If you turn in your Bibles, as
you're turning in your Bibles to Acts chapter 12, we actually
have this remarkable chapter of scripture which I've been
contemplating for some time, and as I contemplate it and think
that I can deal with it in one message, I find that I'm going
to have to deal with it in several. But Peter writes, and I'm sure
he's writing in reference to something of the circumstances
that he was in, in Acts chapter 12, in prison, imprisoned by
the murderous Herod. He says in 2 Peter 2 verse 9,
he said, the Lord knoweth, the Lord knows and he continues to
know how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve
the unjust unto the day of judgment. to be punished. And he gives
examples in that chapter, if you care to read it, examples
of Sodom and Gomorrah. He reserved that town, and he
reserved and preserved Lot and his two daughters in that town,
that he might in his time save them and bring judgment upon
that town, as he did with Noah. Noah was a preacher of righteousness
for all of that time. as he built the Ark, bearing
testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ, who was represented by that Ark. And then the time came, and God
preserved the godly, preserved those who are one with the Lord
Jesus Christ. and brought destruction upon
the others. The scriptures continually remind
us that our God is absolutely sovereign in all matters of salvation,
in the lives of all of his people, and he's absolutely sovereign
and just and right in all of his judgments. His judgments
are going to reveal his justice and his truth. And here in this
chapter we have the judgment of Herod being meted out on him. It's the first persecution of
the church. by a state authority in the scriptures. And we know from history that
even though the Roman Empire protected the early church, that
there was a time when there was just intense persecution for
hundreds of years. Every generation of Christians
suffered at the hands of the governing authorities. But Herod
laid the foundation for that in this chapter of scripture. I was going to read a goodly
part of it, but we might just concentrate our minds on the
bits that relate to Herod. And then, Lord willing, next
week I want to look at the glorious deliverance of Peter, because
in this chapter we have the story of two kings, don't we? We have
King Herod. Now about that time, verse 1,
we have Herod the king, and then we have another king. God has
made his children to be kings and priests in this world. The other king was Peter, and
he was chained in a prison. And yet, and yet the Lord had
purposed to deliver him out of the hands of Herod. There are people who are kings
in their own minds. Herod, of course, was a puppet
king. He was a king on the basis of
him and his family. He's the grandson of the Herod
the Great. The Herod the Great who slew
the infants in Bethlehem. The Herod the Great who spent
all those years building that magnificent temple for the Jews.
So these were religious people, they were Edomites. They were
foreigners but they were Jewish proselytes and they only had
rulership in Israel over that part of the world in Judea. They
had rulership on account of them being effectively puppets of
Rome. They only had jurisdiction while Rome gave them favour.
There was another Herod that we read of, the Herod who put
John the Baptist to death was Herod Antipas. And this Herod
here is the Herod that killed James. Now at that time, Herod
the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church,
and he killed James, the brother of the Lord, with the sword. And because he saw it pleased
the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. Then were
the days of unleavened bread. And when he had apprehended him,
he put him in prison and delivered him to four Quartonians. That's
four groups of four. So there are 16 soldiers in charge.
There are the ones that are chained to him, and then there are the
ones that guard, and they work in shifts. He delivered him to these soldiers
to keep him in tending after Easter, after Passover, to bring
him forth to the people. Peter therefore was kept in prison,
but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. And when Herod would have brought
him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers,
bound with two chains, and the keepers before the door kept
the prison. And the rest of that story that
we'll look at more closely next week is that the angel of the
Lord came and a light shone in the darkness of that prison.
