The God of Persecution – Acts 8:1-4

In my spare time I have been reading some of the ordination sermons preached by Andrew Fuller.

They have been excellent, and they have been convicting.

When I was first starting out in the ministry after graduating from Bible school,

I scoured every used book store that I could find,

And I was especially delighted when I found old books on what it was to be a minister of the gospel and a preacher of the Word of God.

I don’t know how much of those books rubbed off on me, but they too were convicting.

One of the things that the best of this literature said was that the Lord should always come first.

It’s not the preacher’s job to make his hearers feel good about themselves.

It’s not first in his commission to help his church members to be better people.

Unfortunately, judging from the Pastoral Help sections in the average Christian book store, that seems to be the current perspective of the ministry.

And that is also the best way for a preacher to build up the attendance in his church.

But that is not my God-given job.

No, the first task of the gospel preacher is to magnify the Lord before his hearers.

And sometimes that means that he won’t be particularly popular among the rebellious.

Even when the preacher’s theme is not theology proper, his message should put God in a proper light.

The title to our message this evening, may initially suggest that I am breaking that rule.

Our title is “The God of Persecution.”

And the God to Whom I refer is Jehovah.

But I’m hoping that despite that title and that theme, that the Lord will still be sweet in our sight.

Let’s take notice of the God of Persecution, the God of the Church and the God of Evangelism.

Let’s begin with THE GOD OF THE CHURCH.

Once again, I remind you that the word “church” means “a called out assembly.”

“Ekklesia” is a compound Greek word derived from “ek” and “kaleo” – meaning “to call out from.”

An “ekklesia” is a congregation of people taken from a larger group.

And whenever that word is used, it is talking about an ORGANIZED congregation or assembly.

The word speaks about structure and purpose.

Stephen used the word in the last chapter to describe the nation of Israel in the wilderness.

At that time Israel was a congregation, called out of Egypt.

It was organized under Moses, the priests, and hundreds of tribal rulers.

It had rules, and laws, and purpose.

For only about 40 years did Israel really qualify to be called an “ekklesia.”

Once they reached the Promised land and scattered over thousands of square miles, they were no longer an assembly or ekklesia.

In chapter 2 we find the word “ekklesia” for the first time in the Book of Acts.

“They continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine & fellowship, & in breaking of bread, & in prayers.

And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,

Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”

Obviously, this “ekklesia” was special.

These people were being called out of Israel, and by the grace of God were being saved.

And then they were being baptized and added to the Lord’s special “ekklesia.”

This was now the “ekklesia” of the Lord Jesus Christ; He was building it as He said that He would.

After the death of Ananias and Sapphira, we are told that “great fear came on all the church, and upon as many as heard” of their deaths.

The way that Luke wrote those words shows that there was clear line of demarcation between the church and the rest of Jewish society.

Fear came upon the assembly of God and upon those of Jerusalem who were not members of the Lord’s church.

In Acts 8 we find new details about the Lord’s church.

You will see that the persecution which began then was against the church – “which was at Jerusalem.”

If you had never heard the word “church” before, you would have to conclude that the church of the Lord was a local entity.

This assembly was at Jerusalem, not at Hebron or Antioch.

And Luke didn’t say that the persecution fell upon that part of the church which assembled at Jerusalem.

It is believed by Catholics and Protestants alike that there exists a world-wide church.

It is believed by a great many Protestants that the church includes the both the living and dead.

But both these ideas are contrary to the definition of the word “ekklesia” or assembly.

If something can’t assemble, then it can’t be a New Testament church.

In our adult Sunday School class we started a new study,

And this morning we touched on the fact that there is a great deal harm done when people assume that well-defined Bible words don’t actually refer to those definitions.

When we allegorize words, saying that although they say one thing they mean another, then we get ourselves into serious trouble.

And to say that an “assembly” is a group that doesn’t assemble is not only ludicrous, but theologically criminal.

God’s first New Testament church was established in Jerusalem.

And another myth about the church which is destroyed in this scripture is that the church is a building.

“Saul made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison.”

If we rightly assume that the church is the assembly of the members, Saul was devastating that assembly by breaking into the homes of its members and committing them to prison.

There was no central meeting place of the church as there is with the Calvary Independent Baptist Church of Post Falls.

This old white building on the corner of 12^th and Spokane Streets is not the church.

This is merely the building in which we meet.

