Glory to God . . . Alone!

God gave them over in the loss of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them, for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. You see the judgment of God. Ladies and gentlemen, it's not just for the Harrods of the world, not just for the Hitlers and the Lenin's who claim to be the savior of the world, who demanded worship and blind allegiance. The wrath of God will come upon all of humanity who in various ways got rid of Father God and worshiped Mother Earth.

It's certainly not fun or pleasant to think about, but God's judgment is real, and the punishment coming to God's enemies is certain.

Today in this lesson from our Vintage Wisdom series and acts, we come to one account where we see it demonstrated very clearly. A first century king named Herod refused to give glory to God and instead took the glory for himself. He was struck dead by God.

Now, judgment is not always so swift because God is merciful and he wants people to come to repentance. But the lesson is clear. We give glory to God alone or we face his wrath. This is wisdom for the heart.

And Stephen Davies lesson today is called Glory to God Alone. Let's get started right now.

I want to read you a list of names and have you answer to yourself. What do you might think these men had in common? I will give you one clue. They were at the height of their career in the 30s, 40s and 50s, own young peer Laval, Hugh Johnson, James Byrnes and Harlow Curtis.

If you're like me, you have no idea who these men were and you certainly wouldn't know what they had done to to make their claim to fame.

Yet each of these men at some point in their lives were Time magazine's Man of the Year.

In other words, they were judged by society, at least by that particular society, to have had in any given year the greatest impact on the rest of humanity. And 50 years later, 60 years later, we don't have a clue who they were.

If you were living in the first century, the most famous men, the ones that would be splashed across the journals of our country, the most watched family in the civilized world was a family known as the family of the Harrods. They were all related and they all took that name as they ruled vast empires. If you think the Kennedy family as well watched or the royal family of Great Britain, I want you to know they couldn't have held a candle to the most powerful family on earth that ruled for over a hundred years.

They held the highest political offices in the land and their word held sway over millions of people. Now, I have given you in your notes a little bit of history. We have to do a little history to appreciate the application, certainly the interpretation of this passage. You'll see at the top of the chart was the beginning man or the founding patriarch of this dynasty, the first Herod, he humbly chose his name, Herod the Great. You'll see it there. He reign for 40 years.

This was the man that was on the throne when Jesus Christ was born. You remember the wise men. Sometime after Jesus was born came searching for the boy and they came to Herod. This was that Herod and member, he told them. Or you go find the boy, come back and tell me because I want to go and worship him, too. Of course they were warned. He was deceiving. He didn't. He wanted to snuff out this little life that had laid claim to a title that he had laid claim to King of the Jews.

And so the wise men being warned when another way, as a result of that, this cold, heartless dictator ordered his soldiers to go to Bethlehem and slaughter all of the male Jewish boys under the age of two, when Herod the Great knew that his health was failing and that he'd soon die. He ordered his generals to capture all the prominent Jews in the land and place them in prisons throughout his orders to them were at the moment of his death. They were to execute those prominent Jewish citizens in order to ensure, as he said in his own words, that there would be mourning and lamentation in Israel.

When I am dead. Fortunately, his generals disobeyed his order, Herod Antipas, you notice his name.

He was the immoral drunkard who beheaded John the Baptist. He was also the one whom Jesus Christ appeared before on trial. And his Herod sent him back, the pilot. He didn't want nothing to do with them. But Luke does tell us that this particular Herod Heriot activists personally mocked and scoffed at Jesus Christ, Herod Agrippa. The first is another name you have was the one who killed James and in prison. Peter, he's the focus of our study in just a moment. Herod a grip of the second was the one that Paul appeared before you remember his defense, where he said, Paul almost persuaded me to become a white Christian. He wasn't serious. He studied the passage. You discover he's really mocking the apostle Paul. This family would go down in history, really. I did mention their murders and conspiracies and their many adulteries neurons recorded in history.

He cared to read and I had Josif us out and I was reading page after page. It was like some tabloid. This family will go down in history as a family that oppose everything related to Christianity. Jesus Christ, the one and only true God. They hated the sound of his name.

And it's so obvious to me as you study world history, how the prince of the power of the air manipulated this particular family to be in power, hoping to destroy as much as he could at the very birth of Christ throughout the first century as the Church of Christ began to develop.

Well, we've been singing songs that all tie. And I hope you see the theme of this ours. We talked about the fact that kings do not rule in absolute sovereignty. God is absolute sovereign over all. And that's the heart of our discussion. What I want us to do is go back and take a closer look at this. King Herod Antipas, chapter twelve, verse one X, Chapter 12, verse one.

Now, about that time, Herod the King laid hands on some who belonged to the church in order to mistreat them. And he had James, the brother of John, put to death with a sword. And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. Stop. Can you imagine for a moment the frustration and maybe even the hopelessness of the church? Here's a man who's arresting and executing them, not because they've broken the law, but because it pleases the majority of his constituents.

