You disowned the Holy One
Acts 3:11-16 · Vern Peterman · Mar 12, 2017
Acts (2017-18), No. 10
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926550311745

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. As we go into this passage, the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 3, verses 11 through 16, I'd ask your patience here. They took an hour away from me last night, and they did it by shifting the time ahead. So if I say something about an hour after I should have said it, you'll please excuse me, okay?

So, just in terms of getting some context here, we ask the question, this is going back to chapter 2, what happened? So on the day of Pentecost, these things happened. We have said that that day, it's not on your handout as such, but this is May 24th, 33 AD. The evidence is increasingly stacking up that that was the day according to our calendar.

The twelve disciples, and that included Matthias to replace Judas, and likely others with them, waited in the city of Jerusalem, as they were instructed by Christ, waiting for the giving of the Holy Spirit, as was told by Christ would be given by Him and by the Father.

As the Holy Spirit was given then on the day of Pentecost, there was a noise like a mighty wind. And by the way, one of the reasons that would attract people is that there wasn't a mighty wind, just a noise like a mighty wind. That would get your attention. An inexplicable noise like a mighty wind.

The disciples spoke in foreign languages. They were known foreign languages that others who were present recognized. People who were there from different parts of the Roman Empire and even outside the Roman Empire, in the empire to the east, the Parthian Empire.

And on that day, Peter spoke with newfound power there on the day of Pentecost. He spoke by the Holy Spirit's power anew. 3,000 Jews approximately were saved, added to the church, which was begun that day. That church began that day, Acts chapter 2, and continues until the day of the rapture. I hope it's today. All of the things that are true of the believer in this the church age were true of those that believed on that day, though it would take them decades to discover it.

So let's ask this question. Did Peter The Apostle, the one who first spoke there on the day of Pentecost, did he have the same position in Christ and Christ in him as you do? Yes, and let's ask this question. Here's Nancy, my wife, we've been married for 15,817 days today. And guess what? For all that time and before, we have had the exact same position, right? Right? Okay. Now, the next thing right after the Day of Pentecost is what's summarized as taking place beginning then and continuing on.

So even into the passage we're looking at, ultimately in chapter 3, Acts 2.42. They were continually devoting themselves to the Apostles' teaching and to fellowship and to breaking the bread into prayer. And so we have those things summarized. Let's take a look at each one.

The book of Acts chapters 2 through 10, Dr. Luke actually records evangelistic messages spoken by the Apostle Peter. What's interesting is he records the evangelistic messages, not that much of the content, the teaching of the Apostles at least in this portion of the book of Acts. We're told from the outset that the early believers here from the very first day heard the Apostles teaching. So by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit we have from the Word of God here the 39 books of the Old Testament which the Apostles had available to them and the 27 books of the New Testament which brings the Apostles teaching directly to us and in inspired form that God intended. And so in that sense it is applied to us today even right here and now what you're hearing is what the Apostles taught.

It was also fellowship The spiritual position and place of blessing, the ministries of the Holy Spirit, I think Hal at one point in time summarized those as almost two dozen different ministries of the Holy Spirit happening among us in the church, had never happened before in that way in all of time.

Nor would it ever happen again after the rapture. The church in that sense is unique. We in the body of Christ have a unique spiritual position in Christ, unique ministries of the Holy Spirit. I think that's something to ponder, is that people could pray before that day, but their prayers did not have the same spiritual significance. You couldn't count upon every believer having the opportunity to pray in the Spirit and with the Holy Spirit having interpreted and carried that message across into the heavenly places, that was something unique that began that day. Imagine having everyone in the church suddenly sensing that my prayers have a greater utility, a greater effectiveness, a greater significance now because of what the Holy Spirit has begun. There are opportunities in that fellowship for spiritual sharing and partnership, for our interaction and joint participation. Those things are all unique, and this is exactly what God intends. We have this slide here with actually several verses.

It's verse 46, I think, that summarizes also similar things. to what we just looked at so Acts 2 46 day by day continuing with one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart praising God so this breaking of bread that's a figure of speech for meaning to eat together to have a meal together One of the reasons they use the term breaking of bread is it was considered rude to serve your guests a partial loaf of bread.

You know how we go and we slice it up? That would have been completely unacceptable. So you take the whole loaf, and it was considered rude to present anything but that. So you would start the meal after praying by breaking the bread, and that would initiate the meal.

