The privilege is before us to hear the word of God read publicly and to have it ministered to us. with the blessing of the Spirit. Let's take a moment to do that. Acts chapter 12 this morning, Acts chapter 12 tonight as well. As I mentioned, it's kind of a double-sided coin that we look at where on the one hand we see the deliverance of Peter and tonight we see the downfall of Herod Agrippa I. So grace this morning, mercy this morning especially, but then we see the judgment of God upon a phony, what we call the phony prince of peace that Herod Agrippa I seeks out to be. So if you want to hear part two, come tonight and you'll hear it. We're looking at part one this morning from Acts chapter 12. verses 1 through 19. We entitled the sermon, Freedom for the Prisoners. Let's read from the Word of God, Acts chapter 12, starting with verse 1. About that time, Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. 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. 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 had knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda 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. And 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 centuries and ordered that they should be put to death. And then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent time there. We thank the Lord for his word and pray that as we're taking a few moments to consider how the Lord brought Peter out of prison, maybe a blessing for us to consider the ministry of the word that way. Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, if you have ever visited a prison, and maybe some of you have found yourselves doing that in some kind of prison ministry, If you've never done it before and that first time comes, it can be a bit unnerving when you get behind a couple sets of double steel doors and as you're out there in the prison yard or you're in an area that You find, I've seen it anyway in times past where you're there and they say, you know what? We got a lockdown. Nobody gets out. And I'm thinking, well, I hope I do soon. Because I don't want to stay here. Now, I like being here for a moment. I like being here to see these people. But I'll be glad, on the other hand, to get out. And who doesn't want to be that way, typically? Now there are exceptions to that. There are some people who like, they like being in prison because they get three square meals and they don't have to worry about where it comes from. But for the most part, nobody likes being in prison. They want to get out. But when we look at a passage like the one we've just seen, we can see that what Peter experiences is what we also experience when we're in Christ. Once imprisoned, but now rescued by the power of God. And that's the real focus here as we look at this portion of God's word where freedom comes to the prisoner. And I pray that it'll be an encouragement for you as we focus on Christ, because when we focus on Christ, that's always an encouragement for us. Especially when we remember again how he declares and brings about the kind of blessing and rest that we need in a very spiritually chaotic, restless, and enslaved world in which we live. How blessed for us to be able to be reminded and assured that Christ is Lord over it all, Lord of our lives, Lord of our salvation. So let's take a look at that a moment, the freedom for the prisoner or the freedom for the prisoners. And it comes to us from one, a deliverance from a very mighty imprisoner. And it comes with these festal overtones that we hear about in our passage. And it's also this freedom is a very extraordinary freedom that Peter experiences, but that we also do in Christ. We're going to look at those three thoughts this morning. And if you're in the habit of keeping your Bibles open, that's a good thing. If you're not, you might find it advantageous to do so as we work our way through this portion of Acts chapter 12. So we're gonna look first of all at the freedom that's gained from a mighty imprisoner. Okay, this imprisoner, if I may use that word, of Peter, the one who's imprisoning him, is King Herod Agrippa I. Now he is the grandson to Herod the Great from Matthew 2, which you remember well. He's the nephew to Herod Antipas who beheaded John the Baptizer. Now, in our passage here, Herod Agrippa I abuses his power, doesn't he? He kills James, the brother of the apostle John, and he abuses his power like his uncle had done when he saw to it that John the Baptist was beheaded. And you look at these potentates, you look at these political figures, and You can come away, and I'm sure at the time when this was originally written to as the Church of Jesus Christ is encountering some powerful opposition, you look at this man and you say, well, who can speak and who can stand against a power like this? The contemporary historian Josephus called him a grip of the great. And he represented the civic authority under the Roman domain. And he was one of the more powerful kings under the Roman dominion of his time in ruling territories that included Judea. Now when you look on a little broader view of the books of Acts and Luke, We see that Herod is very much like any of the other authorities that you find there, whether they're secular, if you want to call it that, or civic, or whether you're talking religious authorities. He's not just like his uncle in Luke, but he's like others in the book of Acts. And from a broader, even broader view of scripture, what Luke does is he likens Herod to one of the more prominent rulers that we know about in scripture. Herod resembles Pharaoh of the Exodus days and of Moses. And the way that we can see that is when we read from the account of Stephen the martyr in Acts chapter seven. Stephen mentions