You're listening to the teaching ministry of Harvest Fellowship Church in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. You can find out more about us on the web at www.harvestfellowshipchurch.org. We pray that through our teaching we may present everyone mature in Christ. Father in heaven, we give thanks to you tonight in the name of Jesus, our eternal High Priest. Thank you, O Lord, for that shed blood, shed once for all time for our sins. Thank you, Lord, for the work of the Spirit in our hearts. And Lord, we also thank you for your word. And as we seek to study your word tonight, your inspired scripture, the words that you have breathed out, help us, O Lord, to truly glean from scripture that which is useful, profitable, everything that is necessary for us to live holy and godly lives. So we ask for your help in this way. In the name of Jesus, we pray these things. Amen. All right. I'm going to give a quick recap of last week, where we concluded Acts chapter So, last week we were looking at Acts 11 verses 19 through 30. We see sort of what we call a flashback in the narrative by Luke where he was talking about, remember we saw the martyrdom of Stephen caused a great persecution, and he kind of rewinds back to there, where did a lot of these people go? Not the named people like what we saw Peter go out, but these unnamed people. Remember we talked about how unnamed people have done many great things for God and his kingdom work. And so we see these dispersed Christians going out, specifically Hellenistic Christian Jews going out. They go to Phoenicia, to Cyprus, and the chief city that we were focused on, Antioch. And we spent a lot of time talking about Antioch, so if you didn't hear that, go back and listen, and you'll have a better understanding of that city. But most of these dispersed Christians who go out, who do they only share the gospel with? The Jews. But there were some courageous souls, or we should say even more courageous souls. The other ones were courageous too, just in their fleeing. But some even more courageous souls, they preached the gospel indiscriminately in Antioch. So they preached the Lord Jesus to both Jews and Gentiles. And of course we saw from the text that the hand of the Lord, the power of the Lord, the spirit of the Lord was on these men as they boldly proclaimed the gospel. And many of their hearers, they turn to the Lord in repentance and faith." And so, of course, the news of this comes back to Jerusalem, and Jerusalem decides, we need to see what's going on all the way up in Antioch. So who did they send? Barnabas, the son of encouragement, goes to Antioch. And does anybody remember how far Antioch is from Jerusalem? Yeah, 300 miles. So not a day's journey. And there he sees this manifest evidence of God's saving grace in all these people, and he responds with? Joy! He responded with joy, and so he exhorts these new believers, he preaches to them, and he tells them, you need to stay faithful to Christ. You're living in a wicked, pagan town. There's going to be all sorts of things trying to draw you back into the lures of this world. Stay committed to Christ with a loyal, devoted heart. And then even after he preaches and exhorts the people, a great many people were added to the Lord, verse 24. And so he says, I can't disciple all these people myself. So he goes to Tarsus to look for Saul. Not Paul yet, soon. So he goes and he looks for Saul and they come back. And how long did they spend in discipling the people? An entire year. And so they're there for a year, and so they teach the people, but then there's also this very significant statement that Luke makes about here, in Antioch, not Jerusalem, in Antioch, these believers are called Christians, or the Christ people. And then lastly we see this prophet, well many prophets come up, but one prophet who's named, and that prophet's name was Agabus, and he says there's going to be a famine. realize here in Antioch that the famine is going to significantly affect the believers in Jerusalem, and so they gather money, not forcing people, but it says every man according to his ability. And then Saul and Barnabas, they take that back to Jerusalem. We even talked about how in a sense this was Barnabas' report back to the Church, the love of their brothers all the way in Antioch, including many Gentile believers. And so that then rolls right into chapter 12. So tonight, I'm going to read chapter 12, verses 1 through 19. We're going to save those final six verses for next week. So you'll kind of see a little bit of the end of the story, the totality of the story that is summed up next week. But for now, let's look to the Word of God as I read Acts chapter 12. beginning with verse 1, hear now the word of the Lord. 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. 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. That's a significant phrase that I want to highlight tonight 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 a 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 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. 