So Acts, chapter 12. It was about this time that King
Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to
persecute them. He had James, the brother of
John, put to death with the sword.
When he saw this, met with approval among the Jews, he
proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the
Festival of Unleavened Bread. After arresting him, he put him
in prison, handing him over to be guarded by 4 squads of four
soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out
for public trial after the Passover, so Peter was kept in
prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for
him. The night before Herod was to
bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers
bound with two chains, and Centrist stood guarding.
Centrist stood guard at the entrance.
Suddenly an Angel of the Lord appeared, and a light shone in
the cell. He struck Peter on the side and
woke him up. Quick, get up, he said and the
chains fell off Peter's wrists. Then the Angel said to him, Put
on your clothes and sandals and Peter did so.
Wrap your cloak around you and follow me, the Angel said.
Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that
what the Angel was doing was really happening.
He thought he was seeing a vision.
They passed the 1st and 2nd guards and came to the iron gate
leading to the city. It opened for them by itself and
they went through it. When they had walked the length
of One St. suddenly the Angel left him.
Then Peter came to himself and said, Now I know without a doubt
that the Lord has sent his Angel and rescued me from Herod's
clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would
happen. When this had dawned on him, he
went to the House of Mary, the mother of John, also called
Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying.
Peter knocked at the outer entrance and a servant named
Rhoda came to answer the door. When she recognised Peter's
voice, she was so overjoyed that she ran back without opening it
and exclaimed, Peter's at the door.
You're out of your mind, they told her.
When she kept insisting that it was so, they said it must be his
Angel. But Peter kept on knocking, and
when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.
Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described
how the Lord had brought him out of prison.
Tell James and the other brothers and sisters about this,
he said, and then he left for another place.
In the morning there was no small commotion among the
soldiers as to what had become of Peter.
After Herod had a thorough search made for him and did not
find him, he cross examined the guards and ordered they be
executed. Then Herod went from Judea to
Caesarea and stayed there. He'd been quarrelling with the
people of Tyre and Sidon. Now they joined together and
sought an audience with him. After securing the support of
Blastus, A trusted personal servant of the king, they asked
for peace because they depended on the King's country for their
food. On the appointed day, Herod,
wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a
public address to the people. They shouted, This is the voice
of a God, not a man. Immediately, because Herod did
not give praise to God, an Angel of the Lord struck him down, and
he was eaten by worms and died. But the Word of God continued to
spread and flourish. So, yeah, we have been walking
our way through the book of Acts for some time now, and I think
we've seen a big part of the message of Acts.
Well, this right, the writer, a man called Luke, he wants to
show us the priorities of the New Testament church, what the
New Testament church commits itself to.
How did the first Christians proclaim and live out the gospel
of Jesus to the people around them?
And what can we learn from them? And it doesn't take long to see
as you read the book of Acts, that one of the key priorities
of the New Testament church was praying together.
The New Testament church was a church that prayed together.
Across 28 chapters of Acts. Luke repeatedly describes the
Christians praying together. It's mentioned explicitly 20
times in 28 chapters, and it's implied many more times.
I believe in Acts. They pray together regularly and
intentionally. Just a few examples on the
screen. They pray when they act
together, when they worship together, when they were
proclaiming the gospel, when they were facing persecution,
when they were appointing elders in churches they were planting,
when they were sending out missionaries into the Roman
worlds. They prayed for the Spirit to
help them. They prayed for God's leading on
mission. They prayed for healing when
they needed that. They prayed for courage to keep
living as witnesses for Jesus. A big part of the message of
Acts for us today is Acts teaches us how to pray and why
we need to pray. One writer puts it like this.
They say the believers in Acts had plenty to do, but essential
to their gospel proclaiming, bread breaking, widow feeding
and church planting work was praying together.
It wasn't that life was really quiet for the believers in Acts.
They had all this time to kill me, thought, well, let's just
pray together. They were.
