Dennis Tuuri

# Acts 12

Please stand for the reading of God’s word. We return to Acts 12:1-17. We read here of two kings along the line of the psalm that we just recited and then sang. We read here of two kings during a time of festival of unleavened bread. It was the custom as you remember with our Savior to release one prisoner at the feast of unleavened bread, feast of Passover. That was in commemoration of the people of Israel coming out of Egypt.

Remember the crowd desired Barabbas instead of Jesus to be released. And in this particular story, King Herod imprisons the one who should be free, but King Jesus releases him. Let’s read of that account in Acts 12:1 and following.

Now about that time, Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church, and he killed James, the brother of John with the sword. 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 quaternions 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 into 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 rather, 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 had sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews.”

When he had considered the 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, in which 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 that he would illuminate our understandings, encourage our hearts, and strengthen our hands for work.

—

The same material we dealt with last week. I thought I’d return to it and kind of try to draw the image out a little stronger perhaps, and then try to focus in on some application points. Remember we said last week that this text contains a warning to those who are managers of households, whether they’re civil or ecclesiastical or familial.

The feast of unleavened bread was a time in which corruptible portions in our lives would be purged out following the Passover, our deliverance. We’re to consecrate ourselves to God and search out our hearts and our lives diligently to remove corruptibility in the context of our lives. Remove the old leaven. Maybe it was new leaven at one point in time, but now it’s become corruptible to us. Take a particular source perhaps of sinfulness in our lives. And Herod goes about removing the wrong kind of leaven. He wants to get rid of the leaven of the Christians, the leaven of the kingdom.

And so it’s a warning to all householders civil, ecclesiastical and familial to be very diligent in the way we exercise our responsibilities.

There’s also great hope in this passage. Of course the big theme here is death to life over and over repeated correlations back to Egypt, etc. Tremendous amount of hope in this passage. It would take too long to go through all the specific references that remind us of all this, but just to mention of chains for instance here—the chains binding Peter, the release from those chains, Paul being a prisoner in chains, but Satan is the one who is greatly chained by God and as a result of our Savior’s work.

And so all other chains really are only under the providence of God and for his purpose. And we’re released from those chains when they’re debilitating to our work and ministry for service.

There’s a tremendous identification of Herod here with Pharaoh and those who had oppressed the church. In Acts 7, there are two references to the Egyptians mistreating or vexing the people of God. The very word that’s used then in this chapter in chapter 12 when Herod reaches out to vex the church.

So there’s an identification between Herod and Egypt in the context of all of this. But we’re delivered out of Egypt. This is a tremendous application to us of course because we’re told by God that this deliverance from Egypt, Peter’s deliverance from prison is essentially a picture of our deliverance from sin and bondage and the effects of this evil world. Galatians 1:4 says that Jesus Christ gave himself for us that we might be delivered from this present age.

And so we see in Peter’s deliverance a picture of hope for our deliverance and then a call for consecration in terms of our deliverance, a service to God.

We have learned a lot in this church over the last dozen years about covenant history, the way covenant formulas were written in the Old Testament, for instance, and how when God tells the history of a people that he has delivered, it is a prelude to giving that people commandments. The commandments then are explained in terms of blessings and cursings and then the covenant is renewed into the historical future.

And so when we see and think about our own deliverance relative to deliverance from Egypt, we know that God brought them with a strong hand out of Egypt. He then gave them laws as they moved out toward the promised land. He trained them in the wilderness and then took them into the promised land. That’s the model for us. So we know that when we read about this kind of deliverance and the great hope that we have for deliverance from our sins definitively in Christ and then progressively from individual sins, individual confinements, results of our environment, other people, our own sin.

That deliverance that God gives us, that you hopefully rejoiced in last week and every Sunday, but last week in a particular stressed or emphatic way, thinking of our deliverance from death and sin and bondage to sin. Hopefully, the end result of that is you know that God has brought you forth for a purpose. He owns you now. You’re his and he loves you, but you’re still a servant of his. And a servant has rules from the master by which to conduct themselves in the master’s house.

And remember that all of the earth is Christ’s house. So we have holiness. So we have in this text warning, hope and consecration. And we have behind all of this, as I said, the tremendous repeated message of scripture of death and resurrection, release to service.

I wanted to quote from Mr. Y. Vos, his commentary in the book of Acts. He’s an Orthodox Presbyterian church elder as well as a writer of some renown in America.

He said this on this particular Passover: The testamental bridge of Peter’s thought is extraordinary. The angel of death who passed over the lentil marked with blood in Egypt in order to spare the firstborn of the Israelites had passed over the firstborn of the church. Remember Peter was the first to make confession of Christ as the son of God for the sake of the spilled blood of his Christian brother, that is James on the prison floor.

