Dennis Tuuri

text. The rest of the story, the breaking of the teeth of the ungodly, extermination of wicked King Herod. Please stand for the scripture text which is found in Acts the 12th chapter 18 to the end of the text. Acts 12 beginning at verse 18.

Now as soon as it was day, there was no small stir among the soldiers what was become of Peter. And when Herod had sought for him and found him not, he examined the keepers and commanded that they should be put to death.

And he went down from Judea to Cesarea, and there abode. And Herod was highly displeased with them of Tyre and Sidon. But they came with one accord to him, and having made Blastus the king’s chamberlain their friend, desired peace, because their country was nourished by the king’s country. And upon a set day, Herod arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them. And the people gave a shout, saying, “It is the voice of a god and not of a man.” And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him because he gave not God the glory.

And he was eaten of worms and gave up the ghost. But the word of God grew and multiplied, and Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem, when they had fulfilled their ministry, and took with them John, whose surname was Mark.

We thank God for his word, and pray that he would illuminate it to our understanding.

The text we’ve just read completes the story begun the last couple of weeks we’ve talked about and really completes what most commentators think is the first half of the book of Acts with a primary emphasis upon the witnessing to the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Spirit in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. And now with the second half beginning in chapter 13, we’ll see the missionary journeys begin and that will be the taking of the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. We’ve seen that in symbolic form and in some form in the establishment of the church of Antioch.

And this sort of wraps off the issuing of God’s judgment upon Jerusalem and Judea with their rejection of the gospel, at least in large part.

So we continue today actually with the same story we began last week with the discussion of Peter’s imprisonment, the martyrdom of James, and then Peter’s release. And today we get the other side of it which we have God’s judgment upon Herod. And first, let’s go over the text hopefully fairly briefly here and then get to some lessons from the text.

First of all, we read in verses 18 and 19 of Herod’s what I’ve called exasperation or you could say irritation. We read there of what happens once the release of Peter is discovered by the soldiers. He’s not in prison where he was supposed to be. Herod seeks for him, cannot find him, and he examines the keepers. And that word there actually probably means he tortured them, trying to figure out what had happened here.

And then he urged them to be killed. And then he goes down from Judea to Cesarea and abides there for a period of time.

So Herod here is frustrated over his inability to please the people. Remember that this story starts with Herod trying to please the Jews currying political favor with the Jewish people who had now, because of envy primarily (at least that’s my understanding of the text), turned against the church.

We have a reversal on the part of the population in general with the gospel going to the Gentiles and the Jews losing what they saw as their privileged position as God’s special people. It is, I think, their envy that turns them against the church. Herod makes political hay of that. The word Herod means view or appearance. It’s kind of, some people think, the root word of the word hero. And so he is a hero who always is concerned about appearances, views, always has his finger up in the air to the political wind, sniffing what’s good for him politically.

And he is, in essence then, a man-pleaser. And as most man-pleasers find in their lives, they can become very irritated because they cannot control the circumstances of their life, and as a result, they find themselves quite irritated at the issuing forth of God’s providence. And that’s what Herod does here. He gets irritated. He gets mad. He tortures these guys. He kills them. And then the text wants us to see him now leaving Judea and Jerusalem because of this incident and going off to Cesarea and staying there.

Now this is in somewhat of a repeated form of what happened to his grandfather Herod in Matthew chapter 2:16. There on your outline the citation given is back to Herod his grandfather who had sent the wise men off to tell him where Jesus was, because he wanted to worship him. Too, baby Jesus. Of course, of course he did—he wanted to kill him. And when the wise men are warned by an angel in a dream and Jesus is rescued by God from this Herod’s grasp, Herod in Matthew 2:16 then commits what’s become known as the slaughter of the innocents, becomes outraged when he finds out that he’s been deceived, mocked by the wise men, and commits murder.

He kills all children at Bethlehem, ages 2 years and under. And so we have here, maybe not quite as intensely, a reaction of exasperation or irritation on the part of Herod, the grandson of this wicked Herod. And yet we see also his exasperation and torturing and killing the guards and then his going off in a huff to Cesarea.

And so as all man-pleasers do, he moves from being in control of the situation to not being in control, and irritation.

We see that irritation kind of grow into agitation in verse 20. Herod now in Cesarea is highly displeased with them of Tyre and Sidon. But they came with one accord to him, and having made Blastus the king’s chamberlain their friend, desired peace, because their country was nourished by the king’s country.

Now what is going on here? We don’t know exactly why he was upset with Tyre and Sidon. It could just have been irrational, but the Scriptures want us to see his state of mind as he’s moving toward his judgment by God: irritation, exasperation, striking out.