The political processes are always more interested in the opinion of man rather than the opinion of God. What works in the polls rather than what the what the providential mind would have? The opinions of people will always outweigh the opinions of Providence. In fact, as I was thinking about this, it made me want to go back in and I want to do that briefly with you here.

If you'd hold your finger here and just turn to Daniel. Daniel, Chapter four of her 17th Nebeker Nasr, who is the greatest world leader at this particular time, has had a dream. And he tells Daniel his dream he wants an interpretation.

This sentence is by the decree of the angelic watchers and the decision is command of the holy ones in order that the living may know that the most high is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whom he wishes and sets over at the basest of men.

In other words, Satan is manipulating his men into world power. But God informs us that while Satan may manipulate, God is overall sovereign and he is responsible for the appointment.

Now Daniel interprets the dream. Look at verse 24. This is the interpretation of King of Your Dream. This is the decree of the most high which has come upon my Lord, the King, that you be driven away from mankind in your dwelling place. B with a beast of the field and you be given grass to eat like cattle and be drenched with the dew of heaven. And seven years will pass over you until you recognize the most high is the ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever he wishes. And in that it was commanded to leave the stump with the roots of the tree that the pictures, his kingdom, your kingdom will be assured to you after you recognize that it is heaven that rules.

What a great phrase. You want to underline that heaven rules with with one little flick of God's sovereign finger. He will lose his sanity and presence of mind and be reduced to living like an animal medical community would. Would call this lycanthropy a form of insanity that causes someone to live as an animal. In other words, because you place yourself as the center of your universe thinking you are all great and all powerful. God will have his say and you will be an illustration for the rest of humanity for the rest of time that it is heaven, ultimately the rules. Well, I think Nebeker Nazeer must have thought that it was Daniel who was a little crazy because verse twenty nine, 12 months later, he was walking on the roof of the Royal Palace of Babylon. The King reflected and said, Is this not Babylon? The Great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of My Majesty. They do think he's a little self consumed at this point.

While the word was still in the king's mouth, a voice came from heaven saying, King Nebeker Nasr to you, it is declared sovereignty has been removed from you and you'll be driven away from mankind. And your dwelling place will be with the beast of the field. You will be given grass to eat like cattle, and seven years will pass over you until you recognize that the most high is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever he wishes.

As great as you think you are, you are a puppet in the hands of a sovereign God.

In fact, people do not experience freedom until they come into that will of a sovereign God. And it happened just as Daniel predicted to this man who did not believe or follow the true god of heaven. He began to walk about as an animal on his hands and knees. Fingernails grew long as wild grew. His hair grew matted and wild.

And the main message from this event in history is that heaven is in control. She never can regain the throne. Then this text tells us in Babylon, only because God willed it and God will teach a lesson through his insanity.

He would he would regain his sanity only as he himself submitted to the fact that God has got to let his glory will not be given to another. Sometimes we see that judgment come while we're still living. Sometimes we see it in a generation. We've seen it in the Soviet Union. Ceausescu ruled Romania, hated Christianity, hated Jesus Christ with a passion. We don't get any of this through the news. You've got to read other sources. But a few weeks before he was assassinated, he rewrote the Orthodox Christmas him. It was Christmas time to no longer sing of God, but to sing of his own glory. And he had his name written into the hymn, had the choirs of his country forced to sing it.

Sometimes God moves like that, and with a flick of his finger, he changes the world rulers. Sometimes he chooses to allow them to vent their full fury. Herod is on the throne for the same reason God appointed him an evil man in order to teach an eternal truth to God alone is sovereign. And if he chooses, he can, with one little flick of his finger, reduced that puny man to walking on hands and knees eating grass.

Until puny man recognizes that God is God alone. And we do not claim glory to him. He is do all glory for ever and ever.

The church does not need to feel frustrated or afraid. God is in control. I could give you a couple of thoughts here very quickly. They're not in your notes. But let me just suggest a couple of thoughts. The power of political leaders can never overthrow the purposes of God. Matthew 16 18.

I will build my church and the gates of hell. The plans of Hell. The purposes of hell. The Council of Hell will not prevail against it.

I will build my church. It's exciting to be part of a local manifestation of his church, his body, and to know that he will build his church. This is his church isn't mine. It isn't the leaderships. It is his. He has promised to build it no matter what happens. Second, the nations of the world can never extinguish the holy nation of God. First, Peter to Nine says that those who place their faith in him are and holy nation a peculiar people who can interpret that any way you want. That typically is what that actually means, is that we belong to him as a unique position. Let them try.

They cannot extinguish the pure nation of God. Well, Herod is about to experience the wrath of God. Go back to acts. Chapter 12. God will make give him an illustration for the rest of time.

