Dennis Tuuri

Now, an account of such rich dealing with one of God’s servants from the book of Acts, a man who was literally delivered from the prison of which we just sang. Hopefully, it has application to you this day. If you stand bound in sin or as a result of the culture or the contents of which you find yourselves, this should be a passage of great hope and great joy. The sermon text is found in Acts 12. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Acts chapter 12, we’ll read the first 17 verses of the text. Now about that time, Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James, brother of John, 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 quaternion millions of soldiers to keep him, intending after Easter 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 behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison, and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, “Arise up quickly, and his chains fell off from his hands.

And the angel said unto him, “Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals.” And so he did. And he saith unto him, “Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me.” And he went out and followed him, and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel, but thought he saw a vision. When they were passed the first and the second ward, they came unto the iron gate that leadeth unto the city, which opened to them of his own accord.

And they went out, and passed on through one street, and forthwith the angel departed from him. And when Peter was come to himself, he said, “Now I know of a surety that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews.” And when he had considered this thing, he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying.

And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken named Rhoda. And when she knew Peter’s voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in and told how Peter stood before the gate. And they said unto her, “Thou art mad.” But she constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, “It is his angel.” But Peter continued knocking. And when they had opened the door, and saw him, they were astonished.

But he, beckoning unto them with the hand to hold their peace, declared unto them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, “Go, show these things unto James, and to the brethren.” And he departed, and went into another place. We thank God for his word and we pray now that he would illuminate it to our understanding in our hearts. We do indeed gather today to hear of the great things God hath brought.

We see in the text from Acts 12, the second wave of persecution against the church in Jerusalem. This one much more deadly than the ones we seen earlier and in the context of this we have kind of a recapitulation of the gospel itself relationship to Passover and unleavened bread and we have here a story of great joy which should bring to us great hope along with that joy but also has as most portions of scripture that do to us they have within them a context of warning as well and then finally there’s also an element of consecration in this text as well so we’ll go through this text some somewhat slowly and we’ll probably take a couple of weeks to do it, but I think it is important to do so to point out some of the things that may not be obvious from first glance at looking at the text.

So, let’s work our way through the text now. And I you’ll see in your outline that I’ve kind of divided it up. I think it naturally divides itself up under first of all the sinful actions of Herod, the church’s response of continual prayer. God’s deliverance then of Peter. Peter’s response to God’s deliverance is pointed out for us then at the conclusion of this particular portion of text. And so we have first of all this description of this great persecution under Herod.

Some things we should point out about this as we go through this particular first portion. You see in your outline I’ve divided this up as four actions of wickedness on the part of Herod. This is Herod Agrippa. This is not the same Herod that tried to kill baby Jesus, the slaughter of the innocents. That was his grandfather. Okay. His grandfather had children by 10 different wives. Not a particularly good man either.

The whole line of the Herodian rulers came from—they were Edomites. However, Herod Agrippa who we read in of today’s account, the grandson of Herod the Great who persecuted the tried to kill the infant Jesus, he had a mother who was a Jew. She was actually the line of the Maccabees. And so he was both of Edomite blood and also of Jewish blood. He was sent to Rome for his education by his grandfather actually.

And he was intimate companions with both Caligula, the mad horrific emperor of Caesar of the early late 30s or early 40s as well as an intimate companion of Claudius who succeeded Caligula. In fact, Herod probably had something to do with Claudius being able to rule the Roman Empire. And it was Claudius who gave Herod more territory than he had been given by Caligula. for a while when Herod was in Rome, he was really kept in prison actually according to some records and actually himself chained to a prisoner at one point, chained to a guard rather at one point.

But then with his association with these two up and coming Caesars, he was given a dominion again in the land of Israel and that dominion was extended by Claudius. It’s important to keep this in mind because we really deal with Herod Agrippa in a couple of different senses. First of all, we see him in Rome where he’s a friend of the court and close companions with Romans such as Caligula and Claudius.

If you ever saw that PBS special, I Claudius, they have Herod as a character in that series of things. It paints him as a very nice man though and not really liking Caligula etc. But in fact, he was known in Rome for his extravagance and his luxury and his kind of wild way of living. In Israel, however, he was known as a very strict observer of the Mosaic law. and he would actually read sermon texts at times and the reading of the law at the temple during the worship services.

