Happy believers and unhappy soldiers
Acts 12:1-17 · Vern Peterman · Oct 8, 2017
Acts (2017-18), No. 38
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/410261635576538

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, good morning. We're going to step our way through Acts 12, 1 through 17 here. And I guess one of the questions I would have for you, how many of you like surprises? Now, you may be answering, it depends, right? There are nice surprises, and then there are some that are not quite so nice, right? Well, it turns out that this is a very surprising passage, full of surprises, right? Different people are surprised by different things, including Peter.

These, however, are all surprises that we can learn from, and that's why they're here in the book of Acts. They're there intentionally. God put them there. We're going to see that the surprises that are in place here are all purposeful. Some of the surprises are even spiritually valuable. That's one of the reasons why we see them here in Scripture. We also have some difficult questions coming right up, right here in this passage. We're going to come across some difficult questions, including two apostles who are about to be gravely threatened.

One will lose his life, and the other one will be saved by miracles. The brother of the one who loses his life by very violent means will live on another 52 years. and will write five books of the New Testament. I've got five up there, right? But the one who loses his life writes none.

Boy, that doesn't seem fair and equal, right? Here's Acts 12.1, But now about that time Herod the king laid hands on some who belonged to the church in order to mistreat them. So when it says Herod the king, which King Herod are we talking about? So we talk about Herod the Great. This is the one who was king over Israel during the time of Christ's birth and around that time. We call him Herod the Not-So-Great because there were a number of things he did that were certainly not so great.

He was a man who would erase the life of any wife or son whom he mistrusted. And that was not good. His family tree is large and complicated. We won't take the time to go over it this morning. He had nine or ten wives, depending on which one you listen to in terms of the scholars. But nonetheless, we actually have a family tree supplement that we'll offer here, but it's only those that are biblically significant out of the otherwise rather large number This King Herod was Herod Agrippa I, who ruled from 37 to 44 AD. By the way, after all sorts of financial and other calamities. In the middle of it, gaining all the territories of his grandfather, Herod the, as we'll call him, not so great.

So there is this part of the family tree is one that you can take a look at. We have a supplement on the cabinet to the right as you exit here. If we fall short, be sure to let me know. I'll make sure you get one. But this is Herod Agrippa I, who is grandson of Herod the Not-So-Great.

And as we'll see as we proceed through the book of Acts, there's actually three of his children who show up later in the book of Acts, including a brother and sister who are married. And Drusilla is the wife of Roman governor Felix, the only Roman governor in all of Roman history to start life as a slave.

Very interesting. Okay, Acts 12, 2 and 3, and he had James, the brother of John, put to death with a sword. When he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. Now it was during the days of unleavened bread. So this is James, the brother of John.

These are James and John, the sons of Zebedee, that's the name, nicknamed the sons of thunder. They had asked that Jesus, that they be given the seats of highest honor in the kingdom, and one time they asked that, another time their mother asked that. They're called the sons of thunder, one reason being they said, should we call down lightning on someone here that they think deserves judgment? Jesus says, nah, not so much.

So James was taken home to be with the Lord here, and there's actually brief mention of it. The first of the apostles to die, and the only death of an apostle that's actually directly recorded in the New Testament, so you see it, one verse right here.

By the sword means beheading, Most likely this was how Agrippa's uncle, beheaded John the Baptist, is again by the sword. That was actually one of the conventional means of capital punishment in the Roman Empire. So this pleased the Jews. Herod Agrippa may have been a sovereign king, but he was also a rather cruel politician as well.

So seeking the favor, you get a crowd cheering over something, and he says, yeah, let's do that again. So the killing of the Apostle James, the brother of John, met with the approval of the Jews, likely including many of the leaders, but still just within the populace. Peter's the next apostle on King Herod Agrippa I's plan and schedule. Peter, you're next.

This was in the days of unleavened bread. What they had was Passover, and then following that was seven days of unleavened bread. Oh boy, can you imagine seven days of unleavened bread? You've got to think of different ways to make it interesting. Unleavened bread again? Oh yeah. Imagine if Courtney said, OK, we're going to have a week of unleavened bread.

