Acts - 31

Acts - 30

Acts 12:1-19

Introduction

What do you do when you don’t know what to do? We all face times where we look around at circumstances we did not create, but are utterly devastating…now what?

You were handed a pink slip and told to clear out your office You find texts on your spouse’s phone that prove unfaithfulness You get that phone call about the death of someone you love dearly Your friend betrays you and you feel all alone in the world The diagnosis comes back and the results are not good

What do you do when you don’t know what to do? In Acts 12, the NT Church finds themselves in that place where their backs are up against a wall and there is no discernible way forward. But before we get into that, let’s catch up with where we are in Acts. Last year we spent 29 weeks walking through Acts 1-11. In chapter 1, Jesus sends his disciples out into the whole world to make more disciples and then ascends victoriously into Heaven. In chapter 2, the NT church explodes into existence as the Gospel is preached on the Day of Pentecost by the Apostle Peter. 3,000 people respond in faith and the church is born.

These early believers immediately jump into their new lives as Christians, living out the foundations of the faith. The Apostles are going around, empowered by the Lord, performing miracles that validate the truth of their sermons. The Church continues to grow exponentially under God’s blessing. Their success eventually upsets the Jewish religious establishment and many of them land in jail, but defend their faith and continue to proclaim salvation in the Lord Jesus. Meanwhile God purifies the Church by killing Ananias and Sapphira because they lie to the Apostles to make themselves look good. More Christians are arrested, but an angel miraculously sets them free in chapter 5.

The leaders face their problems head on and develop more godly men to lead. One of them, Stephen, boldly proclaims salvation in Christ alone to the Jewish leaders and they kill him in the streets, the first Christian martyr. Fueled by their hatred, the Jews break out in wholesale persecution against the believers, led by a young man named Saul of Tarsus. He ferociously tracks down believers for their arrest and execution. The Christians scatter, but take the Gospel with them to various areas and the reach of the Church expands into new lands.

For the next 10 years, there is relative peace and prosperity for the Church. Saul the persecutor is radically converted by the resurrected Christ. The Gospel is preached and the Holy Spirit is poured out on the Gentiles, the pagan neighbors of the Jews. The Church has now become a global entity.

We ended off in chapter 11 with Saul/Paul and Barnabas being commissioned by the Church in Antioch to take raised funds for the poor to the church in Jerusalem. It all seems to be going well. There is peace. There is growth. It has been a long time since any real persecution has harmed the Church. But then…

Acts 12:1-19

In the midst of profound weakness, the Church projects strength. When you don’t know what to do, the Church shows us what to do:

TRUST GOD’S CONTROL IN THE ABSENCE OF ANY STRENGTH INVITE GOD’S POWER FOR THE DISPLAY OF HIS STRENGTH ACKNOWLEDGE GOD’S STRENGTH AS THE SOURCE OF YOUR STRENGTH

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TRUST GOD’S CONTROL IN THE ABSENCE OF ANY STRENGTH

Out of nowhere King Herod turns his attention onto God’s people. Herod is quite a historical figure, as are all men named Herod in the Bible…they are all related. It was King Herod the Great who ordered the slaughter of all the boys in and around Bethlehem in the hopes of killing off the newborn King of the Jews in Matthew 2. His son Herod the Tetrarch is the king who ordered the arrest and execution of John the Baptist in Mark 6. Another son, Herod Antipas, participated in the trial of Jesus before His crucifixion. This Herod is King Herod Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the Great. He is King over the Jews, placed there by his childhood friend, the Emperor of Rome. Herod the Great had married Mariamne, a Hasmonean Jew from the line of the Maccabees (Hanukkah). Therefore, the Jews like him and he always tried to curry favor with them. As he is doing here. For the purpose of political gain, he kills the first apostle.

