Acts 12:1-24
Amen, you can be seated. Turn
in your copy of God’s word to the book of Acts chapter 12. Our reading will be Acts chapter
12, verses one through 25. I think your bulletin may say
something different, yeah, through 19, but I decided to bite off
a little bit more than I’d originally planned. And I think you’ll see
that it makes sense to do that. Before we read God’s word together,
let’s look to him in prayer for help and blessing. Pray with
me. Blessed Lord, you have caused
holy scripture to be written for our learning. We pray that
we may hear and learn and read and inwardly digest all these
truths so that through the comfort of your holy word, we may embrace
and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which
you have given us. in our Savior, Jesus Christ,
our Lord. Amen. Hear the word of the living
God. This is the 12th chapter of the
book of Acts. About that time, Herod the king
laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed
James, the brother of John, with the sword. And when he saw that
it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was
during the days of unleavened bread. And when he had seized
him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers
to guard him, intending, after the Passover, to bring him out
to the people. So Peter was kept in prison,
but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. Now
when Herod was about to bring him out on that very night, Peter
was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains and sentries
before the door regarding the prison. Behold, an angel of the
Lord stood next to him and a light shone in the cell. He struck
Peter on the side and woke him saying, get up quickly. And the
chains fell off his hands. And the angel said to him, dress
yourself and put on your sandals. And he did so. And he said to
him, wrap your cloak around you and follow me. And he went out
and followed him. He did not know what was being
done by the angel, that what was being done by the angel was
real, but thought he was seeing a vision. When they had passed
the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading
into the city. It opened for them of its own
accord and they went out and went along one street and immediately
the angel left him. When Peter came to himself, he
said, now I am sure. that the Lord has sent his angel
and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the
Jewish people were expecting. When he realized this, he went
to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was
Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. And
when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named
Rhoda came to answer. Recognizing Peter’s voice, in
her joy, she did not open the gate, but ran in and reported
that Peter was standing at the gate. They said to her, you are
out of your mind. But she kept insisting that it
was so, and they kept saying, it is his angel. But Peter continued
knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed.
But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described
to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he
said, tell these things to James and to the brothers. Then he
departed and went to another place. Now when day came, there
was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become
of Peter. After Herod searched for him
and did not find him, he examined the centuries and ordered that
they should be put to death. Then he went down from Judah
to Caesarea and spent time there. Now Herod was angry with the
people of Tyre and Sidon. And they came to him with one
accord, having persuaded Blastus, the king’s chamberlain. And they
asked for peace because their country depended on the king’s
country for food. And on an appointed day, Herod
put on his royal robes. He took his seat upon the throne
and delivered an oration to them. And the people were shouting
the voice of a God and not of a man. Immediately an angel of
the Lord struck him down because he did not give God the glory.
And he was eaten by worms and breathed his last. But the word
of God increased and multiplied and Barnabas and Saul returned
from Antioch. from Jerusalem when they had
completed their service, bringing with them John, whose name was
Mark. Amen. The word of the living
God. A couple of years back, a couple of years back, is everything
okay? Okay, good. I saw a commotion
back there. All right. A couple of years back, we all
prayed for Andrew Brunson. Andrew Brunson was a minister
at first in our associate reform Presbyterian denomination, and
then he joined the evangelical Presbyterian church. But he was
a missionary for 20 some years to Turkey. And things changed
politically in Turkey and he was imprisoned for the sake of
the gospel. And so for two years, he sat
in prison, struggling mightily. mightily with his own faith,
with his own questions of why God, what are you up to? Why
must I be so miserable and unuseful in this cell? But for two years
also, the church prayed. For two years, the church prayed,
asking that God might deliver him or that God would work out
all these things, all these problems for Pastor Brunson’s good and
God’s own glory. And for two years, as he sat
in prison, for two years, as the people of God prayed, for
two years, God was doing exactly what he planned to do from eternity
past. He was working out his holy ends.
He was working out things for his own glory and for the good
of his people, including Pastor Brunson, but also the church
of the living God. You know, sometimes in hardships
like this, whether you’re the one in jail or the one praying,
All we see are the obstacles. All we see are the chains or
the prison cell doors. All we see are the wicked rulers
or those who are oppressing and making life hard for us. It is our view often in the nitty
gritty things that we become Maybe sad. We become downcast. We say, God can’t be in charge. He is surely not at work. But I want us to understand from
this passage, God has his own view of things. God sees from
the heavens. We might call this the satellite
view. He sees from the heavens. He looks down and he sees all
things that are taking place at all times. And he knows exactly
what is going to be. And he knows his glorious outcome
from his eternal decrees. And it’s helpful for us sometimes
to come to a passage where we see what God sees. That’s actually
Luke’s intent here. Luke’s intent here is to show
us from the perspective of Almighty God that he is in charge. He sees, he knows, he’s gonna
work out all his holy ends to make what’s going on in the life
of John, what’s going on in the life of Peter, what’s going on
in the life of the early church. for his glory are good. Herod
is no match for God. Powers and chains and soldiers
are no match for God. These are just short scenes,
short snippets in the grand drama of redemption. I want us to zip
through this passage, looking at some of the characters and
their actions, particularly landing on the character and the actions
of almighty God. First, there’s Herod. Herod has
polling problems. We know what those are today.
