Conviction 11/15

Sermon Series: Acts – Faith Explosion
Title: Conviction
Text: Acts 4:1-22

Introduction: Conviction – we use that word in two almost contradictory ways. In one sense a conviction is when a person is found guilty of a crime, after a trial they are convicted. In another sense conviction describes the intense will associated with someone who believes in something very strongly, maybe even so strongly that even death pales in comparison.
During China’s Boxer Rebellion of 1900, insurgents captured a mission station, blocked all the gates but one, and in front of that one gate placed a cross flat on the ground. Then the word was passed to those inside that any who trampled the cross underfoot would be permitted their freedom and life, but that any refusing would be shot. Terribly frightened, the first seven students trampled the cross under their feet and were allowed to go free. But the eighth student, a young girl, refused to commit the sacrilegious act. Kneeling beside the cross in prayer for strength, she arose and moved carefully around the cross, and went out to face the firing squad. Strengthened by her example, every one of the remaining ninety-two students followed her to the firing squad.
Theme: The event that we are studying today seems to me to be one of those which is very pertinent to the modern church and one that we rarely view with the incredulity with which it deserves. Peter gives the second rousing and effective sermon that we find him deliver in the book of Acts and upon the completion of this work for the Lord he receives his just reward, he and John are arrested. They spend the night locked up on the Temple grounds because it is too late to do anything with them and the next morning they are brought before the Sanhedrin to face their accusers.

Before we begin looking at the trial itself there is something here that we need to understand. The passage says that the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees were upset at them because they had been preaching about the resurrection from the dead in Jesus.
This idea of resurrection after death was a hot theological topic of the day. There were two factions which fought over this issue all of the time. The Sadducees, who held that there was no bodily resurrection after death and the Pharisees who believed that we were raised from the dead? The Sadducees, earlier in Jesus’ ministry, had tried to rope Jesus into the battle over this issue. Mark 12:18-27 The other thing that you need to be aware of is the fact that it was the Sadducees who controlled the temple. The Pharisees had a much wider geographical base of support in the Synagogues but in the Temple the Sadducees were in control and the temple guard was directly under their authority. That is why we see the Captain of the Temple guard here in such a dither over the event and showing up with the Sadducees here as they went to confront Peter and John.