We're really just jump right in by looking at verses 17 and 18, it says, the high priest runs up and all those who are with him, which is the set of the saggesties, and they could feel within the nation and lay their hands on the apostles and put them in the common prison. Now, why did they do that? What is it about the apostles that calls them to be in trouble, again, with the San Hesma? Look at verse 20, verse 20, he says, did we not strictly to mangy not to take in this man? And what do you feel, the reason with your doctrine and tend to bring this man's blood on earth? And you could ask the question, why they did it, and then look down the verse 20, and you could argue a lot of different reasons why they were brought up for the San Hesma, again. You could say, well, they were being disobeyed. This is contempt of court. They had told what not to do, and they went out, and they didn't. Blighten it. They disobeyed it. You could argue here, and well, they were told not to please stand up, man, not for radical man. You could say, well, the reason was sedition. They were attempting to put this man's innocence blood on their hands, to bring them in. You could say, well, that's the reason why they were brought in, actually not. You could say, those were some reasons, but those weren't the real reasons. The real reason. If you want the real reason why they brought him in, you have to look again at verse 17. The real reason is they were filled with indignation. That word indignation means envy. Your translation may actually say jealousy. They were filled with jealousy, blinding jealousy to the threatened. The rival has come to town, no matter what this man could use their word. We've heard that Hamilton, our most high-ranking official, only a year ago, didn't have relations with that woman. He said, this is the same idea. I'm not going to mention her name. I'm guilty. I'm not going to type her responsibility. The same thing is happening here. Don't create in here's name. Who cares what that man did? Who cares that the blind can see and the rain can walk and the dust in here, and miracles will perform killing because it's frightened. If his little band of followers come around here talking about him anymore, we'll kill them too. Blinding jealousy. That's what jealousy does. Jealousy blinds if there's someone in your life of whom you're in to, you've got anybody in your life that your jealous of might threaten you, like in the business world, maybe in the home, in the family, that your brother's to be a sister. But it could be a business partner, could be a business rival, quote-unquote, and they threaten you. Your jealousy is very, very dangerous. You need to beware. Beware of the green-eyed monster because his vicious jealousy is warning something if you don't have. You're not going to have it if you don't have it if you don't want anybody to have it. In the least the hatred, hatred leads to destruction, well I'll just destroy that person. I'll destroy their good name, I'll talk about him. The power of jealousy it has the power through the story and that is precisely where we find the early Christians there on the receiving end of a jealous enemy. So what has gotten out, does he leave them there, does he abandon them? Or does he rescue them? You know the story. Look at verse 19, at night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out. Notice, then, say, the angel of the Lord is, we see other times in scriptures, not the angel of the Lord. If an angel of the Lord will see that a number of times, about four more times, they precise about to be precise, I think it's four more times, in the book of Acts, an angel of the Lord. What was the purpose of this angel of the Lord? First of all, to open the prison door, we don't know how the angel did that without the guards knowing that part of the miracle, but it happened. Secondary was to instruct these apostles to go out immediately and preach the gospel, preach the whole gospel message, and this is really the beauty of expository preaching. You don't have to take a month to say where we're going to preach on angels for a month. Here, we've been preaching expository for six months now, going through one book of the Bible in the morning, the Psalms at night, and this is the second infant to angels, and we stop to talk about them. Angels are ministering spirits of God. They're real. They're good creatures. They are supernatural creatures that God can to minister to his children, when and when. Among other things, but that's one thing they do, is it legitimacy to pray that angels would come and protect you? Yes, I think it's very legitimate. Is it okay to pray that God would send ministering angels to the sick and the lonely and the depressed those that you know? I think that's very legitimate. You might ask first, does this feel true today? Does angels feel minister today? Yes, they do. I love to pray for angels, just kind of interesting to me, that my joy is brother and sister-in-law here, brother and Melissa Aldrid, and I was pregnant with, I was in, they were in my church where I was in an assistant eight years ago, and I was saying the same thing, because as well as the big things, they say, you must say this all the time. But this is, I'll still say it. But I love to pray in the sanctuary for angels, for God to put angels in our midst. And I used to say in Columbus, in the raptors, it's not so much raptors here, it is, in these, on these legends, children, this might interest you, look up, I mean, look at these legends, the beautiful mullings, I literally walk through here doing this all the time, pray that God would put angels down the ledges and the faults of balcony up there, praying that they would protect us, that they would do battle, that they would fight the enemy, who would love to get in here, praying that they would sing, yes us, and help us to sing, and help us to