Verse 18, Acts 12 verse 18. 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. Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and they came to him with one accord, and having persuaded Blastus, the king's chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their country depended on the king's country for food. On an appointed day, Herod put on his royal robes, took a seat upon a throne, and delivered an oration to them. And the people were shouting, The voice of a god and not of a man, Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms, and breathed his last. But the word of God increased and multiplied. And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service, bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark. Well, since time began, one question has stood out in the minds of men, and it's a question about existence itself. What is the meaning of life? What is the point of it all? Now, those who've been granted wisdom from on high will insist that the purpose of this whole universe is the glory of God. That from all which has been created should come, if you like, continual applause for God's magnificent characteristics. So the glorification of God is not limited to those who know him like us. All men who don't give God the glory will one day answer for it and it will be held against at the judgment seat of Christ. Now the passage that we've just read together is dominated by this dramatic event and not only is it about the death of a king, it's about a king who was very important historically. There's an angel involved. And then we have the nature of the king's death. It's quite awful. So let's delve for a minute back into the story to summarise what happened. Peter has walked right out of jail. He's gone past the jailers. He had an angel of God to escort him out. Then the angel walked off and left him in the street. And last week we looked at what happened when Peter made contact the local church. News of the escape soon reached Herod, of course, the king, and he coordinates a search for Peter, but can't find him. Next comes the inevitable. The jailers are interrogated. And in the small mind of Herod, there can only be two options, really. Either the jailers knowingly allow Peter to go, maybe because of they were all asleep on the job. The centuries insist, of course, that none of these is true. He simply disappeared. Now, Herod is not a man of faith. If he were, he'd consider whether this was perhaps a miracle, a miraculous delivery of one of the disciples of this Nazarene called Jesus, the one he's heard so much about. Anyway, the sentence, as you probably know, the sentence for losing a prisoner in those days is the death penalty, the immediate execution of the death penalty. So having committed an act of, well, apparently gross negligence on the job, at least four of Herod's own men are killed. Then there's this political situation to deal with. A couple of towns on the coast, They've incurred his wrath and they're dependent on Herod for their food supplies. So when he comes down to the region, they send a group of people, some ambassadors to negotiate peace. He tells them the day when he will meet them. The day comes, Herod puts on his finest clothes, his royal robes, and he takes a seat on the throne. This crowd of ambassadors are clearly desperate. They happily use flattery to get back into the King's favour. And as Herod's speaking, the people are shouting, this is no mere man, this is a God. And Herod just accepts the honour and he's immediately judged for it. The Lord sends an angel to bring an affliction upon Herod's body, and a short time afterwards, Herod Agrippa I, king of the Jews, in the line of that great Herodian dynasty, is dead. The king will be forever held up as an example to show the importance of the glory of God. an example for us of the very real accountability that we have before God. So my intention today is simply to remind you how, first of all, all people in positions of authority have a duty to God. I want us to think about why God was so severe perhaps with Herod in particular. But most importantly, I want to suggest why God should have all the glory. Why should he have it all? So, firstly, let's think about what a ruler's duty is before God. So, as with all creatures, I don't mean dogs and cats, by creatures I mean anything which he has created. As with all creatures in this world, Herod's existence was an invention of God. Before the world existed, it was God who ordained that this individual would come into being. It was God who brought Herod into our world. It was God who kept him alive all the days of his life. It was God who ended his life. And it's God who will one day raise Herod from death to stand trial. Now, if you accept that God was behind those milestones in his life, you must accept that God is also the architect of all which occurred in his life and all which occurs in our lives too. And this means, amongst other things, that it was God who made Herod king. God placed him there, that wicked man. When I read the Bible when I was young and had very little idea of what I was reading, I came across a reference to the leaders of our world being put in those positions by God. I thought, I didn't like that one bit. Most people were wicked and I couldn't accept this. You know, virtually no leader that I'd hit have had any interest in God. And I was convinced that those references in the Bible were part of some conspiracy by some king or another. And I noticed in the front of my Bible, there was a king mentioned, King James. I thought, this character, has ordered the insertion of those verses to justify his rule. Well, I obviously soon learned that was a stupid theory because such verses were in the Bible from the beginning and so we're going to read some of them now from Romans 13. Okay, so Romans chapter 13, beginning at verse one. It says, let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God. And those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed. And those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, an avenger, who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience. But because of this you also pay taxes for the authorities and ministers of God attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them. Taxes to whom taxes are owed. Revenue to whom revenue is owed. Respect to whom respect is owed. Honor to whom honor is owed. Well, this was written by the Apostle