It shone to Peter and not to the soldiers. And Peter was released
and he was taken out of that prison house. And he was taken
to the church, and there was great rejoicing. And Peter, to
protect the church from further persecution, it would appear,
left Jerusalem for some time. And Pilate, I mean, Herod, Herod,
who went looking for him, if we go down, We go down to verse 18, and now,
as soon as it was day, there was no small stir among the soldiers
what was become of Peter. Peter was gone, and the soldiers
had no knowledge of it whatsoever. And when Herod, verse 19, and
when Herod had sought for him and found him not, he examined
the keepers and commanded that they should be put to death. and he went down from Judea to
Caesarea and there abode. And this is what happened to
Herod in Caesarea, verse 20. And Herod was highly displeased
with them of Tyre and Sidon, but they came with one accord
to him, having made Blastus the king's chamberlain their friend,
desired peace because their country was nourished by the king's country. And upon a set day, Herod, arranged
in royal apparel, sat upon his throne and made oration unto
them. He was sat in this, he had this
robe that was shiny, it had silver thread through it and it gleamed
in the sun and looked magnificent. There he is, a king upon his
throne. Herod the king, the chapter begins. Here's Herod the king. Sat upon
his throne and made oration unto them. And the people gave a shout
saying, it is the voice of God and not of a man. And immediately
the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory. And he was eaten of worms, and
gave up the ghost." It's a shocking picture, isn't
it? It's a shocking picture of what Herod represents. The man came, he was put on a
throne in his rebellion against God in the garden. Herod represents
so many things here. He represents the world in league
with the religious. He represents Satan. He represents, in so many ways,
the world's opposition to the church, because the world says,
I'm a king. That was one of the baubles that
Satan dangled before Eve in the garden, isn't it? You shall be
as gods. You shall be as gods. And here,
in that crowd, in Caesarea. They echoed those words, didn't
they? The people gave a shout, verse
22, saying, it is the voice of a God. You'll be like God. You'll be
a king on your throne. You will do what you want to
do. You will have Satan's reward. You'll have the knowledge of
good and evil. I was talking to a man in the
library the other day. I couldn't believe it. I was talking about
the fall because he doesn't believe in the fall. He doesn't believe.
He goes to church and claims to be an agnostic. So he goes
to church because of his wife. He's been going to church because
of other people for probably 40 or 50, maybe longer. And I
quoted to him some things about the fall of man in the garden
and the depth of that fall. And he latched onto the, and
he knew it well, but he latched onto the idea that in the garden
we were given the knowledge of good and evil. And therefore
he assumed that having the knowledge of good and evil meant that we
had the discernment to be able to choose between good and evil. Such is the blindness and the
captivity of Satan. You will not die, said Satan. You will not die. You will not
die. You will not meet the judgment
of God. Did God really say? Did God really say, was his first
words to Eve, did God really say, is this book, is this book
something that we can hold up and examine as a bit of philosophical
philosophical, something that philosophically gives glory to
the pride of man because we can actually examine it for ourselves
and we can decide whether it's this way or that way. We can
actually hold up, we can sit in a throne above God and his
word and determine for ourselves, did God really say the other
The evil thing that Satan tempted Eve with in the garden was that
he tempted Eve to believe that God was withholding some good. God was withholding some good.