Now, the specific incident that’s going on here has to do with the fact that Tyre and Sidon are dependent upon Herod. Tyre and Sidon throughout the scriptures are seen as those who trade with Israel. And I’ve listed some citations there beginning in Genesis 10:15 where Sidon is stated to be the firstborn of Canaan. And so we have a bad heritage there. But then after that, in 1 Kings 5 and the other citations I’ve given you, it shows that this area was continually trading.

In the time of Solomon, they would trade trees and cedar and stuff for the construction of various edifices, including the temple. In return for that, they would get foodstuff from Israel or from Judea. The reason for this is that Tyre occupies a coastal land that is essentially uncultivated—cannot grow crops there. They can grow trees. So, as a result, they’re dependent perpetually in their history upon Jerusalem or Judea rather, that land.

So they’re dependent—as the text tells us in the last portion of verse 20 there—their country was nourished by the king’s country. Fed—literally fed by Herod’s country. So when Herod gets mad at them, that’s bad, because they could starve to death if he cuts off trade with them.

Trade is always very important in the scriptures. It’s very important in our world as well. And when trade barriers go up, wars usually increase, because trade is important. It’s the lifeblood of any culture. Well, this culture is worried about them being cut off by the king’s country, Herod, because of his anger with him. And they then, as they should (actually, this is always a good thing to do), approach the counselor of the king. This fellow’s name is Blastus. They approach him, get him on their side. We don’t know how—maybe they bribed him, maybe they convinced him with words, whatever it was.

And they try to make peace with Herod in terms of cessation of hostilities. And so Herod’s indignation and agitation is pointed out for us here. But Tyre and Sidon are able to ameliorate some of that by appealing to him and by going particularly through a counselor. And they do this because, as the verse tells us, their country was nourished by the king’s country.

By way of application, Matthew Henry says this in terms of our own reliance upon God. Behind this, we’ll see that Herod is rejecting his reliance upon God the Father. And that really there’s a contrast given between the Sidonians’ realization of them being nourished by Herod and need to make peace with him through Blastus, his counselor. There’s a correlation to that in Herod not realizing his need to make peace with God who nourishes him. God gives us the breath we draw every day.

Matthew Henry says this: “It’s not, is it not then our wisdom to make our peace with God and humble ourselves before him who have a much more constant and necessary dependence upon him than one country can have upon another. For in him we live and move and have our being.”

You see, really, you could understand us as firstborn of Canaan, the offspring of not a godly line but an ungodly line, and our being born in sin, are having a need to please the Father of the country in which we move and live and have our being—the Lord God himself. And we do that through going through his counselor, so to speak, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son. And when we make peace with the Son, we make peace with the Father through the Son.

And so there’s a picture for us of that in our lives itself.

Now this is very important. Not is the starting point of a Christian life. This is what being a Christian is all about—recognizing our need for peace with the Father and a need to obtain that peace through the work of Jesus. But that should be a perpetual attitude on our part throughout our lives. We should be filled with the realization of our need for God’s sustenance, and as a result of that, we should be wanting to please God with all of our actions.

Well, in any event, the actual literal story going on here is that they try to get peace with Herod and there is some degree of success to that.

Now, it’s interesting here that several of these names that are used. As I said, Herod means view or appearance or a hero. Tyre—the name itself means to envelop in smoke or to inflame with pride and self-conceit. Blastus means a sprout, or to grow, or germinate. And then as this story develops, what’s going to go on here is these men will call Herod a god. And the people from will indeed be a cause of enveloping in smoke, superinflating Herod’s ego, which is preparation by God for Herod’s judgment.

And so even in these details that Luke gives us here, they’re important for us in understanding the flow of what happens here, and this will relate back to biblical history and prophecy in the book of Obadiah as we will get to later in this talk.

So in any event, Herod then is greatly moved from irritation to great agitation, but then he’s placated. But it’s only a placation—it’s only a ratcheting down so that he might be further destroyed by God.

We then have in verses 21 and 22 Herod’s exultation, going from irritation, agitation to exultation. If you’re strong enough and big enough and you get irritated and agitated, there’ll be people around who will try to make you happy. And that’s what the Tyrenians and the Sidonians did with Herod. And that was not to his benefit.

Verses 21 and 22 record a historic event that is well documented by Josephus and others. The timing apparently is August 1st in the year 44 AD. Claudius is now the emperor. Remember, Claudius is the one who had given Herod the extra territory that made him rule over this greater region. Claudius is the Caesar, and Rome has conquered Britain. And there is reason to believe that the festival that is happening at Cesarea, that Herod is speaking at here, is in honor of Claudius’s return from Britain in triumph.

