The things necessary to have boldness when times are tough are typically forged when times are easy. Because of this, sudden threats and opposition to us as Christians often expose what we’ve been doing in times of ease – whether we’ve been faithful and growing or whether we’ve been faithless and lax.

Have you ever held back speaking up for your faith, or worse than that, actually denied your faith in order to avoid a difficult situation? (I’m not looking for an acknowledgement here. I just want you to consider the question.) Perhaps it was in a class where only one side of an issue was being put forward. Or maybe it was at work where someone was ridiculing Christ. For fear of standing alone, you moved into silent mode. Most Christians have probably found themselves in such a difficult social spot at least once in their lifetime where they took the easy way out to avoid derision rather then speak up for Christ. Perhaps you thought, "Why can't I be more bold?"

Haralan Popov was a leader in the largest Protestant church in formerly Communist controlled Bulgaria -- a land sometimes called "Little Russia" in its totalitarian days. Popov spent 13 years in prison and was often brutally beaten and starved because he refused to submit his will to his communist torturers. I want to read a portion of his book, Tortured for His Faith,(1) to you to introduce this morning’s sermon.

I wish I had time to read more. It is a book that will make you wonder how a comfortable American Christian could ever complain of persecution.

This morning we continue our series called Acts of the Apostles. I have called today’s message, How to Have Boldness in Opposition. Ultimately we'll consider Acts 4:1-31. Because of the length of this chapter, our plan is to divide it into two parts, covering the first part today and the second, next Lord’s Day. So today will deal with verses 1-11.

You may wonder why I would speak on a subject like "boldness in opposition" in times like these when there is very little that seems to threaten our safety and security as Christians. Aside from the fact that we should be bold even in times of ease like ours, my answer to that question is this: The things necessary to have boldness when times are tough are typically forged when times are easy. Because of this, sudden threats and opposition to us as Christians often expose what we’ve been doing in times of ease – whether we’ve been faithful and growing or whether we’ve been faithless and lax. Please keep this in mind as we go through this chapter of Acts.

Acts chapter 4 contains the beginning of the opposition from the Jewish leaders to the new church that had begun on Pentecost in Jerusalem. The same men who had persecuted Jesus during His ministry would now persecute His followers. While the opposition didn’t become violent until the fifth chapter of Acts, most certainly these early believers had to grapple with fear and the threat of violence in what we see here. Yet their response was to boldly speak out. If you recall, chapter 3 contained Luke’s description of the healing of a lame beggar -- a 40 year old man crippled from birth. His healing led to Peter’s second sermon -- a sermon that was never finished because, as we enter chapter 4 we see Peter and John:

Notice that it was the Sadducees along with the priests and temple guard who came upon them. That is significant. The Sadducees were the sect of Jewish theological liberals. They didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead. Luke notes that in verse 2 when he writes of their "being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead."

Lloyd Ogilvie writes this in his commentary on Acts about the Sadducees:

He then quotes F.J. Foakes-Jackson: "To the Jew of this time it [the coming of Messiah] meant eminent world catastrophe, in which the powers of the earth would be destroyed and new order miraculously set up."

Ogilvie continues: "For the Sadducees, resurrection and revolution were synonymous. Both spelled disturbance for those who desperately wanted to keep things as they were."

That is one big reason why they killed Jesus and a chief reason they abhorred these early Christians who kept bringing up the mention of His name in the context of resurrection. There is an attitude of vicious anger and hostility in those words "came upon them" in verse 1. These guys were livid! So Peter and John were muscled off to jail for the night until the authorities could figure out how to silence them and still maintain an appearance of respect for the Law.

So how could Peter and John be bold in the custody of such powerful men who had already proven that they wouldn’t stop even at murder in their intent to silence the mention of Jesus of Nazareth? The first clue to the source of their boldness is there in verse 2. It was the content of their message. They were preaching something they were absolutely convinced had happened -- the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Like these early Christians, if you and I are going to be bold about our faith, we too must ourselves be convinced of the claims of our faith. No one will defend very long that which is not a true conviction.

John would later write about his confidence in the resurrection in 1 John 1:1-2 - "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of Life...."