They were busy. Life was difficult, but they
always prioritize praying together, and that is part of
the message of this book to believers in subsequent
generations. So this morning we come to Acts
chapter 12, and I think a key part of the message of this
chapter for us today is this. The Lord delights to work
through the prayers of his people, and he's able to do
immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.
The Lord delights to work through the prayers of his
people, and he is able to do immeasurably more than all we
ask or imagine. A major focus of this passage is
Luke's interest in prayer and the prayers of the early church.
Look at verse 5 in Acts 12 again.
So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying
to God for him. Or look at verse 12 that Peter
went to the House of Mary, the mother of John, also called
Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying.
There's a beautiful truth in this passage.
The Lord works through the prayers of His people, even when
His people can't quite believe that He will.
I hope you saw that when we looked at this passage twice.
In this passage, God's people cry out to God from to act, and
then when He does act, they can't quite believe it.
They don't believe he has, he's been Peter.
He can't quite believe that the Lord has set him free from
prison. He thinks he's division.
And in the church in Jerusalem, they're gathering together
praying for Peter, but when he comes to the door, they can't
quite believe it. They say you're out of your
mind. Rhoda, like I think Luke wants
to show us here the joy of answered prayer, even when that
is prayer offered. And we don't quite believe that
God is going to work. There's really encouragement
here for every Christian reading this passage to come to God and
pray to him and alongside the joy in praying together looks
actually really honest with. There will be times of sorrow
when we pray together. Luke wants to see the praying
together as a church doesn't spare us from the pain and
difficulty of living in a fallen world.
And this passage, one apostle is miraculously set free from
prison, Peter, but another apostle is executed, loses his
life. That's James.
And in both instances, God's people prayed together and God
was working out his saving purposes for this world.
To the message of this chapter, the Lord delights to work
through the prayers of his people.
He will not always answer our prayers the way we expect Him
to, maybe even the way we want him to, but the Lord can be
trusted with whatever is going on with His people.
He wants us to come to Him to pray to Him.
As we learn to do that, we trust Him to do what is right and to
bring about His saving purposes in this world.
Let's look at this chapter together.
Now Acts 12 wants to look at it in sort of three different
movements. So the first bit, King Herod
attacks the church, verses 1 to 5.
Then the Lord rescues Peter in unexpected ways, verses 6 to 19,
and then finally the Lord judges King Herod, verses 20 to 23.
First of all, then King Herod attacks the church.
That's verse one in Acts 12. It was about this time that King
Herod arrested some. He belonged to the church
intending to persecute them. Now the first question you got
asked is, well, who is this king Herod?
If you're if you've ever heard the Bible story, you will know
that name Herod and it's meant to trigger things in US.
OK, so his technical title is Herod Agrippa the 1st and he
ruled 8041 to 44 ruled over most of Judea, the Roman emperors
Caligula and Claudius gave him plenty of territory to rule
over. But actually it's his family
tree. That's really significant
because he's the grandson of Herod the Great and that's the
Herod in the Christmas story. So that's the Herod.
He hears about Jesus birth and tries to kill Jesus when he's
still an infant. He massacres the infants in
Bethlehem when the wise men escape him.
So that is Herod's grandfather, and then he's the nephew of
Herod Antipas, who's the Herod in the Easter story.
He's the Herod who's around when Jesus was travelling round
Judea. He's the Herod who had John the
Baptist arrested and beheaded. He's the Herod who who made
Jesus stand trial before him at the invitation of Pontius
Pilate. So we hear that King Herod is
attacking the church those other Herods are meant to be.
In our mind, this Herod is a powerful ruler.
His family is always opposed to Jesus and his people, and it's a
real threat to the church that King Herod has them in his
sights. And in case we get any
convincing in verses 2 to 3, Luke just records very quickly
the impact that Herod's attacks has on the church.
Verses 2 and three, Herod had James, the brother of John, put
to death with the sword. When he saw this, met with
approval among the Jews, he proceeded to cease Peter.
Also, this happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread.
Here Luke records the second martyrdom of a Christian leader
in Jerusalem after the death of Stephen back in Chapter 7.
And what strikes me verse 2 is just so brief.
