Word of Salvation – January 2026

 

Civil Disobedience And Gospel Witness

 

Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp on Acts 4:18-20

Reading: Acts 4:13-31

Singing:  BoW.002  Wherefore do the nations rage
                   BoW.510   I cannot tell why He whom angels worship
                   BoW.374   A mighty fortress is our God
                   BoW.150    Hallelujah!  All praise God

 

Theme: Opposition cannot silence the gospel for God’s higher authority then demands civil disobedience.

 

Introd:  A Christian young lady works as a personal assistant to a company manager.

One day he asks her to falsify some documents that make claims against a client.
If you were that secretary would you do what your boss told you to do or would you disobey?
Would you follow orders… or would you refuse… and take the consequences?

This lady was told twice by her boss to do that and each time she said: “I don’t think so…!”
The result was that she was cited twice for insubordination and eventually had to leave.
What must Christians do when they are asked to do wrong by those in authority over them?

 

Let me give a more sobering example from Coventry in England.
The year is 1510 and the Bible you use is in Latin.  Bibles in English are banned.
Children must memorise The Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed… in Latin.
Five men and one widow are arrested for teaching these things to their children in English.

Eventually the authorities have pity on the widow and they free her from prison.
Since it’s night-time one of her jailers offers to escort her home.
On the way the officer hears something rustling in the sleeve of this woman’s gown.
He finds there a small scroll with the Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and Creed… in English.
She is taken back to the jail and in April 1510 is burnt at the stake together with the five men.

 

A question for you if you were in that situation:
Would you obey the government and stick to Latin or would you disobey and use English?
Would you submit… or would you refuse and face the horrible consequences?
That’s the kind of choice the apostles face here in Acts 4.
And let me add: it may also be the kind of choice our children will one day be forced to make.

 

A]       THE CONTEXT OF OPPOSITION TO THE GOSPEL.

 

1. The hostility of the authorities towards the apostles is very clear in this chapter.

And the reason for that is also very obvious.
These men hated Jesus Christ.  They hated him with a passion… they even had him executed.
But now the apostles are going around preaching that this Jesus is alive.
And to prove it a lame man, forty years of age, has been miraculously healed.

When the crowds gather, Peter and John take the opportunity to preach the gospel.
And the upshot is that another 2000 people are added to the church.
In just days… Christianity has managed to gain a following of 5000 – and that’s just the men.

 

That makes it easy to understand the anger and hostility of the authorities.
They thought they had dealt with Jesus Christ once and for all… it was over… finished.
But now here are these uneducated apostles, filling Jerusalem with Christ’s teachings.
And people are joining this new religion in droves.

 

So they drag Peter and John into jail and the next day interrogate them
“By what power or what name did you do this?”
That provides Peter with another wonderful opportunity to preach Christ.
In a very simple way (highlighting five key things) he presents the gospel to them.
And that really arouses opposition from the Sanhedrin… the Jewish Council.

 

So here we have – for the first time in history – the persecution of the Christian Church.

The world’s opposition to Jesus Christ is now also brought to bear on His church… on His people.

 

2. This opposition comes about as the authorities grapple with the growth of the Christian Church?

The big question that they want to address is: how can we stop this from going further?
They discuss that in closed session.  They order Peter and John to withdraw.
And together they face this huge dilemma:
– OTOH it’s undeniable that a miracle has happened – everyone in Jerusalem knows it.
– OTOH the spread of this teaching about Jesus Christ must cease.

 

At this point a question arises as to how Luke knew what the Sanhedrin dealt with in closed session.
It’s possible of course that the Holy Spirit made it known by special revelation.  But I doubt it.
Keep in mind that Gamaliel was a member of the Sanhedrin… and he was Paul’s mentor.
Gamaliel may even have had Paul with him there as an observer – but he undoubtedly told him.
Or there’s another possibility:
We also read later in Acts that many priests eventually embrace the Christian faith.
And some of them may previously have been members of this Jewish Council.

 

So we have some good inside information on the deliberations here of this hostile Sanhedrin.
But what is important is not so much their deliberations as their conclusion.
And in their conclusion their hatred of Jesus Christ is again so patently obvious:
“We must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name.”
They are so full of hate that they cannot even bring themselves to mention Jesus.
Instead they talk about “this name”.

 

They then call the apostles back in and command them to silence.
That is always the tactic of the Enemy: silence the preachers… shut off the Word of God.
That was why the Lollards in 1510 were not allowed to have Bibles in English.
That’s why they don’t like you talking about the Lord at work.
That’s why some people don’t want Christian chaplains or RE teachers in schools.
That’s why some Letters to the Editor of our secular newspapers never get published.

 

Here the apostles are even seriously threatened (vs.21).

And it’s all in order to silence the church… it’s to terminate gospel witness.

 

3. So what are we to do when people in authority tell us we’re not allowed to speak about Jesus?

Or for that matter: what are you to do when your boss tells you to falsify a company document?