The angel of the Lord had arrived to lead him from the hand of Herod out of bondage of death as the Israelites were led from bondage to Pharaoh by the pillar of fire each night and the angel first strikes him on the side to raise him from imminent death as Christ was struck through the side by a spear. His heart’s blood spilled for his church.

And so there are the associations that Mr. Vos points out. At the top of your outline this week I have a series of names and just to show you the big picture that this is really building upon and reminding us of this particular text. We want to understand it in light of the entire scriptures. And we see there a series of names: Lot and Joseph, Moses, Jesus, James, Peter and Paul. And these are pictures of men who have been delivered out of death or symbolic death and oppression.

Lot was delivered from Sodom. You remember that of course—that the Sodomites were banging on the door of his home. His own home had become a prison essentially by which the Sodomites of that country were oppressing him. And God delivered him out of Sodom. He had an exodus so to speak, a removal from Sodom. And it’s interesting that as the angel comes to Abraham to tell him about the destruction to come upon Sodom, Abram makes unleavened bread. The text tells us specifically in the book of Genesis in this account. And so that one of those very first deliverances of Lot is related to this idea of unleavened bread that permeates the rest of these as well.

Joseph of course is oppressed not by Sodomites now, but Joseph is oppressed by his own brothers, the tribes of Israel, the ones who symbolically kill Joseph, throw him in a pit and sell him into bondage in Egypt. And so Joseph also has a Passover, a resurrection out of that pit and he goes to Egypt and becomes imprisoned of course but he becomes raised up out of prison and there’s a conversion picture to the entire Egyptian country and so Joseph is another picture of this exodus during a time of persecution.

God delivers him out of it and establishes him in dominion in the land in Egypt. But then the people themselves become enslaved in Egypt and Moses has to deliver the people of God from Egypt. And of course that’s the great model we’ve been talking about here with the Passover. We see that same picture then of oppression first and now by Egyptians who are no longer of the household of faith who have come not to know the God of Joseph.

A Pharaoh arises that knoweth not Joseph or his God by way of implication. And so the people become corrupted again and fallen away from their faith in Yahweh. And these corrupt people then oppress the people of God in Egypt. And there’s a tremendous deliverance of course to Passover with the initiation of the Passover meal itself and the feast of unleavened bread which is to follow Passover with this time of consecration and purging out old leaven.

So we have in this same model of persecution and deliverance the story of Israel brought from persecution by Pharaoh and the Egyptians into the land of Canaan. Remember that they don’t go out just to get out. They go out to go someplace particular and that someplace particular is the promised land of Canaan. Now it takes them 40 years to get there. We’ll talk about that a little later, but the point is that’s where they’re going to as they leave Egypt. Took them a lot longer than they thought it would take.

Then of course we have all this picturing the great deliverance of our Lord Jesus Christ. These are all forettellings, so to speak, of what Christ will accomplish for his people. He goes into not the home as Lot did or not into a hole like Joseph did or not into a land of Egypt of oppression. Rather, Jesus goes into death itself. And all these things are pictures of death.

And Jesus suffers actual literal death for us on the cross. And he goes into the tomb then, but God raises him up out of that tomb on the third day. And so he raises him for our righteousness. Remember Jesus was also arrested during the Passover unleavened bread festival during Israel. And as I said, he wasn’t released. They had this customary release of a particular prisoner as a reminder of what God had done to remind them that every season of time when the Passover came around, they remember the deliverance of the one person, Israel, true Israel, from Egypt. Israel embodied as an individual, so to speak, by way of a picture.

Jesus is Israel. He’s not released by the authorities that murder him, but rather God does release him from prison. Barabbas is not the one ultimately who’s released. Jesus Christ is. And so he comes through this Passover time. All men turn against Jesus, not just his brothers, not just the Egyptians, not just the Sodomites. Jesus is abandoned by everybody.

And that again, that’s very important to understand that when he goes to the death, he goes alone because no man can really identify with him in his work until he has accomplished it. And so everybody turns against Christ but he is delivered by God. And then on the basis of this then we understand the story of James and Peter in Acts 12. The significance of it to all of biblical history.

James and Peter are pictures first of literal death and resurrection and symbolic death and resurrection. Again it’s the time of the Passover and unleavened bread when all the images of Egypt and what Christ has accomplished are brought to mind for us in the text. And again these men are cast into a death. One literal death, one a symbolic death of the prison. But there’s an identification with Christ that they are in. It is Jesus Christ who is acting in the book of Acts to deliver his people. He delivers James from literal death by identification with Christ in heaven.