So it was a figure of speech for eating together. They did this regularly as a part of their fellowship, and that was even carried on outside of Jerusalem. So it says, believers were breaking bread from house to house. They were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God. The breaking of bread, having meals together in the house-to-house pattern continued.

We see that pattern in the rest of the book of Acts in the New Testament. Then they also had prayer together. We mentioned earlier that though there were Jews praying before, and we even see in the instance here in chapter 3, here's Peter and John going from one prayer time to the next. And as a matter of fact, as they're going in chapter 3, they're heading to the temple for the usual prayer time. In addition to that, the believers got together and prayed. and they were noticing this prayer somehow has different significance than it ever had before. They prayed together with this newfound character to their prayer because of the Holy Spirit's ministries among them, and also because of the newfound intimacy with God that they shared. Later on the Apostle Paul would teach them, we pray to the Father Through the Son, by means of the Holy Spirit, all three persons of the Trinity are involved in our prayer life, and that's new to the church.

So in Acts 2.43, everyone kept feeling a sense of awe, and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. So what we saw last week in the passage, Acts 3, 1-10, is here's Peter and John. They're headed to the temple for the usual three o'clock hour. There were actually three times, nine, noon, and three were the usual or customary times for prayer. And they were going there at the three o'clock hour to the temple to pray.

As they were headed there, they encountered a man who had been lame since birth. He had been lame for over 40 years and was apparently a regular beggar of alms there in the temple. And we see that Peter and John encounter this man and that's where they have, you know, I don't have any gold and silver. I don't have any alms to give you. What I have I do give you, in the name of Jesus Christ, stand up and walk." At this point, I thought about the song, you know, silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee. Familiar with that one? Yeah, I decided not to do it because I'm short an hour on sleep. So anyway, I thought, well, that's not going to come off very well. And besides that, I'd sing it an hour later than I was supposed to. Right? Okay.

So here's Acts 3.11, because what happens is, after this event, Peter and John don't just say, isn't that great? This guy is healed, and we're just going to go on and have our prayer time. Guess what? They cancel the prayer meeting, at least as far as their participation, and they disrupt the prayer time for thousands of people, and in this case, that's okay. Right? Isn't that something?

So they cancel the prayer that they were headed to, they disrupt the prayer time that was scheduled for three o'clock in order to have several thousand people. As a matter of fact, the figure given a little later on is 5,000 people come to the Lord. So that's a lot of people.

And so Acts 3.11 says this, while he was clinging, this is the man who was lame, we don't know his name, to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them at the so-called portico of Solomon. full of amazement. So let's get the picture here, what this looks like.

What you have on page two of your handout, it looks two similar looking pictures, but they're labeled differently, and so I want to point that out. So the top one is dealing with the time of Jesus' ministry, because as we go through the book of Acts. We're going to continue to refer back to this because this area here continues all the way to near the last chapters in the book of Acts to be very relevant. The first thing we want to point out is that the top picture that shows the Temple in Jerusalem as it was during Jesus' ministry that is from 29 to 33 AD looking from the east toward the west.

And what you have here in the upper left corner is you have Anna's house. This is the house of Anna. This is where the trial of Jesus by the Jews was held. There is a 21 foot by 33 foot great room, which is very likely where they met. The courtyard is known and visible there, and even where Peter was standing when his eyes met the Lord. is known.

So one of the reasons for pointing that out is we have significant and specific knowledge of that. Next is Pilate's palace. That's pointed out there. And we point out Pilate's palace, it had been Herod's palace, that is Herod the Not-So-Great, right, many years before. We also have Herod Antipas Palace labeled there, and it's right nearby. This is all in the same neighborhood and all still visible very much from the area of the temple. And then finally, the area where Golgotha and the tomb were.

My reasons for pointing this out are not just to be nitpicky. But the reality is, do you ever run across people and say, oh that's just a bunch of mythology about Jesus and made up stories about him resurrecting and doing miracles? No. Here are the places, and here's the time, and here's exactly what happened, and these are actual historical events. the evidence and the ability to point out, here's the place, here's the time, even to the point of here's the time and here's the time of day, here is the day that it happened, here is the place, here are the people who were present, right? And to have continuity, all those things are confirmable. It is no longer historically viable for someone to just say, eh, that's a bunch of mythology, because it is not. These are actual historical events. You can go to the place. We can specify in many cases what is the exact date.

