Rescued by an Angel

The reason Peter escaped was the prayer of the church. But it wasn't perfect prayer. It was a doubting prayer. But God still heard it, and God still answered it. It should encourage us that God hears our faulty, failing, half-hearted prayers. We don't rest in that. We need to pray with fervency, and we need to pray with faith. But thank God that he hears unfaithful prayers, weak prayers. Otherwise, what hope have we got? As we read the book of Acts and the New Testament, we read of extraordinary events, surprising events, and sometimes what's so extraordinary is the fragility and weakness of the people and means God chooses to work through for his glory.

And today is such an example. Welcome to the Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind, as we come to the final message in Derek Thomas' series on the life of Peter. Throughout the 19 messages, there is much encouragement for the believer, as we see the Lord molding Peter, and we're reminded of how graciously God is molding each one of us. So I do recommend this series and remind you that today is the final day that you can request it for a donation of any amount.

When you give your donation at renewingyourmind.org, you'll receive lifetime digital access to all the messages and the study guide, plus we'll send you the newly released companion hardcover book by Dr. Thomas as well. Respond before midnight and go back to the beginning of the series to be encouraged by the life of Peter. Well, here's Dr. Thomas on an incredible moment in the life of Peter and the weak prayers that the Lord so graciously answered. Well, this is the last session and we're going to be in Acts chapter 12. There is one more reference to Peter in the Acts of the Apostles at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, and Peter makes a statement confirming the issue over which he fell in Antioch in the lesson that we looked at last time. So it is confirmation that Peter certainly learned his lesson and was back on the right side of things. But here in Acts chapter 12, he's back in prison. About that time, Herod the King laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James the brother of John with a sword, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. 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. 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 were guarding the prison. And 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, and the chains fell off his hands. 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, and he went out and followed him. He did not know that 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 and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him. When Peter came to himself, he said, Now I am 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.

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 Froder came to answer. Recognizing Peter's voice in her joy, she did not open the gate but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. They said to her, You are out of your mind.

But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, It is his angel. But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed. But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, Tell these things to James and to the brothers. Then he departed and went to another place.

Now when day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. And after Herod 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 and spent time there. It was Tertullian, so very important in church history.

We have the doctrine of the Trinity, and we use terms like person, and these all come from Tertullian. And Tertullian once wrote that the death of the martyrs is the seed of the church. The death of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Stephen had been stoned to death in Acts chapter 7, and now here in the beginning of Acts chapter 12, James, this is James the brother of John, who is now put to death by the sword, by the hands of Herod, probably to curry favor with the Jews in their increasing hostility towards Christianity.

This is Herod Agrippa, the grandson of Herod the Great, who instigated that pogrom against the little boys in Bethlehem in the time of Jesus. So Peter is chained. He's in prison. This is not the prison in the early chapters of Acts that we found him in. That was the temple prison. This is now Herod's prison. This is the Antonia Fortress.

That was the fortress for the Roman soldiers right on the very edge of one of the corners of the temple, and built in such a way that they could look down into the temple and see if there was any disturbance going on. Peter is in grave danger. He's in danger for his life now.

And it was Herod's intention to do so, to put him to death, to put him to death in order to curry the favor of the Jews. And so we find Peter here, and he's sleeping. And he's sleeping so soundly that when this angel comes in, he has to hit him with a stick or something to wake him up. He's facing death. Well, think about it for a minute.

Think about the conditions. He's chained to two soldiers. This is a prison, stinking.

There would have been no concern for humanitarian conditions in these prisons. It takes little to rob me of sleep. But he's asleep. Let's say it's the sleep of faith. Let's say it's the sleep of courage.

Let's say it's the sleep of union and communion with Christ. His friend, James. James and John, the sons of thunder. James is dead.

His head has been cut off by Herod's soldiers, and he's next. You know, Peter would reflect on it, I think. And he'd write in his first epistle, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, and he will exalt you in due season. Cast your care, cast your burden upon the Lord, for he cares for you. Cast your cares upon the Lord, for he cares for you. And when you read that text in Peter, and it's one that has become very precious to me, cast your cares upon the Lord, because he cares for you.

