Sis Melinda Song
We often go to the movies to be wowed, for example, Mission
Impossible, but there are many stories with great
“wow” factor in the Bible. Today we are going to look at one such story that
will be a major block-buster if it is made into a movie.
Acts
12 It was about this
time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to
persecute them. 2 He had
James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.3 When he saw that this met with approval
among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the
Festival of Unleavened Bread. 4 After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be
guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out
for public trial after the Passover.
5 So Peter was kept in prison, but the
church was earnestly praying to God for him.
Acts 12 marks the turning point in the book of Acts. The first
eleven chapters highlight the ministry of Peter and the spread of the gospel to the Jews. However, with
the conversion of Cornelius in chapter 10, the way is prepared for
the ministry of Paul and the spreading of the gospel to the Gentiles, beginning
at the end of chapter 12 and all the way to the end of the book.
HEROD
Acts 12 records King
Herod’s persecution of the church in Jerusalem. This Herod
was Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great (who ruled Judea before Jesus’ birth
and massacred the infants at Bethlehem, Mt 2:1-16) and nephew of Herod
Antipas (who beheaded John the Baptist, Mt 14:1-12, and met with Jesus
before His crucifixion). The Romans had placed him as king over parts of
Judea and so he was also known as king of the Jews.
Herod saw the Christians as a
threat; Jesus as a direct competition to his “kingship.” So,
he killed James, one of the apostles, the son of Zebedee and the brother
of John. When he saw that this was received favorably by the
Jews, he had Peter arrested and imprisoned, intending to bring
Peter before the people after the Passover. [Killing Peter during the
Passover would have offended the Jews who kept the Law of Moses strictly]
As far as Herod the Great’s religion one scholar stated properly that “Herod curried favor with the Jews but was
staunchly allied to Rome and embraced Greco-Roman culture and religion”.
[Archeological Study Bible, notes on Herod the Great, p.1629].
He was a
man without principles vacillating between the Romans and the Jews, trying to
please both parties. He was more interested in saving his own skin and
pandering to his supporters than in doing what is right.
Herod takes every precaution to make sure that Peter does not
escape. There were 4 squads of 4 soldiers guarding
Peter around the clock. During each shift, 2 soldiers were inside the cell
actually chained to Peter and 2 were outside the cell.
Why is there a need for such
tight security? Because in Acts 5 we are told that all the apostles
were imprisoned in Jerusalem, but an angel came at night to open the doors and
let them out.
THE CHURCH IN PRAYER
Verse 5, “So Peter was kept in prison, BUT the
church was earnestly praying to God for him.”
While Herod intended to make sure that no earthly power would
intervene to save Peter, the church was petitioning for intervention from a
higher power. Our real enemies are not
human. They are evil spiritual forces at work all around us whose agenda
is to prevent the church from impacting the world!
“For our struggle is
not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities,
against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil
in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12)
Here and throughout Acts prayer is central to the life of the
church. Prayer is the only weapon the church has,
but it is more than enough.
Luke
presents prayer as "the natural atmosphere of God's people and the normal
context for divine activity" (Longenecker 1981:409; Acts 1:14, 24; 2:42;
6:4; 13:2).
If
extended, fervent, united prayer is not a church's first resort in a time of
crisis, the church reveals that it is ultimately depending on something or
someone other than God.
Note
that there is no mention of the church holding a prayer meeting when James was
taken captive. They probably did pray thinking that God will release him from
prison, as he had on a previous occasion (Acts 5).
When news came that the first of the
apostles had laid down his life as a martyr, it was a wake up call to the
church. So, when Peter is taken, there is great concern and the church began to
pray earnestly for him.
The word “earnest” pictures
someone stretching out all they can for something.
• "The
verb ektenos is related to ektenes, a medical term describing the
stretching of a muscle to its limits." (MacArthur)
• Luke uses this
same word ektenos for the agonizing prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke
22:44).
Application:
1. Much of our
prayer is powerless because it lacks earnestness. Are we stretched to the
limits? Do we sense the urgency? Do we really care about the things
we pray about? Or are we just going through the motions?
2. Earnest prayer
has power because it demonstrates that our heart cares passionately about
the things God cares about. We are not trying to persuade a reluctant
God. “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you
will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you” (John
15:7). Are our hearts breaking for the things that break God's
heart?
