. But Gamaliel spoke truthfully when he said, "Human plans will fail."

And this is how Luke used his statement to set up the narrative of the book of Acts. This is how we are to understand God's call in Scripture to us as well today. You see, a fundamental part in accepting the mission of the church, accepting the great vision that God has for His church, and ultimately accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ is understanding our depravity, understanding our weakness. The Bible says that the condition of the heart without the knowledge of God is of a heart that seeks to avoid God and His desires for our life. The Bible says that when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the truth of Jesus, we are regenerated.

We are born again. In this moment, we come to understand, at least in some way, the sinful broken conditions of our hearts and lives. And part of this realisation is also tied up with the knowledge that we cannot save ourselves. Not only do we know that we are flawed, we know how helpless we are to fix it. To please God, to live a better life, to be good.

All these efforts are futile because we realise just how imperfect we really are. Gamaliel points out the story of two local rebel leaders, men called Theudas and Judas, who tried to physically rescue themselves and the people of Jerusalem, or at least the Jewish people. The Jews, if you know the history, hated being under the Roman emperor. They wanted to be independent. They wanted to rule themselves.

So there were regular uprisings, regular revolutions. In very earthly terms, this Theudas and Judas sought to save themselves and their followers, which numbered in the hundreds of people, by, in their minds, restoring God's kingdom by force. Saving themselves and their people through physical means. If you go and read the Jewish histories of Josephus, or the historical, albeit apocryphal books like 1 or 2 Maccabees, you will see that some of these revolutionaries were sometimes referred to as messiahs, anointed ones who came in the name of God. Gamaliel and the Pharisees assumed that Jesus was just another of these fake messiahs, that the apostles were just hopeless followers of a hopeless cause.

Gamaliel says that all these human attempts came to nothing. God's kingdom was not established. The people were not set free. Human effort, although impressive at first, does not bring lasting change. It cannot save us.

It is a sobering thought to remember this morning. Firstly, if you are not a Christian, you need to understand that you cannot save yourself. There is nothing in you that you can draw upon, a will to make yourself a better person. Nothing in you, is there, to scrape together to make you more worthy of God's love or forgiveness? Theologically, you are considered depraved in every aspect of your being.

Paul writes in Ephesians 2:1 that we are dead in our sins, in our own natural condition. And so if you are a non-Christian, if you do not consider yourself a Christian, know that that is your situation right now. You cannot save yourself. But even to my fellow Christians, I want to remind them of the same truth. Be careful to assume that now that you are a Christian, while you may profess to have been saved by God's grace, you secretly believe that you are sanctified by your own efforts.

That is not true. The battle for the kingdom of God—that is what Luke is wanting to establish here. The battle for the kingdom of God is not won through human effort. The kingdom is established by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is won by God alone.

And I want to remind us Christians that we constantly make this mistake when we try and set up God's kingdom here on earth by ourselves. My fear is that even today, when I see Christians rebel against government orders, like a lockdown, they may think to themselves, "A government is impacting our Sunday worship services. And we might fight a very human battle by huffing and puffing and stamping our feet and marching in the streets." Friends, God does not need you to protect His church.

God does not need you to build His kingdom. Now I could be very well misinterpreting the times. Some have accused me of being wrong about a creeping persecution that is happening in Australia against the church. But if you and I can count on one hand how many church services have needed to be online via livestream—not cancelled, mind you, not quashed, just done a little bit differently—if we can count on one hand those things happening over the course of a year and a half, when every other time we have been able to meet, then I dare say we do not know what real persecution looks like. Both the Christian and the non-Christian needs to know this morning that human effort to build or to enter the kingdom of God will fail.

You cannot save yourself, but you also cannot keep yourself saved in your own strength. That is why Gamaliel's second statement is so important. God's effort will never fail. Verse 39: "If it is not from man, if it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow these apostles." Just like the unstoppable spear from the Chinese parable, God's plan and purpose will not be stopped.

This is what Luke uses in his literary sense to set up the irresistible growth of the church that we will see in the book of Acts. Because this is God's work, no group of Pharisees, no angry group of villagers, in fact, no king or emperor can resist the advancing power of God's kingdom in the church. God cannot be corrupted. God cannot be stopped. His will is irresistible.

It cannot be altered. It cannot be undermined. God speaks of His will in the prophet Isaiah as a word that does not return to Him empty, but accomplishes all that He desires. Gamaliel probably did not know it when he was saying these things, but he was making, he was uttering a prophetic truth. You see, within the lifetime of the apostles, the gospel will spread to the furthest reaches of the Roman empire.

Some archaeologists, some historians believe that even in the time of the apostles, the gospel had reached the barbarians of Germany and England. We might become disheartened at some things when they do not go our way, but the great story of God's salvation is everything is going to plan. This gives us incredible peace, even if we suffer individually. We can struggle with the consequences of sin, both the consequences of our own stupid sin or someone else's. It is true that in this life we can feel lonely, we can feel sad, we can feel restless, but when you keep the big picture in mind often enough—that God is growing and preparing His kingdom, that He is redeeming every square inch of the world for the people that He loves—then our fleeting problems fade into insignificance.

God's will cannot fail. There is no power that can resist it. God's purpose is an unstoppable force. No government, no national superpower, no dictator, no nasty boss, no unrepentant husband or wife, not even our own sin can stop the unstoppable purposes of God, and that gives us great hope. But then finally, Gamaliel gives this warning to the Pharisees, which although it is so true, he in himself does not truly believe it.