And he delivers Peter from symbolic death by release into the rest of the earth. And so Jesus when he resurrected spent time on earth but he also is emphatically at the right hand of the Father in heaven. Jesus goes into all the created order heaven and earth to affect his ministry. And so those who are identification with Christ are shown in James and Peter for us here as the two sides of resurrection in terms of heaven and resurrection in terms of the resurrection power we walk about in this earth with the same power of Jesus Christ to minister proclaim the gospel make disciples and go about being victorious in the preaching of that gospel.

So we have these deliverances again pictured for us in these two men. We’ll also see the same pattern played out in Paul’s life. We’ll also be oppressed—this time not by the Jews Peter and who are really not their opponents are Jews in the context of the promised land which now has become typically again Egypt. They’re persecuted by Jews. Paul would be persecuted primarily by Judaizers within the context of the Christian church. People had this admixture still of Judaism and the Christian faith. And Paul will be delivered into prison. But Paul is also pictured for us already in the context of a deliverance earlier from Jerusalem. You remember they sought to kill him and Paul’s particular place where he ends up going to—you know, you’re coming out of some place.

Lot comes out of Sodom into the world. Joseph comes out of the hole in the pit to convert the world in Egypt. Israel comes out of Egypt to go into Canaan. Jesus comes out of the grave to go into heaven and earth. Peter and Paul go into heaven and earth. And then Saul or Paul goes emphatically into Antioch at you know now at this particular time about 14 years after or some period of time at least after his release from death in Jerusalem.

So Paul also is pictured for us in the context of Peter even and what these events are happening here as going into Antioch and Antioch becomes an extremely important place with this transition that happens in Acts chapters 11 and 12.

So we have in the context of this what I’m getting at—the reason I go through all this is to tell you this is the way history works. This is the way God has planned for the lives of the saints to be lived out. What we see in the book of Acts—the acts of Christ through the apostles and through the church. And if it’s true of the apostles and it’s true of the church, then it’s also true of us today. We follow this same pattern.

And when this pattern comes to us, we should see it. We should recognize it. We should have trained ourselves in understanding of biblical truth, how to respond to these patterns of persecution, oppression, deliverance, and growth. Okay?

So I want to bring this out to get you to understand and identify with this text personally for yourselves. It’s really easy to read a text like Acts 12, miraculous things happening and not really see much correlation to our lives. But if you understand what I’m saying here, it is an ultimate correlation to your life. It shows us in Acts 12 in a very focused pattern the pattern for all of our life as we walk in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ.

So now the next set of things I’ve got there is to relate again this story to what happens to this general theme in scripture. We have a famine in the context of this, remember that before we get to Acts chapter 12, we read about the famine. Agabus goes to Antioch and he says there’s a famine occurring in the land—there’s going to be a famine coming to Jerusalem. They send food down then to Jerusalem for the saints at Jerusalem.

Famine is cursed by God. Curses are coming upon Israel and in Jerusalem specifically because of its mistreatment first of the Lord Jesus Christ in his person, then of the Lord Jesus Christ in the person of the church. They’re persecuting the church and their judgments are going to increase. Herod persecutes the church. Famine comes as a result of that. Eventually in 70 AD, there’ll be a total destruction of this city. But in the context of those curses, those plagues that come upon Jerusalem, God’s people are spared from those plagues through the intervention of God’s Holy Spirit. Agabus predicts this. Relief is sent to Jerusalem.

And in spite of the famine, the church of God in the context of a land of curse upon it is maintained and protected by the sovereign hand of God. Now that well correlates back to Egypt because remember the last seven plagues, the land of Goshen where the Israelites dwell in the context of Egypt, it’s spared from those plagues. God supernaturally protects his people during a time of judgment against the world who would oppress them.

And so we see and this also a model for us as well. If persecutions are going to come upon our land, we can rest secure, not be anxious knowing that our Father has demonstrated over and over and over again in biblical history that he takes care of his people in the context of judgments. Judgments come in a particular fashion. And in one case, there’s a literal division line between Goshen and the rest of Egypt with some of the plagues. In the case of this one, the provision is made through the church itself during a time of coming famine or curse.

And so that should be a great comfort to our hearts.

As the people were led out of Egypt, so the church is led out of Jerusalem with these destructions that come upon it, but they’re led down not into Canaan, a particular country, they’re led into the whole world. And that’s the significance of Antioch for us. It becomes then the center of missionary journeys. All these persecutions and judgments are certainly to remove the ungodly, but they’re also to train and chasten the people of God that they might take the gospel in ever-increasing circles of effectiveness in terms of their work.

And so you see that Jesus’s persecution and Jesus’s death and resurrection provides the model then for Peter to take the gospel into the context of Jerusalem. He’s rejected by all. Peter takes the gospel to Jerusalem with some impact for the Gentiles around. Peter’s ministry now changing and diminishing takes up the ministry of Saul or Paul. And that ministry goes first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. But by the end of Acts chapter 28, Paul turns definitively away from the Jews at all and turns directly to the Gentiles.