We studied now in Acts Chapter twelve in our last discussion, The Escape of Peter from prison. Remember, the angel appeared. Chains fell off. The soldiers remain chained to nothing while they slept.

It wasn't until the change in the guard that they realized in the morning that Peire, the prize prisoner of Herod, was gone.

And it wasn't long before he was celebrating, remember, with the church that was in the middle of their prayer meeting. And they offended Rhoda. And they probably cleared it all up and went on. Remember that study? You're with us. Notice verse 18.

Now, when day came, there was no small disturbance among the soldiers as to what would what could have become of Peter. That's an understatement. And when Herod had searched for him and had not found him, he examined the guards. That word examined is used in the original language to imply interrogation by torture. Herod didn't call the soldiers N.S.A. fellows. I'd really like to know what happened, please.

He interrogated them by torturing out of them a confession. False. That was why. That was his only choice. There must be a conspiracy. Otherwise, Herod comes face to face with the fact that his throne, which is at war with the throne of heaven, his throne is losing.

So there had to be a conspiracy. So he extracted from one of them or from all of them by way of torture, a confession, and he ordered the verse, tells us that they be led away to execution.

Then he went down from juday to Sestriere and was spending time there.

Stop. In other words, he's running from the issues. The polls have dropped. It's a fiasco. In Jerusalem, people are upset.

His own guards seem to be guilty of insubordination. There's those rumors of miracles.

And he has to be thinking as a rational man. He knew that confessions were contrived.

If they had if they had conspired to release Peter because they were an allegiance to the church, why did they remain chained to the walls? Why didn't they have, as part of their conspiracy, a way for them to escape as well? Why remain behind and be killed?

He knew, in fact, the phrase spending time there from verse 19 can be literally translated to rub away.

He was trying to rub out of his mind and his troubled conscience. The truth that he was fighting at his throne was in opposition to the throne of heaven. And so, like many today, he's running. He's he's leaving. He goes to a resort Roman town named Sessa Reha to relax, to be pampered.

To try to rub out of his conscience, his murders.

Like people today, even in our own land, who run into alcohol or drugs or promiscuity.

Relationships purely designed, might be things that could be good, but become obsessions like sports and money and career and cars, whatever it might be, just running, running, running, trying to drown out a troubled conscience.

I had an old professor who used to say people are rushing, rushing to keep their appointment with death.

So it ever occurred to you that the only people they can really stop are Christians that no longer have to run from a troubled conscience because they have yielded their sinful selves to Jesus Christ is cleanse them from every stain. Ever thought about the fact that you're the only kind of people that can sit on a porch in a rocking chair and watch the sunset, enjoy every minute of it. You can drive down the road in a car without the radio on or. Anything on and just think about.

The Lord, your life. You can take quiet like this. He's running, running, but he's a he's a powder keg.

He's so frustrated as he tries to rub away the non Gillig, a verse 20. He's very angry with the people of Tire and Sidon. Why? Well, with one accord they came to and having won over Blastoise the King's Chamberland, they were asking for peace because their country was fed by the King's Gundry.

Something had happened and there's a little tiny country tire Sidon. It was nothing. They were nothing to Herrod, but they had done something to offend his greatness. And so he imposed upon them some kind of economic blockade. They were outside of his jurisdiction. But he had they received food from his country. Why he stopped it. I'll show you. He's frustrated. There's something else going on inside, but this is coming out.

And so Tire and Sidon, they they they bribe this fellow named Blastoise the King's Chamberlain, and as he ran the King's bedroom, he helped the king get dressed. Sit, Blastoise, please. You know, they gave him some gifts. We should help how desperate they were. They have to go so low on the totem pole to get to the king, but they got a hold of the guy that helped him get dressed.

Look, when he's getting dressed. Give him up. Give me a good word. You know, there's people over and tired. Seidner, you know, King there. Here, here's your shirt. They're not so bad. I put that arm in there. What did you just gonna let him go? Our greatness.

They weren't. Hared plans to address representatives from Tire and Sidon in just a moment. We'll get there. But let me tell you a couple of things that happened. Joseph is a historian, a Jewish man who lived during the time of this occurrence, wrote that that Herod activists selected for the day that he would give his speech in Cicero to to the representatives of Tire and Sidon. The Celebration Festival day of the anniversary of the city. It was a celebration of Claudius, Caesar, Caesar. The city says Syria was named after Caesar. And so representatives from all around the empire where there is a great photo op opportunity, you know, for the for the for the humble hared.

This would be a wonderful time for him to deliver a speech to show his humility and deference to people who need his glory and his help. And so he chose this day to deliver this speech that did nothing more than talk of himself. Joseph is also tells us that he selected a robe made entirely of silver silver thread and silver coins designed to capture and reflect the rays of the sun with brilliant splendor.