That's our family fellowship meal. You come here three times a day over the next week, and we'll have unleavened bread for you every single time. How many volunteers after the first few days of that? I think maybe even the first few meals of that, we would have a declining population here.

And so you've got creative ways to serve unleavened bread, right? Anything. You might even want some fermented fish paste with that or not. But anyway, you keep coming up with different ways of unleavened bread for seven days, three meals a day, and nothing else but unleavened bread.

The population of Jerusalem would swell by thousands, estimates being actually hundreds of thousands. during the time of this feast and the Jewish fervor ran very high during those days. The area where Jesus, you know, kind of cleared the temple and cleansed the temple and drove them all out, that would just get packed out wall to wall with Jews and there would be more Jews than they could actually fit in that courtyard. Everybody pressing in during this very crowded time. So the arrest of Peter in the middle of this was done with the intent to be very public. Let's get lots of Jews around to watch this since they seem to like it. So they arrested Peter in preparation for having a public, not sure from here whether it's an execution or a public hearing or both.

Here's Acts 12.4, "...and when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out before the people."

So one of the things that this passage is actually very clear on, four squads of four soldiers each. And they were assigned to watch over Jesus' tomb. And what was interesting is that the term that is used, these are actually not a bunch of low-level soldiers, but actually high-level soldiers, four squads of four each at a time. And the idea is they'd rotate and be fresh. And these were high-level soldiers, quite possibly not just your lowest-level Roman soldier. So we want some guys who have some officer status. in this thing.

It appears to be the picture. Herod Agrippa didn't want to have any more embarrassing surprises. You may recall ten years earlier, approximately, all the apostles got loose from prison. He said, I don't want that happening, so we're not going to allow that.

Herod was ruling under the authority of the Roman Empire. He had ordered four squads of Roman soldiers, which was the customary means of high security on something, to hold Peter in the Roman prison. So this was very Roman. Peter was under very tight security, it was actually above standard security in the fortress Antonia which overlooked the temple courtyard. So verse 6 will give us more detail about how Peter was guarded by these three, excuse me, these soldiers.

Acts 12.5, so Peter was kept in the prison but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church to God. So a key thing here is to look at things that turned out rather badly, at least from a human standpoint, for James the Apostle, the brother of John.

We don't know anything about whatever prayer may have taken place preceding or accompanying that particular execution. When Peter was seized by order of King Agrippa I, the local body of Christ here began to pray for him. And we're going to see this was a fervent prayer. This was also possibly much more widespread in terms of the number of people and even houses where people were praying than is apparent here. Their prayers were not casual or individual, but boy there was prayer.

Acts 12.6, on the very night when Herod was about to bring him forward, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and guards in front of the door were watching over the prison.

By the way, the normal thing was to be connected to one soldier. You'd usually have the right hand of the prisoner and the left hand of the soldier connected. To have two was above standard security. And they also had guards in front of the door. So four squads of four, you have two soldiers who were chained to him and then two more out the door watching.

And one of the things that these dramatizations seem to fall short on, it says that Peter was sleeping. It doesn't say the others were sleeping. And so we'll take a look at that here shortly. So this was the night before Herod Agrippa I was planning on bringing Peter before the public. The implication being, if it's specifying the night, that he actually had gone on for perhaps even several nights, but this specific night was when the things described in here happened. So let's ask this question.

Could God have freed Peter earlier? Yeah. Yeah, could have done that. Even prevented the arrest in the first place. Couldn't God have done that? Yeah, could have. God does not act to free Peter until rather late in the process, waits to the last minute. By the way, have you ever had the Lord answer a prayer at the last minute?

Doesn't that drive you nuts? Lord, you could have answered this thing a long time ago. You wait all this time. Well, that's the same thing that happened here. Right? Wait until the last minute, and then the Lord pulls off this miracle. But he waits and waits and waits.

This was stepped-up Roman security. Standard security would have had the chain on Peter's right hand and the guard's left hand. This is what the Apostle Paul went through when he was under house arrest. He was chained to one Praetorian guard. The right hand would be chained typically on his, and then the guard would have the left hand chained to him. And so that was typical. This was double guard, so this was very high security.