worship wonderful prayer for missionaries, that God would send angels, ministers, spirits into their midst, to protect them and administer to them. People pray for children, we pray it, I think every night, pray that the angels would be at each corner of our children's bed, protecting them, around our home, at the door, we used to say, well, say as much now that we, the often we did, but on each corner of our suffering, praying for protection. Hebrews 1, 4, 10, says, and they, are they not all ministering spirit, 10, 4, to minister for those who will inherit salvation, Hebrews 13, 2, do not forget to entertain strangers for by doing so some have unwittingly entertained angels, God doesn't leave you alive, God is there protecting you, a law of the passage in 2 Kings chapter 6, you might want to turn us on page 335 of the Pee Bible, this is a great thing, this is for yourself, in 2 Kings, this is the plight of Elijah and his servant, this surrounded by the army, the Syrian army, endoten, and the servant is asking Elijah, a master, what are we going to do, we're surrounded, we're doing, what's going to happen to us, how are we going to be saved? In verse 16, this is so powerful, verse 16 says, so he answered, do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them, verse 17, Elijah prayed and said, Lord, up pray, open his eyes, but he may see, then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariot of fire all around Elijah, God will send hell into your desperate situation, he will do that, it may be hidden, brother and often it is hidden, but he will send encouragement into your difficult circumstance when you're threatened by evil forces, when you come under attack, when you are close to despair, God is close with encouragement, sometimes it happens for those God's word, the Elijah to just the light past is not as you just lift the bottle up and then blindly point to a burden, it isn't going to be my answer, we don't advocate that, but it means when you're in the Word, and you're in the Word daily and you sit under the preaching of God's word always, there is the word for you from God, because another reason not to recite the gathering of believers, Sunday mornings or Sunday evenings, every time on a Sunday evening you say, I don't need to go to church, you're saying I don't need the blessing of God's word in my life, I don't need that message he has for me, and he has that message for you, it's a word of encouragement, sometimes it's not only through angels and through God's word, but it's through people and that precious thing, the God sends into your midst, into your life, it's just the right time, it's just the right word of encouragement, the right word compassion, it's one of our members tell me recently after a car accident, I think surgery and she was on the walk and track at Vaughn Park and was just crying because of how hard it was and her recovery, and just at that moment a Christian from the community walked up, cried with her all the way around the track without facing her all the way around, and it's just that she was just gone after that, that's God, you sit up God sending one of his children into that person's life, when they were just needed just the right time, that's what he'll do for you, I think it certainly means of encouragement to these apostles, just the presence of the angels that represent the presence of God, as if God is saying, I'm with you, I'm for you, what you're doing is right, and I'm going to protect you, so rather than being cursed because God will encourage you, he'll do it through his angels, he'll do it through his work, he'll do it through brothers and sisters and Christ, he'll lift you up, he'll lift you up out of that pit, and he'll do it there, he'll send you right back into the fire, he'll send you right back into the battle, look at verse 19 again, at night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said, let me tell you that a little secret about the verse, these two verses, what the angels said is much more important than what the angels did, listen to what they said in verse 20, go, stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this line. There is and there's no rest, there's no vacation, as far as if the angels said, go to your house and get a little rest before tomorrow and meet you at the temple about 10 in the morning. It's an immediate thing, God was directly to the temple and grace the truth, grace the holster, grace all the words of this line, and the sense behind the word is holster ground. Stand firm, as if somebody really just wanted to get their attention and say, you get in there and preach the word. I was a junior in high school playing, in fact it was the overall state basketball championship, the only reason I was in is a senior filed out that had anybody else to put in. Three minutes and it was time, and one of our senior point guards that I grew up with with two doors down from, he came down, passed me the ball on the wing, the ball went through my hand into the opposing crowd, opposing things crowd. I could just remember the situations with that man called the ball, laughing, screaming, and I could see our fire coach, I could say to this stage, well I still bring him about my house because he was a Bobby Knight, and he jumped off the bench call and turned out, and we got to the huddle, and he grabbed me, this is probably been sitting in this day and age, but grabbed me by my hair and the back of my head and just said, don't go crazy on me now. Everybody says, you can in there and fire me, I was the whole talk, but my friend has never let me forget that, it's something that just lived with me. Don't go crazy on me now. But that is a sense of the angels here, grabbing these men off in essence and just saying, you get back in the game. You get back in there and you preach the whole message to borrow a phrase from Sosan Esen, he