It's a sudden, so casual. It's like in a moment James was
dead. I need to remember who is James?
James was one of the 12. He was an apostle.
He was part of the inner circle of Jesus disciples.
He was one of Jesus closest friends.
Those moments in the gospels where where Jesus wants to do
something like raising Jairus's daughter, he doesn't want to
crowd around. He just has Peter, James and
John with him. This James saw just about every
remarkable miracle Jesus performed.
He followed Jesus through thick and thin, right through Jesus
ascension, through Pentecost up to this point.
And suddenly and brutally, Herod kills him.
We're meant to sense the shock of that, because if the apostle
James can be killed, no one is safe.
Every believer in Jerusalem is vulnerable.
If Herod can get James, he can get anyone.
The James of death would have had a huge impact on the early
church. It would have had a huge impact
personally on Peter. Again, James is one of Peter's
closest friends. We're told in the Gospel that
that Peter and his brother Andrew are business partners
with James and John even before they follow Jesus.
They travel with Jesus right the way through Jesus ministry.
They've been through so much together and now James is dead,
but Peter doesn't even have time to mourn that because Herod
goes, well, that went down well. I'm going to arrest Peter now
too. And Peter is arrested and thrown
into prison. This attack is hurting the
church. Luke wants us to see that.
And so Peter is arrested, verse 3.
And King Harrod's taking no chances with him yet, if you
know the book of Acts. So back in chapter 5, Peter has
a tendency of escaping prison at night.
So Acts chapter 5, the Jewish religious leaders lock up Peter
and the other apostles, presumably including James back
then, and an Angel of the Lord comes and sets them free so they
can keep preaching. But not this time, says Herod
verse 4. After arresting Peter, he put
him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by 4 squads of
four soldiers each. Herod says I am not letting this
guy escape. It is going to be impossible for
him to escape and impossible for anyone to rescue him.
Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the
Passover, when you're meant to see by the end of verse 4,
things look hopeless for Peter and for the church in Jerusalem.
One leader dead, 1 leader in prison, very quickly to be
executed. And in comparison with King
Herod, they look vulnerable, they look fragile, they look
weak and powerless. What can they do in the face of
a King Herod? What can they do in the face of
such an attack from him? Well, Luke tells us in verse 5 S
Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying
to God for him. What can ordinary fragile
believers do in the face of attack from the world, the
flesh, and the devil? Luke says we can pray together.
What can ordinary believers do when we see suffering across the
world that is beyond our control or power to stop?
We can pray together. What can ordinary believers do
when they see people being persecuted for their faith in
Jesus? We can pray together for them
again, we said a bit earlier we're going to be praying
together for the Wallace family in the Cherry classroom after
the service. We want to pray for Matt and
Lisa. They're a long way away.
Practically. There feels like very little we
can do. But we can pray because that is
what powerless, weak Christians have always done.
We've acknowledged our limits and we've said this is beyond
me, but it's not beyond the living God.
Luke urges us to do in the face of any attacks, any suffering,
any struggle, pray together, cry out to the Lord together, ask
him boldly for his help and trust him completely to do what
is right. Actually, verse 5, the the the
word there to earnestly pray and you could actually translate
that praying at full stretch. It's just it involves efforts.
And actually, it's the same words Luke used to describe
Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying the night
before the cross. I think back to Jesus.
There he cries out, Father, take this cup from me.
Jesus asked boldly for his Father to help him.
He didn't hold back. He didn't pretend everything was
OK. He didn't turn to someone else
or try to problem solve. He asked his Father boldly to
help him. And then what did he pray?
He said, Yet not my will, but yours be done.
Jesus trusted his Father completely.
That's what Jesus models for us here.
Ask boldly and trust completely. Ask boldly because Jesus is
able, the Lord, the living God is able to help us trust
completely because his purposes might be different than what we
think they are. But you can't trust Him.
And the best thing you can do is to come to him, cry out to him,
pray in earnest at full stretch for Him to help, and then see
what he does. So back to Peter in prison in
Acts 12. Humanly speaking, escape looks
impossible for Peter. But both Peter and the church in
Jerusalem are learning something this evening that the Lord is
able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.