And Peter knows what he's talking about. He had been within an inch of death, of sure and certain death, had not the Lord intervened. The angel of the Lord visits him. This is the second time he's been visited by an angel of the Lord in prison. And his chains fall off. The guards are still sleeping.

The two soldiers that he was chained to are still sleeping. And he has to make his way out, past the sentries and then to the entrance gate of the city, and then the angel leaves them and disappears. John Patton, the missionary to the New Hebrides. Within weeks, you know, he went to the New Hebrides after two missionaries from Scotland had gone there before.

Some years before. And within hours of landing, they were eaten. They were killed and eaten by cannibals. And so John Patton decides to go. There's a wonderful biography of Patton that describes how he says goodbye to his father. How they walk from their home to the place where the boat was that would take him to some other location and then eventually to a ship that would take him to the New Hebrides.

It would take months and months to get there. And he takes a wife with him, and she gives birth to a daughter. She was pregnant on board the ship.

And then within a few months of arriving, she gives birth and both she and the child die. There's a description of him lying on the grave of his wife and daughter and sobbing for days and days. He's on the other side of the world from his family. He's alone on this island in fear of being killed and eaten by cannibals. And then he goes back to Scotland some years later and he will remarry and go back again.

And I often think about the proposal. You know, he goes to this young lady and he says to her, Would you marry me? My first wife and daughter died within months of arriving there. And before that, two other missionaries had landed there and they were eaten by cannibals. But will you be my wife and will you come with me to the New Hebrides?

And she did. There's a night that he describes in which he's in the house, and on this occasion it's before he remarried, and he's in the house and he's alone. It's a hut, and he's alone. And he's surrounded by cannibals with torches of fire. And a year later, the chief of those cannibals is converted through John Patton's ministry. And Patton asked about that night.

What is it? What is it that kept them back from coming and killing him and eating him? And the chief said, I could see hundreds of big men with shining garments and swords.

Peter escaped through the gates past the sentries. It's a miracle. It's the supernatural. It's one of those signs and wonders and mighty acts that you find yourself in trouble, you find yourself in difficulty, and then there's a moment but God.

God steps in. It's a God moment. It's a miraculous moment.

It's a supernatural moment. Now, there are those who don't believe in the supernatural, that we are beyond believing in angels visiting and bringing you out of prison without so much as a soldier awakening. But this is God's Word. This is Peter's record of it to Luke, as Luke wrote it down. He's giving you an eyewitness testimony, and the story sounds like something that you could remember, the little details. This is Peter's Word. We read in verse 11, when Peter came to himself, he said, Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel. He thought he'd been dreaming. He thought this was some kind of vision that he was having.

But no, this is real. He's rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting. Well, then something funny happens. You know, we read in verse 5, Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. The church resorted to prayer, the church in Jerusalem, and they're meeting in John Mark's mother's house, Mary, and they're praying. You can hear the sounds of prayers in the room. There's a knock on the door. And Rhoda, the servant girl, she goes outside to the gate, and Peter says, It's Peter.

And she says, Don't be silly. He's in prison. Who's there? It's me. It's Peter. And then she recognizes his voice, so she goes, She leaves him standing there.

And she runs in and tells the disciples, Peter is outside. And they don't believe it either. They say, It's an angel. You're praying for something. And then when God answers it, you don't believe it. Because you're not really expecting it. They're praying, they're doing the right thing, but they're praying with weak faith.

And God, you know, F.F. Bruce says in his commentary on Acts that this is a moment of humor. And it is a moment of humor because when you laugh, you often laugh because you see your own fault. You see your own weakness.

You're laughing at yourself. How often have we prayed for things that somebody would recover from cancer? But do you actually believe that? You know, they're in stage four cancer, and you say to yourself, you know, reason kicks in.

And you say, Well, no, this is not. I'll pray the prayer, but I won't pray it with a lot of faith. You know, your will be done, not mine. You pray for revival, that God would rend the heavens and come down, that God would turn the culture upside down, that He would do in our time what He did in the middle of the 18th century, when hundreds of thousands of people came to saving faith in a matter of a few years through the ministry of Wesley and George Whitefield and Tennyson and others. You pray for the salvation of a sibling or a son or a daughter or a parent. And perhaps you've been praying for a long time, and faith is now waning. It's ebbing away. You still pray, but you don't pray with any degree of fervency anymore.