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 in order that they should be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent time there." And may the Lord write the eternal truths of His Word to our hearts this Wednesday night. As we examine these verses, I want to focus on a phrase of when God's people pray. So there's a lot of things going on here, but I want to draw out that theme tonight happens when God's people pray. So, we're going to see now the state, if we want to call it that, the state turning on these Jerusalem Christians, it's raising its sword against them, and just sort of see that contrast. We just concluded chapter 11 and we see the hands of Barnabas and Saul, they come bearing gifts, but we see Herod's hands doing something else, it's bringing death to And then this is sort of a theme that I want to draw out here as well, but just think of, and I'm going to draw out these comparisons, but like Pharaoh, so if you go all the way back to Exodus, like Pharaoh, Herod seeks to destroy God's people. And so let's unwind those things then as we go back over these 19 verses tonight. So we'll go back to verse 1 and read it again about that. There's a lot of debate about when exactly Luke is talking about, when he says about that time, but it seems very likely here that this is just a little bit before that famine that Agabus had prophesied before it arrives here in Jerusalem. And while this is about to hit the region, we see Herod the king, it says, laying violent hands. He's seizing believers from the Jerusalem church and he's not doing it nicely. This is in a violent, harmful way. Now we see Herod listed a lot as we read through the Gospels and then even here in Acts. And so maybe you would ask yourself, knowing that there's more than one Herod, which Herod? And so this Herod, anybody know his father's name? That's his name. His father's name was Aristobulus, and his father was actually executed when he was very young. But he is the grandson of Herod the Great, and we have talked at length in Matthew about what a really evil man Herod the Great was. And so, as you said, this Herod is Herod Agrippa I, Herod Agrippa I. His uncle, often referred to as Antipas, Uncle Antipas, was the Herod who tried Jesus. And so this Herod, Herod Agrippa, he spent the majority of his life growing up in Rome, and he grew up with the future emperor, Claudius. So they had a lot of overlap in their raising. And so as he got older and as he did a lot of foolish things and kind of ran around even trying to escape creditors, after Caligula dies, and then Claudius comes to the throne. Claudius gives him Palestine, all of Palestine. And so, from AD 41-44 we see Agrippa I, he's ruling over Palestine, the same whole territory that his grandfather had. Remember after his grandfather died it gets parceled out and there's smaller territories. Well, now it's reconstituted under this Herod, Herod Agrippa. And so he knows that the Jews hate my family. They hate the Herods. And they technically had good reason to. But so he's motivated in a certain way to sort of gain the affections of the Jewish people. And so one way that he's looking to do that is he's going to rid the land of those that he finds to be divisive. And he looks at the Christians as divisive. And so he wants to gain the respect and maybe even admiration of the Jews. And so what does he do first? He says he kills James, the brother of John. So this is, remember how the Gospels calls him the two sons of thunder? This is the one of the two and he's martyred, put to death with the sword by Herod for his Christian faith. So James, the brother of John, James, the son of Zebedee, James, one of the 12 apostles, is the first apostle martyred here of the 12. And when it says, with the sword, the Roman fashion for execution was beheading. So James is beheaded. And perhaps then that helps us to recall what Jesus said specifically to James and John. You remember when they said their desire, and they said, we want to drink of your cup. And in Mark 10 38, Jesus said to them, you do not know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism that I am to be baptized? And they said to him, we are able. Jesus said to them, the cup that I drink, you will drink. And with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized. And in this moment, James sees that come true. He drinks of this cup. He participates in the same baptism that his Lord did, just as Jesus had told them. And so, just in these two verses, we feel like this somber cloud almost sort of come over the narrative. This time now for Jerusalem Christians seems to have grown even darker. The king of the earth, if we want to refer to Herod, the king of the earth seemingly opposing the king of heaven. But one other thing to notice just very quickly is how little description Luke gives to this. The narrative, I mean even though the part about Peter is longer, it's not about these men. It's not about James and he doesn't give this long description and we don't find long descriptions of anyone's death, simply just that they are killed and that they are faithful servants for the Lord. But that's not all that Herod was going to do here. So Herod had already seized multiple people. So notice it says some. So it wasn't even just James. James is the one who's mentioned here. But verse 