It was the earliest days of the Church that Jesus founded. Peter, on the notable Day of Pentecost, had preached a message to thousands of pilgrim peoples from all over the world, gathered there for this annual Jewish holy day. What made this day diametrically different than all those preceding it was that the long-promised Messiah had come, had offered to the nation His kingdom, had been rejected and crucified—and had, after three days and nights, been resurrected from the sealed tomb!
Peter lifted up his transformed, Holy Spirit-empowered voice to the multitudes assembled in the City of David that day and preached Christ to them. To their question—“What shall we do?”— Peter said, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for (because of) the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” (Acts 2:38) Three thousand souls who accepted that invitation were added to this infant church. A more Spirit- directed, dynamic period of church history has never been recorded. To that original number of believers the Lord added to the church “daily” such as should be saved. What an exciting time!
In this context, two of the twelve, Peter and John, went to the temple at the hour of prayer to pray. Approaching the Gate Beautiful they saw a lame man who was begging for alms. Peter looked his way and, with his apostolic eyes fixed upon the beggar, plainly said, “I’m broke and can’t give you a dime (paraphrase), but what I have I can give you: look at me.” Whereupon Peter extended a hand to the man, and, lifting him up, Luke tells us that immediately the man’s ankle bones and feet received strength. He was not only able to stand up; he walked, leaped, and praised God. (Acts 3:7,8) The lame man had been seen at the gate begging for years; people who had seen him there at his regular place, sitting, asking for help, now saw him standing, jumping up and down, shouting for joy and praising God! It was, no doubt, beyond belief! But there he was. It was an undisputed miracle! A crowd quickly gathered, and Peter—the powerful, Spirit-filled preacher—began to preach the gospel to them.
The first thing Peter said was, “Don’t look at us as though we had anything to do with this miracle.” He then introduced his message by saying that it was God’s Son, their Messiah, whom they a few days earlier had clamored crucifixion for, that was working in their midst. God had raised Him from the dead and they, though they had done what they did through ignorance, could repent and be converted so that their sins would be blotted out and they could be saved and part of His coming kingdom.
As one might guess, the same religious “big whigs”—priests, Sadducees, Caiaphas’s crowd, all of kindred spirit with the high priest—really got nervous about the crowd that was listening intensively to Peter’s preaching. Peter and John were called before the high priest for a Q & A, demanding that they reveal to them by what authority they were causing such a stir. Peter, undaunted, boldly exclaimed that if they were that day being examined for the good deed they had done, they were not hesitant to make known to all that it was by the name and power of Jesus of Nazareth—the only name given among men whereby anyone could ever be saved—that they were able to do what they were doing! (Acts 4:12) When that exchange was over, the proud, priestly council of examiners “could say nothing.” (Acts 4:14)
Don’t you just love that! God shut the mouths of those wicked, religious crucifiers of Christ. Even though they had agreed amongst themselves that Peter, John, and their likes were “unlearned and ignorant” men, they had to admit that “they had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13)
Would it not be great if, today, people with whom we have to do would take note that we have been with Jesus?
Releasing the “troublemakers” after they had threated them and commanded them not to preach or teach at all in the name of Jesus, Peter and John headed directly to the nearest meeting of the assembled church so that, with others, they could lift up their voices in praise with one accord to say: “Thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth…for to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done…and now, Lord…grant unto Thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak Thy word.” (Acts 4:23-29)
The meeting continued with praise and concluded with prayer, after which “the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the word of God with boldness.” (Acts 4:31)
I submit to you, my friends, that the 21st-century church that Christ the Lord is still building has the same access to God’s power, through His Holy Spirit, that the earliest assemblies of His church had. God is still working mightily and, yes, miraculously, through His sold-out servants. We are just as human as Peter and John, followers who once denied and abandoned Him! But, filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit of God, they were able, in unity and with boldness, to present a witness for Christ that the religiously saturated world in which they lived “could not deny.” (Acts 4:16). May we, under His guidance and by His Spirit, strive to set forth in this agnostic, atheistic age that might well be the last days of the building of His church, the same—by His grace and for His glory. Amen.
“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” (I Pet.3:15)
YOU and GOD 