Four Lessons from the First Imprisonment
Acts: The Mission of God • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
John Bunyan is the man known for writing the Christian classic, The Pilgrim’s Progress. The book is an allegory for the Christian life.
It is heralded as one of the greatest books ever written in the English language.
The man who wrote it was a man of corruption and conviction.
Bunyan’s pre-Christian life was so corrupt that when he was saved, others were saved.
Like—he was such a bad boy that when a minister named John Gifford led him to Christ, others in the town repented out of shock and awe.
“If God will even save Bunyan, maybe He will save me!”
But all the corruption was turned to conviction upon salvation.
Bunyan became a minister and started preaching to hundreds of people.
He did this for six years.
Since he was holding these meetings outside the authority of the Church of England, Bunyan was arrested in 1661 for being a dissenter. A non-conformist.
He held that the Church of England and no other authority on earth, has the claim to tell God’s people when and where and how they have to meet.
This and his feelings on baptism is why so many Baptists love John Bunyan.
In some ways, he is our Puritan.
All John Bunyan had to do in order to be freed was to say he would no longer preach.
But his response was this:
If I am freed today, I will preach tomorrow.
John Bunyan
They held him in prison for 12 and 1/2 years with no formal charge. With no legal sentence.
Simply because he refused to not preach and denounced the authority of the Church of England as being false.
In May of 1672, Bunyan was released and he went straight to pastoring in Bedford.
But after two years, he was thrown in the town jail again.
This is when he wrote Pilgrim’s Progress and many other classics.
He was released for good in 1677. He lived for another 11 years preaching and writing.
It may be hard for you to think about how someone could do this. How could they give up their freedom for preaching? All he had to do is say he wouldn’t preach anymore!
And yet, Bunyan was resolved:
I will stay in prison until the moss grows on my eye lids.
John Bunyan
We see a similar situation in the text in Acts 4 this morning.
We have the leaders of the church being persecuted.
We have them being thrown in prison and charged not to preach
We have them being put on trial
The reality that the world is opposing the church just as it opposed Christ is coming to pass.
And as we look at Peter and John’s response, we are going to see Four Lessons from the First Imprisonment of Gospel-proclaiming Christians and what we can learn from them.
The four lessons are as follows:
Christian persecution leads to Kingdom multiplication (v. 1-4)
Christian witness has to be exclusive to be inclusive (v. 5-12)
Christian boldness should stand out in an unbelieving world (v. 13)
Christian obedience must be unwavering in the face of opposition (v. 14-22)
And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand.
On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another, saying, “What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.” So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” And when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened. For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than forty years old.
PERSECUTION AND MULTIPLICATION (v. 1-4)
PERSECUTION AND MULTIPLICATION (v. 1-4)
Our first lesson from this text is the principle that:
Lesson #1: Christian persecution leads to Kingdom multiplication (v. 1-4).
Lesson #1: Christian persecution leads to Kingdom multiplication (v. 1-4).
This is not a new lesson. It represents a proverb that has been with the Christian church for the better part of 1800 years:
Blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
Tertullian
As the church is persecuted, the Kingdom advances.
As the church is sharing in the suffering of Christ, the Gospel accelerates into the nations.
We see this in this passage.
As Peter is speaking in Solomon’s portico, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees come upon them.
Luke says they are greatly annoyed because Peter and John are teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.
So here we go again. We are right back where we were in the book of Luke, aren’t we? Doesn’t it feel so familiar?
The power of Christ and the witness of the Kingdom are on display.
In Luke, it was through Jesus.
In Acts, it is His Spirit working through the Apostles.
And who is there to make a fuss about it? Who is annoyed by the presence and power of God once again?
The religious authority of Israel.
The ones who should know better
We have a few seedy characters in play in these first few verses.
The priests and the captain of the temple are leading the mob that comes to arrest Peter and John
The captain of the temple is basically the right hand man of the chief priest.
He has authority to act on behalf of the chief priest.
Then we have the Sadducees—one of the three main theological branches of Judaism at the time.
There were the Pharisees—we know they have their share of issues as well
The Essenes—who wanted to withdraw from society in order to be holy
The Sadducees
Theologically, they are liberals.
They do not believe in the afterlife.
They don’t believe in angels.
They don’t believe in resurrection.
There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection,
You can imagine why they hated the teaching of Christ and the witness of the Apostles.
Beyond just believing it was blasphemous to teach that Jesus was the Son of God and the Messiah...