If you can take these things, if you take that fruit, if you
take that fruit, there will be something better
for you than simply resting in what God had provided for you. As I spoke of those things, I
trust that you saw that those wicked things coursed through
all of the world, people, all of us in our Adam flesh, all
of the time. Our great God, sent a deliverer. The Lord Jesus was revealed to
defeat the works of Satan. We read one of those passages
about the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet soon. The God of peace will win. Our God is absolutely sovereign. He rescues his people at a time And He'll bring the witness of
His glory. You see, Herod began as a king
in verse 1. Herod began as a king, and he
began as a king who pleased the Jews. All Herod ever had to do
was please the Romans. But now that he could please
the Jews, and Herod was a religious man. We mustn't think that the
evil of Herod is necessarily an evil that's outside the bounds
of religion. The church at this stage now
had openly declared that the Lord Jesus Christ had gathered
Gentiles as well as Jews. The story of Peter coming back
from Cornelius had reached the ears of the Jews in Jerusalem. And as we read last week in Acts
chapter 20, Paul only had to mention the word Gentile and
there was a riot in Jerusalem. The story of the church in Antioch
and those places had reached the ears of the Jews, and so
they were now more incensed against the church. Their church at this
time had that period of peace, and now there is a stirring again. Sixteen people die in this chapter. Sixteen people die. It is a sobering, sobering story,
isn't it? Herod went from being a king,
a king that pleased the Jews, a king that pleased them by killing
the Lord's people. How do you please the Jews? We
must keep remembering, if the Lord will enable us, that the
Jews are a picture of this religious world again and again and again. How do you please the Jews? How do you please the Jews? You
silence the Word of God. You silence the Word of God. You silence the witness of the
Church of God. You silence the message of the
Lord Jesus Christ. You get religious. really religious
in every way, in every way, except declaring the Lord Jesus Christ
to be the Christ of God. The religious people will gather
together around all sorts of Jesuses. They'll gather around
all sorts of Gospels. They'll gather around all sorts
of preachers of gospels. They'll gather people who give
them what their itching ears want to hear. They'll be always
anxious, but they'll gather together in all sorts of congregations
until, until the Lord Jesus Christ is declared and revealed in his
true glory. See, James was a bold preacher
of the gospel. You might recall that the Lord
Jesus called them the sons of thunder, James and his brother
John. James is the first apostle to
die. This is the first persecution by secular leaders. It's the
first apostle to die at the hands of those leaders. And it's remarkable,
isn't it, that in Jerusalem, which was a place of danger,
these apostles were prepared to stay there. And we hear so
little of them. We hear so little of them. They
stayed there to bear witness to the Lord Jesus Christ in that
place, to the danger of their lives. They stayed there in Jerusalem
because there was the church in Jerusalem. You will read about
them all gathering and praying. They sealed These apostles, they
sealed the testimony and the witness of the Lord Jesus Christ
with their blood. They simply declared that the
Lord Jesus Christ had gathered a people for himself from Jews
and Gentiles. They were accepted in the Beloved. They were the chosen ones of
God and loved by God himself. That salvation is by sovereign
grace of God. Salvation isn't by religious
works and religious deeds. Salvation isn't aided by religious
works and religious deeds. Salvation is entirely of the
Lord. Peter's rescue from prison is
a great picture of the deliverance of God's people from the chains
of religion and from the chains and the binding of Satan. Herod
represents Satan. He represents so many other things
as well. But salvation is by sovereign grace. The rescue of
Peter is a picture of salvation, but it's a picture of the ongoing
salvation of God's people. But in the midst of all of that,
In the midst of all of that, the Gospel is to be proclaimed
in the face of those who would put the children of God to death. The apostles just simply declared
that Jesus is the Christ of God, that he is a sovereign ruler
of all things. Salvation is in him. At every point salvation is his.
The law has been completely fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now
to obey the law, now to obey God, now to be pleasing to God,
now to be revealed as a child of God, now to be revealed as
Abraham's son and heir, Now to be a true Jew was simply to trust,
to believe, to rely upon the Lord Jesus Christ, to simply
by faith, by God-given faith, accept, as He grants the grace,
to accept the testimony of God about His Son. That's why I love how the apostles
began preaching in Jerusalem. And wherever the Lord's servants
go, they just say, hearken, hearken. Will you please listen? Will
you please come and hear? As the apostle Andrew said to
Peter, come and see, come and see. Will you stop all the noise of
the world and religion and come and see? Which is why Herod pleased
the Jews by imprisoning Peter, pleased the Jews by killing James. Faith cometh by hearing. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God. Our God is sovereign. Our God rules over all things. James was put to death with the
