Acts 5:39 But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.
This morning I have been thinking about the words of a man named Gamaliel. Peter and the apostles had been put into prison for preaching a risen Christ, and God miraculously loosed them from the prison using an angel who told them, “Go preach what you have been preaching.” So, they did. When they were confronted the second time by religious leaders, Peter said, “We ought to obey God rather than men.”
During that second confrontation a man named Gamaliel stood up. He was a Pharisee, part of the group that had protested the apostles’ message of a risen Christ, but he essentially said, “Leave these guys alone. If they are not of God, nothing will come of it, but if they are of God, you can’t win.” In verse 39 he says it this way, “But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”
Is that true? If I’m doing the right thing, does it mean that I can never be defeated? And if I am doing the wrong thing, does that mean I can never win? Don’t you know of cults that preach something that is not true but seem to be very prosperous financially? And have you not known people that seem to be preaching the truth who seem to be losing? So, are Gamaliel’s words right or wrong?
Here is the conclusion I have come to. I think the main question is not, “Who will win?” but, “Am I neutral?” What if Peter had said, “Look, we can’t lose, so I am not going to tell anyone about Jesus. If we are going to win, then we are going to win. We can’t lose”? What if the Pharisees had said, “If we can’t possibly win because God is for people like Peter, then we will just leave them alone”? Neither would have been right, and the point is that you can’t be neutral. In other words, God’s ability and certainty of ultimately winning is not an excuse for you to be neutral.
There is a sense in which there is no such thing as neutrality. Can God lose? No. Could Peter lose? God loosed Peter from prison twice, but ultimately Peter died for his faith. So, did God win simply because Peter was loose, and did God lose because Peter was martyred? The answer is “no.” So, ultimately the question is not, “Who will win?” because God will win. The main question is, “Am I going to try to be neutral?” You can’t be. It is not honest to be. Gamaliel was being noble in the sense that he was urging calm upon this group of religious leaders to not harm these men. But, while we can humanly appreciate that, ultimately Gamaliel was trying to be something he could not be, and that was neutral.
We should not live our lives according to some sort of fatalism like God is going to win or I am going to lose either way. They come to the same end. Today, if I say, “All things are going to be worse and worse. They will never get better,” I end up doing nothing. I am trying to be neutral. On the other hand if I say, “God can’t lose. We will win. So don’t worry and don’t do anything.” That is a form of neutrality that is not merited by me. I don’t deserve that.
Either way, I am not to live according to some sort of fatalism, but I am to realize that I am accountable for my decisions. Ultimately, God will win. God will win the war, but that doesn’t mean I can be neutral regarding the battle. So, God’s ability and certainty to win does not absolve me of my responsibility to take sides and to do what is right.