So here comes Herrod. All the dignitaries are there, the press is there, the people are there, and he, with mock humility and grace, delivers a sermon, verse 21.

And on an appointed day, Herod, having put on his royal apparel, took his seat on the rostrum. That is literally Bamma Bema seat. That's the upper seat where the judges rewarded the victorious athletes. He took it there on the throne, the outdoor Bhima seat, and began delivering an address to them.

And the people kept crying out the voice of a God and not of a man. The words crying out could literally be rendered cheering. They were cheering, Josif has told us it had won over here and then won over there and eventually everybody is cheering.

He is a God, not a man. He is God.

And somewhere in there, Herod did the unbelievable. He believed it.

He took glory to himself. Look at verse 23 and immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory. And he was eaten by worms and died.

Can you imagine this scene?

Herod is dressed in this brilliant garment. The sun is reflecting off the silver thread. He speaks with pride and false humility to the leaders of tired assignments. Then these flatters begin to cry out. He is God.

And somewhere in there, he, like Nebeker Nasr Revolt's says, you know, sounds pretty good. I think I'll go ahead and accept their worship. That's me. And with one flick of sovereign power, God either created Fiat or released worms with inherited that brought about death to see if his tells us that Hared lingered for five days before dying.

Why?

Well, because of the sin as old as Satan. Because verse twenty three.

He did not give God the glory God sent into this world.

His son, who brought with him the plan of redemption within his own body, so that those who claim him as Redeemer and King, who accept him, who no longer demand that they sit upon the throne of their life, who give the glory for their lives and their ideologies and their philosophies and their plans.

All of it is to God be the glory. God is sovereign. Those who reject Jesus Christ, in effect, refuse to give God the glory.

They will populate hell one day. In fact, wanted to turn ahead to Romans Chapter one just for a moment. This is a description of humanity. I think it could be applied in any generation. Romans Chapter one, verse 21. Refusing to give God the glory is happening in every generation and is happening today. And in fact, when it comes to American culture, I think you see it more and more every day, he says.

For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks. But they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was Dargan professing to be wise. They became fools and exchanged the glory of the uncorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and forefoot and animals and crawling creatures. In other words, ladies and gentlemen, God is no longer glorified, but the animal kingdom is glorified. God is ignored, while the animals and the created world is revered as somehow the created world. Some way has the answers. Verse 24. Therefore, God gave them over in the loss of their hearts to impurity that their bodies might be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. You see the judgment of God.

Ladies and gentlemen, is not just for the heralds of the world, not just for the Hitlers and the Lenin's who claim to be the savior of the world. The demagogs who demanded worship and blind allegiance. The wrath of God will come upon all of humanity who in various ways got rid of Father God and worshiped Mother Earth, who ignored the glory of the creator and elevated the creation.

Of that wonderful creator guilty of not giving glory to God alone.

Wrath is the result.

Well, back in X twelve, we also discovered the grace of God quickly. Chapter 12, verse 24. But the word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied. You see the contrast here. You have worms set in contrast with the word.

Worms multiplied in the life of this unbeliever. The word multiplied in the lives of believers. In effect, he's almost implying that all of humanity has a choice to choose between.

The worms and the word and you know, the word also works internally, doesn't it? Changing, renewing, reforming. The church is also succeeding in spite of Herod. Look at verse twenty five and Barnabus and saw a return from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their mission.

I like that phrase.

When they'd fulfilled all the press, all the attention of the world is over here on Herod Great, Marvelous Herod the Empire of the Arendse. That's the work worth watching.

Oh, no, no, no, no. There's a little work going on over here from Antioch to Jerusalem, and a couple of people are involved and some believers are praying and that's God at work that's worth watching.

But the world would think that this was the story. Centuries later, we know this was the story. And it says they also took along with him, John, who is also called Mark.

So the passage of scripture certainly reminds them and us that the hairs of Earth can come and go and they will come and go. And those who rail against God, who seek to elevate the creation over the creator will come and go. But under him, who sits upon the throne and onto the lamb, big glory and honor and power and dominion, forever and ever a man.

The glory goes to God alone.

Forever and ever. That's an important truth that we all need to learn and apply today. And every day this is wisdom for the heart. With Stephen Davy, we're working through our vintage wisdom series from the Book of Acts. And today's lesson is called Glory to God Alone. If you ever miss one of these broadcasts, be sure and visit our Web site where you can listen to each day's lesson.

You can also do that from our app on your phone or tablet. Our ministry is listener supported. If you'd like to make a donation, you can do that on our Web site, in our app, or by calling us today at eight six six forty eight Bible. That's eight six six four eight two four two five three. Thanks for joining us today. Be with us tomorrow for more wisdom for the heart.