sword. It was a way for the Jews to
kill someone in the most shameful way possible. The Romans had
crucifixion, the Jews had stoning for all sorts of other things,
but the most shameful way and the way for a deceiver to be
put to death was to be beheaded. James was put to death. He killed James, the brother
of John, with the sword. It is extraordinary how little
is said. How little is said, and yet how
much is said in so few words. He is, as I said, the first apostle
to die. His brother John was the last. And the Lord Jesus had spoken
to those two brothers in Matthew chapter 20 about the cup that
they would drink, about the baptism that they would be baptised with,
the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ, the baptism of martyrdom. He said, you shall Ten years earlier
the Lord Jesus said this, you shall drink indeed of my cup
and be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with. You
shall be baptised with those ones. You shall. He was, this James, he was part
of that inner circle, wasn't he, of those apostles, the ones
that were drawn closest to the Lord Jesus on the Mount of Trigger
Transfiguration, the ones that were chosen out of the others
to be close to the Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane,
the ones that were taken into the room when Jairus' daughter
was raised from the dead. He had a special place. These
brothers and Peter had a special place. And Herod, Herod killed him with
the sword. Why James and not others? At the end of the day, one of
the things that we will learn, brothers and sisters, is that
our God is absolutely sovereign. And God has determined the path
for his people. And you are immortal on this
earth until God chooses to take you home. And the way he chooses
to take you home is a way which will bring honor and glory to
him. And God's children fall asleep. That's what death is. He has defeated death. He has
defeated death. If you care to contemplate the
difference between the death of James and the death of Herod,
you would much rather be in James' place than Herod's. What a horrible
picture Herod's death is. What a horrible picture. He was
struck, he was struck, smote, smitten by an angel. He was smitten by an angel and
he was eaten of worms. Herod was eaten alive by worms
until he died. Herod was a king and prior to
his death, Him being eaten alive, the reason he was down in Caesarea
was that because of the Lord's hand in rescuing Peter, he was
humiliated and there's no record of him going back to Jerusalem.
You can imagine the taunts that he had. There he was. He'd won
this applause of the Jews and now to win their favour even
more, he had arrested Peter and he'd trapped him and he'd heard
that this Peter was an escape artist. This is the third time
Peter's been in prison. He was in prison in Acts 4 and
they brought him out and had to let him go. He was in prison
in Acts chapter 5 and an angel released him again. Herod was
going to do better than those Jewish leaders. There he is,
chained in the inner prison. He's chained to these two guards
on either side of him. There is another door, then another
door, and then a big steel door. And Herod's got soldiers there,
16 of them, all protecting him. Imagine the humiliation of Herod
and the anger of Herod the next day. Satan goes chasing after
the Lord's people. He searched Jerusalem to find
Peter and found him not. And he went down to Caesarea,
verse 19. He went down. Herod went down.
That king went down. He went down from Judea to Caesarea
and he abode there. If he ever went back to Jerusalem
again, he would have been the cause of humility. Wouldn't he? Where's Peter, they'd say. Where's
Peter? It's a great picture, isn't it,
of the fact that Satan does his best and does evil against the
children of God. And yet, our God reigneth. Our God reigneth. And our God
humbles those who oppose his people. Our God protects his
angels in camp around his church. He is jealous. He's jealous for
his bride. And no harm, no harm comes upon
the children of God in this world. No harm to their souls. No harm
to them in terms of spiritual harm to them and the church. As much as we grieve over the
things that cause us grief, our God sovereignly reigns. and rules. But Herod was a religious
man. Verse 3, he pleased the Jews.
So here he is pleasing men, he pleased the Jews. And he proceeded to take Peter
also. Then were the days of unleavened
bread. It was Easter time. And when he'd apprehended him,
he put him in prison, delivering him to the soldiers to keep him,
intending after Easter, after Passover. So we know when this
was historically. It was Passover of A.D., as we
call it these days, in the year of our Lord, 44. This is real history, written
by a real historian, and intending to bring him out after the people. So he didn't want to defile the
Passover. He wanted to be able to do all
this and keep his hands of religion in the public eye clean. He was
a Jewish proselyte, but he was more scrupulous than the Jews.
You might remember that the Lord Jesus Christ, that decade before,
had died at the hands of the Jews at the time of Passover.
But the strict Jews thought it was a profane thing to execute
people during the feast, and so they wanted to keep the feast
clean. We are going to do all this, but let's keep our religion
pure before the eyes of people. What extraordinary hypocrisy.
