03-01-2026 - CANCEL CULTURE- Acts 4

 MESSAGE BY PASTOR ROB INRIG

 FROM BETHANY BAPTIST IN RICHMOND, BC.

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I invite you to pray together: O Father of mercies and God of all comfort, our only help in time of need: We humbly beseech thee to behold, visit, and relieve thy sick servants for whom our prayers are desired. Look upon them with the eyes of thy mercy ( Vicky O, Nancy R, Tere G, Liz N, Stevie A, Socrates D, Sara's mom H, Margarita G,   Rosy Ch, Patricia L. Lina J.  Magda- Laci M.  Gloria F, Miguel A H. Silvia H, Manuel D, Brianda M, Alejandro M, Natalia M, Oscar ND.   Comfort them with a sense of thy goodness; preserve them from the temptations of the enemy; and give them patience under his affliction. In thy good time, restore them to health, and enable them to lead the residue of their life in thy fear, and to thy glory; and grant that finally they may dwell with thee in life everlasting; And for those who have departed to sleep the eternal sleep, waiting for you and to enjoy eternal life with you. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

You can add names from family and friends who need prayer

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In 2019 it was determined to be the ‘word’ of the year - ‘cancel culture’, a term familiar to many and for some, a harrowing experience.  It is defined as a modern, social media-driven phenomenon where individuals, brands, or public figures are publicly criticized, boycotted, or ostracized for perceived moral, social, or political transgressions.  It acts as a form of social pressure, aiming to hold people accountable often resulting in severe reputation damage, loss of employment, and intense mental health consequences.  Those on the receiving end ranging from the bakers of cakes, photographers of weddings to those holding to long held views, never imagined to come under attack. 

And among those bringing criticism, some who have good reason to feel as they do, they being wronged by injustices done and hateful rhetoric spoken. 

Without question in the age of Facebook, Instagram and X, cancel culture’s spread is lightning fast, its reach wide but as far as being a modern phenomenon, far from it.  In what we are looking at today, cancel culture is profoundly in play.  

In setting today’s scene, two groups on center stage.  The first - influential, and powerful, pre-armed with their cancel culture agenda.  The second - numbers small, hardly worthy of notice with little earthly reasons why they should be running afoul of the authorities.

This latter group no more than a few pebbles in size, surrounded by a mass of pebbles.  But this small number growing.  

Which put the influential and power group on notice.  This group, the Sadducees were the aristocrats and nobles of the Jewish people who controlled the Temple and ruled the Sanhedrin,  the very powerful, Jewish Supreme court, law and religion mixed together, a dangerous combination.  Among them, one we’ve seen before, Caiaphas the high priest.  

These Sadducees based their beliefs on the Torah - the words of Moses acting as their sole authority resulting in little, if any credence given to the rest of Scripture.  The words of the prophets more or less ignored.  Different from the Pharisees, the Sadducees did not embrace the miraculous, no angels, no demons, no interference by God in the everyday and no life after death.  Any talk of resurrection now or in any time to come was preposterous.

And that second group?  Jews who have become Christ followers.  They understanding things spoken of by Moses in ways greater than the Sadducees.  They connecting what Moses and the prophets said as having been spoken of Jesus, He fulfilling what Moses and the prophets said.   

And for these Jews who had become Christians that belief meant exclusion from the Temple, the fallout from that, exclusion from Jewish life.  Welcome in the marketplace gone.  If you owned a business, customers no longer came.  As Christ followers, families would hold a funeral, that person declared no longer alive to them.  Families lost, jobs lost, incomes lost.  Cancel culture alive and well.  This the reality of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus that would intensify in the days ahead.

It is also the reality in many parts of the world today for those who pay a significant price as followers of Jesus.  They not knowing what it means to safely gather to worship Jesus as Lord. According to Open Doors, over 388M Christians currently suffer high level persecution for their faith worshipping Jesus because they know Him to be true.  These ones for whom we are to pray.

Last week when we left off, we witnessed the healing of a man who was lame from birth - for 40 years, non-functionally lame.  No wonder we are told that those who witnessed his healing are full of amazement.  Had things remained with people just amazed, perhaps the Sadducees could have left it at that but it hadn’t remained there.  What followed was Peter and John’s declaration that the lame man’s healing was done in the power of Jesus’ name resulting in many becoming Jesus followers. The Sadducees’ anger intensifying with these men’s accusations that they killed God's Messiah which is what brought them before the Council.

