Acts 12 - Part C

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That's ConnectWithSkip.com. Now let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Now Peter's sleeping really well because the light doesn't wake him up. If a light goes on in the room, my wife will wake up.

She's just very sensitive to just a little bit of light. An angelic light shows up in his cell. Peter doesn't wake up.

So the angel has to resort to, well, look what it says. He struck Peter. That's our boy. That's Peter.

That's the guy we know. Struck Peter on the side and raised him up. So he's not just sleeping. He's groggy. This angel has to help this boy up.

Saying, arise quickly. And his chains fell off of his hand. What a way to wake up. Wake up to a miracle happening and an angel is an alarm clock.

Not a bad night's sleep. Then the angel said to him, gird yourself and tie on your sandals. So he did. Now it sounds funny, but I actually love that verse because the angel is so practical. You know, God works that way. God does the impossible, but he expects you to do the possible. He does the extraordinary, but he wants you to employ the ordinary.

So, yeah, an angel could have miraculously just clothed him, but didn't. It's like, okay, come on. Get dressed.

Do the ordinary. Let's cooperate on this thing together. And so he went out and followed him. And did not know that what was done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. You know, it's like, man, this is an awesome dream. But when they were past the first and second guard post, they came to the iron gate that leads to the city, which opened to them of its own accord.

Don't you love that? The first automatic gate. The angel didn't have to push the button. It just opened up. Which opened to them of its own accord and went out and went down one street and immediately the angel departed from him.

And when Peter had come to himself, so he's now fully conscious, he said, now I know for certain that the Lord has sent his angel. I'm not going to comment on this. I'm not going to, you know, it's pretty obvious. Oh, really? Now. Now you've figured that out.

Okay. Now I know the Lord has sent his angel and delivered me from the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the Jewish people. So that prayer meeting worked as Thomas Watson, the great Puritan once wrote, I think he lived in the 1600s, maybe 1700s in England.

He put it this way. The angel fetched Peter out of prison. But prayer fetched the angel.

And there is that cooperation. Now you're seeing people on earth praying to God. It was God's will to deliver Peter, but God got them cooperating with his will. And it was their prayer that fetched the angel.

Now again, let's just stop and ask this question. Okay, so they prayed for Peter and God released them. Does that mean they failed to pray for James?

I don't think so. I think they probably prayed as fervently for James as they did for Peter. Well, then why didn't God answer their prayer? He did. He said no. Last time I checked, that's an answer. Dad, can I have the keys to the car? No.

You got your answer. Now one day you may ask him for it. Dad, can I have the keys to the car?

Sure. So here's the point. God is still sovereign. He rules and overrules. So when you pray, you can't demand and I have enough faith and I claim it and whatever I say out of my mouth is what God has to do because God is a slave to my faith-formed words. That's nonsense. God has editing rights over your prayer life.

So it's like when you turn in your term paper to the teacher and the teacher takes it, looks at it, corrects it, aligns it with his or her will, changes it up, hands it back for you to resubmit it. So the answer was no when it came to James and it was yes when it came to Peter. God's ways are not our ways.

He has editing rights. Okay, so now watch this. The angel was able to get Peter out of prison. Peter is unable to get into a prayer meeting. It's easier to get Peter out of jail than it is to get him into a prayer meeting and you'll see why. So when he had considered this, it's like, man, I just got sprung out of jail by an angel.

I was touched by an angel. When he had considered this, he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying. Now he's going to the prayer meeting itself. The house of John Mark, it is believed, became the headquarters of the early church in Jerusalem. And John Mark is probably the author of the Gospel of Mark. And it was Peter's account that John Mark writes in the Gospel of Mark. This John Mark, we know his mother's name Mary. She was prominent in the early church.

She probably had a large house. In fact, some believe that when you go today to Mount Zion, that area that they call the upper room, the cynical it is called, that the upper room in the Bible was Mary's house, the house of John Mark's mother. Can't be certain, but many feel that way. Maybe, maybe not. So he goes to the prayer meeting.

He's out of jail. They're praying. It says, as Peter knocked on the door of the gate, a girl named Rhoda, her name means Rose, came to answer. So knock, knock, knock.

Rose answers. When she recognized Peter's voice, because of her gladness, she did not open the gate. There's poor Peter knocking. She goes, oh, it's Peter. Okay, next step, open the door. But she doesn't do that. It says she ran in and announced that Peter stood before the gate.

Hey, Peter's outside. But they said to her, you're beside yourself. Better translation in the NIV and the New Living Translation, you are out of your mind. Yet she kept insisting it was so. So they said, it's his angel.

Now that cracks me up. I'm not going to go into their belief system of angels. But just to say, why would an angel need to knock? If it were an angel, angels just show up. Angel didn't have to knock on the prison door. Just, hello. They just, they're there.

But they came up with this excuse. Oh, you're nuts. It can't be Peter.

And when she kept insisting, no, that's Peter. He's out there. They said it is his angel. Now, let me say something about their prayer meeting. I'm glad they're praying.