3, when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of unleavened bread. So Herod, he does this thing and he waits to see, well, how are the Jews going to react? And they're thrilled. And just by seeing their reaction we can see just from our inference of the text that what's going on here is the climate, we could say the religious climate, of how the Jews perceive Christians is going south. There are no longer as many people who are willing to tolerate them. They are pleased to see them die. Now these Jews had already started to appreciate Agrippa because he was scrupulous in his observance of their customs. So when he comes into Jerusalem he starts to observe all of their customs to the T. And they think that that's great. But now they think he's even greater for killing James and so He jumps on that and he seizes Peter. He is determined to systematically dismember the Christian movement here in Jerusalem. But Luke gives us this almost like a parenthetical expression. He says, this was during the days of unleavened bread, which is also called what? Right, Luke 22.1. Now the feast of unleavened bread drew near, which is called the Passover. And that's referring to the 10 years earlier at Passover that Jesus had faced what we would call a sham trial and his execution. But as these Jews still continuing to celebrate Passover, unbelieving, and they should have been celebrating a great salvation Instead, they're just waiting for this Passover to be over so that they can eagerly watch the execution of Peter. And so, in verse 4, 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." So Herod, he had taken Peter into custody, and he puts him in prison. We don't know exactly where, but it's very likely that this is the fortress of Antonia. that Peter is placed. And so there's an assigned guard here of four soldiers that are always watching over him. So there's this four squads of four. And this was especially useful to them at night. So they would take these four and every three hours they would rotate these four guards. So four fresh guards, four awake guards come in and the next three hours four more come in. So as we consider even just that fact, It is very unlikely then that as the next events of Luke's narrative occur that you have very tired, perhaps really sleepy soldiers unless they are supernaturally caused to be sleepy. But Herod here is certainly intent on making sure Peter stays in prison. Remember what happened back in Acts chapter 5 verse 19? They go to check the prison where all the apostles had been put in. And they're not there. Herod doesn't want to be embarrassed like the priests were then. So he says, we've got to make sure that this one man, not all the apostles, this one man is kept securely in my prison. We don't know exactly what prisons were like, but I always think of the way that they show those prison cells in Ben-Hur. And I think I would have died within half a day of one of those prison cells, but certainly not a pleasant place for either the prisoner or the guards. But here, you know, it says, Herod, he's very conscious. I'm not going to do anything during the Passover. I'm not going to do anything to upset the people, but I will make a spectacle of him afterwards. And I'm going to bring him before the people so that they can call for his execution. They can judge him. And so we see this shackling here of Peter. He's shackled in prison. Death seems to be a sure thing imminent, but something else is going on simultaneously. So as one commentator wrote, he said, what could the little community of Jesus in its powerlessness do against the armed might of Rome? And of course, the answer is they could pray. They could pray, and they could pray to one who is far more powerful than Herod. And so Luke says, it's as if he's saying on one hand Peter's here, but on the other hand, earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. So they're fervently, perseveringly petitioning God to intervene. So notice he doesn't say specifically. It doesn't say specifically if they're calling for his release, maybe his faithfulness to death, it doesn't say, just that God will sovereignly orchestrate all of these things. But that expression of the earnest prayer is very similar to what Luke had written before, and it's what Pastor Barry preached about over Easter. Luke 22, 44, and being in agony, this is referring to Christ, he prayed more earnestly. And his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And so we see the church praying. God's people are praying. And surely here, even though we know there's this one house, there is multiple houses of people praying all throughout the city, petitioning God. And so we see then this great contrast. We see the power of the sword. against the power of prayer. The power of the sword against the power of prayer. Verse 6, now when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains and centuries before the door were guarding the prison. The time is approaching. The time is about there. We're almost there to where Herod can continue his plan of murder It says that very night, or you could think of the very night before, this would have been, in a sense, Peter's last meal. And now is where