And so he maintained a position of external religiosity most commentators think not because of his own particular beliefs through his mother but rather for the sake of political expediency. He knew how to wield political power. And so when we read of this Herod Agrippa we have to keep these things in mind because it helps us to understand his motivation why this particular faith of persecution comes upon the Christians.

Now, in the text, we’re told that he engages in a fourfold repeated action of wickedness. And I think it’s significant that throughout this account, which again is one of Luke’s lengthy accounts. You’ll notice in the middle of this account, he talks about the beheading actually the death by sword of James. but he spends just a short phrase on that and yet a long period of time here spent on Peter’s imprisonment and deliverance.

And so, we want to pay attention to that. We want to let the Bible speak for itself. And as he gives us these repeated demonstrable effects of fourfold actions of wickedness and the angel’s fourfold actions and then the commands, a series of commands to Peter and his series of responses, those are given in scripture for particular reason for emphasis. And so we don’t want to ignore them. We want to really attend to them and see the importance of them.

Well, in this particular action, we have Herod stretching forth his hand against the church. Now, we’ve talked about this before. This is the same basic expression, the stretching forth of the hands. This is used in other places of scripture to stretch forth hands to ordain people to good things. But it’s also used to stretch forth hands to hurt people. So the stretching forth of the hand is the hand of power.

And it’s Herod’s hands plural. So he’s really actively involved. What the scriptures want us to see here, actively involved in persecuting the church, stretching his hand against them in a negative sense. Now the text tells us that these were the days of unleavened bread. That’s very important also in the context of this text. Important to see these repeated actions of significance. And also to see that in this particular structure of this story, we are told in two different places in it that this is during a festival time of the Jews, the feast of unleavened bread or Passover.

Now, originally in the Old Testament, Passover was held first. Of course, you remember what Passover is about. The deliverance from Egypt, the killing of the Passover lamb, the angel of God passing over those who had the blood applied to the doorpost. That was the initiation of the Passover feast. But then following the Passover feast was to be a seven-day period of unleavened bread at which no leaven bread was eaten and in fact heads of households were supposed to search out the household and get rid of all the old leaven.

Now leaven isn’t always a symbol in scripture for sin. It’s more of corruptibility. It can be good or it can be bad. The leaven of the kingdom is a good leaven. It influences things positively. And this was a searching out for bad leaven. And there’s some reason to believe that Herod in his attempt to persecute the Christians and thereby gain favor with the Jews. That’s what he’s doing here. It’s a political maneuver that he might actually have chosen this particular time of year correlating these Christians with unleavened with the leaven of sinfulness or wickedness.

And so he was a bad householder going through his house not removing bad leaven but removing the good leaven of the kingdom. And so the context of this is that festival. And that’s very important for an understanding of the text. Well, Herod stretches forth his hands not to search out bad leaven in the context of the kingdom but instead to search out the good leaven of the kingdom. and to persecute it, to throw it into jail.

But we read in the King James version, it says that he was going to vex the church. that word vex is probably not nice enough or not strong enough rather. It really means to ill treat and to harm. And very interestingly, this same term has been used in Acts 7. In the sermon given in Acts chapter 7, relative to the people of Israel in Egypt were vexed. They were ill-treated of the Egyptians while slaves there.

And so I think that the text wants us to correlate the actions of Herod and is vexing, harming, abusing, you might even say torturing, meaning to hurt the church with the actions of Egypt against the Israelites while they were in bondage. And so there’s a correlation here drawn immediately certainly in the context of Passover and unleavened bread, but now in the very term used in terms of vexing the church between Herod and the Pharaoh of Egypt.

And he is, as I said before, at least a half an Edomite. An Edomite who were vicious enemies of the Israelite people through history and God’s judgment abided upon them. In fact, the last sermon scripture we’ll read today before the final song will be the song of Moses and God’s victory given to us in Exodus 15. And he talks here about how the dukes of Edom are astonished. And in a sense, that’s what we’re going to see happen here as Herod, one of the princes or rulers of Edom essentially and certainly in terms of his spiritual state, is astonished by the deliverance of Peter.

Well, in any event, he then reaches forth his hands. He moves to vex or abuse the church certain of the church. And he then kills James, the brother of John with the sword. This is James the apostle. This is James, one of the first three apostles. This is James, the brother of John. They were both the sons of Zebedee. Remember, our Savior called them sons of thunder. And some commentators have said, well, maybe it was because of James’s being a son of thunder.

