Judas the Galilean!
Acts 4:37
“After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered.”
Gamaliel continues to show that if Jesus was a phoney then the disciples would all scatter and so he quotes the story of Judas the Galilean.
This Judas was actually living at the time of Jesus. He came as a Messiah. The Jews believed that when the Messiah came then the Jewish people would overthrow the Gentiles and especially the Roman rule. Judas gathered a band of brothers to rise up in rebellion. They bought into a cause, the cause of Judas the Messiah, but when he was killed the story ended.
Jesus the Messiah came to earth during a time of a revival of Messiahs, there were many. There still are.
The Messiah-complex people:
They are always meddling into something, fighting, objecting, wanting justice for this and that, revolting, arguing, wanting to change the world to be the world they want it to be. They can gather like-minded people. They can draw support. But when they lose then the story is over.
Jesus the Messiah fought a different way. He saw a different type of wrong. His focus was not flesh and blood but the spiritual powers. When he was put to death he defeated those powers. When he rose again he publicly triumphed over them. When he ascended into heaven he announced the story never ends! That’s the Messiah we follow. He is the only Messiah the world needs.
Missions Paul 