And so anyway, all those things in that corner from that having to do with the time of Christ's trial on to his crucifixion and resurrection. the bottom part of that very same picture which you have is the pinnacle of the temple this is where Jesus was tempted by Satan told hey if you'll jump off this pinnacle that the angels will catch you there it is right there And by the way, that's where Jesus' half-brother James, the author of the book of James, was pushed off in 62 AD. Same spot.

Then you see the inner temple where the priests did their sacrifices, the front part of which was the part where people commonly could go to. and then there's the outer temple courtyard. This is where Jesus cleansed the temple twice where they had money changers and animals. So these are all familiar areas from the time of Christ and even in much of that pointed out from the last days of Christ's life up until the time he was crucified.

Then you have into the time of what we're looking at right now in the book of Acts chapter 3 The evidence, a good case has been made that Peter and John went into the stairs to the double gates here on the south side, that they entered there. Here are the stairs. They would have walked up these stairs and gone into the double gate, what's called a double gate tunnel. This is inside the double gate tunnel.

It's obviously had some things on the floor and off to the side that have been modified, but other than that, the tunnel is as it was when John and Peter walked through it. This would be another picture of what is left of the ceiling artwork restored. This is some sense of what that would have looked like. So again, if people say, oh, this is a bunch of mythology and these are just stories and legends, no, not so much. We even have a good sense of what it looked like during the time that John and Peter walked through that tunnel. Here's the restoration done by the UCLA in cooperation with the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Those tunnels would have come out at what are known as the Hulda Gates in the outer courtyard and so those are marked here in this picture. That's the Hulda Gates and it's the far one who is the one that Peter and John would have come up with the lame man out of that gate and up towards what you see then is Solomon's portico.

Solomon's portico was a colonnade, a row of double columns that was there on the east side surrounding the eastern gate. The eastern gate was the gate that Jesus came through on what is known as his triumphal entry, the Palm Sunday event. So Solomon's portico would have been either side. Jesus was also at times in Solomon's portico, including John 10, 22, and 23 when Jesus celebrated Hanukkah there in Solomon's portico.

So real place, real time, real people. Here's what it would have looked like based on historical descriptions. And here's what it would have looked like with all the people gathered there, and Peter, and John, and this man who had been lame, and all those who had seen this man over the years as a lame beggar, now seeing him leaping and walking and praising God. That got their attention as he walked across that courtyard over to Solomon's portico. People said, hey, I've seen that guy before, and he has never been walking, and he has never been leaping, and he has never been praising God like I see him now.

That got people's attention. The healing was not just to simply impress people, but the healing was for validation of the ministry and message of Peter. It wasn't so that Peter could go around and heal everybody, and that's what everybody deserves. It wasn't so that Peter could just heal people and get attention for himself. But it was so that his message would be validated. Notice, as he healed the man, he didn't even say his name. And even in today's passage, he still doesn't say his name. It's possible he did, but that's certainly not his focus. Instead, where's the focus? The focus is on Christ.

All of the apostles, as we read there in chapter 2, were given to do these signs and wonders. So what had happened here was simply an example of the kinds of things that were being done by all the apostles regularly, daily. It was a validation of their testimony. That's why today we must discern, as we go through the book of Acts, what was intended to continue through the church age on into now, what part of it continues into now, and what was only for the age of the apostles or possibly even earlier.

Acts is a transitional book. It is a very common mistake for people to read it and assume that everything today is supposed to be exactly as it was during this time of transition. That's not God's intent. It is a transitional book and we need to see that.

Healing also made, in this particular case, the opportunity Healing this man who had been lame for more than 40 years, who had been begging alms in the temple for so long that those who were present knew him, or at least knew of him. That healing made the opportunity for Peter to speak to all the people who were gathered in that courtyard.

There were at times, very commonly, many thousands of people gathered in that courtyard that you see the picture of and that we showed on the screen here. Many thousands of people. There were sometimes during the peak of the feasts, 250,000 Jews gathered in Jerusalem at one time. So to have this number of people gathered, about 5,000 come to the Lord, not at all uncommon. So this would be a fairly good representation, except that it's not enough people. Even more people, about 5,000. But it gives you some sense of what it was like.