There were apparently five days of games that were scheduled—athletic events. And on the second one of these days, Herod made a speech to the people. And we are told, “Upon a set day”—that is, an appointed day—this is not just any day, it was a day that he was supposed to give this talk. “Herod arrayed in royal apparel.” Josephus tells us that when Herod came to the auditorium in which he would give this speech, he was arrayed in clothing that was woven out of pure silver.

And that as he ascended the platform from which he was to speak, the sun shone upon him, and he just shined like a god. And so he is apparel, robed, arrayed in royal apparel—silver, actually shining as the sun—and he then sat upon his throne and made an oration unto them. Sitting upon his throne, he takes his authority. That’s what the phrase means—he takes the position of power that God had placed him in the context of. And he makes an oration unto them.

The word throne here in the original Greek originally meant a step or a platform. And you know, when you go to see a judge in a civil court, he is up on a platform. And preachers—it’s appropriate to be up on a platform because what we’re reminded of then is the surrogate or the officers of the church, the officers of the state, and also the officers in the home (the husband and wife, father, and mother in the home) are all representations of God in our lives.

Very important for us to realize that when you go before a civil court judge, you want to go with a great deal of humility and you want to go with a great deal of reverence of speech. Now that could be the case as well in ecclesiastical matters. But to expect that these days is foolish. The only reason why that kind of reverence and respect for officers in the civil state continues is because judges can still, so far, put people in jail for contempt indefinitely if they want to.

It’s a symbolic imprisonment, a death for contempt. That is proper according to the scriptures. Contempt—just lack of respect for a civil magistrate, a church magistrate, or a family magistrate—is in the scriptures a death penalty sort of thing. It’s a very important thing to remember that these platforms, these steps, these thrones, are representations of God’s thrones.

Now the other side of that coin, of course, is that for the magistrate in home, state, or church, when they ascend that platform, they should do so with a recognition of their dependence upon the Father, the priest, the king who dwells in heaven. And that what they do must be done for him, not for themselves.

Herod fails in that apprehension. When he goes up on the stage, he arrays himself in godlike clothing, but he does not think about the fact that he’s ascending to heaven to speak—not for himself in his oration, but for God. And so it’s very important. It is a good thing for pastors when they go up to a platform to think, program themselves to think: “I go now not to speak my own words. I go now to represent God to the people.” And so my actions become much more important and restrained, hopefully.

Now it’s very important as well that fathers and mothers at home, particularly when they discipline their children or when they instruct their children, do that same sort of mental step up to remember your dependence and submission to God as you exercise authority in the context of your children.

Well, in any event, so Herod ascends this platform and he gives this oration and the people then give a shout. Now the word people here is not the normal word for people. This word for people is a political entity where people come together for a particular purpose. And these people assemble to hear this king, assembled to give some sort of response. Their response is a shout saying, “It is not the voice of a,” or “It is a voice of a god and not of a man.”

So they exalt Herod. They build his pride way up. Now they’ve already done it by making this appeal through Blastus, his chamberlain, his counselor. They’ve already done it by acknowledging his power and control over them. And now the next step is they boost it even up a step further by telling him that boy, you’re a god. You’re not a man. And Herod eats this up. For a very short period of time, Herod falls into—or rather becomes fully engaged in—the sin of pride.

The cases the scriptures tell us in the second commandment is to not have any other gods, to not bow down yourself to them nor serve them. Pride is the essence of the rejection of God. And it is at this moment in pride that God’s judgment comes upon Herod.

We move then from Herod’s exaltation through this process of appealing to him for peace and then actually acclaiming him as a god, his exultation, to then Herod’s extermination. And I use a word that has bug significance because bugs are mentioned as the particular secondary means of God’s judgment of wicked King Herod.

Verse 23: “Immediately the angel of the Lord smote him.” Same word, same angel that smote Peter in the cell, passes over Peter, but still with a recognition by Peter that he deserves to die. Struck in the side. Identification of the Lord Jesus Christ. Passed over because of the blood of Christ applied to Peter.

Angel of the Lord comes to Herod. He’s not passed over. He is smitten in the full sense of the word. “He would not give God the glory. And he was eaten of worms and gave up the ghost.”

Horrific death. Not a nice death. God here exterminates Herod.

We see the reason for this is explicitly given for us in the text: that the reason for this smiting, this being eaten of worms and dying, is because he gave not God the glory.