In other words, being boisterous for the Lord that he was sought out by Herod. We don’t know. but we do know that he was a very important member of the apostolic rank at Jerusalem with the twelve apostles. it was James and John and Peter who were on the mount of transfiguration. And those three are frequently found in the gospel accounts. So they’re kind of like, you know, I don’t know I probably it’s a little bit of an overstatement, sort of upper tier, if you will, very important in the context of the disciples.

And so James is killed by Herod and he’s killed with the sword. And the phrase there apparently means most commentators agree that it means he was probably beheaded. wasn’t just stuck in the side. He was beheaded. Now, we don’t know if apparently Herod was doing this to curry favor with the Jews as a people and certainly with the religious leaders of whom he had to govern in terms of Israel. That would be the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

And we know that in the account tells us as well that with Peter, he doesn’t kill him right away. He waits until the feast of unleavened bread is over. He doesn’t want to do it during that period of time to offend the religious sensibilities. So, we know that he’s sensitive to the religious context in which he’s operating. Now, it is interesting as an interesting sidelight here that if a person in Israel was to draw off people to try to seek people to become idolatrous, then the Old Testament prescription for him was to be death by not the sword but by stoning.

But if a person was to draw off an entire city of Israel into idolatry, then the case law provides for death by sword. So if Herod is trying to appease the religious sensibilities of the community in which he lives. Perhaps he’s using the sword and beheading him here in relationship to the case law in terms of this man is trying to draw off the city. The Christians are trying to draw off the Jews here into idolatry by worshiping this Jesus Christ fella who claims to be God.

And as a result, we should kill him with the sword. Now, interestingly enough, if that was the case, if an entire city was pulled off into idolatry, the man who did it would certainly be killed with the sword. But the rest of the case says the entire city is to be killed and destroyed. Everybody in it is supposed to be put to death if they become idolatrous as an entire community. And it’s interesting to note that in AD 70 there will be massive vengeance from God against the idolatrous Jews in really completion of that case law relative to a city involved in idolatry.

And we have here I think a fairly critical incident in that drift of Jerusalem from the days when the apostles were looked upon favorably to the days when by the time of AD 70, they’re persecuted and driven out increasingly. There’s a shift that goes on in the city of Jerusalem. And this particular portion of scripture shows us that shift occurring. Now, we know that the religious establishment has never been happy with what’s going on here.

But now, we have an intensification of persecution in order to please the Jews as a people. The text tells us Herod does this stuff, imprisons Peter. What’s going on here? Why does this wickedness happen? Now, well, the way Luke has recorded the events for us, he places this in the context of the movement of the gospel to first Cornelius, a proselyte god-fearing Gentile, not circumcised, but God-fearing.

And then beyond that, the conversion of totally pagan Gentiles and their acceptance into the church at Antioch. And so, what we see in this text is this movement of inclusion. The gospel now as our Savior commanded and said it would go out into the whole world and all the nations will be converted now. And this is beginning to happen. And so the privileged position of Jerusalem first and then Israel as a land is now challenged through the inclusion of pagan Gentiles into this church.

As long as the church stayed a subset of Judaism, as long as it didn’t really challenge the privileged position of the promised land and the people who were filled with pride and arrogance, then they were tolerated and even liked for their morality. But when that morality threatened their existence as a particular people, threatened their vested interests, then tremendous persecution is the result.

Jealousy and envy is throughout the epistle accounts given as the motivation for the leaders of the Jews and the Jewish people themselves wanting to put to death first Jesus and then the implication of Jesus in the person of James and Peter here. And so this is very important for us because it helps us to understand how history works and the dynamics of people toleration of religious sects until those sects become a challenge to the vested interests of the ruling power structure.

And when that happens, when Christianity comes to full blossom and confronts the idolatry of pagan privilege and privilege apart from relationship to Jesus Christ, then you can expect great persecution in the land. That’s important for us to know. It’s important for us to be able to read the days that lie ahead of us in this country in that way. Well, in any event, in verse three, it says that Herod saw that it pleased the Jews.

He proceeded further to take Peter also. These were the days of unleavened bread, as I said, and he then involves in these actions of securing and imprisoning Peter. As I said, it’s very important that we don’t as we move on from these first couple of verses here that we don’t miss the parenthetical statement with the with its resultant or implied condemnation of Herod. Herod is seen here as an antichrist purging not the leaven of sin but rather purging God’s good leaven from his house or land.