The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is a congregation of people which meet at a certain location.

The head of their church, like the head of body, is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Those members may come from a dozen different communities, but together they make up the Lord’s church in that place.

The second thing that we see in this scripture is the GOD OF THE PERSECUTION.

By “God” I am referring to Jehovah, not the god of this world.

Remember when Satan, the god of this world, came to Jehovah accusing and griping about Job?

In essence, the Devil wanted make havock of that poor saint’s life.

He stripped him of his wealth, his family, his health, his home and almost his hope.

But, upon the command of God, Satan couldn’t kill him.

In fact there was nothing that Satan could do to Job without the permission of the Lord.

Keeping that in mind, who was the God of the persecution against the church in Jerusalem?

What are some of the details about this persecution?

Well, it seems that Saul of Tarsus was the man in charge.

“Saul was yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter” against he disciples of the Lord, when he went to the high priest for permission to expand the havock into distant communities in chapter 9.

And I am convinced that he was at the center of the debate with Stephen in chapter 6, before the persecution ever started.

He was bested by the church deacon,

And since he didn’t have the scriptures or the answers to silence his opponent he turned to violence.

The word “havock,” I am told, is a word which is used extra-scripturally to describe the devastation that a herd of cattle might inflict on a vineyard.

It’s the sort of thing that a pack of wolves might inflict on an unprotected flock of sheep.

But little does this wolf realize that THESE sheep have a very protective shepherd.

Those words “and at that time there was a great persecution” more literally mean that this great persecution began at that time.

But this persecution was being waged under the watchful and loving eye of the Lord.

We have to remember that “the Lord loved this church and gave Himself for it.”

Who can separate the church in Jerusalem from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

How many of the members of the church died in this current hail of persecution?

We are not told, but there might not have been any.

When James was killed a little later, it was not exactly the same persecution.

We are told here and again in chapter 9 that this persecution involved arrest and incarceration.

And no man can say that the Lord hadn’t ordered the limitation of the wicked.

Furthermore, we see that many of the church moved out of the metropolis south to Hebron and Nazareth, and north into Samaria.

But the apostles remained in Jerusalem and were apparently untouched for some time.

Indeed the Lord was in control.

The third thing that I’d like you to see is the GOD OF BIBLICAL EVANGELISM.

“Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word.”

Verse 1 says that they were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria.

Acts 11:19 says, “Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.”

It is a mistake to think that the church in Jerusalem was stamped out of existence at this time.

And it’s a mistake to think that the membership moved to the suburbs.

Who did the Apostles teach while they remained in Jerusalem?.

And to whom did Saul present himself after his conversion and return to Jerusalem

And when Peter was released from jail in Acts 12 he arrived late to a church prayer meeting, and it was far more than just the Apostles there.

So who was it that was scattered abroad with the commencement of this persecution?

It appears to have been many of the preachers, preacher-boys and deacons of the church.

Were there others from the general membership? Probably.

But it seems that verse one is referring primarily to the preachers, other than the Apostles.

For example in the next verse we read about Philip going to Samaria

Since it appears that Luke expected us to know who this Philip was, and that he wasn’t the Apostle

Then we must assume that it was Philip the deacon.

Remember that before the Lord Jesus ascended into Heaven, He reiterated His commission to the church.

Acts 1:8 – “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”

This command wasn’t given to some fictitious universal church.

Nor was it given to a future form of the true church.

It was given to that congregation in Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem church had been pretty self-centered thus far.

We have no idea how many months passed between chapter 1 and chapter 8,

But the witness appears to have been pretty-well confined to home.

It might be argued that before the church could reach out it needed to build a strong foundation at home.

I have heard many modern-day versions of this argument:

We can’t afford to spend very much on foreign missions until we get our mortgage paid off.

We can’t think about missions until we get see a few more people here at church.

We shouldn’t give money to that missionary until our own pastor is able to be full-time here.

Some of these statements are semi-logical, but they aren’t Biblical.

World evangelism is the responsibility of every church whether large or small, rich or poor.

If a church can’t afford to send its own member to Honduras,

Then it should send a few dollars to help support the member of that other church in Honduras.

Just as it is wise and financially responsible for families of Christians to tithe,

I think that churches should give a minimum of a tithe to missions.

But this church in Jerusalem wasn’t carrying out the commission, so the Lord gave them a push.