“Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God” (Acts 5:38-39).
The religious leaders in Jerusalem had a problem with the early Church. They had put Jesus to death and His disciples were proclaiming that He had risen from the dead. Not only that but Peter and John had healed a forty-year-old man in Jesus’ Name. The man was publicly known and had become living proof of the power of Jesus’ Name.
When the Sanhedrin met to decide what to do, Gamaliel, the most respected man in the Sanhedrin, spoke up with these words of wisdom: “For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”
Looking back over the history of the Church through the lens of this statement, it is clear that the disciples and those like them haven’t been stopped. We are continually seeing people healed, set free and delivered from sin through Jesus’ Name. Where His Name is declared there is still unstoppable power released.
The miracles we experience aren’t the product of human activity, they testify to the power of the risen Savior. As Paul said in his letter to the Philippians, “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Philippians 2:9-10).