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they wondered; and they recognized that they had been with Jesus. But seeing the man that had been healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. But when they had commanded them to go aside out of 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 manifest to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.  Acts 4:13-16

In these few words, it’s apparent they assembled for only one reason - to put an end to where this was leading.  There’s no discussion whether what’s signified in this may be true.  No discussion whether the assertion Peter is making, This Jesus, whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses should cause them to take a closer look.

No evaluation concerning what these men had to gain making the claims they had.  The losses in making such statements, undeniable but where were the gains?  No hands seeking money. No strategizing for power. No positioning for influence.  But the absence of these not looked at.  Instead the Council’s response despite acknowledging, We cannot deny what we have seen, not curiosity nor answers, leading to ‘Let’s end this’ conclusions.

This decision despite the miraculous standing before them.  Worse he stands before them because of the power that’s worked in him by the power of the One they are certain is dead who once again, they are told is alive. For the Sadducees this suggestion of a resurrected Jesus was a colossal problem, their rationalistic worldview denying supernatural  intervention in human affairs.

This miracle coming to this lame man through these two who we are told are incredibly bold.  The disciples bold, the Council members fearful as they trying to deny the significance of what they see.

The accused not backing down, not cowering as others did when appearing before them.  This wasn’t power you challenged without consequence yet the Council’s attempts to shut down ‘everything Jesus’ was unravelling.  They recognizing that the disciples’ confidence was similar to Jesus who stood before them not long before - they ‘having been with Jesus’. Their presence reaffirming that Sanhedrin’s plan of a Cross and a tomb hadn’t put an end to this.  

Despite everything the Council wants to say to the contrary, they are forced to conclude what they don’t want to, that what they’ve witnessed is a sign.  Though their beliefs are restricted to the Torah, God’s presence had been characterized by signs. And in this they are caught regarding where their hearts are - as Romans affirms, For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.   Rom 1:21

The truth is the same today, the battle we face is not so much a battle of our intellect as it is a battle of our will regarding who has ruling authority in our life. It’s true, as said on numerous occasions, we must have credible reasons to believe as we do.  That’s why Christian apologetics is so important (Apologetics Canada, Stand to Reason, Summit Ministries).   Following Jesus should never be a matter of BLIND faith; rather, following Jesus must be a matter of INFORMED faith.  Where, with an open mind, we consider who Jesus is.  What did He say about himself?  What did He do?  How do His claims and actions line up with what countless prophets, speaking hundreds of years apart, foretold?  This evidence leads us to where we must decide.  But evidence can only take us to the brink of a decision; it’s our will that casts the ballot.      

And the Sadducees didn’t like the ballot choice they had to make. Their acknowledgment that this IS a sign is an incredible admission and one that’s incredibly sad.  They are in plain sight, but not one I choose to see - sometimes that is true of us, God saying something very clearly, but we do not want to go in the direction, not wanting to act in the way we are told to act.  But for them as well as for us, if it is a sign, from whom does this sign come and to what does this sign speak?  Our honest response to that actually changes everything.   Yet they spend little time thinking about what they’ve just admitted because they aren’t prepared to deal with what the sign suggests.  And with the signs ignored, their response...

But so 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.  Acts 4:17-18.

Their actions are intended to eliminate the sign and, failing that, redirect where it points.  Downplay from whom it comes.  Draw a line from what is seen and can’t be denied, and instead ascribe its source to be different from what was said.

It’s like taking the majesty of the heavens and the earth and hypothesizing an origin different than what we have been told.  It’s like taking a sea split in two and assigning it to be the result of atmospheric irregularities while ignoring other realities in the account that don’t fit with what natural order can do. Winds may split the waters, but can’t immediately bring dry ground.    

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 men praised God for what had happened.  For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than forty years old.  Acts 4:19-22.

In spite of the evidence the Sanhedrin had received of what God wanted done, they directly opposed the will and word of God, and forbade these apostles to speak in the name of Jesus.