Now it’s. I want to be careful how I say this, but you know, we have here a man who has just lopped off the head of one of the apostles, one of the representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ in his person. God doesn’t kill him for that. God executes him when he accepts the acclamations that he is God and not a man.

Now, the scriptures are clear that there’s a progression here. There’s a filling up of the cup of Herod’s sin so that there’s a filling up of God’s wrath against Herod. They’re not totally disconnected—this execution and what’s happened before, his persecution of the church. We’ll see that in the book of Obadiah as well. I mentioned Obadiah because Obadiah is the book that predicts God’s judgment upon Edom. And Herod was an Idumaean, an Edomite king.

And we see in God’s judgment of Herod a fulfillment, to some degree, of the prophecy of Obadiah where God’s judgment comes against all of Edom. We’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes. But the point is that book will show us that God’s judgment does come upon Edom because of the way they—Edom, or Esau, that’s the origin of the Edomites—[the way] Esau treats Jacob.

Obadiah points that out. The text for us here, however, wants us to correlate God’s specific horrific judgment of Herod not to his execution of James primarily, but to his failing to give God glory.

Second tablet violations of the law (the last five commandments that talk about sins against our fellow man) flow out of first tablet violations of the law—our failure, our sin against God. And to focus exclusively on second tablet violations is always a mistake. With people, always a mistake to get into this thing over here—two brothers fighting, for instance—unless you realize that behind that is sin against God in the first tablet. Now, you’ve got to deal with second tablet violations. I’m not saying you shouldn’t, but I’m saying that in terms of emphasis here, the text wants us to think that God’s judgment comes primarily upon Herod because he fails to give God glory.

Now this is important. We’ve seen it throughout scripture. We see it in Nebuchadnezzar, for instance, in Daniel chapter 4. It is when Nebuchadnezzar speaks, and he says this: “Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty?”

And while the word was in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven saying, “Oh King Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken, the kingdom is departed from thee. And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. They shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou knowest that the most high ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will.”

The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar, and he was driven from men and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagle’s feathers and his nails like birds’ claws.

And at the end of the day, as I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes into heaven, and my understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most high, and I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion. His kingdom is from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay his hand or say unto him, “What doest thou?”

At the same time my reason returned unto me, and for the glory of my kingdom, mine honor and brightness returned unto me, and my counselors and my lord sought unto me, and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the king of heaven, all whose works are truth and his ways judgment, and those that walk in pride, he is able to abase.

Herod is another picture of Nebuchadnezzar. However, he doesn’t—he’s not a picture for us of death and resurrection, but of death and hell, where the worm eats, the fire isn’t quenched, the worm eats forever. Herod becomes the living dead. That’s the picture for us here. These worms were probably maggots. Or specifically, in the etymology of the word—entomology, maybe I could say, in the bug world—these are the bugs that eat dead things, carcasses.

Calvin says that his body smelled like to high heaven. He was a living carcass among men. And this is the picture the scriptures want us to see: this was a living dead man. And he dies of that, of course. Josephus says it took 5 days. We don’t know for sure, but he didn’t necessarily die immediately. And these maggots were crawling all over him. He was abased by God.

He had gone from wearing silver clothing, shining like ever to being covered with worms and being eaten alive.

Well, he’s able to abase men who pride themselves against God. Nebuchadnezzar’s sin, as Herod’s sin, was pride—thinking that he had done these things or he was in control and he could control the affairs of state, etc. Herod is seen as the typical leader of Tyre here. You know, this fellow is the king of Tyre. He’s the king of all this region entire. He has to make their peace with him. So I think it’s appropriate to look at Ezekiel 28, verses 2 and following, and think of it at least by way of application to Herod.

Now, some people take this as a reference to Satan. I don’t know. I’ve never studied it out that way, but I do know that we can make application of this text to Herod as well.

“Son of man, saying to the prince of Tyrus, thus sayeth the Lord God, because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God in the midst of the seas, yet thou art a man and not God. Though thou set thine heart as the heart of God.

See, this is Herod. What Herod did—he sat on the seat of God. That throne, that exalted platform there, in the midst of seas, the nations round about him, who then declared him to be God. And he thinks he is God.

“Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel. There’s no secret that they can hide from thee. With thy wisdom, with thine understanding, thou has gotten thee riches and has gotten gold and silver into thy treasuries.”

That’s just what he’s done with Tyre and Sidon. He’s cut a deal to increase himself monetarily in the treasures of his kingdom.