Here they are murdering people. What had James done? What had
James done to cause harm in Jerusalem? All he had done is declare the
truth of God. The decline and demise of Herod
is laid out before us in graphic terms in the scriptures as a
warning to us and as a reminder to us of the opposition of this
religious world to the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace
and as a comfort to us that God is just and God is sovereign
and our God Our God, who stood before Herod earlier, if you
turn to Luke chapter 23, you'll see what they did, what Herod
did. You remember Herod was always
anxious, anxious to get his hands on the Lord Jesus Christ, anxious
to see Him. He wanted to see the Lord Jesus
Christ perform some miracles. He was anxious to see Him in
Acts chapter 23. Pilate sent him to Herod. As soon as he knew,
this is Pilate, as soon as he knew that he belonged under Herod's
jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who himself was also at
Jerusalem at that time. And when Herod saw Jesus, he
was exceeding glad. Now he had three and a half years
to see the Lord Jesus Christ. He had at least nine visits of
the Lord Jesus Christ to Jerusalem since he declared himself to
be the Christ of God. But now he was desirous to see
him for a long season, because he'd heard many things of him,
and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him. He then questioned him with many
words, but he answered him nothing. And the chief priests and the
scribes stood and vehemently accused him, and Herod with his
men of war set him at nought." What a great description, what
an awful description of the way the Lord Jesus Christ is treated
by his enemies. To set him at nought, to make
him as nothing, to make him as nothing. They set him at nought,
they mocked him, they arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent
him again to Pilate. And what does it say, verse 12,
and the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together, for
before they were at enmity between themselves, they now made friends
together. Herod the King and Pilate the
Roman governor, now friends, Herod in his religion, like the
Jews who declared to Pilate, we have no king but Caesar. We
have no king but Caesar. You can hardly imagine religious
people declaring that. But such is the blindness of
Satan and such is the captivity of people to Satan that they
have no notion of the situation that they're in. They have no
idea of the words that they say. Herod's decline began by setting
the Lord Jesus Christ at naught, by mocking him, by arraying him
in a fancy robe. You claim to be king, he was
saying to the Lord Jesus. I'm a king, Caesar's a king,
you claim to be a king. We'll show you what sort of a
king you are. Dear oh dear, one day, And this
is the day when Herod got to know what sort of a king the
Lord Jesus Christ was, and the Lord Jesus Christ is. Herod's
decline, it began began in verse one, he stretched
forth his hands against certain of the church, stretched forth
his hands to vex certain of the church. So he laid hold on some
of them. He started with as soft a target
as he could possibly find amongst the church. And having had success
with that softer target, he afflicted them, and then he came and killed. So he began small, he began with what seemed to him just
a small thing. What is it to mock someone? There
he was, the Lord Jesus Christ, bathed in blood, covered in all
the mockery that the Jews could afflict upon him. What sort of
a king is this? We can mock him as a king. We
can treat then his people with contempt. We can find them that
are relatively soft targets and we can afflict them He began
there, and now he came having whetted his appetite with blood. He then proceeded to the apostles,
and he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. And
now because it pleased the Jews, he took Peter as well. What a shocking thing, what a
shocking thing it is to contemplate Herod being left and abandoned
to his own desires and will. It's a shocking thing, isn't
it, when man is left, left, and God takes away the freedom
restraint and leaves men to exercise and to be revealed what they
really are. It is a horrible, horrible end,
but it's a horrible, horrible fall. Isaiah 14 describes the
fall of Satan. He says, how art thou fallen,
Isaiah 14, 12, how art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of
the morning? How art thou cut down to the
ground, which did weaken the nations? For thou hast said in
thine heart, I will ascend unto heaven, I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount
of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. Doesn't it echo the words of
that crowd down there at Caesarea as they declared to Herod? These aren't the words of man.
This is shining God before us. These are the words of God. He
was left. He was left and for a little
time He had the ability, granted by the sovereign hand of God,
to vex the church and to slay them and to put them in prison.