What boldness would come to one who had actually seen and touched the resurrected Christ! Ah, but that isn’t possible for us, is it? Living 2000 years later, we didn’t see Him with our own eyes. How can we know then that these things are true? How can we know whether, even while Peter and John were sitting in jail that night, the body of Jesus wasn’t rotting in some undiscovered tomb someplace?

If you wouldn’t know where to begin to answer such questions, then I want to issue you a challenge. Check into the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus. Many have studied and written on it at length. I could recommend several books. The first would be Frank Morison’s, Who Moved the Stone? The second would be Josh McDowell’s, The Resurrection Factor. There are others - books where both believers and skeptics have examined and weighed the evidence for the resurrection.

So Peter and John spent the night in jail. But it wasn’t for nothing, as we see in verse 4 where Luke tells us of the results of Peter’s second sermon:

After spending the night in jail, the next day Peter and John were:

Here are two common Galilean fishermen face to face with the Jewish intelligentsia, the religious/political elite of their day. That’s enough to freeze up anyone’s mouth. Around them are the scowling, angry faces of the most august body of men in their society. Elders, scribes, rulers, even the high priest and his relatives are there, and these guys were deadly serious about those preaching in the name of the One they had just crucified. The whole council arranged itself in a semicircle with Peter and John in the center. All eyes were fixed on them and the lame beggar they had healed by the power of Jesus. Do you suppose that just for a moment the minds of Peter and John might have flashed back to that Passover night several months before this when it had been Jesus in the center of this same venomous assembly? The outcome of that meeting had been the Lord’s execution!

The situation only intensifies when you realize who a couple of these men on the council were. Annas was the infamous power behind the council. He had been high priest from A.D. 6-14. Five of his sons and now Caiaphas, his son-in-law, had followed him in that powerful office. Before the Roman occupation, the high priest held the office for life. After the Romans came, someone new was appointed each year by the Roman governor. Basically it went to the highest bidder and the one most willing to collaborate with Rome. Annas had bought and continued to buy for his sons the office from his immense wealth. The plot thickens when we find just how he amassed his fortune. History tells us of the so called "Bazaars of Annas," in the Court of the Gentiles in the temple, where sacrificial animals were sold at inflated prices. The Law of Moses required that the priests inspect each animal before it was offered as a sacrifice. Since Annas held sway over the priests, he instructed the temple inspectors to only accept animals that were bought from him and his cohorts -- at a price, of course. This is one reason why Jesus had turned over the tables of the money changers in the temple. Guess who the tables belonged to? The racket had expanded when Annas demanded that all foreign money be exchanged for a "temple currency" before approved animals could be purchased – thus, the "moneychangers" in the temple. Of course, he skimmed off a healthy profit in the exchange as well. You can imagine how Annas’ fortunes grew and how he would oppose anything that pertained to Jesus of Nazareth.

Not surprisingly, Mark records that immediately after Jesus turned over the money changers’ tables, "the chief priests and the scribes began seeking how to destroy Him." And they succeeded, didn’t they? And now two of Jesus’ disciples have brought the whole matter up again, in public no less! What gave Peter and John the courage to speak up in the face of such animosity? Let’s read on.

The second source of their boldness, then, was that they were filled with the Holy Spirit. It is my understanding that this "filling" by the Holy Spirit was a limited, miraculous event that had its fulfillment in the first century among the Apostles and early New Testament prophets. Jesus had promised His Apostles that when they were accused, the Holy Spirit would help them recall the things He had taught them and additionally teach them things they had not previously learned. He would actually give them the words to say.

For instance, Matthew 10:19 says, "But when they deliver you up, do not become anxious about how or what you will speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what you are to speak."

Such a promise was never made to ordinary believers. In every passage where the promise is made, it is made to the twelve Apostles. There is only one other passage where the subject came up and that is with Stephen in Acts 6 who was a prophet through the laying on of Apostles’ hands.

