The Lord carried our brother
John through what's been a difficult week but I trust a difficult
week where the Lord Jesus has made himself known to our brother
and has come yet again to be a comforter and come as one who
reminds his people again and again that he is a great God
And in the great terms of the eternal covenant, he says, I
will be unto them a God, and they shall be unto me a people. One of my favorite verses in
the scripture is in Isaiah 40, verse 11, where it says that
he carries his little ones. If you're not a little one, I
pray the Lord might make you a little one. Very soon, he shall
feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with
his arm, carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that
are with young. I trust that's been your portion,
John, and I pray that the Lord will be a God of comfort and
peace in the times ahead. Your mum was dear to you and
to many others. We are thankful that you have
been carried in ways by Him which remind us that this salvation,
this awesome salvation, is a salvation of a great and sovereign and
awesome God. We read the story a little earlier
of Peter trapped in prison, trapped in prison and trapped in the
darkness of that prison. And with the sword, Herod's sword,
no doubt he was salivating over the opportunity to not only take
another one of the Lord's people out of this world, but salivating
over the opportunity to please the Jews, to please the Jews. They were all with great expectation,
expecting that that next morning Peter would be taken and put
to death. Herod's name means hero, one
who is heroic. It is the nature of all the fallen
men to actually think. They think that they walk in
this world and they think that they have light to see things,
but the Lord's people are made to see that this world and the
enticements of this world and the things that they see which
would bring them comfort in this world are but darkness and vanity. The first gospel sermon in the
New Testament era, the first time the gospel is publicly declared
is in Zechariah's praise when his mouth is opened at the birth
of John the Baptist. And he who had his mouth stopped
in unbelief had his mouth opened in belief, and in that remarkable
sermon of his to those people gathered there, the Lord had
spoken privately to Mary and to Joseph and to Elizabeth, and
had spoken privately to Zacharias. There is always the Word of God
comes, but this is a first public declaration. Luke and it speaks
of the Lord Jesus Christ and it speaks of John the Baptist
and he'll go before him and it says and our child shall be called
the prophet of the highest for thou shalt go before the face
of the Lord to prepare his ways to give knowledge of salvation
unto his people by the remission of their sins through the tender
mercy of our God, whereby the day spring on high hath visited
us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow
of death. And I love what it says next
of our Lord's work. To guide our feet into the way
of peace. To guide our feet into the way
of peace. To bring light into the darkness. So here we see Turning back to
our text in Acts chapter 12, here we see this remarkable situation
laid out before us. And in all of the work of the
Lord Jesus Christ, in the activities of his people, there is just
again, yet again and again, a picture of the great work of our Lord
Jesus Christ. He came into this dark world.
And he proclaimed the gospel and he was brought to a place
of darkness and a place of imprisonment. He did it as a victor, not a
victim. And the wild dogs gathered around
him and called for his death. And he died, he did die bearing
the sins of all of his people upon him, but he rose again victorious. God's people will be bowed down
and they will have times in these lives, this life here, where
they will be in darkness. Their conversion is a light shining
in the darkness, a light that shines to show us who the Lord
Jesus Christ is. It's a light that shines in the
darkness. Peter here, of course, is a picture not just of the
conversion of the saints of God, but is a picture of the restoration
of the saints of God when they are in a place as they are put
so often in our journey here, where all of the forces arrayed
against us are mightier than us. And there is no way of escape. There is no place. There is no
one. accept our great God to deliver
us. Has that been your journey, brothers
and sisters? Has that been your journey? I trust, if it hasn't, it will
be, and if it has, it will be something that you will journey
on through the rest of our days. Peter's release from prison is
just a reminder that the Lord works all things for the good
of his people, and this which was The rejoicing of the world,
and the rejoicing of Satan for a while, and the rejoicing of
the religious world over there silencing the Word of God, silencing
God's messenger. They there were rejoicing, weren't
they? Herod was puffed up. The Jews
were salivating. They were rejoicing in the victory
of silencing the gospel. They were rejoicing in their
religious righteousness which allowed them to stand in judgment
of God's messenger and God's people and God's salvation. And the church The church at
this time was a church in distress. They were praying earnestly,
without ceasing, they were praying earnestly unto God. It's a great description of the
prayer of the saints of God. Do you notice that the prayer
goes unto God? The prayer of the Christians
goes unto God. It reaches God. Peter is bound
with chains. Peter is bound with chains and
prayer goes unto God. Peter is about to be executed
as James was. And yet, in this great deliverance
that's laid out before us, we find all of those things reversed,
don't we? We see the great hero, the great
appeaser of men, the great joiner together with men in religion.