But Herod's end and Herod's humility is a reminder to us again, brothers
and sisters, that the Church of God, the Church of God will
be protected. God restrains the wrath of man. The wrath of man shall repraise
him The wrath of man shall praise him. The wrath of Herod causes
praise for God in this, if you read down to verse 24 of our
chapter in Acts 12. But the word of God grew and
multiplied. And Saul and Barnabas were there
in Jerusalem at the time, probably, and they returned, and they fulfilled
their ministry and took with them John, whose surname was
Mark. And the great glory of the gospel now spreads out to
all the known world. But it's a gospel that declares
a great victory, doesn't it? No wonder Satan hates the declaration
of the victorious work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ and what happened on Calvary's tree.
It says, not only did he take the one weapon that Satan has
in his hands, he has in his hands the weapon of the law, doesn't
he? And he can never bring an accusation against you which
is not true. He doesn't have to lie to accuse
us. What he does is he lies about
our God. Did God really say? See what
happened on the cross. That's why the declaration and
the preaching of the cross in all of our efforts and all of
our evangelism and all of our discussions with people, if we
can do as Paul, if we're allowed of God to do as Paul did and
concentrate things on Jesus Christ and him crucified, we will. we will be proclaiming a great
victory. Because what did the Lord Jesus
Christ do on Calvary's tree? You, being dead in your sins
and uncircumcised of your flesh, he has quickened, he has made
alive together with him. You're put to death with him,
you're made alive together with him. This is Colossians 2.13.
Having forgiven you all of your trespasses, he can accuse me
of all the sins in the world. but He has to go and deal with
my Saviour. They were put on the Lord Jesus,
they're not on me. They can't be on me and on Him
at the same time. He's forgiven you all your trespasses. I didn't say that, God said it.
Did God really say? Yes, He did. blotting out, I
love this, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against
us. All of that moral law is now blotted out and covered with
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, which was contrary to us. The
law stands as an accuser against us. Satan is called the accuser
of the brethren. The law stands against us. He
has blotted out the handwriting of ordinance that was against
us, which was contrary to us, and he took it out of the way.
He nailed it to the cross. That's where it is. These religious
people that want to put people back under the law have to go
and fetch it from where the Lord Jesus Christ put it. To go back
to the law of God, you have to climb over his dead body, his
bloodied body on Calvary Street, and you have to pluck it from
him. And that's what they do when
they put people back under the law. But what else did he do
in having spoiled principalities and power? made a show of them
openly, triumphing over them in it. It's a triumphant victory. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
undo the works of the devil, to defeat him. And in our declaration
of the gospel, we are saying again and again, our God reigns. I have set my king on my holy
hill of Zion. Why do the nations rage? Why
do they plan and plot a vain thing? Herod can plan and plot. But our God rules and our God
will crush Satan under our feet. The God of peace will crush him
under our feet. The other thing that happens
as a result of the death of James and the imprisonment of Peter. What happened? What happened? What does the Church do? What
do we see here? This is a glorious picture of
the Church at prayer, isn't it? Verse 5, Peter therefore was
kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the Church
unto God for him. Peter was kept in prison. Peter
was at rest in prison, sleeping between those guards, the church. But the church was made to pray. The afflictions that come upon
the church, the distressing circumstances which come upon the church, are
a cause for the church to be gathered in prayer. And the church,
like individual Christians, I love what Spurgeon said, a Christian
is invincible on his knees. If we bow down before God and
humble before the circumstances that are before us and are made
to completely rely upon him, we will find, we will find that
our God will be faithful. being earnestly. The Church was
in earnest prayer. They were stretching out, they
were in agony. Where does this end? If he can kill the Apostle
James and he can imprison Peter and have him prepared, ready
for murder, what is going to happen to the Church of God?
