231 - I Hear You Knocking but…

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. So today, Peter's close friend and an apostle, James, is executed by Herod. And Peter is locked up, chained in prison, in line to be next. Yeah, he's on death row. And so what do you think he's doing while he's waiting to die?

He is soundly sleeping. Yeah, go figure. Let's go look at that today. On More Than Ink. Well, hey, welcome. We're glad you're with us. I'm Dorothy.

I'm Jim. And this is More Than Ink. And we're sitting at our dining room table with the book of Acts open in front of us. And Acts has proven to be a really good story.

It's a great read. And what continues to impress me is that Acts, you know, Luke is a very careful historian, and he is simply recording what happened. He's not saying this is necessarily the way it should always happen or it will always happen. This is what happened. But this is what the people did, and this is what the Spirit of God did.

Yeah. And so we've been seeing that happening as the Spirit begins to press out the gospel beyond Jerusalem, right? We saw him go to Samaria. We now, last most recently, saw him go to the Gentile, the Roman Gentiles over on the coast. In Caesarea. We saw Peter be called on the carpet because of it and how the critics simply had nothing to say in response to Peter's account of how the Holy Spirit moved.

It wasn't something that they sought or drummed up. It was simply they were there ready to hear the Word of God and the Spirit came. Yeah.

And the gospel went to the Gentiles. Yeah. Big change. Big change.

It was just titanic change in the last couple chapters. Well, you know, at the end of the last chapter, in chapter 11, we sent Barnabas and Paul, Saul. Right. Up to Antioch.

Yeah. Up to Antioch and then down to Jerusalem. They're bringing kind of help to Judea. And they're there right now, but we turn our narrative away from them just for a second. But we are in the south again. We're back around Jerusalem. There's a lot going on on the outer reaches. And so some of these, this is not strictly chronological throughout these chapters because Luke is kind of doubling back on himself in a couple of places because it's kind of like, well, meanwhile, back at the ranch, this is what was happening.

Yeah. I just wanted to get our listeners set that we're not up in Antioch anymore, which is in Turkey today. No, we're back down in Judea.

In Judea and Jerusalem. So things have been going astonishingly well. And then some bumps in the road start to happen today. Yeah. So, so Herod comes back into the story here. And this, it's important to know that this Herod is not, he's like two generations after Herod the Great. This is the grandson of Herod the Great.

This is Agrippa I, I think Agrippa I. Agrippa I. Yeah. And, and he had been raised in Rome. He had friends who were currently reigning in Rome. He had a lot of Roman contacts.

He was very Roman. Yeah. Connect, a connected guy who was given the charge of keeping the peace there in Judea. Right. Yeah.

I think his uncle was the one who presided at the, at the, the trials over Jesus. I'm pretty sure it was his uncle, not his father, but anyway, it's a generation after that. Right. Right. Definitely generation after that. So this Herod, this Herod, Herod, by the way, is a title like Caesar.

It's, it's kind of a, an office name more than it is a first name. So let's just pick up the story and see what happens. A little bit of friction with Herod in chapter 12 verse 1. I'll go ahead and read for us here.

So about that time, and by the way, that means right after we just read 11. About that time Herod the King laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church and he killed James, the brother of John with the sword. And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. And this was during the days of unleavened bread. And when he had seized him, 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. So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.

Boy, there's a lot of interesting set up here. There is. First of all, why would this Herod lay violent hands on some who belong to the church? Right.

Right. Because we know that the Jews were opposed to them, but why was Herod interested in stamping out the church? Well, it says it pleased the Jews, verse 3. So I mean, this guy, like any politician today, will do whatever pleases the populace. And so he kills James.

And I don't know why he did that to start with, but afterwards he realized that was a good move because it pleased people. See, it raises a lot of questions. Why did he zero in on James, the brother of John? We don't know. We don't have any of those details.

No, we don't know. But it does recall that scene in Mark 10 for me, where James and John, this James and this brother John, the sons of Zebedee, they came and they asked Jesus, can you kind of fix us up so we're sitting on your left and on your right? And then Jesus asked them, this by the way, I'm reading out of Mark 10, and Jesus asked them, you really don't know what you're asking.

Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? That means to walk my experience that's coming up or to be baptized with the baptism, which I'm baptized, which means, are you ready to be immersed in what I'm about to be immersed in? We're talking about the death of Jesus.

And they said, we are able. And Jesus, instead of making fun of them, he says to them, well, the cup that I drink, you will drink. That is the experience, the persecution and the death, you will experience. And interestingly enough, that phrase of Jesus in Mark 10 is sitting right here in front of our eyes for James in chapter 12. But his brother John was the longest living of the 12 apostles. So that's just really interesting that these two brothers who walked so closely with Jesus, one was the first apostle to die, and at the hands of Herod, and the other outlived all the rest of them. Outlived them all.

Yeah, between the two brothers, they spanned the entire lifetimes of the apostles. It's pretty fascinating. And I might point out, too, a little gruesome detail. When it says someone's killed with the sword, it almost always means beheaded. So that's what's going on. And so Herod sees this as being a great crowd pleaser with the Jews. And so he decides, well, that worked out so well, let's do another one. So he arrests Peter, implied with the intention of also executing Peter because, man, he'll be the most popular guy in town if he does that.

So he arrests them, but he doesn't kill them immediately. There's an issue with the holidays. Since we're pleasing the Jews, you can't do this on Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

That's bad form. Isn't that interesting? And they'll probably anger them. Same time of year when Jesus was arrested. Same time of year Jesus was.

Right, right. And in fact, there was a big outcry at the time. The Jew says, we have to time the death of Jesus relative to Passover. We got to get him off the cross. So that's why they tried to speed up his death.

So yeah, same thing's happening here. So Herod is doing what a politician does. He's finding his best timing.

He doesn't want to offend the Jews by having it step on Passover, but he's still planning to kill Peter so he puts him in jail. Now, what do you make of the fact that he has to employ four squads of soldiers? Well, that tells us this is round the clock. Exactly. Right, guarding. That's right. Because the watch would have been four hours long. Yep, yep.

Every squad would change every quarter day. Right. Yeah, exactly. Plus, I think, now this is just my speculation, but I think they're remembering the escape from jail that happened back in Mark 5.

Perhaps. And so remember, that one was really the apostles, plural, were in jail. Right. And yet the way they got sprung out of jail by the angel, no one could figure out how it happened.

You know, it was like, what? Right, they're just out and about. So when you spring all the apostles, I think Herod here is thinking, you know what, we're going to arrest Peter and we're going to make sure that that does not happen again. Right. They're not just watching him, he's chained. That's right. Oh, yeah.

And he's not chained to one guy, he's chained to two guys. Right. We're going to find that out in a minute. Yeah, yeah.

So we're talking maximum security. So Herod does not want this to fail. He's going to make sure that every way possible for him to make sure that he carries out the plans to publicly kill Peter and make some points to the popular, this is going to happen. So that's where we leave it and we pick up the narrative of verse 6. But the church is praying. But the church is praying.

The church is praying. Great. Okay, verse 6. Oh, I might say too, it says earnest prayer and I was curious about that word earnest. Oh, yeah.

What did you learn? Yeah. It's this word echteniz, which means like when you stretch your arm out to grab something that's just beyond reach, I mean, it's this exerted kind of, I'm serious, I'm straining as farther. They're straining for it. Stretch to a limit is what the idea is. That's what their prayer is like.

It's stretched to a limit. I mean, they are really solidly into this. They are reaching out with every fiber of their being to God to have Peter get saved. That's why earnest prayer.

Earnest is okay, but doesn't quite capture it. Okay, so Peter's been in jail for a little while. Right. Because it says in verse 6, now 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. Okay, first of all, it strikes me Peter was sleeping.

Yeah, well. He's in chains between two soldiers. How well would you sleep? He is so soundly asleep that, look at this, verse 7, behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, get up quickly. So Peter was so soundly asleep, the presence of the angel doesn't wake him up. The light doesn't wake him up. The angel has to knock his into it. Now remember, in Peter's most recent memory, James has been killed.