“But thy great wisdom and by thy traffic, thou hast increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches, the traffic, trafficking and trade, is what Herod was doing here. Therefore, thus sayeth the Lord God, because thou has set thine heart as the heart of God:

Behold, therefore, I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations. They shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.”

Herod is the bright one here with the bright clothing and the beautiful appearance. His name means viewer, appearance. He was a comely man, a very appealing man physically, and particularly in silver clothing. But God brings judgment upon him. And he brings judgment by way of enemies that are worms, bugs, not even people eating him up. He is abased, lower than having men eat him. People eat him, or bugs eat him rather. So he’s really abased by God.

“Thou shalt bring, they shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die in the death of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? But thou shalt be a man and no god in the hand of him that slays thee.”

Oh, God, pride of man broken in the dust again. The worms eat and devour Herod.

This isn’t the first time in scripture where worms are given as the judgment upon the wicked. The gospel accounts of course tell us that it’s better to enter heaven than to enter into hell with both arms, for instance, or both eyes, where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched.

Herod’s a picture of going to hell here for us. In the intertestamental period, Antiochus Epiphanes was a tyrant who had persecuted the Jews. And in 2 Maccabees chapter 9, verse 9—that is an apocryphal book, a book written between the testamental periods, not inspired but nonetheless accurate history for us—Epiphanes 2 Maccabees 9:9 says this about his death: “And so the ungodly man’s body swarmed with worms, and while he was still living in anguish and pain his flesh rotted away, and because of his stench the whole army felt revulsion at his decay.”

That’s the kind of thing that happens to Herod, and it happens because of his pride.

Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity—not being eaten up with beasts but becoming a beast of the field himself—happens because of his pride, and God abases him that was proud and lifted up. Nadab and Abihu are smitten by God immediately because of their pride and asserting to themselves the ability to determine the sort of worship God would have.

Uzziah, the king of Judah, was filled with pride and he went to burn incense in the temple and is stricken immediately with leprosy, and tremendous destruction from God comes upon these men who exalt themselves as God.

The end result of Herod’s pride is his extermination, and his extermination is specifically tied to the fact that he did not give God glory.

Now it’s important, then, I think, that if we don’t want to suffer such things—either in this body or in eternity—that we think through just a few minutes of how to give God glory, how to give God weight, how to give God consideration, and realize that he’s God and we’re not.

The scriptures tell us in Luke 17:17 that there were those who were cleansed by Jesus and healed, but only one came back to glorify God. The implication of that is that we should glorify God and praise him for his deliverance of us, for our salvation. Certainly that curing of disease is emblematic for, but for the health that we have every day as well, to give glory and thanks to God for that. That’s one way to give God glory.

Romans 1 tells us that the root sin of those who are destroyed by God is that they do not glorify God, even though they know of him. Neither do they give him thanks. And so he ties the glorification of God to thanksgiving. And we should warn our children that a failure to thank God in all things is a failure to give him glory. And that’s the sin for which Herod was eaten alive by worms.

To tell the truth, additionally, is given in the scriptures as giving glory. In John 9:24, they called the man that was blind. And these were wicked men, but still their truth is truth. They said unto him, “Give God the praise.” “We know that this man is a sinner,” speaking of Jesus. So they use that formula: “Give God the praise. Give God the glory” as an admonishment to tell the truth as a putting somebody under exhortation to tell the truth in a court of the church or of the state.

I don’t know if you remember Joshua, for instance, with Achan and his sin. Remember, he told Achan he said, “My son, give God the glory. Confess to your sin.” When we tell the truth, and particularly when it relates to the confession of our sin, we give God glory. And when we hide our sin and we don’t tell the truth about our sin, we refuse to give God glory, and we enter into pride and rebellion against God.

To trust in God’s promises is another way to give God glory. Romans 4:19 and following speaks of Abraham: “That he was not weak in faith. He considered not his own body now dead, when he was about 100 years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief. He believed God,” in other words, “but he was strong in faith, giving glory to God. And being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to accomplish.”

When we look at God’s promises in the scriptures, when we look at God’s promises of what he will accomplish in our lives and believe those promises in terms of our lives individually, the life of our church, the life of the culture that will be affected by the reign of Jesus Christ, we give glory to God. Not looking at our own ability in terms of what God has promised to do in our lives and the lives of our children, but rather looking at God’s ability to do what he tells us that he will do.

We train ourselves in giving glory to God every Lord’s day at this church. We give glory to God. That’s what we come forward every Sunday to do ultimately—is to praise God and give him glory. And the various citations of the book of Revelation that we frequently recite in our communion liturgy reminds us that God is the one who should be given glory and honor and power and that ascribed to him.