Paul. He's one of the greatest theological minds the church has ever had. And he didn't write that because, you know, the ruler at the time was a really great bloke. Paul lived under the authority of wicked men. People who Paul knew full well were rebels against God. But under the inspiration of God, Paul insists that God was the one and God knows what he's doing. I can tell you what God didn't do. He didn't look down to a group of potential candidates for the job of king and choose the one with the best qualities. There were no potential candidates. The job was only ever going to go to Herod. Now I spoke some time ago, back in Mitchell, I spoke some time ago about God's ordination of rulers. It was when, you remember, the queen died and Charles was put on the throne. I won't be obviously going through that today, but I introduce this just to remind you about some of the responsibilities rulers have. According to those verses, they should encourage praise good behaviour, they should punish bad behaviour. But more important than all those duties is their duty to glorify God. Now, that passage in Romans 13 really says nothing about any personal relationship the king might have, a king might have with God. That's referring to all rulers throughout all time and most of them will never heard of the great I am as revealed in the Hebrew prophets and the scriptures. However, each one of them is also a person made in the image of God and if to glorify God, how much more should a self-aware creature like man have a duty to praise God in all things? So what this means, friends, is that rulers are in no way exempt from that general duty to glorify God. In 1 Corinthians 10, verse 31, it says this, Whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. All to the glory of God. Yet to honour God in all that you do, whether you are a king, or a cleaner, a president, a plumber, a tyrant, or a toolmaker, God will hold people to be more accountable depending on the light they have as well. This is why God expects more from us than he does the people of this world. He's shown you things he hasn't shown them. He's shown himself to you in a way that he hasn't to them. So it's right that he expects you to glorify him more than the unsaved of this world. All people who come into this world are witnesses to the revelation of God, to some degree. Many only have the creative world and their own consciences informing them about the nature of God, but that still brings accountability before God. And that includes rulers. Like everyone else in this world, rulers are expected to acknowledge God's hand behind this material universe. Like everyone else, rulers are expected to listen to those inward thoughts which point them towards the existence of a creator God who must be, therefore, all-glorious. So to summarise this then, it's the duty of all rulers to glorify God in all that they do, according to the light which they've been given. So, we shall now look at the example that was made from Herod, out of Herod, the example that was made of him. So of all the millions of people who've been placed in positions of rule, most of them have not given God the glory which is due to him. Some of those have been swiftly removed from this world by God because of that, and others have been allowed to live long lives enjoying wealth and prestige and power. God had determined that Herod would become an example, recorded in the Annals of Holy Writ. For 2,000 years, that account we read today has stood as a warning to all that God is not mocked. One way or another, the glory which must go to God will go to God. What was Herod's crime? What was Herod's crime? He accepted When all this praise came his way from the people, he should have immediately said, whoa, you got the wrong person, that's not mine, that's the property of someone else. You need to give that praise to God instead, it belongs to him. Instead, Herod takes it. He's happy for them to think that he's not a man, really. therefore not obliged to God in any way. He is himself a God and as a God perhaps he could have that status which all men desire deep down to be equal with God. Now you might remember me arguing that several times that the pride which exists in all of us has as its ultimate aim the usurping of God. We want to push him off his throne and take the seat ourselves. Now you don't want that brethren, I know you don't want that because you have the spirit of God, but the pride which is the seed of those kind of thoughts is still there, it's still there in me and you, and it waits, and it hopes, and it will get away with as much as it possibly can. And so we find that it rears its head, one way or another, today or tomorrow. But whether you hear me talking about men wanting to be almost like God, or whether I speak of people wanting to be equal with God, or maybe even superior to God, it's all about closing the gap. It's the gap that the natural man doesn't like. And if we can't bring God down to our level and make him like us, or we can't rise up to be like him, there exists this difference, this gap. He will always remain better than us, and that means we will always be not as good as him. And that old, old sin of pride hates this notion. Herod was standing there loving it all. He accepts this sparkling gem of praise to God and he takes it into his own bosom. That's mine and what's more, I deserve it. Well, this kind of misdirection of honour is common enough. We talked about people like Herod who accept glory which should go to God, but there's another trait within natural man connected to that. It causes them to want to aim their worship in the wrong direction. While Herod should have deflected the praise vertically, the people shouldn't have aimed it horizontally. in the first place. Now the pages of scripture, as you well know, are bursting with examples of men worshipping horizontally rather than vertically. The golden calf, or the statues of Zeus in Rome. The Pope, the Virgin Mary, statues, statues of Jesus maybe, film stars, singers, They've all been worshipped. Some of you will be aware, people who watch the telly and have any interest in these things might be aware that in the past few days, a famous musician died. He fell from his balcony and died. And if you know who he was, especially if you liked the band's music, and I don't imagine many people here will, But you'll have been shocked. You'll have been shocked by the whole thing. But then