Historically there have been four different ways of dealing with this opposition to things Christian.

 

1. First there’s the monastic solution… and that has always been quite popular.
   If the world doesn’t like us we’ll just withdraw from the world and let the world go its own way.
   If we disagree with the ethical standards of the workplace don’t fuss – find a Christian business.
   If we’re not allowed to speak about God in schools then we’re just retire back into the church.

 

1. A second answer is the secular response.
   My daily life is lived in a real world and that doesn’t really impact my faith which I keep private.
   So I keep my religious values out of the office and the workshop… and out of the classroom.
   When I go to the workshop I hang up my faith and my values in the locker room with my coat.

 

1. A third solution is the way of compromise.
   I find some way to excuse what I am doing… to make it sound like it’s okay anyway.
   Why not falsify that document? The way the client treated us wasn’t very nice anyway.
   And if the boss doesn’t want me to talk about religion that’s okay… God will find other ways.

 

1. And then there is this fourth option – what we might call “civil disobedience”.
   Here we take a bold stand and say, “This is wrong and I cannot do what you are asking me to do.”
   This is the position of that young woman who says to her boss: I don’t think so!
   This is the civil disobedience of the Lollards who taught their children God’s Law in English.

 

B]       THE HIGHER OBEDIENCE WHICH BELIEVER OWE.

 

1. In some ways this fourth option is at times not an easy choice for Christians.

It so often presents us with a dilemma.
You see, we as Christians have a strong sense of being people under authority.
God teaches us to submit to authority very early in life.
There’s that commandment that was drummed into us as kids from our earliest childhood:
“Honour your father and your mother that you may live long in the land…!”

 

We have been brought up with other texts that teach us to be submissive to those in authority.
In Romans 13 Paul tells us “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities.”
And Paul was not saying that about a democratically elected government.
He was saying that in the context of the horrible reign of Nero as Emperor of Rome.
Or let me remind you of those words of Peter in his letter:
“Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution,
whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him
for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.”

 

That means that in general Christians have bent over backwards to conform to the law of the land.
Okay – all of us know that we often do that with many failings.
There are even some laws that we are not so scrupulous in following.
Do you want an example?  The speed limit laws that apply on our roads.
Someone once said that the accelerator foot is the last part of the body to be sanctified.

Ok, confession time!  Even pastors get picked up for speeding.
One such pastor once said to the policeman: I’m a pastor and I’m doing the Lord’s work.
The policeman happened to be a Christian and he replied.
“That’s a coincidence.  I’m doing the Lord’s work too.
“And He sent me into the highways and byways to compel them to come in.”

 

Okay.  The point is that we have our struggles…and yet generally God’s people are law-abiding folk.

But now the big question is: How far does that submission to authority go? Where do we draw the line?

 

2. In verse 19 of our text Peter lays it on the line and zeroes in on the heart of the matter.

There are times when human rules contradict God’s rules.

And in those instances when human authority conflicts with God’s authority
then God’s commandments always trump the commandments of human authorities.
IOW when push comes to shove we must obey God and not man.
And today I could give you many examples of that from the Bible.  I’ll mention three.

 

In Exodus 1 the Hebrew midwives are told by Pharaoh to kill the Hebrew boy babies.
Those women don’t withdraw by tossing in their job.
They don’t comply with Pharaohs request, saying, “Well, we have to submit to human authority.”
They refuse Pharaoh’s command, recognising that God’s command is not to commit murder.
They obeyed God rather than man.

 

In Daniel 3 the three friends of Daniel refuse to bow to the idol that Nebuchadnezzar made.
They could have said, “Let’s just go through the motions… and pretend we’re worshipping.”
But they didn’t.  They recognised that God’s command trumped the command of the king.
They disobeyed and they were prepared to take the consequences: the fiery furnace.

 

In Daniel 6 Darius is tricked into declaring that for 30 days folk may pray to no one but to him as king.
So what does Daniel do?  Does he say, “Well, it’s only thirty days… that’s cool!”?
Does he say to himself, “Okay, then I guess that I’ll just have to pray quietly in my mind.”?  No!
Daniel throws his window open and prays to God in heaven and for that he’s thrown to the lions.

 

3. Here in our text we notice the boldness with which Peter and John make this declaration.

There is no timidity… and no hesitancy on their part.

In fact as I read Acts 4 it doesn’t seem to me that the apostles are the accused defending themselves.

There is a sense in which they are the ones who seem to be in control – not the Sanhedrin.
They are not only telling these, the authorities in Jerusalem, that Jesus lives and reigns.
But they are saying that the authority of Jesus, whom they serve, is greater than their authority.
They put it in the form of a challenge:
You be the judges.  Is it right in God’s sight to obey you more than God?