Herod doesn’t do that. And so we see Herod’s extermination in the text before us.

In contrast to that, in contrast to Herod’s extermination, we see the word’s maturation and multiplication. Verse 24, actually after verse 24 rather: “Immediately after Herod dies, but the word of God grew and multiplied.”

Now, again, I want to be careful not to separate these two terms too much. This phrase, “the word grew and multiplied,” is repeated in the scriptures in various citations. For instance, in Acts chapter 9:31, we read that “the churches had rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria and were edified, grew, and walking in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Ghost were multiplied.” So the church was edified and multiplied.

In Acts 6:7, “The word of God increased and the number of the disciples multiplied.” Acts 7:17 says that “the people grew and multiplied in Egypt.” That’s Steven speaking of God’s people in Egypt growing and multiplying. And then Acts 9:20, “So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.”

So this phrase that “the word grew and multiplied” is a common usage, particularly in the book of Acts, but throughout the scriptures as well. And essentially, it simply means that it got bigger and bigger and bigger. But I don’t want to make too big a differentiation of the two words. I think the two words are given just as a double witness to the growth and establishment of the church, but there is some form of distinction between the two words: “grew” and “multiplied.”

And by way of illustration or example, I want us to think a little bit about that in reference to then what the scriptures tell us in the very next verse—the concluding verse of this first half of the chapter of the book of Acts, the last verse of this particular text—and that has reference to Barnabas and Saul.

The text doesn’t end by just saying the word grew and multiplied. It then gives us, I think, what we can at least take by way of application or illustration, a picture of that growth, maturation, and multiplication of the church. We read that “Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem, when they had fulfilled their ministry, and they took with them John, whose surname was Mark.”

We see Barnabas and Saul maturing, growing in their service to God. They fulfilled their ministry. And we also see them multiplying themselves, making disciples by taking John with them. They come in two, then they go out from Jerusalem, three.

Now, we’ve had these bookends. Remember, this whole thing started in Acts 11. Prediction of the famine. Barnabas and Saul taking up a collection for the saints at Jerusalem. They go down there. Then we have this long story of Peter’s imprisonment, Herod’s extermination, etc. And then it returns to the beginning of the story where you see Barnabas and Saul fulfilling their ministry, going back away from Jerusalem back to Antioch with John Mark with them.

And you know, it’s interesting because this middle stuff occupies all of our attention. And of course, there’s a lot of stuff going on there. It should occupy our attention, but we don’t want to forget that the other story that’s going on here—that God begins and ends this historical recitation of events with—is this maturation and growth of the apostles’ ministry. Where you’ve got Barnabas and Saul not involved in any of this stuff at all, probably through prayer, but they’re quietly going about fulfilling their ministry, completing the task that God had set them to do with the beginning notice from Agabus the prophet about the coming famine, the collection, and then the delivery of that collection.

Great things happen on the world stage. We had a funeral last week of a president of the United States, a funeral that somehow, for some reason, I don’t know why, captured a lot of attention of the people in the country. We could talk for a long time about why that may or may not be. But these big events happen. The big geopolitical events are going on all the time.

But somehow, I think that our primary identification—we don’t understand those things relative to God’s word. We’ve understood Herod’s extermination, Peter’s, at least by looking at all the scriptures relative to these texts. But primarily, we don’t want to be diverted from the fact that the word grows and multiplies. The word is the active source here that has this effect upon the leaders of the earth, this effect upon the church, but it has its primary place of vitality in the context of saints who mature and multiply.

And so you have Barnabas and Saul completing their ministry and then taking on an additional disciple, John Mark, to go with them—growing, maturing, multiplying.

Now, I give you a text from the gospels in your outline, Luke 1:80. And we read there: “And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit and was in the desert until the day of his showing unto Israel.” It was told about the Lord Jesus Christ who grew, matured, and he also strengthened. His body got bigger as he’s growing up. That’s a picture for us of what’s happening with the church throughout all these great geopolitical events. The church slowly goes about doing its ministry, fulfilling its work, maturing as a result, and multiplying as a result of that as well by making additional disciples.

And so the scriptures want us to see not simply the extermination of Herod, but the establishment, the maturation, both the maturation and multiplication of the church.

And it would be good for you to think of your particular application. You’re not involved in great geopolitical matters for the most part, but you have a ministry given to you from God. You have a ministry in your home. You have a ministry in your place of work. And you should have a ministry in the context of this church.