I want to start drawing out some of these Passover sort of comparisons. So think about, as they come out of Egypt, they're celebrating Passover the very night, that night before. The night before they are delivered from their shackles of slavery. But here we see Peter, he's sleeping between these two Roman soldiers. It's a remarkable thing, isn't it? Peter's here sleeping. He's not fretting. He's not crying. He's not denying his master. He's peacefully sleeping, just as Jesus had in the boat. Remember that? Also here, though, we can see beyond just his calm assurance of trust in God, though, that this sleep is symbolic of something, and that is picturing what everyone expects to be his coming death. So his sleep here pictures symbolically his death. And perhaps he's thinking to himself, why should I not stay in trial? Why should I not die just as my Lord has, just as Stephen did, just as my brother James did? But he's bound here with two chains. He's double chained, which is probably a bit excessive. And so this arrangement by Herod, he thinks, at least from his human perspective, that there's no possible way for Peter to escape. There's a little bit of an irony here, as we consider that Passover theme, is that Peter is in chains during this very festival that celebrates Israel's unshackling, the removal of their chains of slavery as they leave Egypt. But then we also see these sentries are there at the door. So everywhere that Peter can look, he sees Roman guards. He knows that his death is imminent. But in verse 7, suddenly the narrative changes. 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." There's that word that we keep seeing. Behold. Every time you see it, maybe you should pinch yourself so you know this is an exciting part. Pay attention. Look. There's this angel. Suddenly, there's an angel in the cell. And he's right next to Peter. And we see this light shining all throughout this cell, which probably had no light in it. There's a signal there by Luke that this is some type of heavenly visit. Remember with Saul on the way to Damascus, this light that shone all around him, Acts chapter 9, verse 3. But who does not wake up from this? Or Peter. And I doubt he had a sleep mask on. So nobody wakes up. But as you notice here in the text, though, that Luke never talks about the soldiers, but we can definitely infer that the Lord is somehow preventing them from responding to anything going on. It may make you think of all the way back in 1 Samuel 26. David's on the run. Everywhere he goes, Saul's chasing him. And in verse 12, this is when he goes into the cave. It says, He took the spear and the jar of water from Saul's head, and they went away. No man saw it or knew it, nor did any awake, for they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from the Lord had fallen upon them." And I think it's very safe to surmise the same thing is taking place here. But what does the angel do? He strikes Peter. This would have been a hard blow. You know, I was thinking today about that is when men wake up other men, it's okay to do that. I would strike Andrew on the side pretty hard to wake him up, but I would never do that to my daughters. But here, this angel, he strikes Peter. You've got to, you've got to wake him up. And so he rouses him from what Peter is thinking is his final sleep. tells him to get up. So, in a sense here, you could almost see this picture. Remember I talked about Peter's sleep symbolizing his death? You could almost see Peter here being struck to life, so to speak, by this angel. Struck awake, struck to life. And then it says these chains that were binding him, they just miraculously fall away from his hands or his wrists. Surely then, another signal of a divine, miraculous act of God, and quite surely as well. I'm sure Charles Wesley was thinking about this exact verse when he writes those words about the chains falling off. And so the angel says to him, dress, or you could use the word gird, dress or gird yourself and put on, or that could be translated, tie up your sandals. And so he tells him, put on your tunic, get your sandals. It's time to leave. And we're going to leave very urgently. Now, when you think about leaving somewhere very urgently, does that remind you of how the Israelites had to be ready to leave Egypt? Exodus 12, 11. In this manner, you shall eat it. This is the Passover meal with your belt fastened, with your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in it is the Lord's Passover. And so Peter does so. Whatever shock or drowsiness that he is currently experiencing, he just obeys. Peter just obeys the angel's commands, and so he gives him this third command, put your cloak around you and follow me right now. And in verse 9 he goes out and he follows him. He did not know what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. So we see this complete, total obedience by Peter, and he seems to be almost in a daze. Like, is this really happening? Is this like when that sheep came down from heaven? Who knows what he's thinking? But it does say here, he's not sure if this is a real experience or if this is just imaginary. So it almost seems to be like a dream. And so they go past these two separate stations of guards. They're not stopped. Again, Luke doesn't tell us anything about the condition of the guards. But they come up then to this iron gate leading into the city. This is the final outer gate of the prison that opens up into the city of Jerusalem. And so this would have been the most fortified gate. And what happens? It opens automatically. The Greek word there is automatos. Automatic! Now what happens when the Israelites get to the Red Sea? Automatically, as Moses holds up that staff, God automatically separates the water of its own accord, you could say. And so they go through the gate, they go down a single block of the street, and then the angel leaves just as quickly as he had appeared to Peter. 