 

It’s wonderful that Christians can take this stand with a free conscience.
Not just timidly… but boldly to refuse to submit to the authority’s request to remain silent.
And we have that boldness when we realise that Jesus lives and reigns.
And that we are ultimately living our lives under His authority.

The point is that we don’t ever need to fear the consequences.
Jesus taught us that what people can do to us lasts only a moment.
But it’s what God can do to us that will last for all of eternity.
So we need to be like the Scottish Reformer John Knox.
Of him it was said: “He feared God so much that he never feared the face of any man.”

 

Just in case we didn’t get all this the first time this lesson is repeated in Acts 5.
The authorities obviously didn’t get it the first time.
Because in 5:28 they again command the apostles to silence.
And again the apostles state that principle:
When push comes to shove we must obey God rather than man.

 

It is wonderful when that principle is fearlessly applied in a world that wants us to compromise.
I think of a young man we was asked to fiddle the books in a real estate office.
He said to his boss, “As a Christian I can’t do that!”
His boss said to him: “Then you’d better clean out your desk and leave.”
He did.  But it made him feel good that he had obeyed God rather than man.

 

One of the great examples of this sort of stand was taken by the Reformer Martin Luther.
He was asked to recant (to deny) the teachings of the gospel of salvation by grace alone.
Luther said: “I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience
is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other!”

 

Luther said that because he knew – not only that obedience to God must come first…
but also that ultimately God would guard and guide.  He put it well in his famous hymn:
The body they may kill, God’s truth is abiding still, His Kingdom is forever.

In an increasingly hostile environment we as Christians today need that same perspective on life.

Some of us struggled with that during the Covid lockdowns.  When must we take a stand for God?

 

C]       THE INABILITY TO BE SILENT ABOUT THE GOSPEL.

 

1. There is another perspective on all this that comes out in verse 20.

It may seem at times that this choice between obeying God or obeying man is a very difficult choice.

Especially if it should cost us our life.

And yet in another sense that is not the case at all.
This obedience to God, in a sense, is not difficult.  In fact it is very, very natural for Christians.

 

You see, the apostles give a second reason for refusing to remain silent.
And in doing so they show that obeying God rather than man is not an onerous duty.
They say: For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.

 

Their inability to be quiet is put very strongly.  The Greek actually uses a double negative at this point.

Literally it read: For we are not able not to speak of the things we have seen and heard.

 

What the heart is full of that’s what the mouth speaks about.  And we see that so often, don’t we?
Some one has some glorious good news and they are just bursting to tell it.
You can tell someone like that keep quiet… but the fact is that they can’t hold back.

And that’s the way it is with us as Christians.
We have this glorious good news that there is forgiveness for all our sins in Jesus.
We know the wonderful truth that God loves us and has given us the hope of glory.
And that one day we will reign with the glorified Christ for ever and ever.
And we cannot keep quiet about that.

 

2. Let’s just think through this a little further. What are they unable to be silent about?

It’s not that they couldn’t be silent about the great questions in life.

It’s not all about teaching others the deep things of God and instructing folk in that.

It’s not all about understanding and communicating the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
No!  The focus was simply what they had seen and heard.
And what they saw and heard was about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

 

Again that highlights something about the nature of gospel communication.
First its simplicity: those five simple points that Peter and John first spoke to the Sanhedrin.
Jesus died on the cross… God raised Him from the dead… He is still at work…
He fulfils the Scriptures… and salvation is found in no one else.

 

Secondly this speaking about what we have seen and heard… puts the emphasis on our witness.
That comes up often in the early chapters of Acts.  The apostles were witnesses… so are we!
We’re – as a rule – not called on the give a 20-minute three-point sermon.
We’re – generally – not expected to answer all the tough questions people may have.
We’re just called to share what we have seen and heard.
What Jesus has done for us.. what He means to us.  And about that we cannot even be silent.

 

3. Here we face the undeniable nature of Christian experience.

People can argue with you about all kinds of things… and some people will love to argue with you.

But that usually doesn’t get us very far.
Fools will always be able to ask more questions than a wise person can answer.

 

But the point is that no one can argue with what you have seen and heard.
There is a wonderful example of that in John 9 where Jesus heals a man who was born blind.
The Pharisees want to argue with that man about the miracle and whether Jesus could do it.
His answer just silences all debate: One thing I know, once I was blind but now I see.

 

Surely our own experience of Jesus Christ is the greatest motivation for our Christian witness.
People may want to argue with us about the existence of God… or about evolution.
But we just want to tell them what we have seen and heard.
We want to share our experience of Jesus:    Once I was blind but now I see.
Once I was sinner but now I’m forgiven.
Once I was restless and scared, now I have peace.

 

Do you see why the apostles in this chapter act with such boldness?
They don’t behave as people who have to defend themselves in a court of law.
They are not in defence mode… they are on the attack… and with great courage.
Because they knew the truth and they were willing to stake their lives on it
Today you know the truth.  May that truth set you free to boldly share your faith with others.

Amen.