that God had told Abraham that his descendants will spend 400 years being persecuted in a land not their own in chapter 7 verse 6. And that's exactly what occurred at the hand of a king in Egypt who didn't know Joseph in chapter 7 verse 18. Of course Joseph is another person who had been liberated from prison. Stephen recalls in chapter 7, 18, and 19, that the Pharaoh of Exodus carries out this persecution that God knew was going to happen. He carries it out against Israel. That's the word he uses. And here in Acts 12, the very same word is used, persecution, that Luke uses, that Stephen used to describe the king of Egypt's persecution. of Israel long ago. The same words used. But now it's used to describe what happens to the ecclesia, to the assembly, to the church, our passage says, of Jesus Christ of the New Testament times, the apostolic times of chapter 12, verse 1. And so you got this new king, this new pharaoh-like person, if you will, who's persecuting the new Israel, as it were, the church of Jesus Christ. And the way he does it is by putting James to death, on the one hand, and he does it by putting Peter into prison. And now you notice here, and this isn't coincidental, he's going to wait until Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are over. Notice that too in the association with Pharaoh. He's gonna wait until Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread to put him to trial and to death. And he is like, of course, his uncle, Herod Antipas. But Herod's also like The Jewish leadership as well. He's like the Sanhedrin. He's like the Sadducees. He's like the religious leaders of the day. Because just like the religious rulers of Acts chapter 4 verse 3 and Acts chapter 5 verse 18, what does he do? We read that he stretches out his hand. He stretches forth his hands to put the apostles in prison. That's what the civic or the religious leaders did too. They stretched out their hands. Luke's a master at this, of connecting things like this. And Herod does that same thing in Acts 12.1. He stretches out his hand. And Jesus predicted this. Luke wrote about it. In Luke 21.12, Jesus says that that's what's gonna happen to the apostles. Those opposed to the gospel are gonna stretch out their hands. It's what the chief priests wanted to do to Jesus earlier in the chapter previously in Luke 20, 19, after he spoke a parable against them, and they wanted to stretch out their hands and take him, but they couldn't at the time. And then you hear about the sentries, the soldiers. that are authorized to guard him while he's awaiting trial and death. One set for each watch of the night. Two were with the prisoner and two kept guard outside. Now why do we bring all that up? Well the point of it all is that Herod Agrippa I was this formidable figure who's imprisoning Peter. You have somebody who's like Pharaoh, you got somebody who's the civic counterpart to the religious rulers, and who, like all the other Herods, wielded and abused their tremendous power. And Luke wants to make it clear to us that God doesn't take on patsies. God doesn't take on wimps. He takes on those who would seem to have the most insurmountable power over his people. Who were so full of themselves that they even enjoyed it when we hear later on in chapter, at the end of chapter 12. He is a God. The words of a God and not a man. He was so full of himself that he thought he was God. So how do you free yourself from that kind of evil potency? And yet our passage teaches that the mightiest of opponents to the gospel and the church of Jesus Christ are no match for the power of God in Jesus Christ. That's why he is to be our mighty fortress. That truth is consoling to Christians. The power of the nation's rage, the people plot, and they do it in vain, and the kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers gather together against the Lord and His anointed, and yet God stretches out His hand, and He performs wonders in His name. Just like he was able to do so when he used the cross to deliver his people from the bondage of sin. Herod seeks to shackle God's people, doesn't he? He wants to make Christian freedom an impossibility. But what is impossible with man is possible with God. Nobody is more powerful than the God of grace. and the Lord Jesus Christ. What is impossible instead is shackling the gospel in God's plans. When we're tempted to think that evil has its way with Christians and with the gospel and with Christ, times like this when we get together and we hear from the word, we hear how things really are. And we're reminded then that God is going to win the battle. And that God indeed has won the battle. And his plans are going to go forward and nobody's gonna stand in his way. And so nobody then is worthy of a greater allegiance than God in his Christ. And that's why you and I are called to trust and obey him alone in the spirit of the Reformation. that we trust Christ alone for our salvation, and we live for him unto the glory of God alone, that's the spirit of the Reformation. And it makes total sense for us to do that. When you and I are Christians, we can say that we are spiritually free people, and it doesn't matter who's governing us, or who's governing somebody else. We can fret over that. But that can change from year to year or term to term or country to country. But we're spiritually free people because what is impossible for man to overcome, God overcomes. Christ sets people free from sin and Satan's tyranny. And he doesn't do it by enabling us to belong to that government or this government, but by enabling us to belong to him in life and in death. God wins the victory over the most powerful of his enemies because his grace and power in Jesus Christ is greater still. And no political or spiritual power for that matter can stand in the way of God's liberating and saving work for his people. And so when we're Christians, we need reminders of that, don't we? We need reminders that God is greater than the greatest of our foes. Coming together like we do like now helps us that way, reminds us that when we go out in the world, we see things according to the word and not according to the world. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's liberating. That's gospel. Now you notice also you got these festal overtones that are brought into this passage, don't you? Now two of them are very obvious. There's three altogether, but two of them are very obvious. And they are Passover and unleavened bread. Now with all that we know about Passover and unleavened bread, we remember what Exodus 12 says about these things, don't we? We can go back to Exodus chapter 12 and we can read a few verses that speak to us about this. And this is something that Luke remembers as well as he's looking at, or he's penning these words. In Acts chapter 12 verse 11 we read this about Passover. In this manner you shall eat it with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night and I will strike All the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and on all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgments. I am the Lord. The blood shall be assigned for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. And in verse 23, go down there, for the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians. And when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. Lots of striking. Now these are things that happened at those first feasts. And we read that the people were to remember that they were delivered from what? They were delivered from the house of bondage. And they were delivered, says Exodus 13, 14, by the strong hand of the Lord. You've got the hand of Herod, but you got the hand of the Lord. And you see how much of the Passover we see in our passage then. Peter is in a house of bondage during Passover, as it's just about to be finished. And on the night these feasts conclude, just before his trial and expected death, our passage says that Peter is struck. He's struck in the side. And it is exactly the same Passover word that's used. in Exodus chapter 12. Only he doesn't die, does he? Now, Herod, he's struck later. We're gonna look at that tonight. That's for tonight. But Peter is struck in a different way. We'll hear more about that a little bit tonight, too. But he's told to get on his shoes, gird on his clothes, and get ready for liberation, just like in Exodus 12, and he is delivered from the house of bondage. Now, the other festival remembered here is the year of Jubilee. That one is really permeating the passage. It's that Sabbath, right? It's that sabbatical year where slaves were supposed to be liberated. And Luke is not forgetting that as he is writing about this, that he's writing about, as he thinks about his broader chronicle, as he recalls what Jesus had said in Luke chapter 4. The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me. To proclaim what? To proclaim liberty to the captives. To set at liberty those who are oppressed, like Peter. And it's interesting that Peter had said in Luke 22, 56, he had told Jesus, I'll go to prison with you. Well, he didn't. But now he does. Now he goes to prison. And he does it because of Jesus. But he gets freed. And we see that transforming liberation happen in various places in Luke's writing, but especially in the book of Acts. In Acts 4, the leaders let him go. And then in Acts 5, 18, Acts 12 here, and in Acts 16, we see a remarkable thing happen in every one of those places, and that is that the prison doors are set open. And gates are opened by their own accord. So what does that speak to us about? What it's speaking to us about is the year of Jubilee, the year of Sabbath, the year of peace, the year of liberation, the year of rest. And that's what Jesus brings. That's what the anointed Christ brings to people who are in spiritual chaos and bondage. And it speaks to the liberation that Jesus gives us from the tyranny of the devil and everybody who opposes the cause of Christ who were tempted to fear, and from a chaotic, sinful life that should not be the envy of anyone. It speaks to the Lord's favor that came in the person of Jesus Christ. Open prison doors was a sign of that freedom. Now admittedly, others were not set free from their physical imprisonment, were they? John the Baptizer wasn't, James was killed, and even the book of Acts leaves us with Paul still in prison, though he was free to speak the word of the Lord. But those examples show to us that the fullness, the culmination of liberation is yet for us to experience, isn't it? Imprisonment and killing and persecution of God's people in Christ still takes place. throughout the world, and we pray for that. It's a challenge for any Christian to have to face. But the comfort that we need to see is that because of these examples of liberation, the work and the person of Jesus Christ has come and has been completed by the true Passover lamb. The gospel of Jesus Christ is worthy of our faith and supreme allegiance. And that's why we express that Reformation tenet that it is by faith alone that we have come to know salvation through Christ alone, by the scriptures alone, which we will find out tonight to continue to increase and multiply. But we can rejoice at the work of the Lord Jesus Christ has overcome all the powers that be. We're on the right side. We're on the powerful side if we're Christians. Jesus Christ has overcome the devil, he has overcome the world, and he has even overcome ourselves. So we can rest in Christ alone. And