When his people turn to him and cry out to him.
It's such a beautiful passage of how the Lord rescues Peter in
unexpected ways. Now I, I have a have a love of
the Mission Impossible movies. My family don't always share
that love, so I have to watch them on my own.
If anyone likes Mission Impossible, come I've I've got
them on DVD. Yes, I I own DVDs and I love
them. There's these long shots of
little Tom Cruise running and it just stays on them.
It's brilliant and I was struck actually verse 6, when you look
at this passage, it's a bit like those scenes in Mission
Impossible where they're talking about we have to break into this
bank or this fortresses underwater vault and we just
list all the reasons why humanly speaking, it is impossible.
It cannot work. It is just unbreakable,
unbroachable. You can't get in there.
Verse 6, Luke sets the scene the night before Herod was to bring
him to trial. Peter was sleeping between two
soldiers bound with two chains and sentry stood guard at the
entrance. Most imagine Simon Pegg is is
saying all this. We can't do it, Ethan.
So Peter, he's got a soldier on each side of him.
Both his wrists are bound by chains.
The other two soldiers are on duty outside and they're
soldiers all the way around the palace.
Humanly speaking, escape is impossible for Peter.
But Luke wants us to see that nothing is impossible for God.
And the Angel of the Lord appears, verse 7, and everything
changes. Verse 7.
Suddenly an Angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in
the cell. He struck Peter on the side,
woke him up. Quick, get up, he said, and the
chains fell off Peter's wrist. Now we need to say something.
Peter contributes nothing to his rescue.
He's asleep. He's not chiseling behind a
poster, another film reference. He's not trying to plan his
escape. The Angel has to wake him up.
It's the aims of the Lord that does the rescuing here.
All Peter has to do is receive that rescue and follow the
angels lead. This is all taking place during
the Passover festival, Luke tells us.
And Luke may be drawing some parallels here with God rescuing
his people at the first Passover in Egypt and God rescuing Peter
here. Both rescues take place at night
time. Both involve an aims of the
Lord. In both instances, God's people
have to move quickly and leave in the night.
Verse 8 the Angel said to him, put on your clothes and sandals
and Peter did so wrap your cloak around you and follow me.
The Angel told him. You notice again the care the
Angel takes with Peter. Peter is half asleep.
He thinks he's dreaming. He thinks he's seeing a vision,
but the Angel knows a night time in Jerusalem.
It's cold. Bring your cloak, Peter.
Night time in Jerusalem, there's stuff on the ground.
Wear your sandals, Peter. All the detail points to God's
care and control. Even of the little things.
Nothing escapes God's attention here.
And then verses 9 to 10. There's so much eyewitness
detail here. I can imagine Peter, an older
man, reminiscing about this to the other Christians.
Peter followed him out of the prison.
He had no idea what the Angel was doing was really happening.
He thought he was seeing a vision.
They passed the 1st and 2nd guards but no one wakes up.
They came to the iron gate leading to the city.
How do you get through the iron gate?
It opened for them by itself and they went through it.
It's amazing. When they had walked the length
of one St. suddenly the Angel left him.
You feel that's a story Peter tells a lot later in his life?
And the honesty of Peter's reaction here.
He had no idea what the what the Angel was doing was really
happening. A lesser church leader would
have said, Oh yeah, I always trusted that God would rescue
me. Angels see them all the time.
Peter goes, I had no idea. He cannot believe that God has
rescued him by this Angel. And it's only when the Angel
leaves that Peter gets his head around what has happened.
Verse 11. Then Peter came to himself and
said, now I know without a doubt the Lord has sent his Angel and
rescued me from Herod's clutches and from everything the Jewish
people were hoping would happen. Peter discovers something
amazing that night that he had forgotten, a truth that every
Christian of every generation tends to forget to.
The Lord is able to do immeasurably more than all we
ask or imagine when his people pray to him.
Our God's a saving God. It's not what we contribute.