So we have this progression as these series of persecutions and offers of the gospel and rejection occur. We see a progression of the gospel moving away from Jewish Jerusalem into the uttermost parts of the earth. And the distinction over the book of Acts between Jew and Gentile is completely removed by the end of the book through this series of first the persecution by the Jews, the Judaizing Christians going first to the Jews with Jesus. Remember, he wouldn’t talk to the dogs, the Gentiles at all.

Peter talks to the Jews, but he has impact for the Gentiles. Saul, Paul starts with the Jews, but always ends up talking to Gentiles. And by the end of the book of Acts, he’s talking only to Gentiles because now there is no more distinction between Jew and Gentile in the world. And Jerusalem is destroyed in AD 70.

So this what James B. Jordan talks about as bipolarity between Jew and Gentile is completely removed by the end of the book of Acts. And we’re not supposed to think in those terms anymore. That’s what I believe God has done definitively a work here in covenant history. And now the church is totally unified. No middle wall of partition anymore to separate two classes of people in the context of the church.

It’s interesting that I mentioned last week that Acts chapter 12 is the end of Peter for all intents and purposes. He has a talk in Acts chapter 15, but that’s it. What we see in Acts chapter 13 is the ministry of Paul or Saul beginning to take its work. And you remember both those two names are his name. Saul is his Hebrew name. Paul is his Gentile name, so to speak. And what happens in Acts chapter 13 and 14, we’ll see, is he now no longer is identified as Saul, but now he becomes Saul and Paul and those two names are actually used together and by the end of the book he’s only Paul to show this movement away from a distinction between Jew and Gentile.

Now the whole world now is Israel in intent and purposes and as it’s converted it becomes true Israel. And so this movement is very important for us to understand. That’s why I wanted to take some time in Acts chapter 12. It has tremendous significance for how we understand the book of Acts and what is played out for us in the context of that book.

And I mentioned there preaching disciples and more preaching. Again, this was from Mr. Jordan’s article on this particular text of scripture where he says that the basic model that Christ establishes for us is the model that Christ fulfills in Peter and Paul and by way of application in our life as well. How does all this happen? How do these cycles work themselves out? And how is the gospel taken into all the world? Well, it’s through preaching. It’s through the making of disciples who then turn around and preach.

And so, you had Christ with the 11 or the 11 apostles who end up being his disciples and preaching. They go out and preach. Peter preaches, he makes disciples. Stephen and others, they go out preaching. Philip goes out preaching, makes disciples. So the transmission belt here is the proclamation of the word of God. The making of disciples would then turn around, apply that word, and preach that word in the context of their particular concentric circles of influence.

One other correlation here that I wanted to just mention—I mentioned last week how the last few verses I hadn’t really come to very much peace about how that story has unfolded, why it’s unfolded that way. And again, Mr. Jordan proved pretty helpful here. He talked about the correlations between this particular story where Peter’s released, you know, and he comes and knocks on the door in the middle of the night and Rhoda goes out to meet him.

By the way, Rhoda, I said last week her name meant rose. It actually means rose bush. Jay Alexander in his commentary who’s quite good in terms of the languages talks about how the term rose bush is really the word here—not rose. It’s a separate word really for rose, more distinctive. And so it has correlations to being fruitful and in a context of growth as opposed to being a rose cut off at the stem.

But in any event, Rhoda goes to meet Peter at the gate. Remember, she hears his voice. She gets glad. She runs back in, tells the disciples. They say, “You’re crazy. It’s not him.” She says, “No, it really is.” They think it’s a ghost. Jesus says, “No, it isn’t.” They go out and they see him and they’re astonished. He talks to them just very briefly. Go tell what happened. And then he’s gone.

And Mr. Jordan pointed out how there’s a correlation between that story and our Savior’s resurrection. Again, that’s what we’re seeing here as a typical resurrection of Peter based upon the resurrection of Christ. And what happens to our Savior on the morning of his resurrection? Women go to see him, right? Not men, women. Those women are glad and they go back and what do they do? They run back to tell the disciples he’s risen. Do the disciples believe the women? No, they don’t. They say you’re crazy.

In fact, they actually say, “You’ve seen what you’ve seen.” See, they’re disbelieved just like the women. These women are disbelieved just as Rhoda is disbelieved by the disciples. Now, there’s—we could probably talk a lot about that and the simple faith of women and the intellectual frequently the intellectual stumbling block that men have to the works of God. But the point is without drawing out kind of application out, the point is here an identification again between Peter and Jesus.

