Following Christ Will Get You In Trouble

2 MIN READ ◦ DOUG GILES

In Acts chapter three, God used Peter to heal a lame beggar who asked Pete for cash but got healed by the Holy Spirit instead (Acts 3:1-9). The now-healed amigo had been crippled since birth so, as you can imagine, he’s freaking out with joy, the onlooking crowd is freaking out with fear and Peter’s like…"that’s how we roll, baby.”

Peter then blasts the spectating men of Israel for their rejection of Jesus and then the whole place gets lit and this miraculous healing turns into a riot and jail time for Peter and John.

Not too shabby, eh?

To me, that little soiree beats the heck out of your typical business as usual sucky church service.

Can I get a witness?

So, following on the heels of Acts chapter three is Acts chapter four and that chapter is a doozy. In Acts 4:1-31 Peter and John get into a ton of trouble with the religious elites and ruling class who jailed and threatened them if they wouldn’t shut up about Jesus.

Here’s an FYI: If you’re truly following Jesus and you are preaching the gospel, as is, without any 21st-century fluff, I have some advice for you: Log on to Amazon.com and buy an athletic protective cup because it is going to get rough. Yep, brace yourself for persecution. Especially in these bedeviled days.

Folks, Peter and John were arrested.

If they were around today, they would still be arrested.

Or at least they’d be canceled by the oh-so-lame Thought Police.

They definitely would be banned by Herr Zuckerberg.

Peter and the boys were hated by the political and religious power brokers, for a good deed and speaking the truth to power, just as Jesus said they would be. Check it out.

“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you as well; if they followed My word, they will follow yours also..”

- John 15:18-20 (NASB)

God used Peter to heal a famous crippled beggar and then Peter preached to the crowd and that instigated the wrath of man.

So, the apostles were hated.

Jesus was hated.

Are you hated?

If not, you ain’t doing your Christianity Jesus-style because they loathed that thirty-year-old Rebel from Galilee.

Leonard Ravenhill famously said, “If Jesus preached what ministers preach today, He would’ve never been crucified.”

Goofy PC Pastors love to be loved.

They love to get “thumbs-ups’’ on social media.

Which leads them to do three things:

Embrace political correctness.
Buy massive amounts of butt-kisser lip balm.
Deny Christ and be ashamed of His tough statements.

Jesus had a particular warning to the feckless who have a fondness for being fawned over.

“Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.”

- Luke 6:26 (NASB)

Guess where false prophets go upon expiration?

Hint: it’s not heaven.

I wonder how many 21st-century hipster Christian pastors have Luke 6:26 tattooed on their skinny arms?

I literally heard a group of church leaders say of their pastor that one of the reasons they chose him to be their leader is because (unlike Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles) everyone likes him.

In Acts 4, Dr. Luke reported that, "The enemy conspired how to get rid of them (Peter and John).”

If you’re worth your salt, the enemy will conspire against you.

If you’re a crowd-pleasing dainty little “Christian”, you can relax because the Devil and his ilk won’t machinate against you because you’re one of their ubiquitous useful idiots.