And what God wants us to do is to mature in those ministries. That maturation happens when we don’t quit, but when we persevere in the task that God has called us to do. Now, you’ve got to make sure [of] the task God called you to do. You’ve got to make sure you don’t take on things that aren’t your calling. But having said all that, once you are assigned a calling, a ministry to do, then the key is to complete it. And in the completing of it, God matures you.

And so you should ask yourself, do you have a ministry in the context of this church? For instance, we’ve said in the past that people should probably spend between one or two hours a week involved somehow in the body of Christ, the local church, in terms of ministry. We believe in every believer ministry at Reformation Covenant Church. It’s been a long time since we’ve sort of reworked the task lists and see what people are doing and what they’re good at doing, what ministries they should be fulfilling. It’s time to do it again.

We talked about this a couple months ago. Handed out a sheet. We’ll hand out more sheets in the future. It’s important that you see your ministry both at your home, at your work, but also in the context of the church, and that you attach yourself to a ministry and then you mature as Paul and Barnabas did with the completion of it by fulfilling what you’re called to do.

And also, of course, the other side of this is the multiplication, discipleship. They spent time with each other. They made a disciple of John. Disciple conversion evangelism is important, but the process the scriptures talk about is discipleship, which begins with conversion but moves on through discipleship in terms of spending time with people.

You know, we’re real big in this church on the implications of the great Shema, Deuteronomy 6, that we’re supposed to teach our children “in the way.” Children are often in the way, aren’t they? And we’re supposed to be teaching them as we’re in the way, instructing them and spending time with them. Well, the same thing’s true of each other. We should be spending time with each other. You only have so much time in the day, and you don’t want to feel bad if you don’t have enough time to do lots of time with other people, but you want to spend some time in the context of other believers and multiply through discipleship here, through working with other people.

So there’s some application for us in that.

Now, let’s go on and talk about then some lessons from the text. Looking briefly at an overview of the text, let’s go back now and look at some more specific lessons.

And the first lesson I want to focus on here is that the destruction of the heathen is assured by the judgment of Edom. Turn to Obadiah. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah. Can’t find it back there. It’s one of those minor prophets. Hard to find. It’s only, you know, one chapter long. So it’s tough to find in your Bible. So I’ll give you a minute or two here. But turn to Obadiah and we’ll see that this text pictures for us a judgment upon Edom by way of application at least.

As I said, Herod was an Edomite king. I just want to draw some illustrations of this from the book of Obadiah.

In Obadiah, chapter—well, there’s only one chapter—verse 3: “The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee.”

Now that applies very directly to King Herod. The pride of his heart deceived him. “Thou that dwellest in the crest of the rock whose habitation is high that saith in his heart, ‘Who shall bring me down to the ground? Though thou exalt thyself as an eagle, and thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.’”

The eagle was the insignia for the Roman Empire. And so there is a relationship here—you could see way of application again—Herod’s relationship, his power, was in relationship to the eagle, setting himself in place amongst the eagle, the Roman Empire, that gave him these honors and privilege. And he had exalted himself and saw himself as God. But God says he will bring him down.

Verse 6: “How are the things of Esau searched out? How are his hidden things sought up?”

See, we see in Herod an Edomite king, but we see in him ultimately Esau. Esau is the father of the Edomite nation. Esau was, is, the picture of the bad path of the world. There are two paths—path of blessing, path of curse. Jacob and Esau, by way of illustration for us, for example, are seen as the two kinds of men that there are in the world. Only two kinds of men: Jacob’s and Esau’s. And this man is an Esau. This Edomite king is an Esau who persecutes Jacob.

“How are these things sought out of? All the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to the border. The men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and are prevailed against thee. They that eat thy bread have laid a wound upon thee. There is none understanding in him.”

Well, there’s understanding in us by way of application. We can see this verse and say that those that Herod had confederated himself with, those that Herod had who had eaten Herod’s bread—Tyre and Sidon, okay—those that Herod had made peace with, who wanted peace with him, the text tells us, because they had to eat his bread, they deceived Herod. They cried out, “the voice of a god and not a man.” Now we don’t know if they were intentionally trying to make fun of what was going on. But we know the end result was that Herod believed their foolish cries.

And the very ones that built him up were being used by God to prove his destruction and his damnation. Herod was fatted, a fatted calf fatted for the kill by God. And he and the Tyrenians and the Sidonians were the secondary means that God used to superinflate his ego, that God might then wipe him out with a pack of worms.

Now so we see in this text God’s judgment upon Edom or Esau. But the text goes on in Obadiah verse 16 to say: “For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall shame shall cover thee and thou shalt be cut off forever.”

