"Peter and John answered and said to them, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. But we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:8).
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit radically changes men and women. Think of Peter, following Jesus after the soldiers arrested Him. As he stood around a fire to warm his hands, Peter trembled that he'd be found out for who he really was. What if the soldiers took him away too? All the bravado he felt in Gethsemane was wiped away. Fear gripped his heart and almost overwhelmed him. And that's what made denial so easy. Three times he was asked if he knew Jesus. And three times he disowned any relationship to Him.
But Pentecost changed all that. And Peter now stood before the Sanhedrin a very different man. The bluster and pride of the old life was gone. A humbler, more modest man stood before the court, a man who wasn't afraid to be called a disciple of Jesus. He was a man controlled by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Sanhedrin sat in all their pomp and display, already congratulating themselves on their victory. "They remembered the part that Peter had acted at the trial of his Master, [and they] flattered themselves that he could now be intimidated by the threat of imprisonment and death" (Acts of the Apostles, pg. 62). But they had no idea of the power of the resurrection and how it had changed Peter. But they were soon to find out. Because Peter was determined "to remove the stain of his apostasy by honoring the name he had once disowned" (ibid). Christ stood beside his faithful witness and gave him power to speak clearly and boldly--to stand unflinchingly for the truth.
So in a ringing voice that filled the judgment hall, Peter declared,--"Rulers of the people and elders of Israel...let it be known to you all, 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 stands here before you whole. This is the 'stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.' Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." Acts 4:8-12.
There was no quaking in his boots now. No fear in his voice as he delivered this message. Not only did he stand tall for Jesus and testify that Christ had performed this miracle--in healing the lame man who also before the Sanhedrin. But Peter laid at their doorstep the death of Christ. Now, he might have said, 'This man was healed by Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who was crucified and rose from the dead.' That would have been true! But instead, Peter adds, 'whom you crucified.' Truth must be brought close to the heart. Before these men could ever be brought to repentance, they needed to see their guilt. They needed to admit their part in crucifying the Lord of Glory. And it's the same with us. Before we can be filled with the Spirit, we must come to grips with our true condition--that our own sins crucified Jesus Christ. That we're responsible for nailing Him to the cross. We have compromised with evil!
But there was no compromising for Peter. When it came time for the Sanhedrin to deliver the sentence, the Bible says, "they conferred among themselves, saying, 'What shall we do to these men? For, indeed, that a notable miracle has been done through them is evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But so that it spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten them, that from now on they speak to no man in this name" (Acts 4:15-17).
But Peter wouldn't be silenced by their threats, nor would he compromise on any point. For he was Christ's disciple. And he'd been commissioned by a higher authority to speak for Jesus and act in His name. So Peter answered, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." Acts 4:19,20. And he went out, in the power of the Spirit, to preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations. Because Peter had joined the revolution. And he went out, to speak boldly in Christ's name and to make no compromise with evil.
This revolution, begun at Pentecost, continued to grow in strength. The Holy Spirit worked through every disciple and the world was turned upside down for Christ--in a single generation. And though the revolution has had its ups and downs, and was almost extinguished during the Dark Ages, it re-emerged through the Reformation, as the power of the gospel was rediscovered.
Others like Peter took their place before church councils, to stand fearlessly for the truth. In my mind's eye, I see one of the greatest reformers of all, standing before the Diet at Worms. The power of Rome, with its ruthless Inquisition, threatened the work of the Reformation. As Luther looked into the faces before him, I'm sure he remembered what had happened to Huss and Jerome. They too had preached the gospel in its purity. Perhaps he even envisioned the flames that took their lives.
But the Holy Spirit had gotten a hold of Luther and, when asked to recant, (to take back the words he'd written against the Pope and Councils, against tyranny and error), he took his stand for truth. And in a ringing voice that filled the hall, he said, "Unless...I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture or by the clearest reasoning, unless I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted, and unless they thus render my conscience bound by the word of God, I cannot and I will not retract, for it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other; may God help me. Amen.”
When God calls us to follow Him in the Living Way, we join the ranks of the revolution. We take our stand, just as Peter and Luther did, saying, "Here I stand. I can do no other." Our lives are captive to the Word of God and His perfect will. There's no room for any divergence from the Truth. It's impossible to allow any drop of error into our faith, our message, or our witness. For truth is only truth when that is all it contains. If I put only a drop of strychnine into a cup of water, it would still be poison. I couldn't separate the good from the bad anymore. That one drop had changed the whole thing. It had turned a healthy drink into a poison. The same thing is true for God's truth and for His gospel. Even the tiniest compromise with error or worldly values destroys what it is. It distorts God's saving message, perverts His character and even shuts off the power that can save our souls.
Very few of us turn away from Christ overnight. We usually slide down the slippery slope one inch at a time. That's why we can't see how far we've fallen until the damage is done. The little compromises here and there have eaten away at our connection with Christ until we walk with Him no more. It happens by condoning sin in little doses. We might think it's okay to watch a program because most of it is true. Or it's all right to mix worldly entertainment with Bible stories because we're using it for evangelism. At least, that's how we think. But truth can't be mixed with error and still remain truth. For the Bible says, "What harmony is there between Christ and Belial?" (2 Corinthians 6:15) God can't co-exist in the same arena with anything less than total righteousness, whether that righteousness is heard in His message or in the way that it's carried out.
Yes, it's a straight path. And some might call it extreme. But the Living Way is the narrow way and it's the only path that leads to life eternal. "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way that leads to LIFE, and there are few who find it" (Matthew 7:13,14). But Jesus has walked this path before us and He's the One leading the way. We need to walk as He walked to be part of His revolution and turn the world upside down through the power of the gospel.
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