It's a picture of Satan using the religion of men to entrap
people, using the religion of men to actually silence the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Herod was judged, and he
was eaten with worms, and the Jews were frustrated. And yet
they remained, these Jews in Jerusalem, despite all of the
evidence laid out before them. They remained hardened against
the gospel. They remained blinded. And as the Lord Jesus Christ
said of them, he said, your city will be left, your house will
be left unto you desolate, desolate. Peter, is freed. The Church is rejoicing. Such is how it will be, brothers
and sisters, again and again in our times of need and our
times of desperation. The Lord will come in the midst
of the darkness and he will shine a light and that light will come. So I thought as we followed Peter
along, I want us to follow the instruction in verse 7, which
is to behold. That word behold means to look.
It also means to look out. It means to gaze upon. It means
to study this carefully. It's a word that's often used
in the scriptures because everything in the scriptures and every story
in the scriptures is a picture of our God and His salvation,
a picture of our God and His eternal infinite love for His
people, a picture of our God that in the salvation of His
people He brings judgment to this world. So we are to behold
these things, we are to look, but we're also to look out. to
watch this carefully. And Peter doesn't have any doubt
about who had done this. At the end of it, in verse 17,
he says how the Lord, the Lord had brought him out. So let's
follow the path of Peter. For you who have spent time in
darkness, There are lots of darknesses in this world. Some of us are
afflicted with darkness which comes upon us on a regular basis.
Sometimes and often we find ourselves that we cannot see light. And sometimes the darkness veils
the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes the darkness is such,
and it's often the case, isn't it? It's so much easier to see
what we are in our Adam flesh, in its weakness, in its enmity
against God, and in its constant, constant rebellion against Him.
So much easier to see that darkness than it is to see the light of
the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ shining upon us. But how are we set free? As I said earlier, I think this
is a picture of conversion, and it's a picture of that restoration
of God's people to that glorious liberty. And it's a glorious
liberty, as we saw as read earlier, it's a glorious liberty that
is expressed in the midst of the Church. A glorious liberty
to bear witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what God's liberty
is about. It's a glorious liberty to praise
Him for His deliverance. It's a glorious liberty to be
able to be with His people praising Him. The glorious liberty of
being set free to bear witness to Him and His glory and His
majesty yet again. So let's follow Peter on this
journey, how he must have felt that evening, but the remarkable
thing is that Peter was asleep. Peter was asleep. Peter was sleeping between two
soldiers. There is a sleeping that God's
people have, which is a sleeping of rest, isn't it? Once you have
prayed, we then are caused just to wait for our God. For us to
be continually distressed is to actually be living in something
of unfaithfulness. But it's remarkable the peace
that God gives his people in the midst of distressing circumstances. There's a story of one of the
martyrs in the days of Mary, Queen of England, and they were
waking him up to take him out to be burnt, trying to wake him
up. And it took the most extraordinary effort to wake him up because
he was so soundly asleep. There is a rest and a peace for
the children of God. There is, of course, a sleep
that people have in this world. before their conversion as well,
isn't it? There is a place where people
are asleep. They are asleep to the things
of God. They are deaf and dumb and blind
to them. But there needs to be, both in
our restoration and in our conversion, there needs to be a messenger
from God. So let's read about this messenger.
And behold, verse 7, the angel, the word angel means messenger,
a messenger from God. came upon
him, there will always be, there's always the need for a message
from God delivered by a messenger of God. And it comes personally
to God's people. A message comes by a particular
messenger at a particular time, but that message comes with all
of the power and the force of heaven. Salvation comes with
a message from heaven, a message sent from God, but a message
directed particularly to the heart of one of God's people.
A messenger came, and when a messenger comes, When a messenger comes
and comes directly to you, there is always a light that shined. Do you read it there? And a light
shined. It means radiated brilliancy. What a great description of the
gospel coming. What a great description of the
Lord Jesus Christ appearing as that shining one. That was like
the light that came to Paul on the Damascus road, is that light. that begins that Shekinah glory
which reflects the glory of God. It reveals God in His holiness,
in His purity. It reveals God in His presence.