The king is seen as the householder of his dominion. The same way a householder was to purge unleavened bread. The king had a responsibility to suppress idolatry as well. And this king is actually furthering idolatry and suppressing the true faith. And so he’s antichrist in in essence here. And failing his responsibilities relative to the very feast that is mentioned in the context of the text the feast of unleavened bread.

Now beyond this however the reminder to us that this is the days of unleavened bread points forward I believe to God’s work relative to unleavened bread and relative to the removal of leaven. God will purge his house in spite of man’s actions. A country is not ruled by man. A country is ruled by God and God will purge Jerusalem of the leaven. And by the end of this chapter, Herod Agrippa wielding all this power will be smitten by God in a horrific way.

And he will be removed because he is the evil leaven in the context of the land. And so in the context right away of this, while we’re given a great statement of persecution going on, we’re also given the first glimpse in the text that this persecution will result in God’s victory because that’s what the days of unleavened bread and the feast of Passover are all about is deliverance from just such wicked people as Herod.

Now, this should do several things to us. You know, this should first of all serve as a warning. We live in the context of a land that tolerates the Christian faith for a period of time. How long that toleration will go on probably will be in relationship to how fervently the church pursues its mandate of preaching the gospel in the context of this culture and the world and challenging the positions of privilege and power that now exist in this culture which are not Christian at all.

The country culture is radically anti-Christian but it tolerates Christianity. It has the same semblance of religiosity as Herod had. And indeed we can see some correlations between presidents of this country both a past and present the president as well and a person who is continually got his finger up in the air licking his hand. Which way is the wind blowing today? That’s what Herod did. And when the wind blew against the church He acted against it.

Well, we have a president today who spends millions of dollars. I think I heard a figure was $2 million the first year of his administration in poll taking to find what the American people want to determine what he tells them in his addresses to the people. We have a president, as we have had probably with many other past presidents, who has a semblance of religiosity, who who gives external indications of a belief in the Christian faith.

may even read scripture in the context of a church service. Herod did these things. And we have a Christian population that unfortunately is all too willing to see in such little shows great hope for a person’s state relative to the church of Jesus Christ. Don’t be fooled. This text contains a great warning to the rulers of the civil magistrates in this country that if they fail to fulfill their obligations relative to removing the sinful leaven of idolatry from the land, and they will be removed by God.

The days of unleavened bread and Passover are upon us now in an extended sense with the coming of Jesus Christ. This is what plays itself out in history. So, we have a great warning here to civil magistrates who rule incorrectly. And we have a warning to all other magistrates as well, to church magistrates who fail to fulfill their responsibilities relative to leaven. To home leaders, you’re a magistrate.

You’re a ruler in your own home if you’re a man here, head of a household. And you will be judged, as Herod was, on the degree to which you fulfill your responsibilities of removing idolatrous leaven from your house and encouraging and planting leaven of the kingdom in your house. And to the extent that you do those things, you’ll be prospered by God. And to the extent that you don’t, you’ll be judged by him.

So there’s a tremendous warning for us here in the context of Herod in the first few verses of this text. And there’s a warning, as I said before, of envy and the great power of envy as it moves through culture. Herod was essentially a demagogue. He played to the people, played to the people all the time. And our country is becoming increasingly populated at the civil level. Civil rulers are increasingly demagogues who do not operate on the basis of principle whatsoever, but operate totally on the basis of what the people want to hear.

And when rulers turn their hearts away from God and the requirements of God’s word, whether it’s in the home, the church, or the state, and start listening instead to the voice of the people and what they want to hear and what they want done. then they’re on the same course that Herod is on. And frequently that course will end in the in the actual persecution and death of many Christians. And they’re certainly they’re they’re being vexed by such rulers.

Now this should also bring of course a degree of thanksgiving to our hearts because we don’t live in such a time yet. We have lots of time to work. We have lots of time to prepare for what may be ahead of us in this country. We should be grateful, eternally grateful to God that we do not suffer that kind of persecution at this time in America.

Well, okay. Herod goes on then in terms of this fourfold action of wickedness. He then goes on in a very repeated again for emphasis measure of reaching out and securing Peter. We’re told in the text that he reaches out to him, that he apprehends him. The text tells us he puts him in prison, separate action. He delivers him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people. Now, he grabs a hold of him. In other words, he throws him into prison.

He delivers him to four quaternions of soldiers. What a quaternion or what this is relating to is the Romans divided the evening, the 12 hours of the evening into four three-hour shifts. This is what most people think the text means. And so, you had 16 men essentially assigned to guard Peter in prison in shifts of four. Now other commentators think that actually all 16 are there at the same time. We don’t know.