there's the real fans. Now, the real fans on television, well, they were crying their eyes out as if they knew him personally. They were sitting in the street with these dazed looks on their faces. I saw one man I was telling Karen about who was being interviewed. And he was devastated. This was a grown man in his thirties. And his pop singers died. Well, that's unfortunate. It's sad. This guy is saying, I'm so heartbroken. I just don't know what to do anymore. He was my idol. He was my whole world. It's a person who sung songs, that's all. It's just woeful. And unless a person is revived from their sinful state by the Holy Spirit, they will always be inclined to honour those things which God has made, rather than God himself. Let me read to you from Romans, in the first chapter of Romans. And verse 24 says of wicked people, who'd transgressed so much, this is the result. God gave them up, gave up on them, gave them up. He gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever, amen. Herod was such a creature of God and the people worshipped and served him rather than the creator. To set an example, the creator acted immediately. Herod was willing to accept their flattery and he was taken from this world prematurely because of it. Now, you may have read this and had some difficulty picturing the process. It might sound as if things are out of sync. So if you consider it too hastily, you might read it as an angel sort of whizzing down, striking him so that he falls on the ground, then an infestation of worms consuming him in a few minutes, and then him dying on the spot. Well, the real picture is An angel is sent immediately on a mission and unseen to anyone. The angel infects Herod with a parasitic disease from which he later dies. Now, modern day medical professionals obviously have taken an interest and they take guesses about what this might be. And most of them would say probably some kind of intestinal roundworm problem that he was given, introduced into Herod's body miraculously now through the work of the angel. It might sound strange. How can an angel belong in the other realm? Angels don't live in our realm, but they can cross over. And they have crossed over many, many times. One example in the Book of Job, you might remember that an angel caused a skin disease. that angel was Satan. But ultimately, Satan is still a created angel, you know? But it shows us that angels have been given power to make changes, not just in their world, but in our world that we live in. It's always under the rule of God Almighty, but they can bring about changes in our bodies and in our minds. Well, if it were a roundworm infection, it would have been pretty awful for Herod I didn't know this until I read it the other day but these things apparently can be up to a foot and a half long and they feed on the liquids in your intestines and they can obstruct the intestines and cause a lot of pain and they can even kill people people have died from it There's a Jewish historian who you've heard me mention numerous times. I've quoted him with caution. He's just a man. He exaggerates, embellishes, leaves things out, puts things in, like all good historians. Josephus, his name is. And he gave a detailed account of this. And according to Josephus records this incident with Herod in his history book. And he says Herod only lasted five days. with the worms before he died. But however long it took, he did die. Well, you may have noticed, you may be interested to hear that it says the angel struck Peter. Now, you might be interested to know that the same word, struck, the same word is used when the angel struck Peter. Okay, so a couple of, a few weeks ago, the angel goes into the, what appears in the cell, and he hits Peter and wakes him up. And it's the same word. I thought that was interesting. So he hits Peter. With Herod, the assault wasn't like that. The assault appears to be inward and invisible to people. So you might like to think of the contrast between Peter and Herod in this way. God will strike every man and woman one way or another. God will strike them. For us who were saved, God hit us to snap us out of the dark sort of sleep that we were in because the existence that we had, which we thought was proper life, real life, turned out to be something more like a nightmare because it has such a terrible ending. Those for whom Christ died will be struck by God and roused from their sleep of sin. God hits them, if you like, and he does it out of love and for their eternal benefit. But what of those who despise the gospel? If we've been struck by God for good, then they'll be stricken by God for evil, no matter how their life pans out. All those who day by day refuse to acknowledge God and bow down before him will face being struck down by him. God will either strike a person in love to give them life, or you'll strike a person in hatred to cause them anguish, which will never ever leave them. God set an example with Herod. And the main point behind all this is this, that God should have all the glory. To God be the glory. We have received unconditional forgiveness for our sins. If we fail to give God glory for something or another, anything He does to us, and He is likely to do something to us, it's still done by a Father who will forever love us. It will never be done to destroy us. It will never be a true penalty for sin because Jesus Christ took all our sins and paid for them on the cross. But, friends, it is definitely possible for us to neglect this duty to glorify God? We can, and we frequently do fail to honour Him in our daily lives. Now if we were, just imagine, if we were entirely Christ-like, then everything we do, everything we think would be with an eye to God's glory. But we are only a little Christ-like. We only sometimes give God the glory, and it's not good. It's not good, is it? And neglect of that duty is bad enough, but it can be even worse for us. We can do worse than that. Now, whether you've spotted this in your own lives or not, the truth is that we can seek our own glory Even when glorifying God, can you believe that? Even when glorifying God, in an act of praise to God, we can be, at the same time, hoping to get praise for ourselves. You might not know what I'm talking about, in which case, glad to hear it, but, This means I need to give you some examples then to tell you how sinful people like the rest of us act. And so here are a couple of examples. Well, one I gave