It reveals God in His heart-searching eye. And it reveals to us, the
light of God reveals to us what we are. A light shines. I love the little thing that
Jenny sent me some years ago, and it sits on my desk. I look
at it on a regular basis. You might remember what it is,
Jenny. But it's Psalm 1828, and it says, for thou wilt light
my candle. The Lord God will enlighten my
darkness. The Lord God will illuminate
my darkness. That darkness of misery and sorrow,
the darkness of ignorance and death. The Lord God will illuminate
my darkness. It is a glorious picture of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that light that shines, that light that
shines from heaven. I love the first words of the
Lord Jesus Christ in the Bible. In the beginning God is the great
description of the gospel, isn't it? In the beginning God. But
the first words recorded of God are, let there be light. And in the original, I love it,
it says, light be and light was. Light be and light was. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
described in John's Gospel in chapter 1 verse 5 as that light
that shineth in the darkness. It shines and it shines and it
shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not comprehended
it. It hasn't overtaken it. The darkness
can't seize it. You know what the story is, don't
you? We all have our phones now and a little light. I have a
walk into the darkness of our house and I touch a little light
and all of a sudden out of this little tiny light on their phone,
the whole room is lit up, isn't it? That's the light, isn't it? That
light comes and it pervades the darkness and it overtakes the
darkness. And there's absolutely nothing the darkness can do to
stop it, ever. I've never had my little light
on my phone be harassed by the darkness of the room. It overtakes
it. It overtakes it. It seizes it. It possesses it. It takes it
eagerly. Our great God is a God of light. He says, I form the light. I form the light and I create
darkness. His words coming with power and
reality and revelation into the hearts of God's people It's called
in Psalm 119, 130, it says, the entrance of thy words giveth
light. There is always, there always
and there always will be an infinite and unbreakable link between
light and the words of God. These people that think they
have light and that light doesn't come from the gospel and the
preaching of the gospel are deluded. The light that you have is going
to be a light that comes from the Word of God illuminated in
your hearts. The entrance of thy words giveth
light. It giveth understanding to the
simple. the darkness. The darkness is
overcome by the light. Isaiah 42, 16 says, I will make
darkness light before them. The Lord's promise of his work
with his people, he says, the Lord shall be unto thee, unto
thee his church. The Lord shall be unto thee an
everlasting light. and everlasting light, and thy
God, thy glory." The people which sat in darkness saw a great light. And we read that passage from
Luke chapter 1 where Zechariah declared, he's going to give
light to them that sit in darkness. He'll give light to them that
sit in darkness. They won't earn it by their activities. And in the shadow of death, there'll
be light come to them. We are now light in the Lord
Jesus Christ. That light reveals all of salvation. All of salvation and all of sanctification,
all of the comfort of God's people in this world comes through the
entrance of light. Light that reveals the glory
of God. You know, brothers and sisters
in Christ, in your times of darkness, the problem is that we can't
see Him. He does hide Himself from us. He does hide Himself, as we saw
in Song of Solomon, He hides Himself that we might go searching
after Him. But what are we looking for?
We're looking for Him to be revealed again in light, that we might
see His heavenly purity, we might see Him as a God on the throne,
we might see Him as a righteous God, that we might just simply
see God. To see God. We need light to
see God. We need a light shined to see
God. We need to be woken up. We need
to be woken up. There is a darkness in this world,
isn't there? There's a darkness of unbelief.
There is the darkness of doubt. There is the terrible darkness
of self-righteousness and presumption. There is the darkness of legal
security. There is the darkness of needing
to please men. There's the darkness of wanting
to have the pleasures of this world. The darkness of wanting
the approval of men to have our flesh entertained and tickled
and pleased and applauded all the time. There is a darkness. There is an entrapment and a
captivity of believers, isn't there, as well? Believers are
entrapped at times. There is those chains in the
pictures of those two prisoners that held him with those chains. There's a picture of the chains
of sin and death and law and justice that hold the people
of God. When we can't see the Lord Jesus
Christ in the glory of His sacrificial work, in the glory of the wonder
of what He did on our behalf, we become entrapped. It feels
like darkness and it feels like we are bound so often in a way
that we can't get out. But a messenger comes. A messenger
comes, an angel comes, and a light shines, and there is, to wake
us up again, there is a smoting. He smote Peter on the side. The Lord comes. The Lord comes
to awaken us again, often with suddenness and with force, with
a chastening hand, with the awakening hand of the Lord. He says, our
great God, in Psalm 141 verse five, he says, let the righteous
smite me, and it shall be a kindness. Let the righteous smite me, and
it shall be a kindness. Let the righteous one, let me
be smitten by the Lord. Let him reprove me, and it shall
be excellent, or it shall not break my head. Let the righteous,
let the righteous one smite me. Wake me up. The people in Acts
chapter 2 who were saved by the Lord, they were cut to the heart.