That’s all we hear about on the news. The president’s at this success
rate or people like him or hate him this much, that kind of thing.
Herod has those kind of problems. He’s not popular. Herod has polling
problems. He’s really not in charge is
the big issue. God is in charge. But Herod is
a governor for the Roman empire. And as a governor for the Roman
empire, he’s an outsider coming in to rule for Rome many miles
away. And so Herod has polling problems. The Jewish people don’t like
him because it’s their Jewish state, right? The Romans want
him to have complete authority and for everything to go exactly
as they wish. And then there’s the early church
is prospering. People are coming to faith in
Jesus Christ. Now, I’ve got to give you a little timestamp here.
We have just fast forwarded in the book of Acts about 10 years. Jesus’ death and his resurrection
and his ascension, his upper room discourse with the disciples.
His putting them to work in the world has been 10 years in the
past. And so this is 10 years later,
and these same circumstances are still in the life in the church of
Jerusalem. Roman authority, Jewish hatred of the early church Christians,
and then the Christians flourishing because God is blessing them. And so Herod has polling problems,
and what would be a great way to get the Jewish people to love
him? Well, it’s to kill a Christian. How’d that work with Jesus? Made
the other Herod, which would have been his uncle or grandfather,
really popular. And so in our passage today,
Herod, the maniacal, narcissistic king that he is, or governor
that he is, he has taken off the head of the apostle. And he’s done it
publicly. And it has brought the cheers
and the roars and the polling numbers of Herod have risen and
ticked up, up, up, up, up. All of a sudden, he who was not
popular is now very popular. And so this has helped. Now,
I want to remind you of the request of James, who’s just died. Uh,
and his mother’s request for James and his brother, John,
John will die on the Isle of Patmos. He will write the gospel
of John for second and third, John. And he’ll write, uh, down
the revelation, which he receives as a prisoner on the Isle of
Patmos. So James or John is going to live a really long time, but
this is, this is James’s brother. And you remember what his mother
came to Jesus and said, uh, when my boys and they’re good boys,
when they get to heaven, uh, one of them needs to be on your
right. and one needs to be on your left. And remember the rest
of the disciples, they were upset. This is not good. They shouldn’t
have asked that. Um, and Jesus says, well, that’s all well and
good, uh, that you want this, but it’s not for me. It’s for
God to give those seats. And then he says, can you drink
the cup that I’m about to drink? Will you die a death that I will
die? And they both said, yes. Uh,
John will die a natural death as an old man, but James, here
it is 10 years into the early church. He, has his head removed
publicly and is a spectacle in front of the people in Jerusalem. Herod is a maniac. He’s the third
Herod we bump into. Remember one of the Herods killed
all the babies in Jerusalem because he wanted to kind of get Jesus.
And so if you kill all the babies, just maybe, just maybe you’ll
kill Jesus. So that’s one of the Herods. The other Herod killed
John the Baptist, took off his head. The same Herod also put
Jesus on the cross. And so what does Herod have in
mind? Well, after Passover’s over, which is a week away, he’s
gonna spend about a week in prison, Herod is gonna bring him up out
of prison, and boy, his poll numbers are gonna go up when
he publicly takes off the head of Peter. And so Peter is in
prison, and the persecution on the church continues. So that’s
a little about Herod. Let’s think about John and Peter
for a moment. Well, John is, John is dead. He’s given up his life. Sometimes
the command of Jesus, follow me, whatever it costs. Sometimes it costs us everything. And we see only really what we
see when we see John’s death. Well, there’s the end of the
life of an early church apostle. There’s the end of the life of
a disciple of Jesus. There’s another death soon to
follow. Is the gospel going to come to
an end? Is the church going to stop being built, we might say,
in our minds and hearts? And we can put in our own obstacles
in the 21st century. You know, is church going to
end if we don’t do this? Is church going to stop if we don’t do
that? Friends, God will always have a people on earth. He will
always have a people on earth. You remember when Elijah fought
against the Bales and he said, there is nobody else on the face
of the earth that loves God like I do and hates idolatry like
me. And God says, Oh no, there’s,
there’s a few hundred and that’s a plenty. Sometimes we think
we’re all alone, that Satan is having his way in the church.