Beyond the fact that they are heralding the name of an insurrectionist in the temple, which could draw the ire of the Roman authorities...
They hated the teaching because they didn’t even believe resurrection was possible.
It would be like someone running around in our church this morning saying that “There is no resurrection from the dead.”
And then, you must add in the power dynamic—no one in this arresting mob wants to lose their hold over the temple and the people who worship there.
They do not like how these Apostles are gathering a crowd with this miracle and this teaching.
All this reeks of what they conspired to put down in the life and ministry of Christ.
So they arrest them and throw them in the slammer over night.
Make them sleep it off in there and see if they still want to keep preaching this madness
But what do we see in verse 4? It is a beautiful thing.
But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand.
5000 men, who represent their families, repented of their sin and placed their trust in Christ.
You will remember that 3,000 repented and believed in Acts 2 at Pentecost.
This is a serious movement now within Jerusalem.
The authorities certainly thought this arrest would help to quell the storm.
Quiet this movement down.
It was an effort to shut up the Spirit of God, just as they tried to shut up the Son of God.
But all the suffering of Peter and John does is accelerate the Gospel growth.
We will see this again in Acts 6-8 when Stephen, the first Christian martyr, goes to the mattresses with men fro the synagogue of the Freedmen, and then the high priest.
After they stone Stephen to death, persecution spreads, the church scatters and the Gospel goes with them.
And Saul approved of his execution.
And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.
What happens right after they scatter?
Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.
Most notably, Philip goes to Samaria, a place no Jewish person wanted to go under normal circumstances.
But Philip is scattered there with a mission and in Acts 8, we will see him zooming all around the region with the Gospel in hand.
The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
ILLUSTRATION FROM HISTORY
ILLUSTRATION FROM HISTORY
All of this reminds me of a man named Patrick Hamilton.
Hamilton was the 1st martyr of the Scottish Reformation in the 1500’s.
He was born to a famous, noble family in Scotland
He rose to prominence as a young professor at St. Andrew’s University and then went to France and Germany to further his studies.
While in Germany, he meets this monk named Martin Luther, and he starts to get some ideas
And while there, he writes a book called, “Patrick’s Places,” which is a defense of the doctrine of justification by faith—a thumb right in the eye of the Catholic church
And then in 1527 he goes back to Scotland and starts preaching this
His noble name protected him for a little while, but the Catholic church ends up arresting him on grounds of heresy.
He is arrested, tried and executed all on the same day.
They made a pyre for him right outside of the university in St. Andrew’s on market street and they burned him alive.
Some ministers would make good martyrs. They are so dry, they would burn well.
Charles Spurgeon
This brother, Patrick Hamilton, was not a dry man.
Unspeakably, it took 6 hours.
The fire kept going out.
It was a horrific scene.
And yet, for all six of those hours, Hamilton was resolved and suffered for his Lord without recanting the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
When it was finally over, the Catholics went to Cardinal Beaton and said, “Please—do not burn any more of these Protestants in public. Do it in a dungeon. The smell of that man’s flesh is going to blow the Reformation all over Scotland.”
And they were right.
Hamilton’s resolve as his flesh burned was so inspired a man named George Wishart (who was also burned as a heretic) and that man spent three months discipling a man named John Knox.
Knox became the father of the Reformation in Scotland and made it a fortress for Protestant belief.
120 years after his death, Knox’s legacy was cemented when Scotland became a Presbyterian nation—not Anglican—not Catholic.
And how many Scottish brothers and sisters will we dine with in the Kingdom due to the work of these men.
And in them, we see again---God will grow the stalk of the church with the blood of the sheep.
WITNESS AND EXCLUSIVITY (v. 5-12)
WITNESS AND EXCLUSIVITY (v. 5-12)
Let’s move to our second lesson, which we find in verses 5-12:
Lesson #2: Christian witness has to be exclusive in order to be inclusive (v. 5-12).
Lesson #2: Christian witness has to be exclusive in order to be inclusive (v. 5-12).
Let’s go to the text before I unpack that.
After their night in jail, the rulers, elders and scribes gather together in Jerusalem.
This ruling council is made up of major power players on the religious scene.
You see that Annas and Caiaphas are there. We know them.
So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him. First they led him to Annas, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it would be expedient that one man should die for the people.
And we have seen assemblies like this before haven’t we?