And that’s important for you because the scriptures want you to understand that’s who you are. That your identification is in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ drives this point home. Even Peter’s quick disappearance after telling his story, it reminds us of the way that Jesus in his resurrection body would appear, speak to his disciples, and then he’d be gone, turn my outline here—gone, you know, gone, someplace else. Something else is important for him to do.

Peter’s the same way here. He comes and tells the story. He proclaims the gospel of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and the call to consecration that the angel of the Lord gave to him and then poof, he’s gone again. He goes someplace and we don’t know where he’s gone just like Jesus. That’s the way we’re to be. We’re to understand that we’re in identification with the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so these things are drawn out to show that correlation and to encourage our hearts and knowing that as we walk about our lives in the power of the Spirit, Jesus is living his life through us and we’re a ministration of the Lord Jesus Christ to our culture and to our land and to our homes. Okay.

Now, in the context of all that, I want to draw some more illustrations for more application. I guess what I’ve tried to get you to see here is that Acts chapter 12 is not some arcane bit of text that doesn’t have very significant lessons that are repeated over and over and over again in the scriptures.

And the point of that is to show you that you need to understand the application of this text to your life. And you need to be motivated to service on the basis of this text, understanding what it says, to have your heart encouraged, and then called to consecration as well. And so I’ve reworked the outline this week to sort of show this particular drift in terms of this persecution of Peter by Herod in a little different way.

And so for instance in point number one I point out that Sodomites, brothers, Pharaoh, Jews, Judaizers attack the church of saints and that’s a synopsis of these men that I’ve talked about with that. Peter’s deliverance reminds us of and reminds us that in the context of our world as well both you as an individual saint and the church of Jesus Christ as a body in particular local manifestation of the church.

After all, this was an attack upon a church, a united local church at Jerusalem. That’s what the text tells us. So you as individual, this particular body of Christ and the church of Christ universal suffers these sorts of persecutions as a regular part of our lives. This will be part of the pattern as we live out our lives as a church individually and as believers as well. We’ll be attacked by Sodomites. We’ll be attacked by brothers. We’ll be attacked by Pharaoh, foreign rulers, or rulers who have no identification with trying to rule for the Lord Jesus Christ who don’t fear God and kiss his feet in terms of Psalm 2—will be attacked by those Jews—other religions—will be attacked by Judaizers—people that try to take the Christian faith and syncretize it, mix it up with something that is not Christian—all those elements different groups of people will attack us individually and us as a group and the church of Jesus Christ as a corporate as well.

So when these things happen, don’t despair. Don’t think this is weird. We must be doing something wrong. No. And you always want to examine what you’re doing wrong. You want to examine what your sin may be in terms of the attacks that you’re suffering. But recognize that this is the process whereby God has ordained that we might identify with the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. That we might be perfected and matured and might come to grow as a people and be driven out into larger circles of ministry because that’s what’s happening here.

Look at the actions of Herod and remember that these are actions that will happen typically to us as well. Hands will be stretched out against the church. People want to grab a hold of the church to do things with it. Now, I mentioned last week, grabbing hold of things is good. You came today, you got up this morning and you grabbed a hold of lots of things. You grabbed a hold of a toothbrush. You grabbed a hold of your clothes. Might have grabbed a hold of your kids. You grabbed a hold of probably eating. You grab a hold of all kinds of things when you get up in the morning, you grab a hold of the day and that’s a good thing.

It’s not bad that people grab a hold of the church or people in the church. What’s bad is that Herod doesn’t give thanks for these people. And in our lives, one of the immediate applications, we’ve talked about this time and time again, but it’s a good model for your life. When you grab a hold of something, thank God for it. And when you thank God for whatever it is you grab a hold of, you consecrate it for his service.

But unholy hands, unthankful hands—that’s the distinction of the scriptures—unthankful hands, which are by definition unholy want to grab a hold of you and grab a hold of the church. And they will vex the church then, hurt it, disturb it, disturb its peace. That’s what vex means. And actually the root of vex means to make nothing of it, to reduce its effectiveness in the world. That is the intent of those who would persecute the church and malign it—to eliminate its effectiveness in the world.

The root word for the word that’s translated vex in the King James version is a Greek word which we have in our vocabulary—it’s a term that is used even to this day in our culture to refer to excrement because excrement is worthless—the body is used it for nutrition and for our particular purposes it’s useless. Well, that’s what Herod is trying to do at the church—remove any effectiveness that it has by making social excrement of it, okay?

And so when the persecution comes to you individually or to the church as a group, it’ll come in an attempt to make us of none effect in the world brought about us. Now that means that if we’re already worthless, if we’re already useless for the work of the kingdom, well, we don’t have anything to fear, do we? And so if you know of a particular person who’s had no trials or tribulations, difficult times, tears shed for the Lord, difficult times striving themselves up for the work for 30, 40 years in their life, then they’re probably not real worthwhile for kingdom work.