said, go straight into the red hot belly of the dragon and start preaching. And it's very clear that they are to preach all of it, not some little message on love or just a message on ethics or some message on psychological health. It wasn't just some message that accommodated the audience that day or some message that they were missed would be to hold back on their message, let's say a sin someone. It says all the words of this one. You tell them about sin and the cross and faith and the need to repent of this sin, the discipleship and Lordship living, you tell them about all the Christianity. So what it means to be a Christian and God forbid, in this pulpit, that we was ever, ever not there, I should say, not do likewise. God forbid that we ever, ever fall into the trap of the typical American creature who won't preach the truth of the American congregation, they won't stand for the truth. Even this week is General Assembly, a ruling elder that I knew in four pains when I was now trying to enter those summers and then he actually moved to Mississippi and then to South Florida and he was telling me, I think this is my last General Assembly, I don't think I can take it anymore. A group of us no doubt are waving a church because he won't preach the truth. It's in the peace of the day. He won't tell the people the truth, he's afraid of sin. Pray that that doesn't happen here. We may hurt people, we may offend people, we may make enemies, the cross does that. You have to wonder if it doesn't happen if you're preaching the truth, preach the whole message of the gospel. And day of day, look at verse 21, when they heard that they entered the temple early in the morning and taught. Probably at daybreak, and Dr. Klan's lecture may actually say daybreak, they were there to teach when they came in for the morning prayer and then a touch of humor, in the second part of verse 21, everyone I read said that this is really humorous when the part of Luke, so we even recorded it, that the high grace of those within came and called the council together with all the elders and the children of Israel and sent them to the prison to have them broke. And it's like you're watching a John William, this is mission impossible. When the officers came and did not find them in prison, they returned and reported saying indeed we found the prison shut securely and the guards standing outside before the doors. But when we opened them, we found no one inside. When the high priest, the captain of the temple of Sheep Priest, heard these things, they wondered what was the outcome date. That's my favorite part because you imagine the same agent with their hands in the air and say, what are we going to do? Where are we going to find them? Where do you think they just, will we ever find them? And this man comes in and he says, I really don't think it's going to be very hard to find them. In fact, if you'll just look out the window, those men that you put in prison for preaching in Jesus' name, they're in the temple and they're preaching in Jesus' name. Let me just say, again, alluded to it earlier, but it's worth saying again, as they were never on vacation, they were never at rest. And that should be true for us as well, even on our vacations, you might say, we're never on vacation from God. We're always on our door. We're always looking for that person's administrative, the person to say a prayer with, maybe on a plane, maybe on the beach, maybe in your business. But we always were never on vacation from our obligation to God's divine imperative, verse 20, go stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life. And then while in the hall God actually sends them to even more trouble, in verse 26, the captain went with the officers and brought them without violence. So they feared the people, unless they should be shown. It's interesting, they didn't fear the apostles and they didn't even fear God. They feared the people, you might say they feared for their own lives, what they did. And notice that they're apostles, they could have arrested, they could have resisted arrest, they could have spared it a lot, they could have been free, but they didn't do that. And they were arrested, and the most interesting thing I think about the whole scenario is that God actually allows them to be captured, he allows them to be arrested again. Why would you do that? Why would you, in a sense in that regard, abandon them? They're obedient, they're staying in the course, they're doing exactly what the angel pulled them to do. Why does you leave them into even greater trouble? I can only give you one room so there might be many reasons, but one reason is the Sanhedrin was in need of hearing another sermon, weren't they? And I really respect Peter, as a pastor myself, as a preacher myself, to respect Peter, I told you last week it's hard enough to stand up in front of people that you love and tell them some hard things, but to stand up in front of people who don't love you, they don't care about you, they don't care about your ministry, they talk about you, they wish you'd change your message, change your message, tone down your messages, that's very hard. Peter stays his ground, Peter doesn't move one disk, he places the same message, he's been tracing to them all along, he places the gospel to this hostile audience, and he literally gives them all the words of this life. And if you'll notice beginning in verse 27, even if he answers their questions all the while, he's shifting the attention off of them and owns a cross, owned of the cross. Look at verse 27, when they had brought them, they set them before the council, and the high grace asked them saying, did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name? There it is again, the idea they wanted to mention the name of Jesus, contentiously calling in this man. Verse 28 continues, look, you have failed Jerusalem with