When day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes. And they led him away to their council, and they said, “If you are the Christ, tell us.” But he said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe,
We shouldn’t be surprised to see the disciples being persecuted. Jesus told them they would be dragged before councils, just like Him. And when they were, the Holy Spirit would be there to give them the words.
But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness. Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.
And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.
So what happens when they are asked “By what power or by what name did you do this?”
Verse 8 says, “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit...”
As Peter is about to respond to the council, we see that it is the Holy Spirit who is filling his mouth with wisdom and the words to say. He is going to bear witness through the power of the Spirit.
And what Peter says is powerful. It is bold. It is succinct. It is confrontational. And yet, it is loving because he is delivering a message of love and salvation in the face of imprisonment and oppression.
This is the same man who tried to murder a guy for arresting Jesus within the calendar man.
Do you see what the Spirit of God has done to his heart? To his temper? To his demeanor?
It has made a calm lake out of a storm of a man.
And in Peter’s Gospel-centered response in verses 8-12, we see our second lesson clearly.
In order for Peter to be inclusive, and offer salvation to all of the people listening and all of Israel, he must be exclusive.
He must present Christ, the Cornerstone, as the only way of salvation.
Not because he wants his religion to win the popularity contest
Not to win an argument with these men
Not to make Peter and John’s names great
No—Peter is making these claims because they are the truth. They are the content of the good news of salvation of Jesus Christ.
There is no other hope for human souls.
There is salvation in no one else.
Peter gets straight to the point in verses 8-9.
“If you are putting us on trial for doing a good thing by healing this man and all this is about you knowing the power or name we did this by, well I am happy to answer.”
He says that he wants all of the council and all of Israel to know that the healing was done by the name of Jesus.
The same Jesus they crucified
The same Jesus that overcame death by resurrecting
That is who healed this man
In other words, “He was healed by the power you thought you silenced.”
And then, Peter gets personal. He lays the death of Jesus at the feet of this council and says, “You killed Him, because you rejected Him.”
He says this by using the language of a cornerstone and builders.
The cornerstone was an ornamental stone that set first.
It identified the building and defined it. It brought meaning to it.
Well Psalm 118:22 says:
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
This was a prophecy about the rejection of the Messiah
So Peter points to it and says, “This was about you.”
The Messiah, the Cornerstone, came to you.
You guys are the builders. You have the Law. You have the blueprint.
You should have known He is the Cornerstone.
But you rejected Him.
And if you reject Him, you have no basis or foundation for salvation because there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
See—no one else is the Cornerstone.
Muslims say that Christ is just a prophet in a long line of prophets—not the Messiah.
Then they reject Him as the Cornerstone and they have no basis for salvation
Many Jewish people are still waiting for Messiah who descends from King David. Others now believe the Messiah won’t be a person, but a “Messianic age to come.”
That means they reject Him as the Cornerstone and they have no basis for salvation
Mormons say Jesus is the twice-sired half-brother of Satan
That means they reject Him as the Cornerstone
Jehovah’s Witnesses deny that Christ is God in the flesh
That means they reject Him as Cornerstone
Eastern religions see Jesus as a guru or an avatar.
That means they reject Him as the Cornerstone
Anyone who does not receive the revealed Christ of the Scriptures, submitting to His authority and trusting in Him alone for salvation, has no basis for salvation.
And this is because they are rejecting the Cornerstone.
The house of faith that withstands judgment cannot and will not be built without Christ the Cornerstone
THE OFFENSE OF PLURALISM
THE OFFENSE OF PLURALISM
Some find this idea offensive.
They feel that all religions represent different aspects of the same truth.
At the end of the day, they are all just trying to get us to love our neighbors and be better people.
To run around saying that your religion is the exclusive way unto salvation, well—that is just so close-minded and out-dated.
Well we don’t say it to say, “We are right and you are wrong.”
We say it to say, “We were all wrong, and He is right and repenting and trusting in Christ is the only way to be saved from your wrongness.”
There is simply no other one to point to.
Do you know why I argue that Lebron James is the greatest player ever score 8,000 points in the playoffs? Because he is the only one to do it.
Do you know why George W. Bush is the only President who is lauded for his efforts to unify the country in the days following 9/11? Because he is the only one who did it.
Sometimes things are exclusive by their very nature and so it is with Christ as Savior.
He is the only One because there is no one else.
There is no one else, because He is the only one.
There simply is no one else who lived a perfect life and died an atoning death for the people of the world.
He stands alone as God’s only plan to save.
