Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

God has commanded us to “preach the gospel to every creature.” Of course, we are not going into
their houses uninvited; but how dare they mark off a certain territory, and let drunkards; harlots,
thieves, murderers and the devil into it, and then order God’s gospel herald out of it! We come to
wage war with the devil and sin, and nothing else. Why forbid us thus, protecting the devil and sin
in said territory, while they drag the people into hell by the wholesale? No doubt but these very
preachers and church officers who antagonized the apostles at Jerusalem are down in hell. Look out!
The Judgment Day is coming, when God will call the holiness evangelist to stand on the witness
block and testify that he went, responsive to Jehovah’s bidding, to that wicked town to preach the
gospel and warn those wicked people to flee from the wrath to come, and a certain clergyman ran
him away. Will not that man be guilty of the blood of those souls? Better for him that he had never
been born. Remember, there will be no dignitaries at the Judgment bar, but every tub will stand on
its own bottom.
THE PEOPLE TRUER THAN THE PREACHERS.
The preachers in charge of the orthodox Jewish Church at Jerusalem, availing themselves of the
acquiescent civil arm, imprison the apostles. God sends His angel to open the prison and let them
out. Having convened the Sanhedrin in the judgment hall on Mt. Zion and failed to find them in the
jail, upon notification that they are standing in the temple and teaching the people,
25, 26. “The captain of the temple guards along with officers, goes and brings them out by force,
because they feared the people, lest they may be stoned.” When the church is in the kingdom of God,
the leaders as a rule are better than the people, living nearer God, and thus leading the people on to
grander achievements in the divine life. Et, vice versa, when the church is fallen and preachers and
people out of the heavenly road and on a downward trend, as is true in case of apostasy, then the
preachers are worse than the people. During all the martyr ages the preachers led the bloody
persecutions. From Stephen, the first, when Saul of Tarsus, the top of the clergy, led the mob that
stoned him, to the anti-holiness rally of the present day, the preachers have opposed and persecuted
the holy people. Here doubtless they would have killed the apostles if they had not feared the people.
CONFLICT OF DIVINE AND HUMAN ROLE.
29. “Peter and John, responding, said, It behooveth us to obey God rather than man.” This is the
salient point. When there is a conflict between the authorities, human and divine, we must “obey
God rather than man.” If we do not, hell is our doom. God help us. That has been the battlefield in
all ages. Two hundred millions of martyrs have sealed their faith with their blood. They all died
rather than be untrue to God. The truest saints on the globe today are brought face to face with this
very issue: “Will you obey God or man?” When men want you to disobey God, you may know they
are not in harmony with God. If they were, there could be no conflict. I charge you, reader, as I shall
meet you at the judgment bar, dare to be like the apostles, “Obey God rather than men.” God’s will
is revealed by His Word, Spirit and providence to your intellect, spirit and conscience. Jesus says:
“He that willeth to do his will shall know the doctrine.” If you are really fully consecrated to God,
He will see that you have all needed light. When they were burnt, the priest, i.e., their own pastor,
went out to the burning with Bible in hand, exhorting the martyr to give up heresy and live. The
ignorant, illiterate saint, with radiant face and eloquent lips, nobly resisted and shouted in the flame.