After I contribute a little bit and he'll meet us halfway.
He does all the saving work through the power of his Spirit,
through his Son Jesus, through his heavenly forces.
And he does that to bring about his saving purposes in this
world and in our lives. In this instance, to rescue
Peter for the sake of Peter and future ministry, for the sake of
the Church, for the sake of their witness together.
It's such an unexpected rescue. And it kind of gets gets better
when Luke tells her verse 12, Peter proceeded to go to the
House of Mary, the mother of John.
Mark. It's a well known meeting place
for the Jerusalem believers. Maybe it's where they always
met. We have to remember early in
Acts they can meet in the temple courts.
Now that's prohibited. This is our house church.
Like so many persecuted Christians around the world,
they can't meet in public. They meet in someone's home and
they're here praying for Peter, when suddenly the man they are
praying for comes knocking at the door.
And again we want to see or the joy of answered prayer when we
cannot quite believe that God has answered prayer.
Look at verse 13 again. So Peter knocks at the outer
entrance. I sort of imagine Peter doing it
a little bit frantically. Peter knows he's now a wanted
man. There could be soldiers coming
looking for him any moment. He's come to find a place to
hide with his fellow believers. So a servant named Rhoda comes
to answer the door. Rhoda, we're told she's a
servant in Mary and John Mark's home, probably a believer
herself. She certainly recognises Peter's
voice. She knows Peter well enough to
recognise his voice. And I love that Rhoda's name
will always be remembered because of this moment.
This servant girl who would be forgotten by history, She's the
one who heard Peter at the door and didn't open the door.
It's such a wonderful moment. She realizes he's at the door.
And she's so overjoyed she forgets to open the door.
She runs back. Peter's at the door.
And here is this prayer meeting, praying at full stretch for
Peter, asking God to set him free or to help him face his
death faithfully. And no one believes a word that
Rhode is saying verse 15, you're out of your minds.
They told her this is the beautiful things that Christians
say to each other. Sometimes this is not like it
doesn't feel like a faith filled response.
Just you're out of your mind. Ruda, stop it.
Go back to cleaning. It's it's a terrible thing.
But actually she keeps insisting.
And actually, I love the way Anne read it.
It must be his Angel. Probably someone very spiritual.
Oh, I understand, it's his Angel.
We don't need to open the door because it's not really him,
because he's in Herod's palace, because no one gets out of
Herod's palace. And in response to that, verse
16, Peter kept on knocking again.
He's getting nervous. There could be soldiers around.
Let me in. And when they do, they were
astonished. Verse 16, They were astonished.
We were praying, but we didn't. We didn't actually think God was
going to do anything. So you pray because you're
supposed to, aren't you? They're astonished.
Peter has to tell them to be quiet.
They're just shouts of amazement or disbelief of joy.
But he says quiet, please, partly might be soldiers
outside, let's not cause a big alarm.
But also he's got things to say. He tells them how the Lord has
rescued him from prison. He wants them to know how God
did it. Then he says tell the other
leaders in the church. And then he leaves for another
place. Peter's now a wanted man.
He's on the run. We don't hear from Peter again
till about another year later when Galatians chapter 2 tells
us he turns up an Antioch and spending time with with Paul.
And then a few years after that we get to Acts 15.
He does return to Jerusalem for a church council that happens
there. But in one sense, this is Peter
sort of stepping back from the book of Acts.
He's going to pick up far more with Paul the apostle from next
week. How are we meant to respond to
this moment and Peter's life and the life of the early church?
I think we're meant to see the Lord's able to do immeasurably
more than all we ask or imagine in response to the prayers of
his people, but beautifully and wonderfully.
It's not the size of our faith that matters ultimately, but the
saving power of our God. It's not the size of our faith,
it's the size of our God that makes the difference.
And we need to see that because there are some church traditions
today that teach that for God really to answer prayer, we have
to have the right amount of faith in him.
So if we pray and really believe God will answer, he will answer.
If we pray and we have any doubt the God will answer, he won't
answer. It's all about us and how much
faith we can somehow generate. And I've met Christians who've
taught that over the years. I've met Christians who've been
deeply affected and actually scarred by that over the years.
