Mayhem, Miracles and Monday Morning [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. It's a story of the miraculous escape of Peter from prison. It's a miracle story, but it's bookended by the fact that James, another leader in the early church, an apostle, was martyred.

And there's no explanation as to why James was killed instead of being rescued, while Peter was being rescued instead of being killed. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Unlimited, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I'm going to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Now, more on this later in the program, but right now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? Life with God is miraculous, but it is speckled with grief and situated in the ordinary, and that's okay.

That really is okay. It's okay to understand that life with all of its miracles also will have its share of grief. And there also is plenty of routine and hard work, and that is more than okay. You can expect God to deliver you from life's difficulties. We can expect God to heal us of our infirmities. We can expect God to triumph over the devil's plots against us. We can expect miracles while also understanding that we are human, and Jesus said, in this world you will have trouble. And we can also understand that there's always Monday morning. That life has taken out the garbage, cleaning the house, commuting to work, paying the taxes, and dealing with the leaky faucet. That's real life too. And the routine stuff of life and the disappointments of life do not dethrone the God who is a God of miracles.

And today we're going to learn all about that in a message I've therefore called Mayhem, Miracles, and Monday Morning, because life's got some of all of that. Well, my oldest brother David has gotten interested in digging up family history, doing the ancestry stuff. And on both sides, my mom and dad's side of the family. And he recently unearthed the actual obituary of my great uncle on my mother's side. My mother's father was old when my mother was born, and he was 90 when he died and I was six. So unfortunately I didn't get to know him that well.

T.R. Wolfe, my grandfather we called Paul, was a Methodist minister. And he pastored in Methodist churches all over the Western Conference.

And in those days especially, the Methodist church was highly committed to the itinerant system of ministry. They moved at least every four years. And so my mom moved around, but she said she can remember a time where they had just loaded up everything and moved to a new town, have never been there before. But the bishop said, you know, here's where your new church.

She's going to remember her father pulling into the gas station and speaking to the attendant and asking, can you tell me where the Methodist parsonage is, having never been there to even see if it was a suitable place to live. I heard some of those stories and decided to become a Presbyterian. My grandfather was a strict but good man, sober, dedicated, hardworking, preaching the gospel, visiting the sick. He enjoyed his garden.

He enjoyed his golf and loved his wife, Stella. And he had, I think, my mom's here this morning, 10 siblings. He was one of 11 and he had at least, I think, two preachers, other preachers that were amongst the siblings. And one of those was the Reverend William Davis Wolfe. And it is that great uncle, my mom's uncle, of which my brother unearthed the obituary, the actual news clipping. I put it up here because they just don't write them like this anymore.

Reverend William Davis Wolfe, 62, pastor of Historic New Hope Presbyterian Church near Gastonia, dropped dead in his pulpit at 11.45 o'clock. Who says that anymore? Who says that? You're going to say that? You say he went to meet his Lord or went home to glory or something. You don't say drop dead. Drop dead at 11.45 o'clock Sunday morning as he was nearing the conclusion of his sermon. As he slumped to the floor, why do we need these details?

Granted, you know, whenever time you read these things, you're curious. But they don't put these things in the paper, but they did then. As he was nearing the conclusion of his sermon, as he slumped to the floor, members of the church rushed to his aid only to find that death had come to him suddenly. Although none of his family knew it, Mr. Wolfe suffered a severe heart attack three weeks ago, but it did not prevent his going ahead with his pastoral work.

They don't write them like that anymore. I want to just say, first, I want to claim something very positive here. This is evidence. This man had a severe heart attack and kept on ministering. So I just want to say I come from good, hard-working stock. I like the commitment. But there are a few things from great Uncle Davis I've had to break some patterns here, and one of which is I do not plan on dropping dead at 62 in the pulpit. 102, in the middle of, if it's a good sermon, and I'm 102, I'll take it then. All right, would you be in agreement with that? 102, maybe preach them from the book of Galatians or something like that, and then just on to heaven.

That'd be good. 102. But 62, I'm breaking that. But the other thing I also want to mention here is that this is a little dysfunctional to have had a major heart attack and not tell anybody, including your wife. So I promise not to do that. If I have a major problem, I'll tell at least two people.

But here's the main thing. I've had to break this pattern, and I just want you to celebrate this with me. Did you notice this language? It said he dropped dead in his pulpit at 1145 o'clock as he was nearing the conclusion of his sermon. Nearing the conclusion of his sermon at quarter till 12? Are you kidding me?

I'm just getting going at quarter to 12. I had to break off that short sermon pattern. They don't write obituaries like that anymore. Today, everything is much more candy-coated. But we're going to read a story today that's not candy-coated.

We're going to read a story today that's very real. It's a story of the miraculous escape of Peter from prison. It's a miracle story, but it's bookended by the fact that James, another leader in the early church, an apostle, was martyred. And there's no explanation as to why James was killed instead of being rescued while Peter was being rescued instead of being killed. There's no explanation given.