So Acts 3.12, When Peter saw this, he replied to the people, Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this, and why do you gaze at us, as if by our own power or piety we made him walk? So Peter asks a very good question here.

He's wanting to instantly get the attention off himself and John and onto the message. And as a matter of fact, they just have people looking at Peter and John and looking at this lame man is not where things are supposed to stop, are they? It's not the ultimate point. They're gazing at John and Peter and looking at this man that they knew. This guy was lame for decades, right? It's not from Peter, and it's not from John.

It's from Christ. So people may often misunderstand the source. It's Peter and John's intent, and ours should be as well. Always give credit to Christ for all of who He is and what He does. So in the healing of this lame man, the focus was not all about Peter, and not about Peter and John. Focus was intended to be on Christ. That was the meaning of the healing, to put the focus on Christ. The healing was spoken through, as Peter put it, the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene. So we're going to go through the book of Acts. We're going to continue to see a focus on Christ, Jesus Christ the Nazarene.

And the Holy Spirit did not do these things to attract attention to himself. It's one of the things that has happened among a great many churches these days, is a great deal of focus gets put on the Holy Spirit. That is not the assigned ministry of the Holy Spirit, to have all the focus put upon himself. It is not what the Holy Spirit will do.

So what happens when the focus gets upon the Holy Spirit is all sorts of things get attributed to the Holy Spirit. They're not. And so people have Holy Spirit barking and Holy Spirit mooing and Holy Spirit glue and various things that, by the way, that Holy Spirit glue glues you to the floor. You can't get up, right? and drunken the Spirit and all these things.

And so you'll have all those things appealed to, but the reality is all that keeps putting focus upon the Holy Spirit. Does God want us ignorant of the Holy Spirit? No. Does God want us to have the Holy Spirit drawing attention to Himself? No. The focus ought to be upon Christ.

Jesus told the disciples, and this was only a couple months before or so, when the Helper comes, the Spirit of Truth, He will testify about me. These are Christ's words there at the Last Supper. So Peter had talked about in the name. He has already stated this healing of the lame man was done in the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, as he put it. We're going to see further mention of the name in this very passage. And so we'll see that again. In the name meant that the healing power was done by the power and authority from the person of Christ.

When you talk about the name of, it doesn't just talk about emanations from or dropping a name. It talks about the very person, the source of where these things come. Right? So, Peter was the one that they saw, and the temptation of people was to gaze and look at Peter and say, hey, it's Peter, look what he's doing. And Peter's saying, no, you guys need to understand, I'm doing this in the name of Christ.

Here's Acts 3.13, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, the one whom you delivered and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. So as we look at this, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, those words would definitely get these guys' attention.

Let's ask one thing. I show here a picture of Abraham offering up Isaac. And by the way, what's wrong with this picture? Isaac is too young. Isaac was actually 40-ish. when Abraham offered him up. It was not this little boy who was overpowered by his strong father. It was this man at his prime being sacrificed by his elderly father. Remember that Abraham was elderly when Isaac was born about four decades earlier.

So now, where is this? Where did that take place? this took place there at the temple on the rock that was the Holy of Holies, right there. That's where the sacrifice took place, or at least the attempted sacrifice took place. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were these Jews' fathers.

So Peter's intent, in context, would have been to refer to God the Father who, as Peter put it, glorified His servant Jesus. So Peter asks why the Jews are gathered and they're all amazed at what happened, they're gazing at John and Peter. The power and piety that healed this once lame man were not from Peter, not from John, from Christ. Peter is very clear How did this happen? It wasn't, hey, I'm Peter, isn't this great? Man, I do wonderful stuff. You ain't seen nothing yet. Right? Peter doesn't go there, does he?

He makes it very clear it's Christ who is the source here. So people may often misunderstand that source. So now, Peter mentions the presence of Pilate. He continued to be in his place of power in Rome until after Saul, who became Paul, became a believer in Christ.

Pilate, right then, is still in power. This is taking place, what Peter's words here, and is speaking before people, in the summer of 33 AD. It has only been at most a month, and perhaps a few months, since the day of Pentecost. This has all been very recent. Pontius Pilate is still in power.

It would be the summer of 35 AD when Saul, who would become Paul the Apostle, would be converted and become a Christian believer. It was the year after that that Pilate fell from power. But Pilate is still very much in power right at this point. He had already decided to let Jesus go, except that the Jews, their leaders, pressed Pilate to pronounce a sentence of crucifixion. That's not what Pilate wanted to do.