There is a wounding, there is a wounding work of God as it's
revealed who we are in our rebellion against him. Who we are is only
ever seen, we only ever see who we are in light of who the Lord
Jesus Christ is. The self-righteous Jews that
were outside the prison salivating and preparing their sermons,
as Peter would lose his head the next morning, They had a darkness. They had
a darkness and they heard those sermons. They heard those messengers
and they saw the most remarkable witness that men could ever see. And here, 10 years later, after
the remarkable witness going on and on, and the Old Testament
being fulfilled before their eyes, the gathering in of the
Gentiles, the salvation of God's people, the exaltation of God's
Christ, the Old Testament fulfilled in the most remarkable ways in
their presence. And here they were, still dead,
unsmitten by God. It's one of the shocking verses
in the scriptures, isn't it? The Lord Jesus declares that
Satan keeps his goods in peace. Satan, that strong man, keeps
all of his goods and he keeps them in peace. The peace of self-righteousness,
the peace of power. Unless the Lord does a smiting
work, an awakening work, and an illuminating work, a painful
work, and a shocking work, and a revealing work, people will
be left in their religion and left in their delusion, and they
will meet God multitude, says the Lord Jesus Christ, they meet
God with a lie in their right hand, in the hand of their power,
the hand of authority, the hand of their security, and they'll
stand before God and say, didn't we? Look what we have done. Look what we have done. We've
done all these things. We've lived righteously before
you. We've lived righteously before
men. Look at our good deeds. There will be a light. that shines
upon them. The light will either shine here
and it will be a revealing light and it will be a smiting light
that reveals the Lord Jesus Christ and reveals you or there will
be a light that shines on that day when people leave here and
meet the Lord Jesus Christ. May it be now. May it be now
for you, my brothers and sisters, and as you have walked in darkness,
may it be now another reminder that our great God is not to
be trifled with. We call on Him. We cry out to
Him. When we have no light, we call
on Him who is the light to reveal Himself and to reveal us, to
reveal us in our self-righteousness and our pride, to reveal us in
our rebellion and our wickedness, but also to reveal Him in the
glory of His person, the wonder of His salvation. He heals the
backsliding ones, doesn't he? He loves them truly. So an angel comes, a light shines,
there is a smiting. Then he raised him up. He woke him from sleep. We had
no ability. Those people that speak of free
will, I don't know where you find it in your life or find
it in the scriptures. It's an absolute nonsense, isn't
it, to think that man has a free will. I love how the Lord causes
us again and again to see in the scriptures that it's not
of him who wills and not of him who run us, but it's of the Lord
who shows mercy. We have no ability to waken ourselves
up. We have no ability to raise ourselves
up. He will take those that are His,
and He will raise them up. Our job, the Lord will allow
us, is we take the lowest place and simply wait and look for
Him, and He will raise us up in His good time. And then, There
is a word from God's messenger, and I love the order of things,
isn't it? He raised him up, and then there
was a word from God's messenger which says, arise. And Peter
might have well said, well, I've already arisen. And such as it
is with the work of God in the lives of his people, he gives
life, and then he lets us know that we have, that we have life. He says, repent, and God's servants
and God's children, God's children have already repented. He says,
believe, and God's children are believing. With the command of
God comes the power from God. Always, with all of his commands,
the action precedes the word and the word confirms the work
in the hearts of his people. And what happens? The chains
fell off from his hands. With the command comes the ability. What's impossible with man is
possible with God. There is now a freedom, those
chains of bondage. as chains of bondage. Don't forget
that there was a religious crowd that was rejoicing in this bondage. Religion is the shocking bondage,
isn't it, that binds men in such ways that they are entrapped. They
fell off. They just fell off all by themselves.
That's the wonder of sovereign grace, brothers and sisters.
It's the great hope of the gospel, isn't it? That we know our friends
and people we love, we know them to be in bondage and we know
something of the chains that seem to entangle them and entrap
them, the chains that don't allow them to be participants in the
worship of God, the chains of the wickedness of their flesh,
the chains of unbelief. All of those chains, the wonder
is that God, in His sovereign mercy and in His glorious timing,
that time of love, as Ezekiel declares it to be, He comes to
His own and the chains fall off. And then the angel in verse 8
instructs him, gird thyself, put on the robes of deliverance,
bind thy sandals, bind the sandals on thy feet, ready yourself for
walking. How beautiful are the feet of
them that proclaim the gospel. Those sandals need to be ready
to go, need to be bound on for Peter to be ready to go and proclaim
the good news. And cast thy garment about thee. That garment, of course, is the
wedding garment, the garment of the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's that wedding garment that
all of God's children wear at that wedding feast of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That garment is the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The ancient of days, says Daniel
7 verse 9, has a garment as white as snow. There is the robe of
righteousness. We have that wonderful picture
of a returning, repenting child of God in the story of the prodigal
son, as it's called. And he comes back, doesn't he?