And that may be the case as you read this story of John and Peter,
but I’m going to tell you, Peter has some perspective. How do
we know? Well, we interpret scripture with scripture and we can read
first Peter and second Peter. And what does 1st and 2nd Peter
tell the early church? Life following Jesus is hard. Life following Jesus brings persecution. Life following Jesus brings persecution
and sometimes death. Peter knew this firsthand. Now,
how does Peter live so confidently? You might even ask, how is he
asleep? This is probably a week into
this and the angel has to strike him to wake him up. How is this
man asleep, chained between soldiers and under such heavy guard, knowing
that he is going to be made a public spectacle of when the day comes,
when Passover is ended and Herod gets his way? Well, I think there’s
some confidence that we need to remember about Peter. Jesus tells Peter, You’re going
to die an old man on a cross. And legend has it, church history
has it, that Peter died as an old man on a cross and he would
not be nailed to a cross like Christ. He asked that he be nailed
upside down. And so he knows that his death
in this case is not likely because he’s not yet an old man. But
he also remembers the promises of God. He remembers the Psalms.
The Lord hears the cries of the righteous. The Lord delivers
us out of the hands of our enemies. He knows his Psalms. He knows
his Bible. He knows how over and over and
over God has delivered his people from their enemies. And he’s
willing to die for Jesus. He’s willing to go to a cross.
And that’s a good question for us. Have we got our perspective? What does it take to follow Jesus?
What if it cost us something? What if it cost us everything?
What if it cost us our lives? Should persecution come? And
it probably will. Are we willing to give it all
up to follow Jesus and to build his church in the world, even
if evil makes a public spectacle of us? Well, there’s a word about
Herod. There’s a little word there about
John and Peter. Let’s think for a moment about
the church. Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher of the 1800s
in London, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, could fill the tabernacle in
London with thousands of people every week. And somebody asked
him what was the secret to his success. And he took this person
who asked down the stairs and into the basement and opened
up a room. And there in the bottom of the metropolitan tabernacle
there in London, there was a room full of people praying. And he
said, that’s the secret to the success of the preaching ministry
of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. It’s not my skills, my ability,
my knowledge. It’s the blessing of God brought
down from heaven through the prayers of these people. I remember growing up in a church
where on Wednesday night we had group prayer. Every Wednesday
night, as best I can remember, about 70 people showed up. Wednesday
night’s busy. A lot of times they hadn’t had
supper. They came in from work, but we sat down as a church and
we prayed and we would get in circles and we had these cookie
tins with all the missionaries in them and we pass those out
and we prayed for each other. We prayed for. the kingdom and
we prayed for missionaries. And at the end we prayed for
the sick. Uh, excuse me, I need to keep
on, um, doing what I’m doing here. Uh, but maybe somebody
could help. No, not, not, not at this time. Um, and so the church praise,
uh, the church gets together and
praise. We do that in our Sunday evening
service. We have a time where we open
it up for prayer. We adore God, we confess our
sins, we give him thanksgiving for all his mercies, and then
we go before him and we ask for petitions. And that’s exactly
what the church does when there is an issue, when there is a
need. We go before God and like Jacob,
in the Old Testament, we say, we won’t let you go. God, until
you bless us, we won’t let you go until Peter is freed from
prison, is delivered from from prison. We think of Aaron and
her who held up Moses arms when they were fighting against the
Amalekites and the early chapters of the book of Exodus. We think
of how as long as Moses held up the staff of God, the Amalekites
were beat in battle. But when Aaron, or when Moses’
hands fell down in weariness, the battle went to the enemy.
And so they put Moses on a rock and seated him and Aaron and
Hur stood on either side and they held up Moses’ hands and
they said, we will pray with you until the Amalekites are
defeated. And so there is an intense week
in our passage of prayer for Peter. When’s the last time we
prayed really hard for something? When is the last time? Maybe
it was when our brother Andrew was in prison. Maybe the last
time we prayed was for those two years. And then we were like,
oh, boy, relief. I guess we’ll get to pray. And
again, when another person gets in prison. Or we’ll get to praying
when another person gets in this hardship. Friends, we should
always be praying. Pray without ceasing. The church has laid down her
greatest weapon, which is prayer. That’s why I think the church
in America is weak. No more prayer meetings. Certainly
no basement prayer meetings under a tabernacle to fill it full.
How does a preacher fill a church full these days? It’s not by
prayer, it’s by skill and personality and by his psychological training
and to get people in the door and to buy into whatever they’re
doing. Not through prayer, not through
the word, not through the spirit, but through innovation. What
a sad day. when the church has laid down
her duty, her greatest duty, her greatest weapon, prayer.