What will happen to the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ? It
will go on, it will go on. The Lord Jesus Christ was in
this same agony. He prayed more earnestly, being
in agony. This church prayed more earnestly. It is a promise from God that
the fervent prayers of the church, the fervent prayers of a righteous
man avail, availeth much. The effectual fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth much. When the church is at prayer,
who else is praying, brothers and sisters? Who takes the prayers,
the groans of God's people? God the Holy Spirit is praying.
Who is interceding for the saints at the throne of God right now,
right now? The effectual fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth much. The effectual fervent prayer
of the Lord Jesus Christ availeth much. The effectual fervent prayer
of those who are righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ availeth
much. They were brought to prayer. The church was brought to its
knees and they prayed. When the church is brought to
a place where it prays to God, the church is empowered in the
most remarkable ways. They lifted up, they prayed earnestly
of one accord. We might finish with the prayer
that's in Acts chapter four. The church came together again
at the time of persecution. After Peter was arrested, and
they come back and they count themselves, they count themselves Blessed men, because they have
been allowed to bear witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. He
let them go this time. And what did they do in verse
24? They came together and they lifted up their voice to God
with one accord and said, Lord, thou art God. You are the king,
not Herod, which has made heaven and earth and the sea and all
that in them is. You are the ruler of this universe,
who by the mouth of thy servant David has said, why do the heathen
rage? Why does Herod rage? And the
people imagine vain things. Why does Herod think that somehow
he can chain the word of God up in a prison and put it to
death by his own hands, together with the Jews? The kings of the
earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against
the Lord and against his Christ for of a truth against thy holy
child Jesus whom thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together
for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before
to be done. Now, Lord, behold their threatenings,
and grant unto thy servants." What does it say? Grant unto
thy servants that we might escape. Grant unto thy servants that
we might run away. Grant unto thy servants that
we might have peace in this world. Grant unto thy servants that
we'd go back and do exactly the same thing for which we were
arrested. Grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may
speak thy word. By stretching forth thine hand. Herod has stretched forth a hand,
wasn't it? Now the Lord God stretches forth a hand. By stretching forth
thine hand to heal that signs and wonders may be done by the
name of thy holy child, Jesus. And when they had prayed, the
place was shaken where they were assembled together, the little
house that we will come to see, Lord willing, next week, where
they're all gathered, was shaken by the knocking of Peter on the
door, where they were assembled together, and they were all filled
with the Holy Ghost, and they spoke the word of God with boldness. The word of God declares the
power of our great God to rescue his own, to rescue his own and
to reserve the unjust for the day of punishment. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we do thank
you. We thank you for these inspired
histories, which declare both the tragedy of the death, from
our perspective, of your servant James. But Heavenly Father, if
we could just glimpse what James glimpsed that day. when he, like
Stephen, was ushered into the very presence of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We would be envious of him, but
we praise you, Heavenly Father, that throughout time, throughout
history, your word is opposed by religious men and men of this
world, Heavenly Father, but you triumph. You triumph in such
a way that your children are caused to look away from themselves
and any resources of their own and simply to trust the comforting,
guiding, sovereign hand of our great God. Heavenly Father, we
praise you that the death of the Lord Jesus Christ was not
a defeat, but a glorious triumph. And here, Heavenly Father, we,
2,000 years later, have the extraordinary opportunity to continue to bear
witness, that we may, like that early Church, declare his word
with boldness, and wait, wait, Heavenly Father, for you to reveal
your sovereign hand of saving mercy and grace. Father bless
us with the comfort of your word and bless us with the promise
of being with your people as a God of peace in this world
where we have trials and tribulations and troubles and so many things
which are completely beyond our control. We praise you, Heavenly
Father, that our sovereign God reigneth, and that we can rest
in his sovereign reign, for he works all things for the good
of his people. Help us, Heavenly Father, as
we take these emblems of our Lord Jesus' death his broken
body and his shed blood, that we would be reminded that this
was a death that ended in extraordinary triumph as he presents his people
wholly spotless, unblameable, and unapprovable in his sight,
in love. Bless your words to our souls,
our Father, for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.