Our third and final point: fighting against God's will is futile. In the second half of verse 39, Gamaliel states, "You might even be found opposing God." His warning to the Pharisees has been described by some scholars as being sound Pharisaic teaching. It may have been sound, but it obviously was not compelling, because it does not seem that many of those Pharisees converted to Christianity.

The reason is, because Gamaliel needed to go a step further in his appeal to those brother Pharisees. His warning needed to include the appeal to them to consider the truth of that apostolic claim of Peter and the apostles. In the context again, just before Peter and the apostles are arrested, Peter is preaching about Christ as the fulfilment of Scripture. He is pointing to the Holy Spirit's work as signifying the authority of God for what he is saying. And so Gamaliel's "wait and see" approach should be characterised as being typical of how the Pharisees treated Jesus on His earthly ministry.

We see them not wanting to make a move of putting their faith in Him as the messiah. They keep asking him for another miracle, another bit of teaching. There are many Christians who have a certain respect for Gamaliel and hope that he may have been a secret Christian, but his life does not seem to indicate that he was converted at all. In fact, historical evidence suggests that he was a rabbi, a Jewish rabbi, until his death. In fact, David Peterson in his commentary suggests that Gamaliel read the mood of the crowd more than had an internal conviction himself.

He saw that at this stage, the crowd in Jerusalem was still favourable towards the apostles. He read the room and therefore made a populist decision to spare them. Mason, quoted by Peterson, writes, "Gamaliel appears as a shrewd popular politician, weighing up popular piety against administrative needs." Like the Pharisees of the gospel accounts, he adopts a cautious "wait and see" approach, which incidentally does not preclude a sound flogging of the apostles. The irony and the heartbreak of Gamaliel's speech is that he does not heed his warning himself.

He did not have the eyes to see the truth that he himself was speaking. He did not test the claims of the apostles. He did not go to check the Scriptures. There was no desire to inquire of God, to find out more about this Jesus. Gamaliel failed to live up to his own advice.

And if history is correct, he ended up dying as an unrepentant Pharisee at the end of his days. He believed that he could save himself through his own efforts. Earlier, I said that God's will concerning His kingdom is irresistible. Irresistible like the unstoppable spear of the Chinese parable. But friends, God's perfect judgment is the immovable shield of that same parable.

God's perfect knowledge of our sin is the immovable wall that you will dash yourself to pieces against on judgement day. And that is the ironic truth of Gamaliel's statement. You will find yourself opposing God Himself. He was right. Those who resist God's will, by continuing in sinful rebellion against the advancing kingdom of God, will find themselves opposing God Himself.

And guess what? You will lose that battle. Gamaliel's speech sets out the narrative for the irresistible advancement of God's church. But the truth goes much further than the book of Acts. His speech echoes into the twenty-first century. Ask yourself this today.

Where are the Sadducees and the Pharisees? Where is their power in Jerusalem? Who won the battle for supremacy? Roughly 25 years after this event, while many of these enemies of the gospel were still alive, the Jewish temple, the pinnacle of their religion, was gutted and torn down by the Romans. Their entire life was destroyed before their eyes.

The system that these enemies of Christ tried to protect by trying to save themselves was crushed. It was as if God said, "Enough is enough. You did not listen to My Son. You did not listen to My messengers, the apostles. Now I will take away your greatest pride, the heart of your false theology, the temple."

Brick by brick, that temple was torn down. Meanwhile, the church grows. That church, even in the book of Acts, sometimes grows quietly, but sometimes with roaring speed. The unstoppable spear of God's will and the immovable shield of God's judgment advances. Friends, this morning you must know that resisting God's will will mean you come off second best.

Realise that you are pushing against the God of the universe. He is not a beer-drinking buddy. He is not an imaginary friend that you can conjure up when you feel lonely. He is the God of history. He is the one who unerringly directs the story of His saving work, and He will bring the world into its final chapter.

Human effort fails. God's will does not. Resist that will. Try to negotiate His commandments over your life, and you will find yourself dashed to pieces against the might of His glory and the majesty of His relentless purpose. Gamaliel said to the religious leaders, "If this plan is of man, it will fail.

But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. In fact, you might find yourself opposing God." This morning, as Christian or non-Christian, know the power and the security of being in God's will. Seek that will. Seek His kingdom, and nothing else will make as much sense as being in that perfect place of His perfect will.

Let us pray. Father, this morning we are in awe of what You have done in human history. There is no movement like the movement of Your church. There is no growth and advancement in human history than the development of this group of people touched by Your grace, carrying a simple message of a Saviour who died on a cross, on a lonely hill, to bring people back to God. Lord, we pray with all the saints today that Your church will continue unhindered.

Where there is resistance, will You go ahead of us? Will You break down strongholds? Will You break down fortresses? Will You break down barricades that the evil one, his pride and his contempt, has set up against Your kingdom? Change hearts, Lord, of Your enemies.

And if You do not change their hearts, break their arms. Cause them to stand back as You continue Your march. And Father, as we follow behind You in that train, in that column of followers, help us to walk with joy and complete peace—that You, O God, are our Saviour, our King. You are the victorious One, and we simply receive Your victory. We cannot win this in our own strength.

We cannot make Your kingdom come by our own effort. God, help us to see. Help us to rest in that truth. This morning, as we sit in our lounge rooms, on our beds, on our backyard patios, while we may miss our friends and our family at church, while there is swirling controversy and conspiracy around us, help us to keep our eyes on You, the Victor, the Pioneer, the Author of our faith. Where there is anxiety, where there is fear, where there is even resistance in our own hearts towards Your holy and perfect will, O Lord, change us.

Convict us. Give us the strength to be transformed. We lay our lives before You again. We fall in behind You and Your advancing army. And we say, Lord, that Your will be done.

In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.