The Bible seems unconcerned with that question. And on the other bookend is, well, it's almost funny to see the early church and the way they're so, so human and they have to continue on with life. It's bookended by the confusion of a tragedy and by the ordinariness of human life on the other end. And in the middle is this miracle because real life is some mayhem, some Monday morning in the middle of it all, the miracle of God's grace. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Need some inspiration and practical help to bless those you love? In junction with the exciting release of Pastor Alan's new book, The Power to Bless, we put together some tools to get you started on the journey of speaking life and empowering the people you love. The toolkit includes an audio message of Pastor Alan's recent sermon on the mysterious blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh, the gateway to understanding the power of all blessing. Also included in the kit is a booklet with a list of scriptures that can be spoken directly as blessings. The blessing scriptures are categorized so you can easily access them for specific situations. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we'll happily send you the Power to Bless toolkit as our way of saying thanks for your partnership.

The resources are available for immediate digital download or available in CD and booklet. Partner with us and be inspired and equipped to bless someone's life today. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. It is in Acts chapter 12 and we're going to today just follow it one verse at a time and just let the story unfold and then I have a few I think conclusions and God has some prophetic insight for us I think in this marvelous story. So let's just pick up in Acts chapter 12 verse 1. About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. Let's pause here and make sure we know who this Herod is. I know you can't see probably these names up here but it's a family tree and Herod the Great is the patriarch at the top of this.

Herod the Great was the Herod that you read about that tried to find baby Jesus through the Magi and then was wanting to kill baby Jesus and couldn't and so he killed all the baby boys and that was Herod the Great he was called. He liked to be called the king of the Jews. He wasn't fully Jewish. Nobody in this family was fully Jewish but they liked to make themselves as if they were on the side of the Jews.

They really were like Roman puppets. They were doing the bidding of Rome and there wasn't a drop of actual true Roman royal blood in their family tree but that's Herod the Great and then he had these boys Archelaus and Herod and Philip and Aristobulus. So one of his sons Herod who we would call Herod Antipas. This Herod his son was the one that beheaded John the Baptist. This Herod, Herod Antipas is the one that Jesus called Herod that fox. This Herod, Herod Antipas is the one who had the encounter with Jesus before Jesus' crucifixion.

So the patriarch died not real long after Jesus' birth. Then Herod Antipas you read about in the New Testament. Well Herod also had a son named Aristobulus who he had a son named Herod. So this Herod who became known as Herod Agrippa I. This Herod the grandson of Herod. This Herod is the Herod of our story today. And what had happened was that Herod the Great had all this property that included Galilee and Judea and surrounding areas and then it got kind of divided up amongst his sons but this Herod was real manipulative and he garnered a lot of favor with the Jews and he basically got the kingdom back to about the same size it was under his grandfather and that's Herod Agrippa.

Just a side point but it's just interesting. Herod Agrippa the grandson he had a sister named Herodias and Herodias, so Herodias was married to Philip which was her uncle. And then Herodias and Philip got a divorce partly because of Herod Antipas' tactics and then she married Herod Antipas. So she's one of the only women I've ever heard of that married two of her uncles.

That's a messed up family. Okay so that's the Herod we're talking about and this Herod Agrippa I he is doing all he can to get the Jews to love him and basically that's what we're reading about here. He's a persecutor of the early Christian church and he's getting some attention from the Jews because of that as we read it verse 3. He killed James the brother of John with the sword, one of the early apostles James, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews he proceeded to arrest Peter also. So he was an opportunist. He saw the Jews were like, oh great you killed one of the Christian leaders. So he went for an even more famous Christian leader Peter, arrested him and was going to have him executed also. But he hesitated because verse 3, this was during the days of unleavened bread.

I'm not going to say much about this although you could preach the whole sermon on this. The spring festival in Israel was generally called Passover but Passover proper the Feast of Passover was just one part of a larger festival. For 14 days they would make sure their houses had no unleavened bread in it. This was the time when all the Jewish people would make sure not only you don't have any, you don't have any Krispy Kreme donuts, you don't got a blueberry muffin, you got no Danish pastry, and you got no sourdough bread that's been rising. You get rid of all that because leaven is a symbol ultimately of sin, a little leaven spoils the whole thing, and you get rid of all of the leavened bread.

So anything you have that it would be like cracker, you know, nothing that it wrote. And it really originally began because when they were escaping their slavery, they're like there's no time. When the time for deliverance comes you got to move and move quick. There's no time for the bread to rise. All that symbolized. So in the spring, Jews would faithfully sweep out their houses, pull the fridge out, make sure there's not a crumb of unleavened bread left in the house.

And they play a little game where they'll hide one little piece of leavened bread and all the children go and look for it to see who can find it and then they celebrate the child that finds the last piece of leavened bread and they throw it out and burn it up out of the house. It's a high holy festival and Peter was arrested during that festival. And so Herod did not want to execute him in the middle of a holy festival because that would have blunted the positive attention he was getting from the Jews.