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. Peter now snaps out of his daze. He realizes, he says, I am sure, or he says, I know That the Lord, and when he says the Lord, he's referring to Jesus here, that Jesus, my master, he sent his angel to deliver me from the prison. I'm now standing on the outside. He says, I know it. And who had led the people of Israel as they went to the Red Sea? Who had protected them? It was the angel of the Lord. As the army, as Pharaoh, as Pharaoh and his army closed in, do you think those people believed they were going to die? I think so. Moses had to tell them, stand still. And he also tells them, I love it. He said, be quiet. He says, be quiet. The Lord's going to save you. And he does. And so this is what Peter recognizes that God himself has rescued me. He saved me from the grip of death, Herod's grip of death. It says in Exodus 14.30 that the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians. And as you get into Exodus 18, you see a little bit more context about where Moses' two sons are named. It says in verse 2, Now Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, had taken Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her home, along with her two sons. The name of the one was Gershom, For he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land. And the name of the other, Eliezer, for he said, the God of my father was my help and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh. Those were the words of Moses. But here, Peter says, the Lord has delivered me from the sword of Herod. But not just the sort of Herod, he says, and from all that the Jewish people were expecting. Peter's aware of this new climate, that these bloodthirsty Jews were greatly anticipating his execution. This is a great continuance of that post-Steven persecution era. So in verse 12, when he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. So as Peter realizes, fully clicking in his mind, hey, I'm out of the prison. I am free. He immediately goes to a specific house. He goes to Mary's house. And Luke says, if you're wondering which Mary, he says, this is John Mark's mother. This is a very unique way, and Luke does this sometimes, because it's sort of a way of letting you know that this is not the last time you're going to hear about John Mark. He's going to come up again, but this is sort of a little introduction. And who else was John Mark related to? Barnabas. And you actually find that in Colossians 4.10, that they're cousins. But Peter goes here to Mary's house, and surely this was a well known meeting place. This may even have been the principal meeting place for Christians in all of Jerusalem. But Luke says there's many who are gathered here. Many were praying. So this is quite a few Christians are gathered at her house to pray together. And what time are they praying here? They're praying through the night. They are praying through the night for the play of Peter. And surely just the size of the house is a signal to us that Mary is a wealthy member of the church. She has a sizable home. There's a considerable number of people who are there to gather to pray. And she also has this outer courtyard that has a gate. This is a big place. And as these saints of God, as the people of God have been praying that they don't know this, but their prayers to God have been effectual. So Peter knocks at the door. When he knocked at the door, we see this servant girl named Rhoda. She may have been the doorkeeper, if you remember back to when Peter betrays Jesus. And it says in John 18.16 that the girl there, the doorkeeper, she knew John, but she didn't know Peter. She said, are you a follower? Remember that? So this girl may have been a doorkeeper there for Mary. Rhoda or Rose, she approached the door to respond to whoever's knocking. And I don't think I thought about this before. But as she goes to the door, maybe they're all terrified. Maybe they're thinking, are these soldiers coming to arrest more of us? But they send her, like, yeah, you can go answer the door. We'll wait here. Verse 14, 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. So not only is Peter knocking at the door, but clearly he's calling out to them. She can hear his voice, and she knows his voice. It's not a foreign voice to her, which shows you that she is part of this community. She knows who Peter is, and she is thrilled with gladness. And I know that It's very easy to, I think, look at this as a very comical thing, and