ALTHOUGH THE FOLLOWING WAS written about 120 years ago, it still speaks. Thank you, Mr. Spurgeon!
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The second persecution of the church, in which all the apostles were put into the common prison, was mainly brought about by the sect of the Sadducees. These, as you know, were the Broad School, the liberals, the advanced thinkers, the modern-thought people of the day.
If you want a bitter sneer, a biting sarcasm, or a cruel action, I commend you to these large-minded gentlemen. They are liberal to everybody, except to those who hold the truth; and for those they have a reserve of concentrated bitterness which far excels wormwood and gall.
They are so liberal to their brother errorists, that they have no tolerance to spare for evangelicals.
We are expressly told that “the high priest, and all they that were with him (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) were filled with indignation.” That which had been done deserved their admiration, but received their indignation. Such gentlemen as these can be warm at a very short notice, when the doctrine of the cross is spreading, and God the Holy Spirit is bearing witness with signs following. Let them display their indignation, it is according to their nature.
To them the only answer which God gave was spoken by his angel: “Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.” Argument will be lost upon them; go on with your preaching. They have lost the faculty of believing: go and speak to the people. They are so given over to their doubts, that it is like rolling the stone of Sisyphus to persuade them to faith. They are so eaten up with objections, that to attempt to answer all the questions they raise would be as vain as the labor of filling a bottomless tub.
Go on with your preaching, you apostles; but address yourselves mainly to the people. Extend as widely as possible the range of the truth, and thus answer the opposition of its adversaries. It is better to evangelize than to controvert. The preaching of the word of life is the best antidote to the doctrine of death.
Clearly enough, if they had known it, and had been capable of seeing it, these blind Sadducees were answered at every point when the apostles were brought out of prison and bore witness to their Lord. Here was the creed of the Sadducees: they said that “there was no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit”; but these apostles stood up and witnessed to the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. What did they make of that?
An angel had come from heaven and had brought these apostles out of prison. Then there were angels.
As these apostles were set free while the sentries remained standing before the doors, and those doors were afterwards found fastened, if there were no spirit, assuredly materialism had acted in a singular fashion.
Every item of their negative creed had been made to fall like Dagon before the ark. The Lord always arranges Red Seas for Pharaohs. All that the apostles had to do was to go on with their preaching, and this they did; for “daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.”