These, so called representatives of God, in essence committing spiritual treason, abandoning the truth they were to represent, the truth they were to convey. They ‘ruled’ by opinion not liking that the truth was taking them in a direction they didn’t want to go, didn’t want to see.  Opinions  like liberal theologians, who years ago met in something called the Jesus Seminar, deciding using coloured beads whether Jesus actually said and did the things said of him.  

In response, Peter puts it clearly before them in ways they cannot deny and in some respects do not deny, that what has been before them is from God.  Interestingly, we also see here that all the people understand that what has been witnessed is of God which puts these so called ‘religious leaders’ in a very odd spot, this self-worshipping cluster standing at odds with all those around but most significantly, stepping into choosing to be their own god as to what they will do and to whom they will listen.

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 so what is this mean to us?  Understand that as followers of Jesus, there will be times when we will need to choose.  Where we will have to decide whether we will choose to listen to God or to other voices.  Often that choice isn’t in large decisions but in the small, where the implications don’t seem that huge.  It’s where the bill has neglected to itemize one of the things we had to eat or some clothing has been listed differently, much less expensively, than what was bought.   

It may be that choice of hanging on to what we know should be let go.  It could be a behaviour that is wrong or perseverating on an injustice, our lives totally consumed in trying to make it right.  It could be something good that we have elevated to a place that in our preoccupation, is no longer good.   

And yes, sometimes that choice may involve having to take a stand when we know that stand may cost us.  Standing for what is right.  Sometimes taking that stand even among friends, over something we’re encouraged to do, or something that is said, or some place we’re encouraged to go.  Standing in what we know God would have us do.

Always standing in ways that are not contentious, not demanding, not accusatory but in respect and humility.  In ways that wear the character of Jesus.  Jesus who we are told, ate with publicans and sinners, who healed the broken-hearted and went after the lost.  As John 3:17 reminds, He did not come into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him would be saved.  This isn’t to say that Jesus didn’t confront, He did - but those words were reserved for the religious who misrepresented God when they spoke. 

So, what are we to do and how are we to respond when we are placed in a situation where we are called to take a stand and / or to appropriately confront?  While some of that we have just looked at in regards to our behaviour, attitudes and actions, I think the following actions Peter and John took following their release, also have some things to say.

When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.   

Notice these two go to those they trust.  Now it’s possible they might have done more than what is written but it appears they just report the facts about what had been said to them.  There’s no demeaning.  No preloading perspectives they want the others to think.  No putting on public record what they said so accolades could come their way.  They just reporting what the chief priests and elders said, allowing those listening to come to their own conclusions.  

This being so different of what I would have been tempted to do.  I wanting others to know how well I stated our case, how strongly I presented my views as their ambassador but no hint of that here.  And because they didn’t do things like this, the response, 

And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, Sovereign Lord, who didst make the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, 

The focus on Almighty God - on His power and greatness. Creator God by whom nothing exists unless by His command.  The voice of the One who spoke the world into existence, speaking then and speaking now, far greater than any voice of man.  That voice to be obeyed no matter what other voices, as powerful as they appear to be, are shouting.  Those voices as numerous and loud as they are, will be rendered speechless when Almighty God speaks.  God’s voice won’t always make sense to us, sometimes what He is doing is unclear, His leading at times may seem to be wrong but His voice to which we are to listen and trust, His ways not our ways, His thoughts, not our thoughts Is 55:8 but His love for us, unshakeable.  This is the surround of what the psalmist prophetically observes,

Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples imagine vain things?  The kings of the earth set themselves in array, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed' for truly in this city there were gathered together against Thy holy servant Jesus, whom Thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Thy hand and Thy palm had predestined to take place.  Acts 4:23-28.

 Though not readily apparent, God’s voice speaking even in times not understood or seen.  Sure didn’t look that way when Herod and Pilate did what they did.  Sure didn’t look that way when Roman power drove in nails and inserted a spear.  Sure won’t look that way when, in vast numbers, nations and kings will once more rise up against the Lord. 

But notice even in these, God’s voice though unrecognized still speaking, THOU didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Thy hand and Thy palm had predestined to take place.  His voice working out our redemption plan that would bring us to Him.  

God’s voice never confused, never silenced,

never defeated.  No cancel culture able to damage,

disqualify or silence.  Instead one Voice

to which we are to listen, to trust and to obey. 

www.bethanybaptist.bc.ca