And when he comes back, the Father runs out to gather him. He'd
been in darkness, hadn't he? He'd been in the darkness of
unbelief and the darkness of rebellion, and he comes to himself. in that pig pen, eating those
scraps, and he comes back to his father with his little speech
prepared, and the father doesn't let him give his speech, and
he runs to him. It's the one picture in all of the scriptures
of God the father running, our God being in haste. Our God doesn't change, change
at all. He always welcomes. He's always there. And the father said to the servants,
bring forth the best robe, put it on him, put a ring on his
hand, that ring which reminds us of the eternal covenant of
grace, the eternal covenant of love, the eternal covenant in
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, that these sins and this rebellion
was dealt with long, long ago. You're welcomed back as a son. Put the best robe, bring forth
the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and
shoes on his feet. And one of the glorious pictures
of that parable of the lost son is that he's actually clothed,
doesn't have to do a thing himself. All he has to do is be brought
by the Lord back to himself, back to his understanding, back
to see who he is and back to see who his father is. gird thyself,
bind on thy sandals, and so he did. And he saith unto him, cast
thy garment about thee, and follow me." That great word of the Lord
Jesus Christ, when he finds his disciples, he just utters the
word, doesn't he? He just says, follow me, follow
me. And with his word, word of command,
comes the ability for us to follow him. He said that to Peter on
the shore of Galilee, didn't he? He said it to those. He said it to Levi. He said it
to the others. He comes to his own in the darkness
of unbelief, in the darkness of all that religion of the Jews,
and he just goes to his own as a great shepherd and says, follow
me. Follow me, what a word from God. What a word from our God
to the hearts of his people. Come back to me, follow me. Angels encamp around the saints
of God. Angels come with a message, don't
they? The messenger is, the message of the messenger is the follow
me of our God. the angels in camp around the
saints of God, and he gives his angels charge over thee to keep
thee in all thy ways. See, to follow is to be led. To follow is to be dependent
on another for direction. To follow is to be made submissive. The way out of here, Peter, is
not going to be by your works or your worth or your will. or
your activities at all, you're going to be led out of here.
If you're going to be led out of the captivity of unbelief,
you're going to be led out of the captivity of the despair
that so often we find ourselves in. A message comes. A light shines. A command is given. A direction
is taken. Follow me. And he went out. He went out and followed him,
verse 9, and wist not, he knew not that it was true which was
done by the angel, but he thought he saw a vision. So it is with
the work of the Lord in the lives of his people, isn't it? In conversion, there is just
this remarkable shining of light, and we're not sure whether it's
a dream. We're not sure what's going on. in the light that brings
restoration to us when we've fallen and slid into darkness. The Lord, as he says in Psalm
126 verse 1, when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion,
we will like them that dream. It is a supernatural act of God,
isn't it, in such a way that we can't chart out paths in particular
ways, but we just know that the Spirit comes and blows And we
hear the sound thereof, and we know not where it came from,
and we don't know where it goes, and so it is everyone that's
born of the Spirit. There is an illuminating work
of God, there is an awakening work of God, and a smiting work
of God, which is beyond the understanding of men. It is God's work. And we see it. We see it after
it's gone, and we understand it after we've woken up from
it. There were two guarded gates
that we see there in verse 10. They were guarded gates. There
were 16 of these soldiers of Herod. Herod was going to make
sure as much as he possibly could that he wasn't going to be embarrassed
with this notorious escapee called Peter. The angels had taken Peter
out of prison before. Herod was going to make sure
as best as he possibly could that the angels weren't going
to do it again. What nonsense. What nonsense of rebellious men
to stand against the work of God. He didn't know that which was
done to him. Satan keeps his goods in peace,
but the Lord comes with a sovereign hand, a sovereign omnipotent
hand. He has a description of this
in Isaiah 45. He says, thus says the Lord,
verse 1, to his anointed, to Cyrus, his right hand I've holden,
to subdue nations before him, I will loose the loins of kings,
to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not
be shut. I will go before thee and make
the crooked places straight. I will break in pieces the gates
of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron." It's a glorious
picture, isn't it, of the salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Men
are bound and taken captive by Satan. They are imprisoned, they're
in darkness, they're in chains. And God comes with deliverance.
It's like that glorious picture of Samson down there at Gath,
when they'd locked the gates. And what does Samson do? Great
picture of our Lord Jesus Christ in Samson. He picks up those
huge gates, and he picks up the posts, and he carries them away,
and he puts them on top of the mountain, and he lets the prisoners
free. The great, strong man, the Lord
Jesus Christ, comes to Satan's Satan's territory and the gates
of hell, the gates of hell are defensive gates, aren't they?