But the point is here and the reason why it’s mentioned in the text whether it’s four at a time and 16 over 12 hours or whether it’s 16 all at one time. The point the text is trying to emphasize is this guy is closely guarded. Herod is taking great steps to secure him in prison until the feast of unleavened bread is over and he can bring him out and kill him after the feast is over.

Now it’s interesting that the King James version as well as the Geneva Bible, the Rheims version, all kinds of versions translate the word that normally is translated Passover here. That’s what the word means. The King James is translated Easter. This is the only place in the New Testament where these versions and a number of them translate instead of Passover is Easter. That’s interesting to me. You know, why did they do that? I don’t know why they did it, but maybe it’s because this passage is such an Easter text. It’s all about death to resurrection. And of course, that’s what Passover about too, but bring into the context of a Christian culture in which the translations I’m referring to are written, they probably wanted to make that strong association to our celebration of Easter.

But in any event, please understand that if you have a King James version that in verse four, it actually means Passover. That’s the Passover to bring him forth to the people. Again, we have the reference here to the unleavened bread feast and by way of association with Passover. and so it’s very important in the context of this particular verse. It is interesting as well before we pass on from this verse to notice that these 16 soldiers these what you might refer to as smaller chunks of leaven they will also by the end of this text by the end of the chapter be removed by God’s hand working through Herod will after Peter escapes will kill these men he will torture them to find out what happened and then he will kill every one of them and that’s again one reason why Luke spends so much time in the details of this text because Herod tried to put an end to the story by killing off all the witnesses.

Well, in any event, again, the reference to unleavened bread and God’s providential action of punishing smaller chunks of leaven as well as the larger chunks of leaven, those men who act in sinful obedience to a sinning magistrate. And so it bears responsibility, they bear responsibility for their actions even though they were commanded to do so by Herod.

Okay. The church’s response to this then is given to us and that’s in verse 5.

And in a way I think this is the center of the text. That’s a very simple statement. This is the only statement really that is not given a great deal of detail to it. we’re told very simply in verse 5, Peter therefore was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. A nice simple, isn’t that nice? I really like that in terms of the literary device used there. It’s a very simple statement and I think the simplicity of it in the context of the persecution, the great, you know, eight actions of persecution by Herod at the front of it and the eight actions of the angel delivering Peter after it.

I think it’s almost the center of the text here for us and it’s quite central in its significance. The prayers of God’s people is the response to the kind of persecution that begins to go ongoing. And it’s not simply prayer. you know, it says there that they made that prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for Peter. Prayer was going on all the time, very directed, very energetic prayer continually without ceasing while is being held in prison being preparing being prepared by Herod for his execution.

Then we have in the story God’s deliverance of Peter next given for us in verses 6-10.

Verse 6 when Herod would have brought him forth the same night Peter was sleeping. And again here we have a repeated emphasis for us in the text of the secureness with which Herod had him held in prison. We’re told that he was between two soldiers. was bound with two chains and the keepers before the door kept the prison.

So we have a picture here of two sets of men, one on either we have a set of men on either side of Peter. Now normally you would have one guard on your side. Perhaps you’d be handcuffed to him the way I said that Herod was in Rome himself at one point in time. But here we have two men on either side of Peter. Both chains or both hands rather of Peter are chained. And guarding those chains are the two men that he’s chained to.

Additionally, the text tells us that the that there were keepers before the door. So, we had prison doors here as well emphasized in the text and even at those doors there are more men at least two and maybe as many as 12 out there in the context of the of the number of doors that we had one had to go through the portals or entrances. But again, the point here is that the text wants us to understand the secureness with which Herod thought he had kept Peter in prison.

Now, why? Well, Remember, Peter had escaped before. God had delivered Peter before. And of course, maybe he’s even thinking back to Jesus and how wasn’t enough to set a couple of guards there at the tomb. so, in any event, that as the context for God’s deliverance of Peter, he gives us this great statement of the secureness with which Herod had sought to secure Peter in prison.

In response to this, we have a fourfold action by the angel of the Lord.

And behold, verse 7, the angel of the Lord came unto Peter. So, he comes to Peter first. Secondly, a light shines in the prison. We have the movement from darkness to light. In the context of this, the angel of the Lord, not an angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord approaches to Peter. First of all, he comes to him. And then secondly, darkness then becomes light. And we see immediately what the context of all this is going to be.