James, the brother of the Apostle John, is the only apostolic death recorded in the NT. And we are given virtually no details regarding his arrest and execution, other than the likely beheading as the means of death. Once Herod is able to assess that the execution was good for his political games, he doubles down. If killing James gets him favor, killing the chief Apostle Peter will get him even more. And before we know it, one Apostle is dead and another is sitting in the jail cell awaiting execution. But providentially, this all happens during the Feast of Unleavened Bread…Passover. No executions happen during that 7 day period. So Peter is just there sitting in prison…but notice the details.

V. 4 - When he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out before the people.

Peter is just one man. Turned over to four squads (of four each)…16 soldiers to guard one Christian preacher. But remember, it was Peter who was miraculously released from prison in Acts 5 by an angel. Herod is taking no chances.

V. 6 - Now on the very night when Herod was about to bring him forward, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and guards in front of the door were watching over the prison.

Notice the intricacy of the detail…16 soldiers in shifts, four at a time. Two on sentry duty outside the cell. One on each side of Peter, shackled directly to him. What does all that tell us? There is absolutely no chance of escape. This is as good as done. Jesus had told Peter that he would eventually die for his faith by crucifixion. Well, this is it! This is his last night on earth. Within hours, he will be publicly paraded before the swelling Passover crowds, shamed, and executed.

And what is Peter doing in these final nerve-wracking hours? He is sleeping! I’d be attempting to bribe the guards, pick the lock on the shackles, fight my way out. But the situation is hopeless. What do you do when you don’t know what to do? You trust God’s sovereign, controlling hand. If God wants Peter to die, then Peter will die. If God wants Peter to be freed, well…that is up to God. So in the meantime, Peter sleeps. In the absence of strength, when there is nothing you can do…this is where you start. And all Peter is doing is following the example of so many who have gone before him:

as King David is on the run for his life from Absalom, writes this:

Psalm 3:3-6 - But You, O Yahweh, are a shield about me,

My glory, and the One who lifts my head.

I was calling to Yahweh with my voice,

And He answered me from His holy mountain.

I lay down and slept;

I awoke, for Yahweh sustains me.

I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people

Who all around have set themselves against me.

- when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego defied the orders of King Nebuchadnezzar to worship the 100’ tall golden statue of himself, and were threatened to be thrown into the fiery furnace, said this to the king…Daniel 3:16-18 - “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to respond to you with an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to save us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will save us out of your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods, and we will not worship the golden image that you have set up.”

It is the Apostle Paul who will phrase this idea in the most memorable way. While sitting in prison himself, he writes to the church at Philippi, in Philippians 1:21-24 - For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know what I will choose. But I am hard-pressed between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better, yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. I love this…he could be executed at any moment, but he seemingly doesn’t care.

TS - when you don’t know what to do, when you are powerless to change the circumstances…trust God’s control. He knows what He is doing.

INVITE GOD’S POWER FOR THE DISPLAY OF HIS STRENGTH

Notice verse 5 - So Peter was kept in the prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church to God. They are all powerless to do anything about Peter’s situation. Peter is powerless, chained to two guards with two more guarding the cell. He is in a fortress complex, as shown by the number of gates and guard towers they have to pass by. The Christians are powerless. Herod is a tyrannical despot who is playing political games with people’s lives. They can’t petition their senator. They can’t call the United Nations. They can’t rush to their attorney’s office to file an injunction.

What do you do when you don’t know what to do? What do you do when you are powerless to do anything about the situation? You pray. You invite God’s power to be put on display. They are praying ‘fervently’ meaning literally ‘stretching and straining.’ They are pouring out their hearts to God, likely on their faces before the Lord, begging Him to intervene. This is a continual theme we’ve seen over the last couple months in the Psalms. If God does not intervene, then we are all dead.

There are those who take issue with this theologically. They say, “If God really is sovereign, in control, like you say He is, then why pray? If God wants Peter out of prison, then He will see to it.” These are the same people who sarcastically quip, “If God is sovereign over salvation, as you say He is, then why evangelize the lost? God will save them anyway.” Listen, if your theology leads you to not share the gospel and if your theology leads you to not pray, you have really bad theology!