probably in some ways it is. But I want to point out, I think, a different aspect of it, where she is demonstrating faith and belief, and they are not. And she's believing. So even though she doesn't open the door, she runs in with this good news. Hey, everyone, you can stop praying. Like, no, we're going to need to keep praying for Peter's release. And she says, no, he's at the door. Peter is outside at the gate. I believe Peter is there. Our prayers have been answered. And they are incredulous. It can't be. I mean, I know we've been praying, but it just can't be. And so with this effort that Herod had made to keep Peter in prison, they just can't believe that Peter could have gotten out of this. They're not fully considering or believing that God has divinely intervened in the way that he has. But she's not backing down. Maybe it's a hundred to one. Who knows what the odds are here. She is not deterred. She's not deterred by her status. She says, no, I am going to insist to you all, Peter is there. And they're just as insistent. No, he's not. He's not there. But just think of this perspective here, that Rhoda believes without seeing. She believes without seeing. She does not need to see or to touch Peter to believe that he's there at the door. She knows it's his voice. But they keep saying to her over and over, it is his angel. There's lots of different speculation about whatever that means, and Luke doesn't explain to us exactly what that means. If you remember back to Matthew 18, when we were going through that chapter, Jesus says, see that you do not despise one of these little ones. And remember, we define little ones as his believers, not three-year-old children per se. He says, See that you do not despise them, for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. And we talked about how we really can't say much more than what Jesus said there, because he doesn't fully qualify beyond that. But you do see in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 13 and 14, the author of Hebrews talking about angels talks about how they're ministering spirits sent forth to help the saints And so Luke just gives what they say. They said, it's his angel. And so Luke says, I'm going to record that. I'm not going to comment on it. I'm not going to endorse it as something that's a fact. But this is the verbal dialogue going back and forth. It's Peter. It's his angel. It's Peter. It's his angel. Verse 16, but Peter continued knocking. Just keeps 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." So Peter keeps knocking. He's not going to be deterred, just as Rhoda is not going to be deterred from saying that he's at the door. We see another sense of irony here. That last gate that Peter had walked through, had it opened up automatically for him? This one's not opening automatically for him. And so perhaps he's thinking, am I going to be recaptured here on the street while all these people are in the house arguing about whether I'm here or not? So they finally open the door and they see him, and they're amazed. So they're astonished and probably made a lot of noise over this as well. So Peter has to be like, hey, everybody be quiet. But as they see him, as their faith now becomes sight, so they see and believe. They don't believe and then see. They see and then believe. There's a wonderful truth that we can derive from that, not that we should heavily criticize them, but there's this sense of that even when our prayers are lacking in full faith, that God often, He gives us more than we expect and certainly more than we deserve. And so these people experienced this here and man it's just so neat how the passages fit together. But what is the church discovering? It's one of the verses that Pastor Barry preached on Sunday. They're discovering that God is able to do more abundantly than all that they can ask or think. Same is true for us, that God is able to do more, abundantly more than we can ask or think. And that comes about when God's people pray, when they pray. So Peter hushes the group here. He says he needs to address them. He's got to quiet them down. He describes to them these amazing sequence of events. How did I get to be standing here? And then he says, tell these things to James and the brothers. Of course, this is not the same James that we just talked about being martyred, but Luke expects you to know which James he's talking about here. And this is James, the half brother of Jesus, who had now become a leader within the church. And so when he says the brothers here, I think he's referring to the elders. Remember later when Saul and Barnabas come, who do they give the money to? It doesn't say they laid it at the feet of the apostles, it says they gave it to the elders. So as the apostles are being pushed out through persecution and also through gospel proclamation, we see the church now starting to become a little bit more solidified under the same type of leadership that every church is going to have, and that's a plurality of elders. And so that's who he says, go tell this to. First Corinthians 15.7, Paul's talking and he says, Then he, Christ, appeared to James, and that's the James he's referring to, this one here, his half-brother. And