Right in that statement, the light shone in the prison. Our hearts begin, I hope, hopefully, I hope, as you read such texts or hear about them to rise up within us in anticipation of what the glorious thing that God is going to do as the light shines forth in the darkness. And as the word of God is shined into any culture, any darkness, any prison, it should fill us with that same sense of expectancy in the context of our day and age.

In any event, a light shines in the prison. And he smote Peter on the side and raised him up. Now, this is interesting language. He hits him on the side. So far, we’re okay. The angel comes to him. Light shines in the prison. Great. And now the chains are going to fall off. No, not yet. No. First, he hits him. He smites him. And he hits him specifically on the side. Now, text tells us that for some reason the word smite here it’s it’s interesting the only places I can find it in the New Testament it doesn’t mean a little nice little stick it means whack it’s the same word that was when Peter smote the ear remember in the garden of Gethsemane of the soldier that’s the same word for smite there it’s the same word that the scriptures tell us that the shepherd will be they’ll smite the shepherd and the sheep will scatter are referring to Christ’s death.

Okay. And so this smiting action is a severe action. And it’s interesting that he hits Peter on the side. again, this is not used very often in the New Testament, this particular word that referring to the side of some man being hit. And we can think of our Savior, of course, on the cross. It was his side that was pierced as an indication. The blood and water come out as an indication that he has died and made atonement for his people.

And so I think that these scriptures want us to have correlations in our mind and the smiting of Peter on the side. and then the raising of him up. We have there again another picture. We have so many pictures in this text of resurrection. We have the death symbolic death of Peter. He’s in prison. He’s in darkness. He’s chained. He’s guarded by the forces of evil. He’s kept in the context of hell and Hades.

That’s what this text wants us to see going on here. And God raises him out of that. of this symbolic death. This is Peter’s resurrection. This is Peter’s Passover coming through those bloody doors into victory. And that’s what’s going on here in the feast of unleavened bread. And Peter understood this. Luke wants us to understand it. And he wants us to see it in relationship not to the Passover lamb, but to the person of Jesus Christ who was struck in the side and water and blood comes out to show that he’s paid the death for his people.

Tremendous. You know, this is a glorious text of resurrection and hope for God’s people. And it’s all based upon identification with the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter, the bound one, his chains fall off. He’s set free. You know, I wanted—I we didn’t pick it. Probably should have picked that song, you know, “Amazing Love. How can it be that thou has died for me? Thou my Lord has died for me. My chains fell off.

It was set free.” That’s what happens to Peter here. It’s just we read about in the Psalms earlier about the released from prison. And just as we read about responsibly in that psalm where then the release proceeds his recovery back, his relationship restored back to the church. That’s what we’re going to see now for Peter.

But before we move on to that, the angel commands Peter in a particular way.

But before we get to that commanding of Peter, let’s just pause a couple of minutes here and think about the great hope. I talked about the warning to Herod and to heads of households and to church leaders. I talked about the warning to a culture that finds itself in the context of which we do and which Israel did at that time where Christianity is now only tolerated in this country, no longer seen as a good thing really we’re pretty odd., and the warning that difficult times had come upon us as well. But in the context of that warning, the point here of this text is primarily now to be found in this hope that ushers forth in understanding the relationship of Peter and his release to our own situation.

There’s a very real sense in which at many points in our life we find ourselves in corollary situations to Peter. We we can find ourselves bound about unable to move out of a particular difficult situation that God brings into our lives. perhaps it’s in the context of our marriage. Perhaps it’s in the context of our household. I’m trying to deal with our children. It’s we just don’t know what to do and we find ourselves kind of bound about and without hope.

We find ourselves at the end of our rope, so to speak. Seemingly chained and unable to do particular things. We can find that situation in our work. I’ve had times in when I worked at another the Oregon Graduate Center, there were times in that period of employment when I just didn’t know what to do anymore because of the relationship I had with a particular person there. And I know that people in this congregation have in the last six months told me the same thing about their particular work.

Several of you have where work can be you just don’t know how to get out anymore and you feel depressed. You feel oppressed. Whether it’s as a result of your own sin, whether it’s the result of the context in which you find yourself in your family or your home, some of it related to your sin perhaps, but nothing you can do about past sins now. You can only take the next step forward. Whether it’s in the context of the culture in which you find yourself at work, we find ourselves as a church in America in many, many ways bound and unable to the work God has called us to do.