That's right. So he could be laying there worrying about the fact that by daybreak he's going to die. He probably knows. Okay, the feast is over.

My life is toast. Right? Yeah. But he's sleeping. He's sleeping. It reminds me of that Psalm that says that he gives to his beloved sleep. Right.

Well, here it is. He's giving to his beloved sleep. Okay, so the angel strikes him, saying, get up quickly. And the chains fell off his hands.

That's the end of verse 7, verse 8. And the angel said to him, dress yourself and put on your sandals. And he did so. And he said to him, wrap your cloak around you and follow me. Now, why didn't the guards wake up with all that rustling around and commotion?

I don't know. Verse 9. And he went out and followed him, and he did not know what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out along one street, and immediately the angel left him.

When Peter came to himself, he said, now I'm sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting. Okay, let's talk about that for a minute. And they thought he was dreaming, like, you know, this can't be happening. It seems so unreal.

It really does. Wouldn't you think if you had gone to sleep in prison chained up, and you're suddenly, it would be very likely that you would dream that your chains fell off in the middle of the night. So then, you know, there's several obstacles to being free here. You got the chains.

They're off. You've got gates to go through. You've got guards to walk past. And if this is really happening, and none of these people are noticing, the guards aren't waking up. The people they pass on the gate or through the street aren't noticing.

Yeah, yeah. So it goes through the first and the second guards, both sets of guards, including what's going on. But now you've got the problem of this gate that's kind of locked. It's not easy to open these gates because they're meant to defend the city and stuff like that. So it just opened.

And you know what? Another interesting word study here. It opened for them of its own accord. You know what the Greek word for that is? Automate. Automate.

Oh, that's interesting. It automatically opened. Right. So it's like it had a garage door opener on it, and it just opened by itself. Yeah.

It automated. You know, I used to be a sleepwalker as a young teenager. And I would very often kind of be aware that I was somewhere I shouldn't be. And then I would wake up outside the house. One time I woke up in the garage, another time I woke up locked out of the house on the front porch.

That's a bad idea. So I relate to Peter a little bit here. I'm like, you know, maybe he just thought I'm sleepwalking, and you're kind of in that semi-sleep state. And then he comes to himself and says, oh, oh, I'm really out.

I'm really here. Yeah, the Lord has sent his angel, and he rescued me from the end of Herod. Again, which is a great contrast to the killing of James, you know, because I think he fully expected that he would go down the same path as James. That was Herod's intent, at least, and God allowed Herod to do that. So I think there's some amazement in his voice when he says that to himself, you know, at that last verse in verse 11. He rescued me from the hand of Herod.

This is really interesting to me, that those two things are in such close juxtaposition. We see that God, his purposes cannot be stopped. Now it looks like he stopped, he was stopped by Herod in the killing of James. But God is intent on something else. God's always in control, and you really can't judge your own perspective of what's going on to see, to judge God and say, God, you're out of control here. You can't do that, because clearly in both of these cases, these are ordained by God, right? They're both ordained by God. So, you know, in fact, Peter could have been sleeping contently because he was slightly jealous of the fact that James was Jesus now. So it's like, you know, Paul also voices that same kind of thing. I don't know whether to stay or to go, to tell you the truth, because... He says, for me, this is Philippians 1, for me to depart is very much better.

Very much better. So he's content with that. So in both cases here, you know, God's in control.

He's definitely in control right here. So you can hear it, you can hear it in Peter's voice. He rescued me from the hand of Herod, and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.

Remember that? He did this because Herod knew that he was going to please the Jews, and they were expecting a public execution. So not only was he freed from Herod, he was freed from all the Jewish people that were waiting for his death.

So what does he do? He wakes up, he's out in the street in the middle of the night, verse 12. When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. Realizing Peter's voice in her joy, she didn't open the gate, but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. This is funny, actually.

This is really funny. This convinces me that this is a real life narrative, because this sounds real. Okay, so verse 15, and they said to her, you're out of your mind. She kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, it's his angel. But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and they were amazed. Then motioning them with his hand to be silent, he described them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, tell these things to James and to the brothers. Okay, so that's James, the brother of Jesus, not the brother of James who had just died. Then he departed and went to another place.