3. Earnest prayer shows
our dependence on a great and mighty God, the Living
God, Creator of the heavens and earth. He is faithful to hear us and
answer our prayers. When every other gate is shut and locked, the gate to
heaven is wide open. We must take advantage of that open gate through prayer!
PETER’S SUPERNATURAL DELIVERANCE (Verses 6-11)
6 The night before
Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound
with two chains, and
sentries stood guard at the entrance.
Peter was sleeping peacefully on the eve of his trial and
execution.
• He
has a deep trust in God's sovereignty (Ps 3:5; Lk 8:23); faith in his Savior
that whatever happens to him, his life is safe in Christ.
• Perhaps
he also remembers that Jesus said he would live to old age (John 21:18, “But
when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you
and carry you where you do not want to go.” ESV).
7 Suddenly an
angel of the Lord
appeared and a light shone in the cell.
Prayer can activate the angels of God to aid us
in seemingly impossible situations. The Hebrew writer taught that the angels
serve the believers in Heb 1:14: “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to
serve those who will inherit salvation?”
He struck Peter on the side and
woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.
8 Then the angel said to him, “Put on your
clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow
me,” the angel told him. 9 Peter
followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was
doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision.10 They passed the first and second guards
and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by
itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one
street, suddenly the angel left him.
Peter was directed
every step of the way. It was only as he was outside on the streets of Jerusalem that he
“came to himself” (v. 11).
11 Then Peter came to himself and said,
“Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued
me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping
would happen.
Peter’s reaction of “Now I know” is very interesting. It is almost
as if he hadn’t expected this miracle. It was an
“Aha” moment when he understood God’s plan and purpose for the
deliverance.
What did
the Jews hope would happen? That the church would be exterminated once its
leaders are disposed of.
Not every prayer is answered immediately and dramatically. Why did James die and Peter find deliverance?
• The
reason that Peter is rescued while James was executed may be found in the term
“rescued”.
• Jesus
speaking to Paul at the Damascus Road encounter, said “‘Now get up and stand on
your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a
witness of what you have seen and will see of me. 17 I will
rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending
you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to
light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive
forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in
me.’” (Acts 26:16-18)
• Acts
26:17 uses the word to describe God's protecting hand on his witnesses to
make sure they fulfill their responsibilities. As long as it is necessary that
a particular servant of the Lord be actively deployed in accomplishing Christ's
mission, he or she will be rescued.
• Any
rescue is a sign of the triumphant advance of God's mission and a mark that
nothing can thwart the accomplishment of his purposes. Peter's work is not done
yet.
• Martyrdom
is still a mark of God's sovereignty, not a sign of his weakness; his gracious
purposes, not his sadistic pleasure, may be traced in it. Matt. 10:28 Do not
be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
THE CHURCH ASTONISHED (Verses 12-17)
12 When this had
dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called
Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. 13 Peter knocked at the outer
entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. 14 When
she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without
opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!”
15 “You’re out of your mind,” they told her.
When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”
They did not believe Rhoda who informed them that their prayers had been answered.
They said that she was crazy and, thinking that Peter had been
martyred said that she had seen his angel. The
Jews think, as many people in the first century do, that guardian angels
exist, and are a kind of spirit counterpart resembling the person.
The disbelieving reaction to Peter’s release by a church who is
earnestly praying for God to save Peter is ironic. What does it show?
1. God
answered their prayer in such a remarkable way, and so suddenly, so clearly
supernaturally, that they could hardly believe it when it occurred.
2. Their prayer was
earnest, but they had little faith after seeing what had happened to
James. They had probably prayed for James and he lost his life, so
doubt as to exact answer might be understandable. But God still came through.
We need people of faith to be praying with us, but God can work without
100%.
There have been many times when I have prayed in the face of
hopeless circumstances and found that earnest prayer can bring results even in
the presence of doubt.
Mark
9:21-24 Jesus
asked the [demon possessed] boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”
“From childhood,” he answered.
22 “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do
anything, take pity on us and help us.”
23 “‘If you can?”
said Jesus. “Everything
is possible for one who believes.”
24 Immediately the
boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
The fact that they prayed was in itself a
demonstration of faith. A little faith can
accomplish great things if it is placed in the great God.
Matt.
17:20 … if you have
faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here
to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.
