The Unhindered Gospel (Sermon: Acts 4:13-22)

In Acts 4, we find the Sadducees trying to stop the preaching of the Gospel, but their efforts were in vain. In fact, each time the unbelieving Jewish leaders tried to stop the spread of the Gospel they actually spurred it on. Here in Acts 4, when Peter and John were commanded not to speak in the name of Jesus, they went back to their fellow believers and had a prayer meeting. What was the result? They were filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. When Stephen was stoned, it launched the first major missionary movement of Christianity. Believers all over Jerusalem feared for their lives and so they fled. But as they fled to different parts of the world they carried the gospel with them.

Not only was the gospel unhindered by persecution, but it also refused to be held by geographical, social, and ethnic boundaries. The early believers were commissioned to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8), and so they were. Samaritans and Gentiles, viewed as the scum of the earth by the Jews, were brought into the early church by those Jews who became believers in Jesus Christ.

Often today, we hear dismal reports about the future of the church. Yet, we should remember what Jesus said: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt 16:18). The gospel was unhindered in the days of the early church, and today it is no different.