In Acts 5, some of the Apostles are arrested and put in prison for preaching about Jesus. However, that night, an angel comes and opens the prison doors so they can return to their preaching. When the religious leaders hear what has happened, they bring the Apostles before their council and are threatening to put them to death if they keep preaching about Jesus. However, a wise council member named Gamaliel advises them to let the men go, saying:

“If this work be of men, it will come to nought: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.” (Acts 5:38-39)

It was the right advice, since it had already been demonstrated that even prisons could not contain the Apostles when God wanted them to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. When people try to fight against God, it’s always a losing battle.

Have you ever been in a position of trying to fight against God? Hopefully, you’ll never find yourself in the position of actually trying to prevent the work of God from moving forward. However, you might occasionally find yourself not supporting the will of God in your own life, thereby fighting against what God wants to accomplish with you. Some examples of this might be:

• God warns you to refrain from certain life choices that will hinder you from being used by Him, but you ignore the warnings and plunge ahead with what you want to do.
• God wants you to relocate to a new location to do His work, but you don’t want to move. Or, conversely, you want to move to a new location for your own personal reasons, even though God is making it clear that He wants you to remain where you are.
• God calls you to an ordained office (or any responsibility in the Church), but you refuse, either because you don’t want to be that involved in Church or because you prefer to do something different than what God is calling you to do.

What happens when we fight against the will of God in our lives? In general, it can go one of two ways:

The most common outcome of resisting the will of God is that God just lets us go our own way, perhaps suffering the consequences of wrong choices or, at the very least, not being used by Him in the way He had planned to use us. It doesn’t mean that the work of God doesn’t get accomplished — nobody can stop the work of God. It just means that somebody else will get the blessing of being used by God to accomplish His work.

However, there are occasions when, for whatever reason, God wants you specifically to do something for Him. When this happens, God may actually push you in the right direction in some way. Or He may create barriers to discourage you or even prevent you from making the wrong choice. For example, think of Jonah being told to go to Nineveh to preach repentance — Jonah boarded a ship going in the opposite direction, but God sent a storm to thwart the ship from proceeding, until Jonah was finally thrown overboard and swallowed by a large fish. Jonah finally got the message and then did what God wanted him to do.

The second example above is actually a great blessing that God would continue to encourage you to move in the right direction, rather than moving on to someone else. So, if you’re considering taking some life-altering action and you find barriers in your way, don’t just assume the barriers are coming from the enemy. Pray and ask God if it’s Him trying to prevent you from going in the wrong direction. If so, reconsider the entire situation until you’re certain you’re operating within the will of God in your life. You don’t want to be fighting against God.

After the body of Jesus has been placed in the tomb, the chief priests and Pharisees meet with Pontius Pilate to remind him that Jesus had stated publicly that He would rise from the dead after three days. Their fear is that the disciples of Jesus will remove His body from the tomb and claim that He rose from the dead. Pilate tells them to feel free to do whatever they need to do to prevent this. (See Matthew 27:62-65).

So, the Pharisees arrange for a large stone to be placed in front of the tomb, effectively sealing it. They also arrange for guards around the clock to make sure nobody tries to get into the tomb. Having done this, they are comfortable that they have finally won this skirmish, having first killed Jesus and now making sure that His body can’t leave the tomb.

However, on the morning of the third day, they’re going to find out what happens when you try to fight against God!