we can know his liberty. And we can belong to him and no longer to ourselves. And when we acknowledge that Christ is our Lord of salvation and Lord of life, we are freed from the penalty of sin on the one hand, and we've got the power and the freedom to serve our Lord without fear on the other. And that's what you have to look forward to as you're looking towards a new day, a new week, as you look ahead to your life. And that's for me as well. Nobody's greater than Christ. He can turn our lives around like he turned Peter's life around from captivity to freedom. Now one last thing to look at is that the Freedom for the prisoners is an extraordinary thing. It's an extraordinary event. Chaos, disorder, spiritual enslavement, that's the common. That's the ordinary. But what Christ does, his liberation, breaks that common mold, doesn't it? And you see it in three ways here, real briefly. One, you see it in the fact that Peter can't believe, well, he thinks he's dreaming, doesn't he? He can't imagine that this could be real. Now, he's had a vision before in the situation with Cornelius, so maybe it's happening again. Could you really have this kind of freedom? Well, yeah. Yeah, you can. And a special moment is portrayed by Peter's second encounter with a serving girl. You remember the first one in Luke. His first one was at his betrayal. But this time a serving girl goes to tell people who are praying that Peter has been delivered from certain death. And like the women who go to tell the disciples that Jesus has been raised, Rhoda's accused of being out of her mind. And we'll see tonight a little bit more about how, in essence, Peter was raised. He was told to rise. We'll talk more about that tonight. But weren't they just praying for Peter? Isn't that something that was being brought to bear? And here he is knocking. And he's knocking. Hadn't Jesus said, knock and the door shall be opened unto you? I mean, why do we pray that God will bring about transformation to others or pray that God will do this thing or that thing and then when it happens we get surprised? God can do exceedingly more than all that we can ask or imagine. So we gotta watch our praying that way. Why pray for the lost if we don't think that God can save them? And why pray for changes in our lives if we don't believe he can bring them about? No, we are to pray those things, because our God is great. And thirdly, we see the extraordinary moment of freedom here, of those three things I was mentioning, and peace, as it contrasts with the commotion of the church's enemies, right? After Herod finds out about all this stuff, and as the prisoners find out, all you see is commotion, don't you? Now when the day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had happened to Peter. And that is so par for the course in Luke's Acts Chronicle, isn't it? All the time, who are the rioters? Who are the ones who are going about and making a ruckus? You know, look what happened in Ephesus. They come over there and there's people who came with this riot and they didn't even know what they were rioting about. But oh well, they'll come along with them. That's unbelief. Unbelief and sin repeatedly enacts, repeatedly in the world, wherever you see those things existing, There's disturbance. There's chaos. There isn't any peace or order. There's no Sabbath. There's no life. What does Herod conclude? Does he think that God can do exceedingly more than all that he can ask or imagine? No. Herod looks at this and says, the only thing that could have happened is that we had this disobedient betrayal. by the soldiers. Why would they do that? Why in the world would you do that against the grip of the great? They would know that that would mean death for them. They didn't deserve to die. But they die. Because chaos reigns. When people don't submit to and confess the greatness and the goodness and the grace of God. Chaos reigns in people's homes. Chaos reigns in cities, in countries, in workplaces, in schools. You know, we got to have cops at our schools now. Why is that? Why do we have to have all of that? It reigns in people's hearts. And the reason it happens like that is because the greatness and the goodness and the grace of God in Jesus Christ is ignored. We all have to find our rest and our peace and our order, not in the chaos of sin and unbelief and beating our head against the wall thinking that's going to bring peace. No, we got to find it in the Prince of Peace that Jesus Christ is. So this event, my friend, speaks to us even if we've never been in a physical prison. Doesn't matter. Because what it does, it reminds us of the power of God to transform lives. By his son, Jesus Christ. No matter who or what would seek to stand in its way. to save us from the slavery of sin and the power of sin that would keep us from a life of peace. It reminds us that if we're Christians, that while we're not guaranteed freedom from persecution in this life, we are to be comforted. That Christ gives to you and he gives to me every reason to believe him and follow him without fear. That is the life to live. And thank God for that true freedom and that true peace that you and I can know in Jesus Christ, what gospel for our lives. Amen. Shall we respond in prayer? Heavenly Father, we're grateful for the gospel's joyful sound. It may be a joy for us as we look forward to what is in store for us. Knowing that you have all things in your hand, you have us in your hands, thank you for the transformation that we can know in Jesus Christ alone so that we might be saved by him alone, through faith alone, by grace alone, unto the glory of God alone. May we live in that way and in that joy, Father, in days to come. We ask that you would hear us in Jesus' name. Amen.