I mean that’s just the way it is. The scriptures say that regularly you’ll have tribulations and persecutions. Now the cycle can be quite long. This persecution is occurring about 14 years after Christ’s work. And now it had been built up to of course there have been other persecutions as well. This kind of momentous one isn’t supposed to happen every day of your life but it is supposed to happen and God does bring these things to pass.

And it has to do with effectiveness. Literal death can ensue from these persecutions or symbolic death can ensue. James and Peter. In terms of the symbolic death that is pictured here, that is a normal course of affair for the Christian. It’s not normal for people to be martyred for the faith. It is normal to suffer persecution—symbolic death.

What does a symbolic death consist of? The church or the saint is grabbed hold of. We mentioned that they’re restrained in their actions. Herod attempts to make them worthless in the context of the culture by restraining his physical sphere of influence by putting him into a literal prison. Now, there are symbolic prisons as well. And when the church cannot proclaim the gospel, is forbidden to in particular lands, that’s a restraint of the action of the church or the individual in the part of the civil state to reduce their effectiveness.

The church is restrained in its actions. We have restraint in our actions today in this culture. There is a sense in which this culture with its particular evil of civil taxation at the levels we’ve spoken of for the last few weeks, there is almost there’s a near inability on the part of you individually or the church collectively to capitalize itself. What are you going to capitalize yourself with? There’s nothing in our culture that has value that is fixed anymore. There’s no standards of anything. And because the civil magistrate has gotten rid of the standard and then because it taxes 50% of whatever it is they decide the standard is this year, there’s a near inability to capitalize yourself in terms of physical resources.

And physical resources aren’t important. We don’t want to be pessimistic. God says you’re supposed to want and desire land and things and use those things for the service of Jesus Christ. But there’s a restraint in our culture today upon the church to do that because of the ungodliness of the land in which we live. And you have a reduced ability to exercise dominion because you don’t own your own home. And I don’t know, there might be one or two people here that do own their own homes, but if there’s one or two, that’s about it. I’m not talking about having a mortgage on it. I’m talking about owning it.

That’s what God wants for all of us. And look at the look we have to do as a church. September 25th, I believe, we don’t know where we’re going to meet because this building is being used, that building over there will be being used. There’s a restraint on our activity. We cannot meet the same place we want to meet that day for worship. And if this particular landlord decides we can’t meet here next week, well, we got a lease or a contract of some type, but that probably won’t happen.

But you understand the point I’m trying to make. This is a time of, you know, this is a time of great problems and restraint upon the church’s activity through the evil financial policies of this culture. And so the church right now, this church, you as an individual as well are suffering restraint of actions because of the ungodliness of the country in which we live.

The church or the saint has accusers on both sides. Peter is bound in prison with men on either side of him accusing him and holding him back. And you may be bound on either side of you by accusers who talk about your failure to measure up to the work of Jesus Christ. And you don’t measure up. Satan—that is his big job—is to be an accuser of the saints. A devil means slanderer and physical speech that accuses people of things regularly can be a tremendous restraint on your particular action and effectiveness either as an individual or as a church.

This church has accusers—if you don’t know it, it has accusers. And there have been times over the last 12 years and they’ve seemed to have been on both sides—left and right—trying to restrain the actions of the church. Now when those things happen. You got to try to figure out whether the accusations are just or unjust. And usually, I mean, most of the time that I know of, usually there’s a little of both.

Usually behind Herod is God. You know, I don’t know if Peter’s supposed to be asleep in this prison. You know, commentators say, “Well, look at what a great picture this is of the trusting Christian.” Peter asleep in the cell. He doesn’t worry he’s going to die tomorrow. He doesn’t worry what he’s got to say because, you know, the Holy Spirit will give him what words to speak. Well, you know, maybe that’s true. Maybe that’s true. But the correlations the scriptures draw between Jesus and Peter, our Savior and Peter—remember his night spent before he was going to a rest and crucifixion. He didn’t sleep in the garden. He prayed all night long. Who was asleep in the garden? Peter was and he was not commended for it. You know, Jesus didn’t say, “Well, that’s you’re so trusting. No.”

We have a situation today in this country where the church is asleep in the prison. It doesn’t even understand the restraints of the fiscal policies, for instance, of the culture, the political policies, the perversion of the faith, the removal of God’s law, the removal of victory. This whole text, one of the biggest things you can get out of it is don’t despair. This shows we win over and over. I’m telling my kids, I’m teaching my boys about Acts. Acts is about winning. It’s about winning at great cost. It’s about losing a lot of your sinful attitudes and actions. It’s about persecutions and trouble. But, you know, the end of the story is victory.