And in order for me to invite all of the people of the earth to believe, I cannot say anything else!
And if that is offensive, then I must offend for the sake of love.
For if I start saying there are other ways to be saved, I am actually now presenting a false gospel.
Once I do that, I am not only lying to someone, but I am actively telling them something that will keep them from completely surrendering to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith.
In other words, the second you stop saying Jesus is the only way, you stop presenting the biblical Jesus.
You are actually cutting someone off from their only hope.
And in that way, you are actually excluding them in your effort to be inclusive.
The only way to offer the true Gospel to all and include them in the invitation to repent and believe is to be exclusive and say, “Jesus is the only way.”
That is what Peter and John are making clear here.
“You men must understand that the power of Jesus healed his man and that power is the only you have to saved from the wrath of God. You think you have us on trial, but you are on trial and you need a Savior.”
BOLDNESS AND IDENTITY (v. 13)
BOLDNESS AND IDENTITY (v. 13)
Let’s keep moving along and take a look at verse 13.
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.
From this we get our third lesson:
Lesson #3: Christian boldness should be clearly identifiable(v. 13).
Lesson #3: Christian boldness should be clearly identifiable(v. 13).
The astonishment in the council comes from this unusual combination of boldness and commonness.
Peter and John are not students from some famous rabbinical school.
Far from it, they are fisherman.
Now, it isn’t like they don’t know God’s Word.
All you have to do is read Peter’s epistles and John’s epistles and John’s Gospel and Revelation to know that these were knowledgeable men.
For a Jewish boy in the first century, since the age of 6 or 7, his childhood would have been spent memorizing significant passages of the Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy
Peter and John probably could have run circles around most graduate level students in Hebrew studies just from the seriousness of learning at the synagogue as young boys.
The Greek word really is not about the surprise over their knowledge of Psalm 118, but over the fact that these men speak with eloquence and build their argument well with reason and logic.
In calling them bold and yet untrained and common, they are saying, “How do they speak like they are trained in rhetoric and speech and yet they are just blue collar guys?”
The answer to their question can be found in the beginning of verse 8 and at the end of verse 13.
They are filled with the Holy Spirit
And since they are filled with Spirit of Christ—as Philippians 1:9 calls the Holy Spirit—it is obvious to these opponents of Christ that they are dealing with the same problem.
They have see this boldness from another who wasn’t trained in the traditional manner.
They crucified Him.
Now we have the same combination in these two men.
It is clear—even to these unregenerate men—they are dealing with the same Spirit.
The same One that descended upon Christ as a dove has descended upon the church as a rushing wind and tongues of fire
And it is clear in the speech of His preachers
You contrast that with these men who are sitting as supposed judges over the work of God.
They are greatly annoyed by Christian preaching
They are putting work of the living God on trial
They are conferring and conspiring together on how to silence the proclamation of God’s Word
They are rejecting Christ as the Cornerstone—as the only way of salvation, graciously provided by the merciful God of the Universe
There is no question who is representing the Lord and who is opposing Him
You can see who is tender-hearted and meek, as opposed to who is brash and vengeful
You can see who loves their neighbor, as opposed to who is eager to keep their power
You can see who the bold ones are in the passage, bravely standing up for their faith as if their own lives are nothing to lose
Contrasted with these craven professional holy men who are conferring and whispering and all they care about is protecting their place of authority in the physical temple
NO QUESTION
NO QUESTION
And I think we have to make note of that.
It is not hard to determine who is worldly and who is godly here
There are no issues naming the Spirit-filled Christians from the antichrist spirit here
There is no problem identifying who stands for the Lord with Christian boldness in these verses and who sits in the shadows clutching their pearls
And so it should be with us.
It should not be hard for people to look at how we live and see that it is different.
It is marked.
It is unique.
It is out of sync.
The world should be able to look at the church and see that they are a group of people who were called out from the darkness and into the light.
They should be able to tell, from our bold, ordered, logical, winsome witness, that we have been spending our time walking with Jesus and that the same Spirit He sent dwells in us.
And for some of us, we have to admit, that though this should be the case, it is not the case.
If the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of man had an old two-level wooden farm fence separating it, some of you are wanting to sit down on the bottom run of that fence and hang out.
Sure, you want to swing your feet over the the Christian side, but you are so close to the world that people on both sides aren’t always sure who you belong to.
There’s no question here.
These men belong to Jesus. Walk with Jesus. Live with Jesus. Were trained by Jesus. They are observing the commands of Jesus.