your doctrine, and tend to bring this man blood upon us, they're admitting the man with innocence. They're admitting that they murdered an innocent man, then verse 29, Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. Once again, their allegiance was to a higher court, their allegiance was to the God who rules the heaven and the earth, their allegiance was to the one who they knew, the last obedience, the one who at fours this obedience. And then in verses 30 to 32, you really have a four-point sermon, the crucifixion in verse 30, whom you murdered behind on a tree, the resurrection in verse 30, notice he says, the God of our fathers raised up, you have the ascension at the third point in verse 31, exalted him to the right hand as prince and savior, and then you have them as witnesses in verse 32, that we have witnessed the whole thing. Most of us in this room would have been tempted to soften our words, but not here. Again, he doesn't move, he moves ahead, if anything, preaching repentance under life. Let me say this as an aside before we move into the conclusion of this sermon in this verse that God never promises that there won't be trouble. He never promises that there won't be trouble, even for those who are doing the work of the Lord, all of you who are gifted servants of God, in the midst of your work of the Lord, he never promises that there won't be trouble. Mike Sartail was the brother of John Sartail, pastor, independent Presbyterian church in Memphis, and they have very large church which by the way is recently voted to come into the PCA, and it will probably be official in the next February, if they go through all their processes, but his brother Mike was killed in a car accident in his late 30s. On either December 31st or January 1st, he was coming back from family vacation, a teenager that had come across the median and hit him head on a six-year-old, some of his parents made him know this. His six-year-old had asked unbuckle his seatbelt just moments before the accident to pick up a toy on the floor and was hit at just that time, killed the child instantly. But he was a very gifted man of God, and again just cut down in the palm of his life, really the young missionaries of the student volunteer movement of the 19th century, and they died like flies. It was within your own church, a man that I've heard so much about, and so respected, they are on church, but judge felt. And interestingly enough, as it was late, I'm a heart, I found out even this morning who died three years ago, the day after General Assembly. And it's essentially how I felt like God laid that on my heart, so I mentioned him, here's a man, a godly man serving the Lord, discipling so many, and it cut down early in his life. James Montgomery Boy, you didn't know, it was passed away, a liver cancer, just a week ago. Such a servant of God, and so many more years you think, and humanly staking, but of course in God's province. But just because you're doing the Lord's work does not mean that there won't be trouble. Let me just say this in conclusion, one word to the believer, and then one word to the unbeliever. But to the believer, to ask you, is there anything about your life that forces people to say about you, that's the way I want to live my life. You know, it's right, all the words, all the words of this law, that could be the sum of your life, that Christ is your passion, he is your power, he is your purpose in life. Knowing that you must be in prayer to him, day in, and that's where you're praying without chasing, to this end that he reshaped your personality to become like his personality. But he's got in every decision he makes, every word out of your mouth, every expression you say, every expression on your face. Only then are you going to live a life that demands an explanation. There ought to be something about you that is bigger than you are, because you're a Christian. And so people say about you, she never could have done that in her own strength. Now what is it about her that causes her to be so patient, or to be so loving, whatever the circumstances in her life, she seems to always be the same. What is it about her? That's what they need to be asking about all of us. What is it about those people that are training, those Christians? And by all means, Christians, from this passage, you should leave here knowing you should have courage, stand up and speak the truth and obey God rather than men, stand firm in the faith. Act like men, as the Bible tells us you men, act like men. And then a word to the unbelievers, John Henry Newman said this, fear not that your life will come to an end, but rather that it shall never have a beginning. You want life? You're an unbeliever to this day because you're looking for life. You just looked in the wrong place. You want the gusto out of life? And you need to look no further. You need to look across as the prince and the savior of your life. And he is wooing you by his spirit this very morning, convicting you of your sins. He wants to have that relationship with you. What in the world would prevent you from doing that? What has prevented you over all these years, from bending the knee, bowing down before the prince of life? Is it unbelievable to try it? Rebellion? You need to surrender yourself to the spirit of God. You surrender yourself and you will receive peace and comfort and encouragement. Surrender yourself to the spirit and you'll have forgiveness of sin. The sins that have plagued you your whole life, gone, erased. You'll be cleansed forever, the guilt that be taken away. And then you'll know what life is. Real life, as we pray together. Our God, we ask that your word will fall on soft hearts that your word never returns, boy. If you make this passage applicable to every person young and old alike, this very moment by your spirit, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.