I think of of an older woman I know who has multiple sclerosis
and she and her husband have prayed for years for healing for
that. And they were part of the church
for many years that told them, well, the Lord has healed you,
you just don't have the faith yet to receive that healing
again. They're trying to kind of fit
her sickness in their theology, but but that crushed that
couple. They eventually left that
church. I know the son really well.
He still is bruised from that. He still can't quite know what
to do with stories like this where God miraculously answers
prayer again. We need to see, I think Luke
wants us to see, that even when believers can't quite believe
that God is able to answer, we still pray to him.
Those believers are praying at full stretch.
They're gathered together, but maybe some of them, maybe a good
number of them, had sort of given up.
They were praying more that Peter would meet his death
faithfully, which is a good prayer to pray, but in a sense,
they just can't believe that God's able to do what they want
him to do. But actually, gloriously, Luke
says that didn't matter. It wasn't the size of their
faith that mattered. It was the size of their God.
And how does that apply to us? I guess I think it's just really
precious truth for us. We don't have to have a huge
amount of faith. We don't have to have all the
answers. We don't even have to know what
to pray for when someone is suffering or struggling.
We might be full of fears and doubts and questions, but Luke
tells us here we just need to pray together and leave the rest
to God. Ask boldly for what we need and
trust completely and what the Father does in response to that.
Because again, it's important to remember, praying together does
not mean God will always rescue or always heal or always
intervene in the way we might want Him to.
Then Acts 12 records the rescue of 1 apostle and the violent
death of another. Acts 12 acknowledges the mystery
of God's sovereignty. We can't demand things from God.
We can't tell God how to do His job.
We can't ask Him to, to just do what we think is best.
No, like Jesus in Gethsemane, we ask boldly.
We are honest with Him. Then we trust completely with
what he wants to do. Again, you look back at
Gethsemane, Jesus praying to be spared the horrors of the cross.
He prayed. Father, if there is any other
way, let this cup pass from me. And as Christians have known
ever since that prayer, remarkably, the answer Jesus
received to that prayer, take this cup from me.
It was no God had other purposes to accomplish through His
perfect beloved Son that day. Jesus still went to the cross.
He still went on to drink the cup of God's wrath in our place.
He went on to endure the punishment we deserve, but
because of that, Jesus won salvation and forgiveness and
new life forever for everyone who puts their faith in him.
And the cross of Jesus looked like a defeat.
It looked like meaningless suffering, but actually it was
God saving his people forever. God's ways can be mysterious.
God is good. His ways are mysterious.
We need to hold on to both those things.
We don't always understand what God is doing.
We can rest that He is good and His ways are good, and we can
trust Him because He loves us perfectly.
Even the beginning of Acts 12 in James's death, it wasn't a
pointless tragedy or a terrible waste.
Just his time had come to go home.
James has followed Jesus for so many years, but now the moment
that sword ended his life, the Lord Jesus welcomed him home
forever. Your works done James.
Well done, good and faithful servant for every follower of
Jesus. Death.
It's not the worst thing that can happen.
It's not the end of God's good and loving purposes for us.
Death is to depart and be with Jesus.
Which is better by far, and no amount of King Herod's can take
that away. King Herod attacks the church.
The Lord rescues Peter in unexpected ways.
The joy of answer prayer. And finally and briefly, the
Lord then judges King Herod. The closing verse of Acts 12.
He sort of act as a trailer or a taster for God's coming
judgement on the pride and the powerful and the arrogant who
reject him. So Luke tells us after Herod
made a thorough search for Peter, cross examining the
guards, having them executed, he then travels back to Caesarea,
which was the capital of ancient Judea, and he makes peace with
the people of Tyre and Sidon. It's amazing, actually.
We've got another account of this from the Jewish historian
Josephus. So we actually know the date all
this happened, which always blows my mind.
This was in March, AD 44, if you want to make a note of that.
But humanly speaking, this is a great day for King Herod.