And make no mistake—when you live like this—the enemies of God will recognize it.
Those visible and invisible.
OBEDIENCE AND OPPOSITION (v. 14-22)
OBEDIENCE AND OPPOSITION (v. 14-22)
And then finally, we have this seen in verses 14-22.
There is really nothing that these guys can say (v. 14).
There is a healed man.
They can’t reason with the argument that has been made—just like they always failed to be able to reason with Christ
So they resort to oppressive bullying tactics.
They get together and conspire, just like they did against the Lord in the flesh
Their conversations have nothing to do with truth or the glory of God
They just want to silence and suppress.
They just want to keep the people pleased and hold onto their positions of authority
They essentially say, “Look—everyone knows this guy. Everyone is going to hear about this miracle. We can’t deny it. But let’s not let this thing go any further. Let’s tell them they can’t preach anymore.” (v. 17-18)
And in the face of that, Peter and John are unmoved.
So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”
Lesson #4: Christian obedience must be unwavering in the face of opposition (v. 14-22).
Lesson #4: Christian obedience must be unwavering in the face of opposition (v. 14-22).
As Christian people, submission should be our desire.
We submit to Christ.
We submit to the government.
We submit to our bosses.
We submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Christian wives submit to their husbands.
Christian children submit to their parents.
Christian husbands and dad lead well by submitting their leadership to Christ, who is their Head, and they model His character in how they shepherd.
When the Spirit of God regenerates our hearts and we are born again, there is an overhaul in desire.
First and foremost, our new hearts want to be submissive to Christ.
And then from there, the posture of hearts becomes one of submission.
We become the meek ones who will inherit the earth.
We are not weak. We are strong in Christ.
But our strength is under control because the Spirit of Christ rules us.
Strength under control—this is meekness.
And the meek do not mind submitting to good yoke
But every now and then, somebody comes along that is in authority and they ask us to do something that we cannot do.
Christ is Lord
He is the ultimate authority
If any authority under Him asks us to disobey Christ the Lord, we cannot do that.
And the desire we have to submit to Christ actually requires that we do not submit to these lesser earthly authorities making sinful demands
UNWAVERING IN CHARACTER
UNWAVERING IN CHARACTER
But as we are unwavering in our witness, we are also unwavering in our character.
Peter and John do not make threats.
They do not wield weapons.
They do not even say, “Well we command YOU not to speak.”
They simply say, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”
They are still strong in Christ. They are still under control.
They are submissive to Christ in the sense that they are not going to disobey Him, as they explain that they cannot obey the council’s order.
They are not going to act un-Christlike as they explain why they must keep proclaiming Christ.
We should take note of that.
The opponents of God can be very nasty and very ugly and very threatening.
We just need to keep acting like Jesus as we proclaim Him without wavering.
Now with all that stated, this really just comes down to mission directive.
The directive was given by the highest possible authority before the ascension.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
These men intend to do the work Jesus called them to do.
The council can decide whether that is right or wrong in their own eyes.
For the Apostles, this is a decided matter. Jesus gets their obedience.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
INVITE THE BAND TO COME
In 1688, John Bunyan got on his horse and made his last ride.
He didn’t know that.
He didn’t know that he would get sick from the cold.
He didn’t know the fever wouldn’t break.
He didn’t know that it would be the end of his life. The end of his ministry. The end of his pilgrim journey.
But his friends reported that he laid on his back and he said his greatest desire was to be with Jesus. Then he raised his hands and said, “Take me, for I come to Thee!” and then he died.
I have sat with two types of people on their death beds.
Men and women who fear God and men and women who fear death.
I have seen the peace in the eyes of those that revere Christ.
I have see the terror in the eyes of those that fear death.
The former say, “Take me, for I come to Thee.” The latter say, “Help me, for I am not ready.”
And at the end of the day, the reverent ones. The ones who are fearful of God. The ones with all the peace.
They are the ones who hold life loosely.
Persecute me, but the Kingdom will multiply.
Put me on trial, I will proclaim the only way to heaven—Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Challenge me with the wisdom of man and the Spirit of God who dwells in me will confound that wisdom
Oppress me and silence me, but I will just be obedient
This is unmovable faith that is held in the hearts and consciences of people who lay on their death beds and call to Jesus with eagerness.
These are the ones who say, “I’ll stay in prison until the moss grows on my eyes. But if you let me out…You know what I am going to do.”
I can only speak of what I have seen and heard.