Pilate said, as we find recorded in Luke 23.4, I find no guilt in him.

John records those very same words three times in John 18 and 19. Here's Acts 3, 14 and 15, "...but you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murder to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of Life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses."

So as we look at this, here is this passage kind of restructured or reassembled a little bit. This is, "...but you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and you implied, asks for a murderer to be granted to you, but you put to death, and I put there an asterisk, the author of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses." The Numerican Standard, which I typically quote from, has that as a footnote, author.

That is what Kenneth Weiss translates it, and the fact that many of the translations these days are going to that, then there's a reason for it. We'll talk about it in a bit. Another thing that happens later that I think is relevant is an angel speaks to the apostles in Acts 5 20. Go stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message of this life. This life. Is Christ's death critical? Absolutely. Absolutely. Is Christ's burial essential? Yes it is. Christ's life. is also just as essential and critical. This message of life.

How about the reference to the Holy One and Righteous One? Interestingly, there's a lot of references in the Old Testament, dozens in fact, to the Holy One. And here's some Psalm 1610, For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, the place of the dead, nor will you allow your Holy One to undergo decay." The Apostle Paul in Acts 13 will in fact quote that psalm. And it's specifically in reference to Christ as He is buried, He does not undergo decay, but instead is resurrected after His short time of burial.

Isaiah 43.3, For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. And then Isaiah 48, 17, thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. So one of the things that's clear is this Jesus that Peter is talking about is one who was resurrected, whose body did not undergo decay. He is also deity. He is the Holy One who is deity of Israel, and He is their Savior and Redeemer. Those things are clear. We also have Peter making reference to the Righteous One. Interestingly, Holy One is something that shows up dozens of times in the Old Testament. The Righteous One is much more unusual.

And this is one instance where it comes up, Isaiah 53, and we will not go through all of that. I leave that for your reading. But in verse 11 it says, As a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied. By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will justify the many, as he will bear their iniquities. The holy and righteous one. So Peter tells the Jews bad news and good news. Peter told the Jews that they had, and he says, you, okay? You. Disowned the Holy and Righteous One. And the Old Testament makes clear who that is.

They had asked for a murderer to be granted to them. By the way, what does the law say that's supposed to happen to murderers? Murderers are supposed to study rocks up really close, really fast. Right? That's what you do with murderers. You make them study rocks close and fast. And next, put to death the author of life. So this is a triple stab in the heart of any Jew who's thinking, feeling, and observant. Ah! What did we do?

God raised, as we see here in this passage, is also found twice in Acts chapter 2, as we see reference to it. here in 315, also again we'll see it in verse 26, and then again in chapters 4, 10, and 13, chapter 13 twice. And so they're going to be God raised, God raised, God raised, and it's in reference to God the Father. God the Father raised the Son in each case.

So Peter said we're witnesses here. Here in this passage he's going to say it again a couple of chapters in chapter 5 and he's going to say it again in verse 10 as he presents the gospel for the first time to the Gentiles. In each instance Christ's resurrection is a part of his witness statement. We're witnesses to these things.

This was an essential purpose of being an apostle. Why did they pick Matthias? They picked Matthias to be a witness. And because he was a witness, that was an essential part of his qualifications to be an apostle. Later, of the Apostle Paul, they qualify as Apostles. By the way, this was a question I had recently from Hassan. Recently I was answering this question for him. Why do we have Apostles? How are they different from other people?

Those kinds of things. The apostles claim to be witnesses. We have no record of anyone challenging the authenticity of their claim to be witnesses. You know, they could have easily. Can you imagine that? Here's Peter, he says, of which we are witnesses. And you could have had somebody very easily come up and say, now wait a minute, let's take a little short walk here, just walk a little distance here to the back side of the temple, and let's go take a look at that tomb. I am sure we'll find Jesus' body still in it.

Wouldn't they have done that? How many people did that? So far as we have any record, nobody. Nobody did that. Here you have thousands of people assembled. Peter is speaking to them. Of these things we are witnesses. The response is not, oh, you guys are mistaken. There's a body still in there. Nobody said anything so far as we have any record.

Here's Acts 3.16, and on the basis of faith in his name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know, and the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all. So his name, the name of Jesus, is emphatic here in this verse.