We talked last week about the extension of mercy. Well, you know, when the civil state provides a pretty good banquet for people, it’s pretty tough to try to find people who understand their real need before God. And so, we have a culture that seeks to meet every need of its people. Every person an analyzed person, every person, you know, a a counseled person and a pat on the head person because of their difficulties.

And and as a result, we find ourselves as a church kind of hedged in terms of the extension of mercy. There’s so much counterfeit mercy going on in our culture that Christian mercy is a difficult thing for people to see or involve themselves in. and so we find ourselves as a result of our own sin frequently as a result of other people’s sin, as a result simply of the context in which God has called us to live.

We may find ourselves in the depths of prison and despair and hopelessness. But this text reminds us that those things are a precursor for the children of God to deliverance. Just as Egypt led to Canaan, so Peter will be led forth now from death. to life. It’s it’s you know, we’ve talked about this a lot in the book of Acts because it’s really the core of the Christian life is a movement from death to resurrection.

And it doesn’t happen just once. Now, ultimately, it does in the in the final sense in which we’re born again to a lively hope or regenerated. But God, Peter was regenerated, but God takes Peter through a very difficult time here. And you know, it’s not going to get easy for Peter from now on. You know, this is the end of Peter for all intents and purposes in the book of Acts. We’ll see him one more time.

Acts chapter 15. This was the great apostle who was given these great sermons so far in the opening chapters of the book of Acts. But the gospel now is being removed from Jerusalem and out of the land of Canaan into all the world. Peter takes the gospel to the edge of the land and Paul takes it the rest of the way. And Peter now must decrease and Paul now must increase. And so Peter is involved in a real transition in his life.

Well, of course, the most magnified sense of that is this is this darkness of the prison in which he finds himself. And I guess what I’m trying to say here is that God wants all of us to realize that when we find ourselves in the context of difficult times, distressing times this is not abnormal for the Christian life. That is a part of the Christian life. And it would be heretical to think that somehow because we believe in eschatological optimism or we believe that the curses and blessings of Deuteronomy 28 are operative in our world today and because we know that we’ve come to an appreciation for God’s law to somehow think that all troubles will be removed.

No, all troubles won’t be removed. Now, it’s just as heretical though to think that our lives are characterized simply by that kind of suffering. To think that the prison is where we stay. That’s not where we stay. Peter’s home was not the prison. Peter’s home was the city. And God’s going to move Peter from that prison back through that large iron gate into the city and on into the world to do ministry in a reduced sense and in a much changed scenario for him because of the persecution but nonetheless to ministry.

And so it’s very important that when we come to the to worship God in the Lord’s day and we may come with heavy hearts as a result of the week in which we’ve gone through and we come here and we should understand that the liturgy we involve ourselves in the scripture text that we read the participation in the Lord’s supper. All of these things should be drunk by us and realize that our life consists in moving from death to resurrection that God will bring you out of the distress and and you must have hope that this will occur.

Hope is essential to the Christian faith. And what this text gives us is hope in the context of dire situations. None of us At least not that I know of. Maybe if you have, you can tell me later. None of us has resisted sin to the point of the shedding of our blood. These men did. These men did and gave us an example that at the ultimate end of all things that we can imagine that would be difficult for us to go through.

God gives us grace and hope of resurrection. You come here today and this is a hackneyed phrase I know in our culture, but this is the first day of the rest of your life. Now, that’s a silly phrase in the world sense, you know. cutting off from historical lineage, etc. But in the context of this sermon, in the context of this particular scripture text, it’s very important that you realize it. Peter wasn’t there because of his sin, but frequently we are there because of our sin.

If we if we are honest with ourselves as we come to a text like this and we think back over the last week and how well we either installed bad leaven or installed good leaven in the context of our household or our work or relationships. How often we ministered grace with our tongues as opposed to the time when we didn’t even consider what we were doing and maybe even ministered not grace but stumbling blocks to other people I did this week.

If we look back over this last week, we know that our place rightfully is with Peter in the dungeon, chained, bound, guards on either side awaiting our death. That’s where we belong. But God has delivered us from that. It’s important that we realize that. But it’s important that you Realize that this day God proclaims to you salvation. This day God proclaims to you forgiveness. This day God proclaims to you release from sins, guilt, and bondage.