And the Lord Jesus Christ just breaks down those gates and I'll
have them. I'll have every single one of them, thank you very much.
I'll buy them with my blood and they are mine and they are redeemed
and you can't touch them. You can't bring the accusations
of the law against them any longer. They are free. They are my free
ones. All of these gates will be opened.
And they just passed them. There they were. They walked
through these locked gates and passed these guards. And then
they came unto the iron gate that leadeth into the city. Time
is going to prevent me from saying all that I'd like to say about
the Iron Gate, but there is a glorious picture in this Iron Gate, isn't
it? A glorious picture of this Iron Gate, which is a separation,
isn't it? The Iron Gate separates those
in prison from those outside who are worshipping God. The
church is on the outside and the Iron Gate is locked. There
is an Iron Gate that separates the lost from the saved, there
is that great gulf that is spoken of in Luke 16, the rich man is
there in hell and he looks up to Abraham and Abraham says there's
a great gulf, there's a great, great separation between us and
you and you cannot come here and gloriously we cannot go to
you. There is in the Lord Jesus Christ
a separation between the goats and the sheep, and there is a
separation between the children of Adam and the children of the
Lord Jesus Christ. There is the iron gate that separates
life and death. There is the iron gate that separates
freedom from captivity. We grieve over our religious
friends who are trapped in the idolatry of their religion. But
the only release, the only release is this release that we see here
in Peter's deliverance, isn't it? An iron gate must be opened. the iron gate between heaven
and hell as we saw, the iron gate between the church and Satan
and those he holds in captivity, the iron gate that separates
those in liberty from those in imprisonment, the iron gate that
separates those who are delighting in the Gospel and those who are
kept captive in legalism and the things of this world, the
iron gate that separates the Lord Jesus Christ and Satan,
the iron gate that separates His Church from man-made religion,
this iron gate. is opened before them. It's opened before them, if you
read it there. It's a great picture, isn't it?
I've often thought of these old jails that we had here, like
Pentridge, and they used to show prisoners coming out, and there
were these huge gates, and they seemed to be about six or seven
metres high and wide, and the ones that were on the sort of
prisons and on the The castles and the forts in India had all
these spikes on them. They were huge gates with spikes
on them. They had huge spikes on them,
so long so that the elephants barged at them, the elephants
would be injured. And those gates, those enormous gates just opened.
Those gates that Herod had shut. opened, just like that stone,
wasn't it? Those religious leaders went
to Pilate and said, we want a guard on this tomb. We want to lock
this tomb. We want to lock this Lord Jesus
Christ in this tomb. We want to lock this deceiver
in here. And Pilate said to them, you
go down and make it as secure as you like. You go down and
make it secure as you like. An angel of God comes along and
just rolls that stone away and all of the entrapments and all
of the schemes, all of the plans of Satan and religious men, all
of the schemes that are ever devised against the Gospel of
Grace are just opened, opened to God's people. opened by the
hand of God, opened by an invisible hand, opened by a sovereign hand,
the recipients of grace. are like those as in a dream. There is just a door opened. There are doors opened. That
door is opened in heaven and we see visions of God. There's
a door. There's one who opens the door
and no man can shut it. No man can shut it. There is
in the hands of that great Redeemer a shutting of doors and no man
can open them. This one opened by itself. It
doesn't open. The door doesn't open on account
of man's will, man's work, man's worth, man's religion or any
of that. It's just opened, opened by itself. The church is praying in agony. They have lost that dear brother
John, they have lost Stephen and now the next morning is the
appointed time for Peter's death. The church is praying. Now the
church becomes a place of deliverance and gospel good
news. They went out and they passed
on through one street, and forthwith the angel departed from him. The angel took Peter all the
way out. The chains fell off, the light
shined, and the voice came from heaven to follow. And he just
walked past all those guards on duty. He walked past. The angel brings him back into
the fellowship of God's people, and the angel departs from him.
Now that he's free, he's free again to be with the people of
God. He's free again to go and do
that great work that was appointed of him of the Lord Jesus Christ.
that great work of declaring his salvation, declaring that
release of the prisoners. The Lord Jesus Christ has taken
captivity captive. They belong to him now. He'll
set them free. He'll set them free at his appointed
time. And Peter, Verse 11, when Peter
was come to himself, what a great description. What a great description
of deliverance. What a great description of real
conversion. We've come to who we really are.