also in Galatians 2.9, Paul says, And when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised." Of course, James, the brother of John, is already dead at this point, so he's referring to this same James, James the half-brother of Jesus. Peter now leaves. He departs, he goes to another place, he knows Everyone's going to be looking for me. He knows that he's a fugitive. And so he goes to an undisclosed location. So this is probably, even though we don't know this for sure, he's probably going outside of Jerusalem. We could say he's going underground. Is he going off to hide? No way. Peter is going off because he has a lot more work to do. And this is why the Lord has preserved his life. He's not done with Peter on earth yet. And so we see Peter, he's kind of being taken out of the main focus now by Luke. We're not going to see very much of Peter in the rest of Acts. We'll see him a couple times, but Peter's passing off the scene. But the Church is still under the capable hands of leadership with James and the brothers. And there's this continual truth that we see hammered throughout all the New Testament that the Church is not dependent upon any one man. or not even upon any group of men. All leaders can be replaced, and it's God who replaces them. And when they are, that continually reminds us that our hope is not in a man, but it's in the power of God. It's in the power of Christ. Before we get to verse 18, I just want to make this one comparison for you here. So when we think of Peter's rescue, because this is what it is, Peter is rescued by God. There's a picture, you know, we talked about him, his sleep being symbolic of his death. He's struck to life. He's brought out from death to life. And there's a mirror there or a picture of Jesus's resurrection. Well, then, you know, Jesus, post-resurrection, he appears. Peter here, post-rescue from prison, he appears. But there's a neat kind of comparison. So they're both first witnessed by women or a woman. Both of them have their reports not believed. Remember that? The women, Luke 24, 11, they go and it says, and they didn't believe. They both appear to a gathered community. So Jesus comes to this gathered group of believers. So does Peter here. They're both mistaken. Remember what they thought? Jesus was a ghost. Luke 24, 37, they think Peter is an angel. And then Peter and Jesus, they both go to another place. It says in Luke 24, 51 that Jesus went to another place and there also Luke doesn't say the exact place that he went to. And so you're just finding these comparisons and this continual way that the resurrected Lord, he's the ascended, resurrected, exalted Lord from heaven, he's active. He's guiding his church, he's doing wonderful things in their midst, and he's orchestrating all of these events. Verse 18, Now when day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. Sun's coming up, time to execute Peter. It says, there's no little disturbance. This is a type of phrase that Luke is very well known for. Do you know what that's called? Instead of him saying, there was a great disturbance, he says, there was no little disturbance. It's a funny little word called a litotes. But we only see Luke use this, and you'll see that throughout his writings. But there's this great state of mental agitation among the soldiers. Where is Peter? I was chained to him. Where is he? And so we could say that the soldiers are apoplectic of where he is. Chains are undone. How could Peter have left without anyone's knowledge? Did you see him leave? Did you see him leave? Why is this gate standing wide open? Like those types of questions. But the most important question that they're thinking, what are we going to say to Herod? What are we going to say to Herod? And after Herod searched for him and did not find him, he examined the centuries and ordered that they should be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent time there. So what happens? We're going to do some search parties right away. I kind of think in the context of the way that Luke writes this, I think Herod's out there himself as well. Where is this guy? I needed to get more favor with these Jews. Now I'm going to have a lot of egg on my face. But they don't find him. Just as no one ever found some dead, buried body of Jesus. And so when they don't find him, it's got to have been collusion. Somebody must have helped him escape. And so he interrogates these guards. And I think within there, there's a context maybe even of torture. I think you're lying. We're going to really get the truth out of you. And quite displeased that there is no satisfactory, no plausible answer for how Peter could have escaped a prison like that. He orders them to be led away to execution. And this is not something that's extraordinary. This is something that was a normal thing in the Roman Empire. If you allowed prisoners to escape, even if they were divinely taken out, then you received the death penalty. This was considered to be dereliction of duty. So Herod then, he retires to the place of Caesarea. He's going to go there for a while. We can see from this narrative that he's been rendered powerless by God. And so maybe he's thinking this thought in his