you I think last week, which is that we were talking about prayer. And I said that we can praise God in prayer in a prayer meeting and do it in such a way as to impress the people around us. People who are good at singing. People who have a good singing voice. Well, they can sing praises to God sincerely, but at the same time, hoping to get the admiration of other worshippers. Preachers. Preachers can glorify God in creating their sermons, all about God, and yet draw their sermons up in a way which they hope will make them look intelligent. Anything which has pride at its root will be an ever-present hazard in the lives of the best of us. It will not go away, friends, so we must be switched on to the threat all the time. All the glory must go to God. All the glory must go to God. Isaiah 42 in verse 8 says, I am the Lord, that is my name, that is Jehovah or Yahweh. I am the Lord, that is my name, my glory I will give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. He won't share it, the glory, he won't share it, he can't share it. We know he shares many things with us, He's a God who gives and gives and gives, but to share his glory would be like, it would be to create some sort of imbalance in the universe. To allow a thing which he has made to receive the ultimate credit for anything would be to take away from the Godhead itself. In fact, God would cease to be God if he did that. God is clothed in glorious majesty, and even the heavens above us, you've seen them, you've seen pictures of the planets and the stars and the galaxies and the nebulae, and all that's out there which we haven't seen yet, all shout God's glory, and that glory must be forever His. Well, There's a final twist in our account. We see the spread of the gospel. So it finishes on that positive note, the spread of the gospel. Verse 24 says, the word of God increased and multiplied, referring to how rapidly it spread around the normal world. What a contrast we see. What a contrast. Herod's words ended up in his downfall, while the words of the all-glorious God spread. The so-called God was soon dead, while the only real God remained and lived forever. Well, there's a story. There's a contrast summed up better than me by the later John Stott. He says this chapter opens with James dead, Peter in prison and Herod triumphing. The chapter closes with Herod dead, Peter free and the Word of God triumphing. It's been an absolute turnaround. The word of God went out in these ever-growing circles, and it's continued to do so, and will persist in this till the end comes. The number of, I can't remember the number, but I was informed recently by this organization of support, who are doing Bible translations and they informed us that the number of ethnic groups now around the world that don't have a Bible in their own language is shrinking fast. I think maybe it's come under a significant figure like there's fewer than a thousand now, which might still sound a lot, But if you knew how many languages there are in this world, there may only be 180 odd countries, but there are tens of thousands of languages and dialects. And so God is being glorified in our day by more people and in more languages than at any time in history. Day and night, there is not a single second where praise isn't being raised to the heavens. Wow, all from this one man, Jesus. It's incredible what's happened. I said, you may have noticed, I said that the twists of the story would spread the gospel. Well, it doesn't say that, does it? But I do choose my words carefully, I can assure you. And I know the passage doesn't say that the gospel increased and multiplied. It doesn't say that. It says the word of God. So I owe you an explanation. Well, The term Word of God has several meanings, so I want to suggest what I believe it means here. Pretty obviously, it doesn't mean that the disciples were making handwritten copies of the scriptures and then giving them away. I mean, I can't imagine to copy one out obviously that's not what happened and there was no such thing as a new testament so and if there had been same problem no printing press so what was this word of god which increased and multiplied the disciples were going around telling people about jesus christ and him crucified they were preaching the gospel now the message The message of the cross is firmly rooted in the scriptures, but it's the spoken gospel message in their own words, which was being spread here, and which Paul calls the word of God as well. We can share the word of God in our own words. When people preach faithfully, it is the word of God being preached, Paul says. Well, what has all that to do with God's glory? What's that got to do with God's glory? Simply this, Jesus Christ is the ultimate manifestation of that glory. That's why, and at the beginning of John's letter, John's gospel, beg your pardon, at the beginning of that first chapter in verse 14 says, the word, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." Well, that glory. Hebrews 1 and 3. Hebrews 1 and verse 3. He, Jesus, is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe, by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Now, I said God will not share his glory with another. That fact remains. And this leaves us with a final mystery of how then the son can have God's glory if it cannot be shared. Well, if you're still in Hebrews, you will get the answer further down in that first chapter. How can Jesus have God's glory if it cannot be shared? Hebrews 1 and verse 8. God the Father is speaking. And he says, of the son, he says, the father speaking to the son now, your throne, oh God, is forever and ever. Your throne, oh God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. Jesus, the Christ, shares the glory of God which cannot be shared because this glory is God's and is shared within the Godhead. That's the answer to the mystery, that it is shared within the Godhead of which Christ is a part. If you want to glorify God, friend, you can do it chiefly by glorifying his Son, Christ Jesus. Whether you preach Christ yourself or you pay close attention, when it's being preached, you glorify God. Whether you use the authority of Christ when you come to pray to the Father each day, or whether you go out and tell others about Christ and his salvation, you bring glory to the Triune God. purpose of your existence. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God. So glory be to him forever. Amen.