And I admire a group, a kinship group, a home fellowship group, connect group, church that gathers together for prayer. And they prayed continually. But can I just say, it seems like though they were praying continually, they were not praying expectantly. Because if they were praying expectantly and she said, it worked, Peter's outside. They would have gone, oh, we were just figuring when we knew that would happen. Of course, God would answer our prayer.

But they go, you're out of your mind. It can't be him. What kind of faith is that?

Not much. And so they come up with the excuse that it's his angel. The reason I make a big deal out of this is because there is a teaching. It has been popularized for many years in a group of churches that would be put under the banner of the faith movement churches. And the theology of the faith movement churches is that the reason you aren't experiencing victory in your life or miracles in your life or the supernatural is because of you and your lack of faith. If you had faith enough and you spoke the word and prayed in faith and claimed it in Jesus' name, it would happen. So if it doesn't happen, it's not God's fault. It's your fault for not having enough faith. Okay, so did they have enough faith? No. Did God answer their prayer anyway? Uh-huh.

Now, let me give you a couple examples. Lazarus got sick and he died. Was it because he lacked faith?

You might say, well, maybe. Okay, when he got raised from the dead, was it his faith? Was it Martha's faith? Do you remember what Martha said to Jesus? If you were to have been here, my brother wouldn't have died. He said, I'm the resurrection of life. Yeah, I know. He'll rise in the last day.

Whatever. She did not expect a resurrection. She had no faith for the resurrection. Mary didn't.

Martha didn't. Lazarus was dead, so he couldn't have any faith. Despite all lack of faith, Jesus rose from the dead.

So here's the balance. Here's the balance of this whole faith thing. There was a man who came to Jesus who had a son who was demon-possessed.

He said, can you do something with my son? Jesus said, you know, if you have faith, all things are possible to him who believes. Now, there's a statement of faith. And the man said to him, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief.

Now, that's an honest man. Lord, I believe there's a part of me that is struggling with this. I have faith and unbelief at the same time. I believe, but help my unbelief. And I would dare say when we pray to God, sometimes we have faith that God can do anything, but we're just not sure that God's going to do something now. And that's when you say, I believe, but help my unbelief. And Jesus healed him, even with a shaky faith. I love that about Jesus. He doesn't follow faith teachers. He's God.

He just does what he wants. So Peter, verse 16, let's finish this out. Now Peter continued knocking.

So they're arguing the theology of angels. And Peter's pounding at the door. And that's our Peter. Pound, pound, pound. Just keep knocking, keep knocking, keep knocking. They're talking about angels now. Knock, knock, knock, knock. They're having a theological debate.

Keep knocking, keep pounding. So when they opened the door and they saw him, they were astonished, these great people of great faith. Their prayer were answered and they were astonished. It worked.

Who would have figured? But motioning to them with his hand to keep silent, he declared to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, go tell these things to James and the brethren. The other James, this is now the half brother of Jesus, that James, and to the brethren. And he departed and went to another place.

We don't know what place. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, we want to help you learn more about God's radical love for all people by sending you four booklets by Skip Heitzig that will encourage you in God's abounding love and challenge you to love even the unlovable, just like Jesus did. This resource is our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share solid biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.

Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copies when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Now, let's continue with today's teaching from Pastor Skip. Then as soon as it was day, there was no small stir among the soldiers about what happened to Peter. Now, I like this about Luke. Luke is a doctor. He's a physician. He writes with medical terminology, but he also uses the diminutive form in his description. He says, and there was no small stir, which is another saying, there was a big hullabaloo going on among those soldiers, and they were just shaking in their boots because the death penalty was on their plates. Soldiers that did not dispatch their duties were killed in those days.

That's what they were looking at, death penalty. So no small stir is Luke's diminutive way of saying, uh-oh, there's a big thing. There's a lot of shouting going on in that room.

Now, he does this again. When we get to Acts chapter 15, and there's a whole debate about who is saved and who is not saved because the Judaizers say, or the strong legalistic Jews in Jerusalem said, unless a person is circumcised and keeps the law of Moses, he can't be saved. And so they start arguing, and it says, and there was no small dissension among them, which means it was like a knockdown, drag-out fight.

They were just really frothing, but I love that he uses that. So there was no small stir among them of what happened to Peter, but when Herod searched for him and not found him, he examined the guards and commanded that they should be put to death. And they went down from Judea to Caesarea. He went down from Judea to Caesarea, and he stayed there. So Peter's now in Caesarea. Now Herod had been very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon.

This is where the chapter will end. This is the same Herod, Herod Agrippa I, who killed James, was about to kill Peter, didn't do it, so now he's in Caesarea. Herod had been very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon.

That's up the coast on Lebanon. But they came to him with one accord, having made blastus the king's personal aid their friend, and they asked for peace because their country was supplied with food by the king's country. There was a supply of food from the area of Galilee, which Herod Agrippa also oversaw, and that went up to the people of Tyre and Sidon, so they wanted to get on his good side.

There had been a falling out, and he was angry with them. So on a set day, they're just kind of setting you up because they're going to pour on all the praise because they want to get on his good side. So on a set day, Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat on his throne and gave an oration to them, and the people kept shouting, the choice of a god and not a man.