And so you can in the twinkling of an eye move in terms of repentance and restoration to God and come out of the prison of despair and into the daylight of of God’s service and God’s blessing. And so this text is filled with good news of that kind of movement in our lives. And I just pray to God that we all see this day as a day in which hopefully when you come forward in a few minutes to offer yourselves and all that you have to God, you do so with repentant hearts for your sin and God fills you with a sense of hope of the resurrection that he gives us that is that is pictured for us here in the deliverance of Peter from the from the prison.

But the go it goes on. It doesn’t stop with simple hope and blessing from God. There is consecration aspect to this which is always part of the Christian messages while the Christian message is always warning the Christian message is always hope to God’s people but it is also hope that leads to a consecration of effort and we see the angel then immediately upon his coming in and delivering Peter commanding him he gives him four commands first he tells him arise up quickly and the chains fall off his hands Peter’s free and then the angel says to him gird yourself and bind your sandals on that’s one phrase there in Peter does so and then he gives him another command.

Cast your garment about thee. Peter does it and follow me. Follow me. The angel issues a series of commands to Peter. Now these are interesting commands as well. Everything in this text is very interesting. Gird yourself and bind gird yourself and bind on your sandals. Remember what we said that the scripture has given us a repeated number now of references to Passover unleavened bread.

It’s told us it’s the days of unleavened bread. It’s said that he’s going to release him after Passover. It’s told us that Herod is vexing the people of God the way that Pharaoh vexed the people of God in Israel. We’ve got the angel of the Lord here coming to those in prison to release him from it. And it even has illusions to the blood of our savior on the doorpost, so to speak, with the smoting of Peter on the side and his identification with the death of Christ.

So, we have all these pictures of Passover given to us. And here’s another one because When God told the people to eat the Passover feast, he told them to eat the Passover feast with these two things in place that they would be girded up and that they would have bound on their sandals. God tells them that specifically when you eat the Passover, do it with your loins girded up, your belt tied around you, ready for travel, and do it with sandals on your feet, ready to move out.

Because God doesn’t just release us from prison. He calls us to move out. out to the promised land and he and the angel is delivering Peter from death. But more than that, he’s also calling Peter to go forth into the city. You see, so there’s a sense in which there’s an immediate relationship between our resurrection and the hope of our resurrection to our consecration to the service of the angel of the Lord Jesus Christ who calls us to follow him.

And so the text tells us that. Now, as much as hopefully you’ve been encouraged with a message of resurrection and hope. To that same degree, you should feel compelled to consecrate yourselves as you’ve been freed by God and had that proclamation declared to you this day and we’ll continue to have it declared throughout this day. You should understand that your responsibility is to gird yourself up. Put your sandals on.

Get ready for work to march into this week not slothfully but diligently for the sake of the one whom you should love who was actually struck pierced. aside and who actually gave his blood that we might live. If you understand the deliverance from sin in this, you’ll understand your need to obey these same commands to us to rise up, oh men of God. The church waits for you. The church in America waits. Rise up quickly.

Get ready for action. Gird your belts on. Put on your sandals. Get ready to go forth with your feet shod of the preparation of the gospel. Get ready to do kingdom work. Cast your upon you accept the righteousness of Christ, the robing of power and authority that he gives you as priests of God. As Richard again read from Jeremiah, to go forward as the prophets of God for the building up and tearing down, that’s what they’re doing to Herod here.

Herod’s not in control. Herod’s going to be dead by the end of this passage, eaten by worms. That’s the fate for those who oppose Jesus Christ and his people. And God calls us to gird ourselves with that robe of authority and to follow Christ into this week. That is the command to us as well. It is a call to consecration. Peter is delivered and he follows the angel. Then and notice in verse 9, he goes out and he follows the angel of the Lord.

This is Jesus Christ. And he wist not that it was true it was done by the angel but thought he saw a vision. Isn’t that like us so often? We don’t I mean I don’t know about you but I am not always in full understanding of what God is doing in my life. When we are delivered in such a way by God and brought into consecration to him frequently. It’s not exactly with our understanding of what’s happened. We are frequently dazed and confused in terms of God’s providence, but it doesn’t prevent us from obeying him.

We don’t need to understand all things to walk in obedience to the one who tells us to follow him. And then Peter goes out and they go through the first and the second ward. What ward is, we don’t know. Could be gate. It could be the guards themselves. They go past the guards. It doesn’t make any difference, but it does make a difference that it tells us there was a first ward.