We've been restored again to who we really are. Who are we
really? We're not what Satan says, and
we're not what people think we are as bound. We are when we
come to ourselves. When God's people come to themselves,
we realize yet again the glories and the wonder of the redemption
in the Lord Jesus Christ. What we really are, brothers
and sisters, is what God declares us to be. What we really are
is what the Word of God, who creates this universe and sustains
this universe, is what He says. It's not what others say about
us. When we come to ourselves, we come to ourselves because
we see who we are in Him. We see who we are as we were
in Adam, and we see who we are in the Lord Jesus Christ. We
come to ourselves, we really come to ourselves when we're
made of God to look away from ourselves. I keep quoting Galatians
2.20 because people ask how you live the Christian life. Well
how you live the Christian life now is you just believe what
God says. You reckon yourselves, he says in Romans 6, you reckon
yourselves dead under sin, but alive under God. He doesn't say
reckon something that's not true, he's saying reckon what God says
about you. I've been crucified with Christ,
says our Lord Jesus Christ, says Paul. I'm crucified. I am crucified. I literally have been crucified. This body of flesh that you see
standing before you was put to death on Calvary Street 2,000
years ago. I, through the law, am dead to
the law. The law has no captivity over
me. The chains of the law can't bind
a child of God. Why? Because I've perfectly fulfilled
the law. I've fulfilled the law. My Saviour
and I did it together 2,000 years ago. I've fulfilled the law. I've fulfilled all of its righteous
requirements in Him, and I've fulfilled all of its righteous,
holy demands upon all of my sin. It got the punishment that it
needed, and it got the death that it required for all of my
sin. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless,
I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. The life which I now live in
the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace
of God, for if righteousness comes by the law, if righteousness
comes by anything I do, then Christ is dead in vain. I love, I love the Apostle Peter,
I love his bravery and his courage and I love the openness of his
falls. He can in one breath say, thou
art the Christ and the Lord Jesus can say, flesh and blood didn't
reveal that to you Peter. My father from heaven shone a
light on who I am and revealed that to you. And the very next
minute he can say to the Lord Jesus Christ, you don't need
to go to the cross. And he can speak, as the Lord
Jesus said, he can speak the words of Satan. He can stand
and be delivered and be extraordinarily courageous in front of a crowd
of people and then he can stand and move his plate in Antioch
before some Jews because he feared men. He is just a great picture,
brothers and sisters, of the ups and downs, the ups and downs,
the tossings and turnings, and the reality of this life, this
life we now live in the flesh. It is not one continuous march
upon the mountaintops of glory. It is a journey through valleys. through rivers, through fires. It's a journey that sometimes
takes us and takes us more often than we'd ever wish into periods
of darkness and despair and unbelief and just wondering, wondering
what God is doing. It is always, I only can speak
for myself, it's always much easier for me to see what I am
in Adam than it ever is for me to see what I am in the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's much easier for me to see
myself entangled in the things of this world than to see myself
set at liberty by the great and glorious God of this world. There is a verse that I love
because one of the things about the scriptures is it deals honestly
with our journey in this world. David wet his bed with tears.
He says, even though I walk in the shadow, the shadow of death,
There is a time of darkness and despair that comes to all of
the Lord's people. There's a description of us.
in Isaiah chapter 50 verse 10, and it says, who is among you
that feareth the Lord? That's a child of God. That obeyeth
the voice of his servant. That's a great description of
the child of God, isn't it? We hear the voice of the shepherd.
He's come with power into our lives and says, you are mine. And he's come and said, follow
me. that obeyeth the voice of his
servant that walketh in darkness and has no light. And the Word of God says to that
person who's in that state, the darkness there is a darkness
that's not as an absolute darkness of complete unbelief, it's a
darkness, there's no shining light. There is a light, a glimmering
light, but there is no shining light. It says, let him trust. in the name of the Lord and stay
upon his guard. Let him trust in the name, let
him trust in the character of his God and wait upon God to
deliver him. And there is a description of
the religious world in the next verse, which is horrifying. It's
so descriptive of this religious world that it bears very careful
thought. Behold all of you, there is just
the odd person that fears the Lord, who is among you that fears
the Lord. Behold all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves
about with sparks. There is, in man-made religion,
there is the sparks of all sorts of enthusiasm and activity, and
you surround yourself with all of that. the religious people,
just like these Jews surrounded themselves with their self-righteousness.
They can stand in judgment of Peter as they stood in judgment
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and they can declare him worthy of
death, and they can go home and preach sermons about him, about
their activities, how they've honoured God. As the Lord Jesus
said, they'll put you to death and think that they've been doing
God's service. You compass yourself about with
sparks. You walk in the light of your
fire. They light a fire of man-made religion and man-made righteousness
and man-made works. The sparks, you have killed them.