Is God in control over all this? Absolutely! Is it the right response for them all to be begging God in prayer? Absolutely! God has ordained that He works through means…like evangelism and prayer. James 4:2 - You do not have because you do not ask. James 5:16b-18 - The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the earth produced its fruit.

Some people like to adopt a passive faith and lazily accept whatever comes their way. That is not the testimony of Scripture. In the Psalms we watched King David surrounded by his enemies pray, not that oh well, I guess I lose. No, he called on God to arise and go to war! That is what the church does here. They are powerless, so they call on the all-powerful God to display His power. And He does.

God sends an angel into the dark cell and lights it up. He has to punch Peter awake because he is sleeping so soundly. God miraculously keeps the guards asleep as Peter and the angel walk right by them, past the guard towers, through the city gate that opens by itself (gk. Automatic). They walk one block and the angel leaves him. Peter, this whole time thinks it has been a vision or dream (which he had in Acts 10). Only now does he realize all this actually happened.

He heads straight to Mary’s house, likely where Jesus and the disciples celebrated the Last Supper, likely where the disciples were praying on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2. And we are introduced to John Mark, who will eventually become a missionary apprentice with the Apostle Paul, a traveling companion to Peter, and the author of the Gospel of Mark. Once there a hilarious scene occurs. The servant girl recognizes Peter’s voice, in her excitement she forgets to let the miraculously-released-prisoner inside to hide. Leaves him outside to report to the rest. They don’t believe her! So apparently they weren’t praying for his release, but perhaps his faithfulness to face death. Proving Ephesians 3:20 to be true, that God can do more than we ask or imagine.

TS - what do you do when you don’t know what to do? This.

ACKNOWLEDGE GOD’S STRENGTH AS THE SOURCE OF YOUR STRENGTH

The church is so excited to see him, they get pretty loud. He has just escaped from prison…noise is a bad idea. He shooshes them and recounts all that just happened. V. 17 - But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he recounted to them how the Lord had led him out of the prison. And he said, “Report these things to James and the brothers.” Then he left and went to another place. Peter gives all credit, all praise, all glory to God. He didn’t focus on the fact that God saw to his release because he is the most important apostle. I mean, God did let James be executed, but not Peter. He could begin to think he was kind of a big deal. He just wants James (brother of Jesus) and the other leaders to know what happened.

He recognizes his own weakness and powerlessness in the whole situation and confesses the truth that it was the Lord’s strength that rescued him from certain death. And we know it was certain death because the next morning there is quite a kerfuffle at the prison. After searching for Peter, Herod has the guards executed. This is an instance of what was called the Justinian Code. If any prison guard allowed a prisoner to escape, that guard was sentenced to the same punishment as the prisoner. Since Herod has them killed, we know this was his plan for Peter.

As God rescues, in humility we have to give all credit to the Lord for His strength.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 - Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions and hardships, for the sake of Christ, for when I am weak, then I am strong.

In a culture where people do nothing but project false success and false strength to the world through social media, Christians dare not boast in our strengths. Because we know our inherent weakness. But there, in that place of weakness, the strength of God is made known. Any strength we have is due to His mighty strength revealed in us.

Conclusion

And in this display of weakness, but in God’s power to save, we see a picture of the Gospel that Peter was willing to give his life for. Peter is hopeless, humanly speaking. He is in prison, shackled to his captors. Asleep, condemned to die. A picture of our human condition…chained to sin and death, unable to escape, even asleep in our sin, insensitive to its destructive power. Until…until God steps in and sends His Holy Spirit to bring life to our dead soul, to wake us up to reality, to break us free from our bondage to sin and death.

Peter is willing to offer up his life for the sake of his Savior, who had already offered His own life to save Peter. Weakness does not matter. Because we trust in an infinitely powerful Christ, who rose mightily from the grave and invites us to join Him there. It was Charles Wesley, the great hymn writer, who looked at this account in Acts 12 as a picture of his own conversion to Christ. In his famous hymn, ‘And Can It Be’ he writes this in the fourth verse:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay

Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray;

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off, my heart was free;

I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.