In our own era, people are inclined to drop names in an attempt to provide the influence or impress other people, right? That is not Peter's intent here. Peter's not doing this to just impress people. He's not trying to influence people. By speaking of his name, he meant Jesus' power and authority based on who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. That's it. The focus is on Jesus, not what can I get by dropping his name. Peter says that Jesus' name meant that he healed the man who was lame. Jesus did it.

And notice something else that comes up here. You see and know. He told them that they see this man once lame and they also know him. He puts those together. This guy is not somebody you've heard was lame. This guy is not someone that we're telling you used to be lame. People know and have seen this guy. You know who he is. You know he was lame. He uses words that says that he sees, they see, and they know by perception. They recognize the guy. They know that this guy was lame and now he's not. These people get it.

They all understand this man was lame for decades, more than 40 years, a long time. His healing was not a matter of mistaken identity, oh, it's just the wrong guy, or mistaken event. You guys thought that this guy was healed, but no, it didn't really happen. There was no mistaking.

This is the guy that we've been going, you know, by and seeing at the temple and sometimes giving alms to for years and years and years. Been going on for a long time. We know who this guy is. We've seen him. He's a regular. And now he's healed. And we've never seen that before.

So let's talk about faith. Faith in Jesus' name. The power and authority and who he is and what he's done. was what healed the man who had been born lame. The faith was at first Peter's and John's. The man who was once lame believed Peter's words and stood up. Can you imagine if the man had said, uh-uh, not happening. I know you're pulling me up by my right hand. That's going to hurt. If you pull me up, that's going to hurt. I'm not getting up. Don't touch me. Can you imagine the guy doing that?

Is that what he did? No. It was faith that was exercised through Christ. That's a key thing. As we read this passage, it's easy to get some sort of a Calvinist idea that faith is a gift. That's not the message here. It is not faith as a gift that comes through Him, but faith that was exercised through Him. The word comes is not in the Greek. Not in the Greek. All right, so Peter has a lot more to say. We've actually only just introduced this passage.

We're going to see more on what he has to say evangelistically. And it's all very good stuff, well worth our reading and understanding. He speaks to those who had first witnessed this healing of the lame man. But he's not going to just leave them with these intense words. You disowned the holy and righteous one. Intense words like that. You killed the author of life. No, he's not going to leave them with that. He's got a lot more to tell.

Acts 3, 17-26 would be our next passage. It'll turn their hearts and minds. At first, they're going to be just shocked and stunned and wondering and gazing at Peter and John. they will have their minds turned. And while Pentecost was 3,000 saved, this day will be 5,000. Even more will come to the Lord that day. And this is just a sampling of what took place as the Apostles did signs and wonders as validation of their message, and then as the Apostles delivered evangelistic messages to the Jews who were gathered in response.

Something else is coming persecution. Hey, it's going to come lightly at first and then more and more intensely But believe it or not. It's actually going to be a good thing and we're going to see the reasons why as we proceed through the book of Acts Even as it gets worse for the believers and more intense Not only that the persecution will be a good thing in multiple ways for multiple people It'll produce something good And it's the same group of men who carry out the persecution as the ones who put Jesus to death.

How about that? Names like Caiaphas. Same kind of guys. The ones who said, let's put Jesus to death. By the way, right before that, they said, let's put Lazarus to death. They're going to tell these guys, you guys need to stop. So they're going to get They're going to be the same guys who are going to come to the apostles and say, don't talk about this stuff.

As we look at this passage, one of the things I point out is what's commonly translated as prince of life, I would say is author of life is the better way to bring it across. And so interestingly, the same Greek and English word come through in Hebrews 12, 1 and 2. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, who is the author of life and the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. The author of life deliberately gave his life for us. But that's not where it ended, did it? That's not where it stopped. He's the author of life. Not the author of death. Even though he gave his life for us. For you and me to have a life. Right?

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for what Peter has introduced here. in this phenomenal passage. And as we move through it to see even more of what he is going to appeal to, to see that hearts are radically changed in that day. And as a matter of fact, in a matter of hours of time, thousands of people are greatly impacted for all eternity. We thank you for this very impactful passage. We thank you that as we proceed through it, we'll see even more wonderful and marvelous things as works of your Holy Spirit to the credit of Christ and to the glory of Christ. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.