mind, maybe in Caesarea I can escape this kind of power. I can escape the power of God. Remember what God said or what we could say more precisely what Yahweh said in Exodus 14, 17. He said, I will get the glory over Pharaoh. And it's not explicitly verbatim the same way here, but we're going to see in the text next week. same thing that God is going to visibly get the glory over Herod. Herod's not going to get to go and just kind of slink away and we'll forget about all these things. Now God, just as Pharaoh's dead body laid in the Red Sea, God is going to get the glory over this wicked ruler as well. So there's this reality that only one throne can rule, only one. But there's this enduring truth through this age, this present evil age that we live in, that no matter who is the earthly king, no matter who is the monarch, that Christ's people, what do they have? They have an imperishable inheritance. And who writes about that? Peter does. 1 Peter 1, verse 3, he says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you. Who's the you? People of God. God's people kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time. But let's pull the whole passage then into context. We had a couple short verses at the front, but we shouldn't lose sight of how they fit in, because whether there is physical rescue, like there was with Peter, Or whether there is the cup of martyrdom, as James drank, what do we see? We see both men being faithful to Christ. They both are. And they both have different destinations, in a sense, of what God is doing with them. James drinks the cup of death right away. Peter's life is spared for a time. But they're both confident in this same thing, this imperishable inheritance that awaits for them in Jesus Christ. And both of these men's fates have been sovereignly appointed by God. And he used both of them. He used both of these things, even in ways that we can't see or fully grasp from the scriptures, but he used both of them to advance his gospel and to expand his kingdom. And of course, remember the words of Jesus. In Luke 21 he says to his disciples some of you will be put to death. You will be hated by all for my name's sake but not a hair of your head will perish. He says by your endurance you will gain your lives. And every believer who goes to the grave they die that death but they have that enduring faith. that because Christ is the first fruits from the grave, that so too will they be raised to walk in the newness of that glorified life. So whatever circumstances that God has ordained for us as a body of believers, but also ordained for us as individuals, what can we rest in? What is this marvelous comfort that we can rest in? We can rest in this comfort of God's people praying, the people of God praying. In Romans 12, 12, the final thought here, what does Paul say? He says, rejoice in hope. Hope of what? What's that? Yeah, the hope of that eternal joy with Christ, where we see our salvation become sight. So rejoice in hope, be patient in Tribulation, whatever that is, however long that is. The last phrase, be constant in prayer. Be constant in prayer. Continue to pray just as this body of believers was praying through the night. So whether the Lord brings us into extreme circumstances like these two men, Whether it's just the hustle and bustle of life and the most, what we would say, ordinary things, Paul says, be constant in prayer. And I pray that that is our heartbeat as a church, that we don't believe that we can accomplish anything without prayer. So whether it's the preaching and teaching of the Word of God, whether it's the ministry of benevolence, whether it's helping people, whether it's cleaning the church, whether it's repairing the church, anything that we do, evangelism, all sorts of things that the church is called to do, discipleship, the ordinances that we observe, we could do none of those things without prayer. So we cannot have our hearts urged on enough, commended on enough by Scripture to pray. Remember, this is one of the four pillars of the early Church. They devoted themselves to what four things? Or way out of order. Remember, doctrine. So the Word was central. It dominated what they did. But then there was the breaking of bread. Fellowship and the prayers. Didn't mean that prayer was less important, though. It kind of was this nice bookend. You have doctrine and prayer just binding everything together. Fellowship's important. The Lord's Supper is important. Baptizing believers is important. And prayer is important. Do we believe it? And I'm talking about whether or not in our personal lives, in our gatherings, whether it's three people gathered together, whether we're gathered like this, whether we're gathered on Sunday, what devotion, what importance, what priority do we put on prayer? And so why don't we close in prayer. And now Lord, as we have studied your word, we pray that you would seal it upon our hearts. We pray that you would heal and strengthen those who cannot be with us due to infirmity. And we pray, O Lord, that you would continue to impress on our hearts this great importance of crying out to you in prayer. Help us in this way, we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.