Well, the church doesn’t even know that today. Doesn’t have a sense of victory by and large. Doesn’t have a sense of the standard by which to wage the war. Doesn’t know there is a war. It’s all locked up in prison. Doesn’t even know it’s in prison. Its actions are restricted. It’s asleep. So, sometimes these persecutions come to wake us up. You know, the angel smites Peter on the side. He brings conviction of sin I think is what the identification there with and with you know the work of our Savior for that sin of course but when light—when God makes an advent into our lives and the light comes on in the prison—usually what’s revealed through that persecution is some sin on our part.

Oh, we’re probably unjustly accused a lot but you don’t want to just defend yourself saying I’m unjustly accused. You want to see what the light has shed into your light life, what conviction God has told you about. And maybe just failure of diligence is a lot of it. Failure to apply yourself diligently to the work God has given you to do.

I don’t know that Peter was supposed to be asleep. So, you know, we’re going to be attacked. We’re going to be accused. We’re going to these are restrained to some of extent, but and all that stuff is true. And it’s very important to remember and it’s important to remember that our response to be that should be that continual prayer.

You know, I mean, you got Peter sleeping, but the rest of the church is acting like Jesus that night in the garden. Jesus in the garden prayed, sweat you know as if of blood, prayed diligently and that’s what the church is doing and I think the model for us really is the church here not Peter asleep at the wheel. It’s the church praying diligently in these times of trouble. And so we should be praying diligently and then of course God then delivers us. God then delivers us.

Deliverance of the church or saint is assured. There’s no hope if all we know is this difficult trouble we’re going to have. That’s not the end of the story. The fact is that in spite of very heavy guard, very heavy restraints by men and by our environment or culture made by wicked men, Jesus acts. Jesus acts. Whether it’s Jesus directly here or Jesus sending an angel, the Lord doesn’t make any difference. The identification with the Lord Jesus Christ is what’s important here. He sends a messenger out. He acts on behalf of the church. He comes to us first of all. He brings an advent, a particular appearance to our lives when we have times of difficulty or trouble. He brings light into our darkness.

He brings a conviction. He humbles us as the angel humbled Peter by whacking him on the side. Get up, he tells him. He raises us up and then he gives us a series of commands. Well, if these persecutions are part of our lives, then we better understand the way that God brings us out of them. You want to be ready for the moment of God’s grace when it makes its appearance to you.

When Jesus comes to you with the scriptures, with the light of the scriptures that usually humble us as well and bring us to confession of sin, we want to act when Jesus comes to deliver us. Then is not the time to be praying. The church prayed too long in this text. It kept praying when the report had come that their prayers had been answered and Peter was released. They were supposed to stop praying. Then there’s a time for prayer. There’s a time for reliance. And then there’s a time to act and to do what God has called you to do as an individual, to correct the problem, to have the release of those restraints on your activities that persecution has brought.

And you’re supposed to then move out and you’re supposed to do so at Jesus’s command: to arise quickly, to act, to gird and bind, to prepare yourself when that release from that restraint of activity comes, when God gives you the window of opportunity to prepare yourself for action into the future. Gird your loins up. Put your sandals on just like Passover. Eat it ready to go because I’m not calling you just to get away from this guy. I’m calling you to go to Canaan and do some work for me. Okay?

And then to bind ourselves, to robe ourselves with God’s authority to be patiently waiting for God’s authority in our life. Peter couldn’t move until Jesus came and it doesn’t do him any good to put on a robe of authority. Robes are correlated in the scriptures to authority and power from God to exercise office. Doesn’t do any good Peter to put on his robe until God is ready to have him put it on and then he moves out in that robed authority.

All these things have relevance to us as well. And that is the idea here is trying to take this story and make it personal to our own lives—to say this is the way that God works with us as well. There are times of diminishment of activity. There are times to accept God’s authority and to move out to follow, trust and obey often without cognition. You remember Peter goes out and he doesn’t know. He feels like he’s in a vision or a dream. He has no cognition really. He doesn’t quite understand what is happening. And frequently when God brings us out of persecution, we don’t know what’s going on either.

So it this call to arise, to gird ourselves, to come to a confession of sin, to accept Christ’s deliverance from a particular problem or difficulty, to robe ourselves with God’s authority, then to follow him is to follow him trusting and obeying often without cognition. Psalm 131, you would all do well to memorize Psalm 131. And it’s real short. You can memorize it, you know, in a couple of days. Go over it with your children. It’s so important particularly for our culture. You know, our culture that is so smarty pants kind of, you know, and we know everything and we want to know everything about everything and we’re going to judge whether this or that public policy was right.