You light in that fire and the sparks are going up. This you
shall have at mine hand, says God. You shall lie down in sorrow. But the reality is that God is
honest with us about the fact that there are times in our lives
when we have light, but it's not a shining light. A day star
has risen, but it hasn't risen again in our hearts. And we have
the light to see. We have the light to see sin
and holiness. We have the light to see something
of our guilt and the judgment. We have something of the light
to see our iniquities which reach up to heaven. We have the light
to see the flaming sword of justice and the curse of God's law. We
have the light to see enough of the pollution of our own thoughts
and our words and our actions and to see that we are, as Job
declared himself, he said, behold, I am vile. I mean, have that
light, but not the light, that shining light to give us the
sweet views of the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour. We can have the light, enough
light to see our leprosy but not the cleansing of the leper
by the hand of a sovereign God. We have the light to see our
wounding but not to have as a Samaritan the oil and the wine and the
restoration and the comfort of God. We have times when we sit
in darkness and then we sit desolate. There are times when we mourn
and then we don't mount up on eagles' wings. There are times
when we sit in the ground and are languishing in darkness and
don't realise that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places.
There are times when we sigh, as Psalm 79, 11 says. We sigh
as a prisoner, and we don't know what it is to be let loose as
a hind from the stalls, to be given that freedom. We find ourselves
like the prodigal, lost and driven away and broken and sick, and
we don't see ourselves as sought out. brought back, bound up,
and strengthened in the arms of that great shepherd. We are
so often shut up, and you can't come out. And yet, in this picture
of Peter, we have a picture of the saint of God, entrapped by
all of those things, entrapped in the snares of this world.
and yet set free gloriously. Such is the work of God in the
lives of his people. Those that sit in darkness have
seen a great light. See, God's people often sit in
darkness, because God's people are not like those that are the
religious. The religious can always see,
and they can always be patted on the back, and they can always
pat them on the back about the things that they've done. But
the broken-hearted sinner can't see. They have enough light to
see that there's no good in me. They have enough light to see
what Peter said when he saw the Lord Jesus Christ, depart from
me for I am an evil man. And yet the Lord to those who
sit in darkness will come as a great light, a shining light,
an illuminating light. They'll see a great light. Our
God will come and the prison house will be illuminated and
the chains will fall off and all that were before us as barriers,
that mountain, that mountain will be made a plain before the
great Zerubbabel. The doors that are closed and
seem to be shut in our face and guarded are opened. by a sovereign
hand of our God and that great iron door of separation is opened
and we're brought into the liberty and the freedom yet again of
the Church of God. And we join with them in praise. What rejoicing, what rejoicing
happened in that little fellowship as they were despairing over
the death of their friend. What glorious rejoicing to see
Peter's face yet again. And to know that our Lord Jesus
Christ is perfectly faithful, perfectly faithful again and
again. He will deliver you, my brothers
and sisters in Christ. He will illuminate the darkness. The entrance of his words will
bring light. And when that light comes, that
light will shine upon him and shine away from ourselves and
all of our doings and all of our despairings. And that light
will shine on that great day when the Lord Jesus Christ comes
again in great glory. What light shines in heaven for
James and has been shining in heaven for James. Herod slew
him. And the Lord opened a door, that
iron door, into heaven. And James has been basking in
the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ for these 2,000 years. And it
will never, ever, ever be put out ever again. We have a great
God. He says, I am the light of the
world. May he yet again come and shine
a light upon himself. that we might see him in his
glory. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we thank you. We thank you again for your word
and we pray, Heavenly Father, that you would take it and bless
it to the hearts of your people. We thank you for the reality
and the truthfulness of these pictures of your deliverance
of your people, Heavenly Father, that once again point us to the
glorious victory upon Calvary's tree of our Lord Jesus Christ.
When He took as our great surety in His promise from all eternity,
He took all of His blood-born children to be one with Him.
We were crucified with Him, and this body of flesh is put to
death. We were buried with Him, and we've been raised up together
with Him. And remarkably and wonderfully,
He declares us that we right now, being made wholly spotless,
unblameable, unreprovable in His sight, now sit together with
Him in heavenly places. Oh, our Father, we thank you
that he has promised to overcome this world, that he has defeated
and bound Satan, and he's taken captivity captive. Heavenly Father,
may you, in our times of despair and darkness, when we seem as
if there is so little light, may you cause us to simply wait
and trust for you yet again to come and shine the light of your
gospel into our hearts that we might see our Lord Jesus Christ
in his glory. Bless your word to our eternal
souls, Heavenly Father, and bless the preaching of your gospel
throughout this world that raises up your dear and precious son.
Please take our brother Jerry home safely to the fellowship
in Orlando, and may our love and our fellowship in the Lord
Jesus Christ continue to knit us all together as we praise
him together. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.