They want to get on his good side. Can you tell? This dude is not a man. This is a god. Then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give glory to God. In the writings of Josephus, the Jewish historian who worked for the Roman government, in his reports, he mentions this.

He writes about this. In fact, what he says is that it was on the second day of a feast taking place in the town of Caesarea, a feast in honor of Claudius in Rome, that during that day, Herod Agrippa I put on robes that were a silver foiled cloth, without actually silver on it, and the silver gleamed in the sun. So if you looked at it, it was like this blazing animated character in this silver flowing bespeckled, bejeweled robe. That's how Josephus describes it.

So picture the scene. By the way, Josephus gives another little thing that you who have gone to Israel or will go will find interesting. Herod Agrippa I goes into the theater in Caesarea, which is the place we always take our group on the first day of the tour.

We sit them on the seats in that Roman theater. So he enters that theater and Caesarea dressed like that. The sun is gleaming on him, and people say it's the voice of a man and not a god. Now it says he was struck because he did not give glory to God, and he was eaten by worms, and he died. Now Josephus does say this. His editorial comments are, because he did not rebuke or reject their impious flattery, he was struck by worms and died. So this is corroborated by Josephus' writings. Josephus also said he was in terrible pain, and he died not on the same day, but five days later. He suffered in agony for five days, and then he died. Now you say, well, this is an unusual way to go.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to go that way, but it is not uncommon. So some scholars believe that this was the result of a bursting cyst or cyst due to a tapeworm. And one authority, Dr. Jean Sloat Morton, wrote this in Moody Monthly Magazine, and I quote, Herod's death was almost certainly due to the rupture of a cyst formed by a tapeworm. There are several kinds of tapeworms, but one of the most common ones found in sheep-growing countries is the dog tape.

Echinococcus granulosus is its scientific name. The heaviest infections come from areas where sheep and cattle are raised. Sheep and cattle serve as intermediate hosts for the parasite.

The dog eats the infected meat. The man gets the eggs from the dog, usually by fecal contamination of hair. The disease is characterized by formation of cysts generally on the right lobe of the liver. These may extend down into the abdominal cavity, the peritoneal cavity. The rupture of such a cyst may release as many as two million scolices.

Now a scolax is a little protrusion that can hook or attach itself to the host, so two million scolices. When the cyst ruptures, the entrance of cellular debris along with the scolices may cause sudden death. So because he did not give glory to God, that's the crime. So you see how the chapter ends very differently than it begins. It begins with Herod, Agrippa, flexing his powerful muscles, Peter's in prison, John is killed. But it ends with Peter freed from jail and Herod dead. So the king, right, the king of Judea and the king of Galilee is upstaged by the king of kings. Again, the sovereignty of God ruling and overruling. Chapter ends very differently. So it's like, man, the devil is getting the upper hand on this one. You know, King Herod's killing people. Wait for it.

Today he is, but wait for it. Wait. And God put an end to it. So I'm sure reading that, that's TMI. That's too much information.

You didn't want to know about bursting cysts, scolices, and all that stuff. As we close, I want you to consider, though, and we're not done yet because we have a couple verses to go, but no matter who you are or no matter who you think you are, God is perfectly capable of taking you on. You might have so much and you're so smart and so advanced beyond these measly little Christians who just believe in the Bible. And you might shake your fist at God and be hard-hearted against God, but if not here on this earth, eventually, your knee also will bow. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And for those who reject God's solution to their dilemma as a fallen creature, a sinful creature in need of redemption, for those who refuse the offer, it's for the same reasons as what happened with Herod the Great or Herod Agrippa. He died because he didn't give glory to God.

Romans chapter 1 talks about the judgment that is coming because they did not glorify God. God was evident to them in the creation. He put enough clues in the world for anybody with a thinking mind to go, there has to be a designer behind.

There has to be a God somewhere. And if you reject the obvious evidence and you don't give glory to God, not good. I encourage you to make a better decision. Now, I know I want to close this off because I have a minute left, but I just want you to compare something. I want you to compare two verses.

The language is the same, but you're going to have very different results. Look at verse 7. Now, behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him, Peter, and a light shone in prison, and he struck Peter on the side.

Verse 23, immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he didn't give glory to God and he was eaten by worms and had died. Maybe the same angel. Both got struck with two different results. And the word in Greek, pataso, means to strike gently or forcibly, and the meaning differs according to the context. So do you want God to nudge you gently or do you want him to strike you like the bad kind?

The context of your heart will determine the outcome of the pataso, the striking. It's amazing how one thing can have two different results. It's amazing how the cloud in the wilderness could be light to the children of Israel, darkness to the Egyptians. How the Ark of the Covenant could be powerful to the children of Israel and devastating to the Philistines. Same thing, two different results. Here's an angel striking one, it's good.

Striking another, not so much. He died. Let's finish this off. But the word of God grew and multiplied and Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their ministry and they also took with them John whose surname was Mark.

The gates of hell will not prevail against what Jesus said he would build. We're glad you listened today and hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resource, the Jesus Loves Them Bundle, which comes as thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your bundle when you call and give, 800-922-1888.

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