And again, Herod’s there is a relationship to Herod’s sin against the church, against Jacob, against Christ and against Christ in the form of the apostles of the church. And because of that, shame, worm terms, cover Herod.

And so we can see some correlation there. Now, and then again, we see, I list some other [verses]. Verse 12 talks about that you should have looked in the day of your brother, the day that became a stranger. He should have looked upon the Jewish church at Jerusalem with favor instead of going against it.

So we see in Herod the destruction of Edom predicted in Obadiah.

But we also see in Obadiah that the destruction of the Edomites are a picture of the destruction and a guarantee of the destruction of all heathen. Look at verse 15: “For the day of the Lord is near upon all the heathen, not simply Edom anymore, Esau. As thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee. Thy reward shall return upon thine own head.”

Verse 16: “For as you have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually.” That’s drink of God’s wrath.

So with the destruction of Herod, we see God’s judgment upon Edom. And we also see then a guarantee of God’s judgment upon all the wicked of the earth. And so we have in the text before us another great example of Psalm 2, an assurance by God that every king, nation, people that raises itself up against God will be judged by God and will be brought low and abased.

Now that’s important for us to know in the context of the world in which we live, because nearly every king on this earth does raise himself up against God. And we can sit back and say, “Well, you know, yeah, I know Jesus is supposed to win, but it doesn’t look so much like it.” But we need to be assured by texts like this that this is the way history flows.

Now understand this too. I’m going to read a commentary from the numeric Bible, and listen to this: “Now Israel, as we see, is going onward to doom. Yet they have a king under whom now the whole land is once more united. They will in fact have a political revival at the end, which when all will seem to be theirs except the life from God, without which all is death still, and only worse corruption.”

You see, when God’s judgement comes, it usually comes in this manner. God usually fattens up the calf before he slaughters them. And so if the world around us appears to be fattened up, recognize from this text the certainty that God will judge them and will tread them down. Know that in your heart, and know that frequently, it is just in this fashion that the end doesn’t come until their cup of iniquity has become full. And when they completely get rid of even all God talk, Herod moved away from Jerusalem. He moved away from his close appreciation or application of the Jewish faith, disgusted with it. And claims himself now blasphemously, in terms of blasphemy against God, to be God.

And that’s when God strikes to show people what at the core is the cause of this judgment against wicked men.

So we see here the assurance of God’s judgment against Edom and by way of application against all the heathen. But we also see the establishment of the sons of Israel assured by the judgment of Edom in the text before us.

Look at verse 17. There’s another [section of] the book of Obadiah that we’re talking about, applying to this text, just like our text does. It doesn’t end with the destruction of the wicked. Verse 17: “But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance and there shall be holiness and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions. House of Jacob shall be a fire. House of Joseph a flame in the house of Esau for stubble.”

The church of God is said to be a fire to burn up the wicked in the land round about us. We got this family camp brochure out there talking about the treading down of the wicked. Wow. That might cause some people to think kind of funny, you know. Well, that’s what the scriptures say in that text in the book of Malachi. It’s what it says throughout these things: that when we see the destruction of the wicked, we see the assurance of the establishment of the sons of Israel.

And Obadiah tells us the same thing. Verse 18: “They of the south shall possess the mount of Esau and they of the plain the Philistines.” See, moving from Edom to all the heathen around us. And God says, “The captivity of the host, the children of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites.”

And then verse 21: “And savior shall come on Mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord.”

So we don’t see here just an assurance of the judgment of the wicked, but the assurance of the establishment of God’s people.

Herod’s death, fulfilling this to some degree, this prophecy reminds us of the course of history.

Lensky said in his commentary on this text the following: “This is the way the history of the persecutions always ends. Herod perished, the word just grew more and more. Note the imperfect tenses. The word just grew more and more. It doesn’t say grew once and ended. Grew. The imperfect tense means it has continually affected, continues to grow. Note the imperfect tenses: grew and grew and grew. Both verbs mean that the word itself increased by entering more and more hearts in faith.

“The seed in the parable of the sower thus multiplies itself. The capital in the parable of the pounds multiplies by being used in trade. It’s a wonderful view of the vital life of the word. It actually thrives in persecution. Yet so often we hang our heads when God sends persecution here and there. Ten most bloody persecutions ravaged the church under the pagan Roman emperors. And when they had spent themselves, Christianity had permeated the empire, and in due time, a Christian emperor assumed the throne.

“God assures us in Isaiah 54:17, ‘No weapon that is formed against us shall prosper. Every tongue that rises against you in judgment, thou shalt…’”