Okay, let's stop there for a second. So they're praying for him earnestly, and he goes to a place where he's pretty sure the people are praying, which maybe because this is where that kind of stuff had happened before, Mary's house, the mother of John Mark. Maybe that's where they were accustomed to meeting at this point. Yeah, that could very well be.

That could very well be. And in fact, take note of this guy, John Mark, the son of Mary. He shows up principally in the narrative as we go on, and in fact, he shows up before we finish this chapter.

So watch for him. But anyway, they go where the praying is going on. He knocks on the door because there's persecution.

The Jews are against the Christians. He knocks on this door of the gateway, and the servant girl, Rhoda, comes and in her joy, she forgets to open the door and let him in. Isn't it interesting that we have her name?

I think that's really great. Of all the minor characters in the gospel accounts, why do we have this girl's name? We have so many characters we'd like to have names for, but we have... I think this is a little, what do you want to call it, comic relief in the book of Acts in the midst of great tragedy, and then maybe from this point on in the life of the church, Rhoda grew up in the church, and she'd introduce herself and say, my name's Rhoda, and go, oh, are you the one? That Rhoda.

And they'd both laugh together and go, yeah, that was me, can you believe it? Her response makes sense to me. She's just a little servant, right? She's not anybody important, and she's out keeping an eye on the gate, or when she hears the knock, she's the one who goes to check out because they're all inside praying. And she's so shocked and freaked out, she doesn't know whether to open the door or not. And they say she's out of her mind. That's right.

It can't be him. But good for her, good for Rhoda. She kept insisting.

She kept insisting. Right. It's Peter, I know his voice. Right. Even though they're saying, well, it's a messenger, it's a representative, it's a spirit that looks like him, or whatever it is that they're saying. Right. And at that point, he keeps knocking. And what if he had stopped knocking, whether they would have actually gone to the door?

Right. But he keeps knocking. And then they finally go to the door. And then they were amazed.

Then they were amazed. And why does it say he motions with his hand for them to be quiet? Well, because I think it caused such a ruckus when they were amazed that they all started screaming. And they're making a lot of noise. Right. A lot of noise. You don't attract a lot of attention.

Yeah, a lot of noise. And you don't want to do that. Because he's not very far away from the prison. Right. He's been sprung from prison, so you don't want to make a big ruckus in the middle of the night.

And you might actually be within earshot of those guards he just walked past. Right. So he's kind of going shh, shh, shh. He motions them with his hand.

We would put our finger to our lips. Right. But he does something to say shh, shh. Right. Be quiet for a second.

Yeah. So and then interestingly enough, he doesn't explain what happened at all. He just says, tell these things to James and to the brothers.

And he took off. So by this time, James. Look, he describes to them how the Lord had brought him out. Well, he does.

Yeah, he does. But this thing, his directive to the people right there about what do you do next is to tell basically the person who was the central focus of the church at the time in Jerusalem, which is James. James, the brother of Jesus, had changed his mind about his brother.

Right. And we know that he had originally been very skeptical about the fact that Jesus was the Messiah. But then he changed his mind. And now we find himself in a position of great influence in the Christian church. And that's so for quite some time.

That's quite some time. This is James who's in charge. So he says, tell it to him. And that way, my freedom will be told to the entire church.

We'll do it that way. And then he departs for another place. So he goes to another place so as not to endanger these believers. Because the soldiers, presumably, when they wake up, will realize where was he last.

Right. Track him down. They're going to go look for him. And in previous jail breaks, many times the angel tells him, go back out in public and keep preaching about Jesus. In this case, the angel didn't say that. So he takes off and he doesn't make himself a public preacher at this point. He just says, tell the word to the middle of the church and I'm going to kind of drift off here. So.

18. Verse 18. Now when day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter, you think?

There's an understatement. And after Herod had searched for him and did not find him, he examined the sentries and ordered that they should be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea to spend time there.

Ah, I saw a really interesting little look at Herod, isn't it? He was furious. I mean, he did everything he could think of to make sure that that event previously in Mark and Acts would not happen again. And it happened again.