I love this story. I think about it a lot. I think about Rhoda running into these disciples and saying, Peter's outside, and they're just employing reason.

No, he's not. He's in prison, and tomorrow he's going to die. And maybe now they were just praying that his death would be swift and that he would die a good death and that he would die a martyr's death, but they certainly weren't expecting him to be released. And they certainly weren't expecting God to do it miraculously. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it'll be yours.

Mark 11, 24. Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it'll be yours. Now, God doesn't always answer our prayers.

There is that. Paul prayed for the thorn in the flesh, and he prayed three times. And I think it means three seasons of prayer. He had three seasons of prayer to remove this thorn in the flesh, whatever it was. And God said, no, my grace will be sufficient for you.

Now, there is a suggestion by some that the measurement of Christian maturity and godliness is that you immediately acquiesce to the providence of God and that that is a mark of godliness and maturity that you immediately acquiesce to it. Well, the problem with that is that Paul didn't. And the problem with that is that Jesus didn't in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Lord, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Three times he prayed the same prayer, asking God to change these circumstances, and God didn't change the circumstances. It's one of the lessons, I think, of Acts 12 that the reason Peter escaped was the prayer of the church. But it wasn't perfect prayer. It was an imperfect prayer. It was a doubting prayer, but God still heard it, and God still answered it. It should encourage us that God hears our faulty, failing, half-hearted prayers. We don't rest in that. We need to pray with fervency, and we need to pray with faith. But thank God that He hears unfaithful prayers, weak prayers.

Otherwise, what hope have we got? And then we read in verse 17, He departed and went to another place. Now, where did He go? Did He stay in Jerusalem? No, another place.

So, another city. Did He go out of Herod Agrippa's jurisdiction? Well, not yet, because He's back in Jerusalem in Acts 15. So, wherever He went, He might have gone back to Joppa. He might have gone back to where He was back in Acts chapter 11 with Simon the tanner. But eventually, after Acts 15, we hear no more about Him, at least not from Luke. We read a brief mention of Him in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians in chapter 9 and verse 5. So, obviously, He was in Corinth for a short season, not at the same time as Paul was there. We read in his first epistle, the very opening sentence of it, it's written to the churches in Asia Minor. And therefore, Peter had some relationship with the churches in Asia Minor. But there were 25 or so more years, maybe 20 years, it's hard to be sure, of ministry ahead for Peter. And we don't know where that was, but we do pick him up again in church history, in Rome, in a prison, in AD 64.

At the same time frame as Paul is in prison in AD 64, and both of them will be put to death, not, I think, at the same time. And Peter, at the behest of Nero, following the fires in Rome that Nero had blamed the Christians about, that Peter was crucified at his own request, upside down, because he didn't want to be compared to his Savior. Well, Peter sometimes gets a little bad press, because in comparison to the Apostle Paul, he doesn't shine quite as brightly, but Peter is an extraordinary character. And I don't know about you, but I'm so glad that God chose Peter, flaws and all, fumbles and all, warts and all, because I suspect that you may relate to Peter a little easier than you do to the Apostle Paul. And we thank God for the Apostle Paul, but I also thank God for Peter. Well, those are some of the lessons from the life of Peter as Christ molded him in his hands.

Each of us, if we are Christians, are likewise being molded with all things, as Paul tells us in Romans 8.28, working together for good. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham, and this is the Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind. If you'd like to study more of the life of Peter, we'll send you Derek Thomas's new hardcover book, The Life of Peter, when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org, or when you call us at 800 435 4343. When reflecting on this book, Sinclair Ferguson said, Peter's flaws and failures are obvious, and yet they cannot overshadow the transforming power of Christ in his life. Peter's story gives us hope, and no one retells it better than Derek Thomas. And when you give your donation to support the daily outreach of Renewing Your Mind, we'll also unlock the entire 19 message series and its study guide in the free Ligonier app. So give your gift at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes before this offer ends at midnight. If you're listening to this, you're likely considered a Protestant. But what were Protestants protesting and what do Roman Catholics actually believe? That'll be our theme next week here on Renewing Your Mind. .