So he's on hold for that. And also I think, and I wish I could say more about this but time doesn't allow, this was the backdrop of Peter's miraculous escape, the celebration of Passover. So you got to think about the original Passover in which the Jewish people were slaves for hundreds of years and then by a Passover lamb and blood over the door, God brings judgment against Egypt and all of the Hebrew slaves are set free and that's what the Passover is all about. And one of the things that you would note if we had time to do it, it's amazing similarities in the language of the Passover story in Exodus and our story in Acts chapter 12.

Let me give you one example. Exodus 12 verse 11 in the original Passover, in this manner you shall eat the Passover feast with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand and you shall eat it in haste. It's the Lord's Passover. Now I'm going to come back to that and show you some similar language in Acts chapter 12.

It's a picture of the Lord's getting ready to deliver you, get ready, get ready, here it comes. Alright, back to Acts chapter 12 verse 4. And when he had seized him, when Herod had seized Peter, he put him in prison delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. This is overkill, this is four squads of soldiers and a squad was four.

This is 16 soldiers guarding him. It's just highlighting how powerful the miracle is that we're getting ready to see. Meanwhile the church is at prayer and the church is just praying fervently.

The word that's used to speak of how the church prays is the same word that is used to describe how Jesus prays at the Garden of Gethsemane. And look at verse 6, this is just great. Look at what Peter's doing. He's probably going to be brought out the next day to be executed.

He's got all these soldiers all around him and he's chained to two guards and look what he's doing. Verse 6, when Herod was about to bring him out on that very night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains and centuries before the door regarding the prison. You remember a time when Jesus was sleeping in a boat in a storm and Peter was one of the frantic disciples trying to wake him up. And now Peter so full of the Holy Spirit is sleeping on the eve of his likely execution.

The peace that passes all understanding. Give us that Lord. It is possible. It is possible to be chained to the Roman guards who might deliver you to your own execution and to get a good night's rest. If that's possible I don't see why we can't sleep well in the middle of a global pandemic. God is still in charge. So what a beautiful picture that Peter's sleeping and God's people are praying. We sleep, people pray, God saves.

I bet you we get to heaven and find out every single good thing that happened in your life because somebody prayed for you. It doesn't mean that God is limited. There is no limit with God. But he has ordained it. He has designed it. That he will move through the prayer of his people.

I love what the missionary to China, Hudson Taylor said so simply. When we work, we work. When we pray, God works. Our work is important but it's just work. But what we really want is God to work. Look at verse seven.

This is great. Behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him and a light shone in the cell and he struck Peter on the side and woke him saying, get up quickly and the chains fell off his hands. You know what I love about this? He is sleeping so soundly that even though the Shekinah glory, the light of God comes and fills his prison cell, he is sleeping so soundly that the angel has to get him, wake up, he has to kick him in the side. Wake up, wake up.

It's so funny. It's like a father trying to get his toddler up in the morning. Come on, get up. Just five more minutes.

No, just get up now. An angel of the Lord is here. It's funny and it's powerful. And to me it felt this week intensely prophetic. Does anybody else sense what I've been sensing when I say that it's like even with the body of Christ, it's like there's a spiritual malaise. It's like a vague kind of people thinking, well, there's a new normal and it's just laced with lament and just on hold and life is in and it's like, and I feel like God is saying to the church, wake up, wake up, wake up. It is time for spiritual awakening. It's time for our spirits to stand at attention to the word of God and for our spirits to rejoice greatly in God our Savior. Allen Wright, today's good news message, Mayhem, Miracles, and Monday Morning.

It's from our series we're in now titled Unlimited and Pastor Alan is back with us here in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for the day for all of us in just a moment. Need some inspiration and practical help to bless those you love? In conjunction with the exciting release of Pastor Alan's new book, The Power to Bless, we put together some tools to get you started on the journey of speaking life and empowering the people you love. The toolkit includes an audio message of Pastor Alan's recent sermon on the mysterious blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh, the gateway to understanding the power of all blessing. Also included in the kit is a booklet with a list of scriptures that can be spoken directly as blessings. The blessing scriptures are categorized so you can easily access them for specific situations. When you make your gift to Allen Wright Ministries this month, we'll happily send you The Power to Bless toolkit as our way of saying thanks for your partnership.

The resources are available for immediate digital download or available in CD and booklet. Partner with us and be inspired and equipped to bless someone's life today. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAllen.org. Back here with Pastor Alan and I love the title of this.

I remember this message when you first preached it and it's our good news thought for the day as we place the bookmark here, Mayhem, Miracles, and Monday Morning. You know, life consists a little bit of all of that, doesn't it? You know, time is where you're just not sure what's going on. Things seem to be crazy. Other times where you just have miracles and you celebrate. And then there's also Monday morning, back to the routine or the things that are ordinary. And it's such good news to know that God is in the midst of all of that.

That's what it's about. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox, free. Find out more about these and other resources at PastorAllen.org. That's PastorAllen.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.