3. We are assuming that the church was
praying for his deliverance, but based upon their reaction to Rhoda’s news,
could it be that they were praying for something else? Perhaps it was prayer
similar to that in Acts 4:27-30, that he would be bold and have the Spirit,
that he would be strong even in the face of martyrdom. This might be why they
thought Rhoda had seen Peter’s “angel” (his resurrected body); they thought he
had already been martyred.
There is great wisdom in praying for
strength in trials more than to be delivered from them. If we ONLY pray to
be delivered from trials, then we will tend to think that only deliverance from
trial shows the Lord's care for us. God’s love is independent of our
circumstances, and His care for us is tailored to both our needs and His
purposes.
16 But Peter
kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were
astonished. 17 Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had
brought him out of prison. “Tell James and the other brothers and
sisters about this,” he said, and then he left for another place.
The James mentioned here is Jesus’ half-brother, [Mark 3:21; 6:3;
Matthew 13:55; John 7:5.] not the apostle who had
been executed.
Peter did not stick around to be arrested again. Charles Spurgeon
wrote: “prayer without taking
heed is only another name for presumption: prayer and
carelessness can never walk hand in hand together.”
The devil tempted Jesus (Matthew
4:7-10) by trying to get him to force God’s hand. We do not manipulate
situations in order to coerce God to fulfill his promises to us.
Peter
was not presumptuous expecting God to always watch his back while he lived
carelessly. He used wisdom and avoided unnecessary danger.
LESSONS FROM THE PASSAGE
1. We are to
be united in prayer. Jesus declared "... that if two [people] agree on earth
concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by [His] Father in
heaven" (Matthew 18:19).
The psalmist reminds us that it is good and
pleasant for brethren to dwell together in unity, for there God pours out the
precious oil of His Spirit and distills the dew of His blessing (Psalms 133).
Significantly enough, at the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost it is
recorded that "... they were all [of] one accord ..." (Acts 2:1).
2. We are to pray earnestly. Their
situation was extremely dangerous. They didn’t
know what would happen to Peter and, more importantly, what would happen
to the gospel witness in Jerusalem and beyond. So there was a passion, a desperation, an intensity, to the prayers of these people.
Today, Christians should meet adversity in the same manner. James summarized the power
of prayer in James 5:16, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”
Peter quoted Ps 34:12-16 in 1 Peter
3:12: “For
the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their
prayer.”
Isaiah
59:19 When the enemy
comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard
against him.
The Lord is our Jehovah Nissi (Exo. 17:15)
3. We are to pray expectantly because "with God all
things are possible "(Mt. 19:26). God answers prayers.
One of the mistakes we make as Christians is we worry, because we
focus on the problem and not on God when we pray. God always answers prayers,
but sometimes the answer is "no" or "wait". God may not
respond the way we want, but He does respond in a way that is best for
everyone. This is why Jesus uses "father" or "daddy" as a
model of our prayers. It is like looking to a loving, all-knowing father who
knows what is best in every situation.
Therefore, for the sake of our own stress levels, we all ought to
praise God in advance for answering our prayers.
4. God always delivers and His divine demonstration of power
often transcends the preconceived ideas of faithful prayer warriors! Dr.
Curtis Vaughan points out that “God often gives us more than we expect and
always more than we deserve.”
1
Cor. 2:9 However, as it
is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human
mind has conceived”— the things God has prepared for those who love him—
Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are
your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. 9 “As the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your
thoughts.
CONCLUSION
Notice the the difference a BUT makes.
BUT always indicates a change of direction.
• So
Peter was kept in prison, BUT the church was earnestly praying to God for him.
• Herod
. . . was eaten by worms and died. BUT the word of God continued
to spread and flourish.
>Jesus will build [his] church, and
the gates of Hades will not overcome it (Matt. 16:18).
> Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords.
He is seated “far above all rule and authority, power and
dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age
but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet”
(Eph. 1:21-22)
> "No weapon forged against you will
prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the
heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication from
me," declares the LORD (Isaiah 54:17)
>“We know that in all things God works for
the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28)
Are you feeling powerless? When we are
weak then is He strong. Come before the greatest power on in the
universe.
Have you
been praying and not seeing any results? Peter was saved on the eve of His
execution. God is never too late.
Maybe deliverance is not God’s plan for you. His
grace is sufficient to carry you through. 2 Cor. 12:9 "My grace is sufficient
for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Christ's power is
resting on you.
Is your faith running on empty? A
mustard seed faith is all that is required to invite God into your situation.
Many thanks to Sis Melinda for her sermon notes.
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