Every time something happens, we’re thinking about it and we think we know best. Psalm 131: Lord, my heart is not lofty nor my eyes lofty. See, I don’t want to be prideful. And that’s what we are in our sin. We’re haughty. Our eyes are proud and we’re haughty and lofty. My eyes are lofty. Neither do I exercise myself in great things or great matters or in things too high for me. What that means is I don’t worry myself about things that I cannot in your providence figure out.

I do not have enough information to tell you whether Bill and Hillary Clinton are guilty of civil crimes in Whitewater. You don’t have the information. Why do you exercise yourself in matters like that? You don’t know. Things too high for me. Things out of my particular position of calling by God. I may know information about a particular matter. But if God has not called me to office to rule in that matter, I should take hands off of it.

I can pray maybe. But we always want to pretend like we’re the president or we’re, you know, the head of that family or we’re the mother trying, you know, that shouldn’t be telling those kids what to do or we’re the elder of that church. But you’re not. See, we because of our pride get involved in things that we cannot understand or things that are none of our business. Plain and simple. And if you’re not called to exercise office in a particular matter, usually that means it’s none of your business what that father, elder, politician is doing.

They hate to hear that, don’t you? You think right away, what if he’s what if he’s, you know, beating, you know, his kids and making them all bloody or something. Well, yeah, then it is your business. But usually that’s not the case, is it? Obviously, if any head of a household, civil, ecclesiastical, or familial, or in terms of work, is sinning obviously before God, who sin is obvious to all men, you’ve got a responsibility to rebuke him and correct them.

That’s certainly true. But I mean, nine times out of 10, that is not the case, folks. Nine times out of 10, what you ought to be doing is examining your own sin, your own abilities, your own calling. So, what we end up doing is we want full cognition before we start obeying God very much. But God says, “No, you’re going to be in a stupor a lot of the time and all you got to do is obey what God calls you to do in your particular thing. Don’t think of matters that are too tough for you intellectually or in terms of the knowledge or wisdom God has given you. And don’t concern yourselves in the exercise of somebody else’s office.”

That’s what the psalmist is saying here. That’s what “things too high for me” mean. Things that are outside of my position or calling surely. Well, what’s the—Okay, that’s the negative. Don’t do that. But what do you want to do?

Well, you want to behave and quiet yourself as a child that is weaned from his mother. My soul is even as a weaned child. You tell your child don’t do this or do this and they say why. And you may give them a little bit of explanation, but usually particularly with younger children, they don’t have any idea why you’re telling them what to do, do they? They don’t have cognition. And do you then wait to demand obedience from them until they get cognition or understanding?

No, of course not. Well, God says here, the psalmist says, “Hey, you know, in most matters, my knowledge is as if a child to a parent. My knowledge of what God is doing in terms of my life.” And in fact, it’s even worse than that, of course, because God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. Not because he’s more mature than us, because he’s completely different than us. He’s completely other. Now, we’re made in his image, but he’s completely other.

His knowledge is not just more knowledge than we have. It’s a whole different kind of knowledge. Okay? He is removed from us that far. And so most of the time we’re like Peter. We don’t know what’s going on. But we know that when Jesus says, “Get up, do this, put on a robe of authority,” why do I need a robe on? Let’s just run out of here.” You know, it’s just my regular shirt on. We don’t know why God calls us to do things.

We’ve got to follow him in spite of our lack of knowledge or cognition. Then the end result of that, Psalm 131:3: Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and forever. See, without full cognition, without knowing all these things—that’d be a great psalm for you to memorize and remember what I said about it.

Pride—first verse the second half of that verse—talks about exercising yourselves in things you cannot understand or in matters that are outside as your particular sphere of calling. Those are what you’re supposed to put off. What you’re supposed to put on is a childlike trust in God. And the verse says it as a weaned child. And this is not a suckling child anymore. This is a child who has learned to just be quiet at the mother’s breast and instead of demanding food knowing that the mother will provide food in due time when you need it.

And so Peter knows that God will provide understanding, release when it’s appropriate and he trusts in God that way. And we’re supposed to trust in God that same way. So God Jesus calls us. He humbles us. He brings us knowledge. He has us confess our sins before him. It’s smiting on the side. He has us get up. He raises us up to new life after he humbles us.

Just like here at worship, you know, we confess our sins. He hits us on the side. Why didn’t we come here first? He says in the morning get up or he comes to us first of all in the Lord’s day and he tells us to come and to hear the light of his word and Richard reads the word and that word hits us right on the side. We say we’ve sinned against you Lord God. We confess our sins and God then assures us. He says get up the coals of the altar, the blood of Jesus Christ, his work has been applied to your life. He took the spear in the side. I’m just giving you a whack on the side to remind you of your sin to call you to confession and reliance upon him. Then he raises his