Verse 21, on the appointed day, Herod, wearing his royal robes,
sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people.
Now, according to Josephus the historian, Herod's royal robes
were made of silver and they shone brightly in the morning
sun. And the crowd is just hugely
impressed by what they saw and heard.
They shouted, This is the voice of a God, not of a man, and that
must have been music to the ears of a pride man like Herod,
except Herod didn't live long enough to enjoy it.
Verse 23 immediately, because Herod did not give praise to
God, and the ends of the Lord struck him down, and he was
eaten by worms and died again. According to Cephas's account, a
severe pain arose in Herod's belly.
Herod was carried into his palace, and five days later he
died. At the beginning of Acts 12,
Herod looked untouchable, unstoppable.
He had all this power bringing to bear on the early church.
He's had one leader killed. He's got another leader locked
up in prison. Who knows what he's going to do
next? By the end of Acts 12, Herod is
dead. Peter is free and verse 24, the
word of God continued to spread and flourish.
No matter how strong or impressive or unstoppable the
rulers of this world look today, the Lord is the true king, and
it's His Kingdom that will last forever.
See what we meant to make of this today?
Well, I think we all live in a world marked by injustice, where
often rich and powerful people seem to do whatever they like
and appear to get away with it. There are moments when some of
them are held to account. Think of the recent revelations
about Jeffrey Epstein, the arrest of men like Andrew
Mountbatten, Windsor, Peter Mandelson.
Even overnight last night there has been this attack on Iran.
And the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Hamani,
responsible for the oppression of death of many people, has
been killed in an air strike. Now it is far too early to know
what the results of that will be, but sometimes, even here and
now, dictators fall. But it's more the exception than
the rule. Luke knows this.
Luke knows that Christians throughout history are going to
meet plenty of King Herod's. There will always be people out
to attack the church who hate Christians, who rule and attack
and do whatever they want, who seem unstoppable in countries
like North Korea and Russia and other countries around the
world. But Luke says Acts 12, the
Lord's judgement will come in the end on all his enemies, and
we can trust him to do what is right.
The rich and powerful will be held to account by God.
Every dictator will be judged for what they have done to
people made in God's image, And every persecutor of the church
will be confronted with the living Lord Jesus.
One day the Lord judged King Herod as He will judge all
arrogant rulers who reject him. In the meantime, we can trust
God to do what is right. I Even more than that, we can
love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
Romans 12 on the screen, the Apostle Paul writing Do not
repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right
in the eyes of everyone if it's possible.
As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
And Krish Lee says, do not take revenge, my dear friends, but
leave room for God's wrath. For it's written, it is mine to
avenge. I will repay, says the Lord.
On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.
If he's thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, he'll heap burning coals in his head.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Because we know God will judge the wicked.
In the end, we can love our enemies.
We can cry out to God to do what is right.
And remember some of God's enemies become God's friends
through faith in Jesus. A few chapters earlier saw this
violent persecutor. The church is transformed by
Jesus. We can pray that for our
enemies. Pray that even for rulers in
this world. Acts 12 is an astonishing moment
in the book of Acts. It tells us the Lord delights to
work through the prayers of His people, and He's able to do
immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.
There's huge encouragement here for us.
Why should we pray together? Well, there are plenty of King
Herod's in our world, so we need to pray against them.
The Lord delights to work through the prayers of His
people, so we need to pray knowing that the Father will
hear us. The Son is interceding for us.
The Spirit takes our prayers and brings them to God.
We need to be encouraged. It's not the size of our faith
that matters, it's the size of our God.
And we look forward to the day when Jesus will judge the living
and the dead. He will bring rulers to justice
and He will wipe every tear from our eyes.
The Lord loves to work through the prayers of His people, even
when we can't quite believe that He will.
Acts 12 is here to strengthen our faith and call us to pray.
Let's do that now. As we finish, let's pray
briefly. Some words from Ephesians 3.
Now to him, He was able to do immeasurably more than all we
ask or imagine according to His power that is at work within us.
To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout
all generations, forever and ever.
Amen.