While Peter’s filling with the Holy Spirit was probably a miraculous thing, I believe there is an application for us in this, nonetheless. We are told in Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:19 to be "filled with the Spirit." Both of those passages pertain to ordinary believers like you and me. But the word "filled" is a different word than the one Luke uses here in Acts 4:8. In Ephesians and Colossians it means to be under the influence or control of. It is contrasted with being under the influence of wine to the point of being drunk or totally controlled. Thus, to be "filled with the Spirit" is to be so infused with the Spirit’s influence that we are controlled by Him. We are filled with the Holy Spirit today as we cooperate with Gods Spirit in producing what the Bible calls the "fruit of the Spirit." The fruit of the Spirit is such things as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, etc.

The application for us then, is this: If we want to be bold against opposition, we must allow our lives to be full of the influence of Holy Spirit so that the character qualities called the "fruit of the Spirit" are controlling factors of our lives.

Surrender yourself to Christ. Learn and follow the teaching of the Holy Spirit’s Word found in the Bible. Live what He is teaching you in this manner. Boldness will be a result.

Confidence in what we believe, being filled with the influence of the Holy Spirit - these are two sources of boldness in opposition.

A third source of boldness is found in the next three verses.

Do you realize what sort of accusation Peter was flinging into the teeth of the high priest in verse 10? He was calling him and his council murderers: "by the name of Jesus Christ whom you crucified…."

Where does a common fisherman get off telling the highest tribunal in the land that they are guilty of murder? The key is in the first part of that phrase in verse 10: "by the name of Jesus Christ." Peter was speaking and acting as a representative of Jesus Christ. Speaking "by the name of Jesus Christ" means speaking on behalf of, or with the vested authority of Jesus Christ.

When Secretary of State Condoleza Rice goes to the Middle East and speaks as our chief foreign diplomat, she is speaking on behalf of the government of the United States. She speaks with the vested authority of the US Government. You and I are not representatives of the U.S. Government, but we are ambassadors of Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:20 says, "Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."

If I went to the White House to see the President in the name of David Redick, I’m afraid I would feel timid and out of place – and rightly so. But if the governor of Oregon appointed me to take a message for him I would have a lot more confidence. So the third source of boldness we find in this passage is that we should be clear about Whom we represent. We are Christ’s representatives to the world when we speak His word accurately to others. As His followers we often represent Him and speak for Him to those who will not listen to anyone else.

A fourth source of boldness found in this passage is in verse 11. This will be the last one we look at this morning, though there are a few more implied or mentioned before the end of this chapter.

This verse is a quote and application from the Old Testament Scripture. Sometime when you have time go through the sermons that are recorded in the New Testament and notice how often the Scripture is quoted. These people knew and understood what the Scripture said. They understood how to apply it to the situations they were in and they applied it.

We share what we confidently know. We shrink from sharing what we do not know. If we are to be bold in our faith in the face of opposition we must be knowledgeable of our faith.

Can you think of a time when a discussion came up and you knew the Bible said something specific about it, but you couldn’t remember what or where? You kept quiet, didn’t you? On the other hand, in a situation like that, if you knew the answer and where it was found, you probably spoke up.

Every Christian should be familiar with the major themes of the Bible. We should know our way around the Sacred Writings, have committed certain passages to memory, and have others marked for easy location. Each believer should know how to use a concordance and perhaps a topical Bible or Bible dictionary.

Not all of us can devote our full time to these matters, but probably most of us could do better than we do. Average members in Churches of Christ in a time not so far removed from ours were known for their Bible knowledge. We should be, too.

Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15: "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth." Of course Timothy was a preacher.

But Paul also said of Timothy’s youth in 2 Timothy 3:15, before he was a preacher: "From childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." Timothy’s knowledge wasn’t just a "preacher" thing.

So again, why speak of boldness in opposition during times when we face little or no violent opposition? It is for the very reason that we currently face no difficult opposition that I speak these things. If we look back through each of the points we’ve highlighted here, every one of them is cultivated in times when we are not under stress or facing opposition.

Few and perhaps even none of us become suddenly bold. Boldness in the big things is the product of faithfulness in the little things. I challenge you to put forth the effort now that will lead you to be bold in your faith.

Footnotes: Please use your back button to return to your place.

1. http://www.amazon.com/Tortured-His-Faith-Christian-Courage/dp/0310312620

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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