You know, there's a little echo here. The word struck me when it says he searched for him and didn't find him, a little echo of what his grandfather Herod the Great had done when he got news of the baby Messiah being born. King of the Jews being born. Sent to search for him with a murderous intent. You know, this is a murderous family.

Now, it was Roman policy that if your prisoner escaped, you, the soldier, would pay the penalty that the prisoner would have had to pay. But even so, it just struck me because of the similarity of the words. This is Herod in a murderous anger and fear. People in power and authority who are used to things happening when they speak it. Don't like it when they're opposed, and in this particular case, it's God himself who's opposing him. It makes him furious. And when he clearly can't control it.

He has no control here. And so isn't it funny that he goes down from Judea, down to the Roman city, the vacation spot, right? So I'm getting out of the middle of these Jews. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. He's just out of there. He doesn't know what to do. His eyes are crossed.

He is so furious about all this. And so he goes up to Caesarea and spent time there. You know, his time in Caesarea is not going to be without some problems. But I might mention from this point on in the narrative of Acts, this is about the last action scenes we see with Peter. I mean, he does show up one more time in Acts 15 when they continue to debate the details of the Gentiles being followers of Jesus. But this is pretty much the last action scenes we see with Peter. In a short amount of time here, Luke's narrative is going to switch over to following Saul, who's now Paul. But this is the big last, I don't know, like hurrah for Peter in terms of being followed here in Acts. Well, it doesn't mean that Peter became inactive. No, no, no. It doesn't.

It's just that in the recording of where the edge of the action was on the emerging church, the action has shifted out of Jerusalem. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Well, let's see.

We don't have much time left. Any last comments on this? No?

I don't know. I just find the story so real. Yeah, it's very real.

It's so very human. Why would you make something up like this? We have these names, we have these specific people who are going to be important later. John Mark, who actually, we believe that he is the young man who ran away in the garden, wrapped only in a sheet, because it was close to his house. So it's just very interesting that this young man... And by the way, that house he ran away to is probably this same house in verse 12 of his mother Mary. So it's just interesting to me that he is going to become important later on in Paul's journeys and be the subject of the argument between Saul or Paul and Barnabas later on. This is a kind of an interesting introduction to this young man. Luke wants to make sure we know who this is.

We know his mother and we know both of his names. A little bit of his context of what's going on. Right, right, right. Well, so next time as we push on in verse 20 of Acts 12, we're not gonna follow Peter, we're gonna follow Herod.

A little bit. The story about Herod has not stopped yet. And Herod is gonna meet God's judgment in a crazy kind of way. Barnabas and Saul are gonna return from Jerusalem, go back up to the north, but the story is gonna follow Herod. And if you think that Herod got away with murder, he didn't. And so it's a great testimony about the fact that God is the ultimate authority in every situation. And Herod's not getting away with anything in all of this.

So as we come back in verse 20, we'll see what happens as that unfolds slowly in the north and find out how God follows him as he tries to leave Jerusalem and Judea and the hotbed of all his failures, but God's still with him. So you're gonna say? No, I don't think I have anything to add. So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy.

And we're just so delighted that you're with us. If you wanna read ahead, I hope I've intrigued you about what happens to Herod. You can read ahead.

That's a good story. You can stay in suspense if you'd like to, but the powerful in the world are not immune to the sovereignty of God. And that's one of the, I think that's one of the big takeaways from this, even though Herod did succeed in executing James, who was allowed. Okay, that's what I would say, is that let's just remember that in the face of the execution of James, God frees Peter because God is at work, both in the loss of the one and in the extension of the life of the other. We can't form a definite conclusion other than that God is in control. Yeah, yeah. And in the same way that we see the death of Jesus and think it's just a horrible train wreck of circumstances, the death of James is not a train wreck in circumstances.

God's in control in every circumstance, and it's only an illusion that the leaders and the powerful people in the world have ultimate power because they don't. And we'll find that when we come back and look in verse 20 of Acts 12. So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we're glad you're with us. Read ahead, and we'll join you right here back on More Than Ink next time, looking at Herod. Bye. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself, and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. I was remarking on how different that was. I know, I know. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.