Let’s think about the angel for a moment. There’s Herod, there’s
John and Peter, there’s the church. How about the angel? It’s good
to see there’s two vigils over Peter. There’s the soldiers,
a couple squadron of soldiers. He’s not getting away. If you
think back to Acts chapter four, if you think back to Acts chapter
four, Peter got away one time. Herod’s like, not this time.
He locks him up and throws away the key, we might say. There’s
two vigils over Peter, not just the Roman soldiers, but the church. The church is praying and their
prayers dispatch angels. God dispatches his angel who
goes deep into the prison. He stands by Peter who’s locked
up, who’s chained up. He stands beside Peter. He strikes
him and wakes him up. He wakes him up and he commands
him to get dressed, to put on your sandals, to wrap up your
tunic and to follow me. Peter, as he’s following him
through the prison, past the guard says, this has got to be a dream.
This has got to be a vision. He’s pinching himself. He’s not
had his cup of coffee yet. And as he makes it out to the
street after the gate has opened, did you catch that? The gate
opened on its own accord. The chains fell off by the hand
of almighty God. He says, now I know that the
Lord has delivered me from Herod and from all that the Jews expected
to take place. Boy, what a mighty God with mighty
angels. So lastly, we have to think about
God. We think about God and his perfections, his character, his
actions, his promises. We think about all these things.
We sing about them from time to time. But in this case, you
see God’s timing in a rather unique way. It’s Passover. What
do they observe at Passover? Nothing other than giving praise
to God for his deliverance of people out of the hands of enemies.
What an appropriate time as Passover ends. And Herod is about to make
a spectacle of Peter. God says, not today, Herod. And
on the exact time of Israel escaping from Egypt, Peter escapes from
prison. Isn’t God amazing? Isn’t he wonderful?
If the exact time Jesus was going to become the lamb of God slain
for sinners, he took Passover and turned it into the Lord’s
supper. And so God has a wonderful sense
of timing. He hears our prayers. He answers
them. He’s done it for Joseph in the
Old Testament, who was in prison under the Pharaoh. He does it for Paul, who will
be in prison several times. Our passage then goes on to speak
of God’s authority over Herod. It’s not a small commotion. They
figure out in the jail, the prisoner’s gone. How did he get away? Who’s
responsible? There were eight soldiers, 10 soldiers, doorkeepers,
gatekeepers, padlocks. The welding was good. How did
this happen? And so there’s a commotion. There
are no doubts of public executions. And then Herod, because he’s
not going to get his way and have his little execution party,
he storms off to Caesarea. Now, if you’re in Jerusalem,
Caesarea is over by the sea. So it goes back to the beach
house, you might say. That’s actually where his normal seat
of authority would have been. But he goes over there and if
he can’t get some glory in Jerusalem, he’s going to get it at Caesarea.
And so he calls together the people of Tyre and Sidon who
had been getting food from Galilee and somebody’s trying to work
out a deal with him. It’s Chamberlain, the guy that’s in charge of his
personal space. They worked out some deal. And so, um, He puts
on his royal robes, and they say, if you read history, that
these robes were wonderful, beautiful, full of jewels and sparkly silver
things, so that when he got out on the sunshine and gave his
oration, he glittered like a god. And it says the people chanted,
they chanted over his speech as if he were a god and not a
man. And Josephus, the church historian, says, and he didn’t
tell them otherwise. You ever in a room where somebody
has had nice things said about them, and they say, well, yes,
that’s all very true, right? That person is not very humble.
And that’s Herod here. And so he is gloating. He’s glorying in all that he
has accomplished or thinks he’s accomplished in the world. Now,
I want you to catch the irony again. I told you about God’s
timing with Passover and Peter’s release. How long was Peter in
jail? I told you a few minutes ago
he was in jail about a week. Well, what does God do to Herod? gives them a disease of the bowels.
And if you read this passage, it seems to say God struck him
and killed him all at once. No, he had worms in his body. History tells us for about a
week. That’s gross. It’s before lunch. I know, but
this is how God works. For as long as Peter was in prison,
Herod was in the bed with worms coming out of his body, literally
eating him alive. Don’t mess with God. That’s why
prayer is important. That’s why our faith in him is
important. That’s why vengeance is his and not ours. We let God do his work. He builds his church. If we build
it, it’s in vain. But if God builds it, it will
not be in vain and he will accomplish all his holy ends. Let us pray together. Almighty
God, we pray that you would graciously Grant that your word which we
have heard may be inscribed inwardly on our hearts. We ask that as
we receive your word meekly and with pure affection that our
hearts would be filled with love and reverence for you. We pray
that you would cause each of us to bear the fruit of the spirit
to live in holiness. That we would live diligently
following your commandments and we pray that if it would please
you that you would Now lead those who are lost and wandering and
confused into the way of truth. This we ask and pray so that
Jesus may get all the honor. We pray it in the name of Jesus
our Lord. Amen.