It appears that Peter was chained between these two guards, one on each side of him. There were two more guards standing watch at the doorway to the cell. And again, some of the dramatizations don't show this quite, I think, as it ought to be, but best we can do here. So, Peter is sleeping. Now, can you imagine this?

Okay, what happened to James when he got arrested? James lost his head. He was beheaded. He was killed. What's about to happen to Peter? Would you sleep? Just ask him. Would you sleep if these guys are going to take me out there? I'm going to lose my head just like James did. This would be rather amazing, but Peter is sleeping. Now, you might ask, why is he sleeping? Is this guy oblivious? Is he apathetic? Does he know something we don't know? You know, you wonder. This might be why he was sleeping.

Here is John 21, 18 and 19. Jesus said, Truly I say to you, when you were younger I used to gird You used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished, but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you and bring you where you do not wish to go. Now this, he said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he said to him, follow me. So one thing, it's possible that Peter is thinking, I'm going to grow old.

So this isn't going to work, right? God's gonna do something. I'm not gonna die now one the other is The reality is he will at one point have his life taken and he figures Well, the Lord knows what that is and already has it figured out. So I'm not gonna worry about it Either of those may be the case or possibly both Here's acts 12 7 and behold an angel Lord suddenly appeared in a light shown in the cell and he struck Peter's side and woke him up saying get up quickly and and his chains fell off his hands." So, question, did he say, Peter, get up quickly, or did he say, Peter, get up quickly? Don't know. But it doesn't seem, when you read this, it doesn't seem like the angel's worried about disturbing the other guards, you know, at all. He talks several times, and, you know, get up, do this, you know.

We see that Peter was chained to two Roman guards at once. There were two more guards at the doorway who were not asleep. By the way, one of the things while a lot of the dramatic depictions show guards asleep, and we're even going to see some more of that, the reality is the Roman guards are not described as being asleep, and as a matter of fact they could get in big trouble for being asleep.

The minimum The minimum punishment for a Roman soldier who went to sleep while on guard duty is to have their clothes set on fire. So that's a rough way to wake up. So that was the minimum penalty and they could take it all the way so far as death penalty for falling asleep. So actually what they depict here is guards falling asleep?

Quite possibly not, likely not even. So they show here in the dramatic case, the two guards chained to Peter were also asleep, but the Bible doesn't say that, and actually Roman practice would say, no, they weren't asleep either. So anyway, that's kind of the dramatic presentation. The reality is, these guys were probably wide awake, not wanting to have their clothes lit on fire at a minimum, and not wanting to lose their lives at the worst.

Now an angel of the Lord here, Dr. Luke describes these events, and think of it, what he describes here is from Peter's perspective. Peter is describing what happened to Dr. Luke, and Dr. Luke's writing this down, and you can pick up Peter's perspective. And then secondarily, we're going to see this young lady named Rhoda and her experience kind of come out here, and a lot of the other details kind of fade away. So the angel suddenly appeared just to Peter, but not the guards. The guards didn't say, hey, what are you doing here? The guards apparently had no reaction whatsoever. A light shone in the cell, and they didn't say, hey, turn the lights out. They didn't seem to react to that at all either.

And that also tells us one other thing. The typical scenario in a Roman prison cell is it is really dark. really dark, so a light showing would be so you can actually see something, and we're going to see why there would need to be a light, because Peter's going to have to do something, right? Four things happened here, and then some more things happened.

So the angel struck, the Lord struck Peter's side, hard enough to stir Peter, but I'm sure not enough to injure him, so that Peter woke up at least to some degree. Now we're going to see, he's actually kind of still a little groggy, and you could expect that. Although it's kind of astounding that this guy slept at all. The angel told Peter, get up quickly to accommodate that.

Peter's miraculous escape. The chains fell off both hands. Wouldn't that be something if the chains fell off one but he had to drag the other along? Anyway, I don't know. Both hands. The chains just, boom, dropped off. Soon see, this is not all that the angel said and did. Also see whether or not the Roman soldiers on duty saw or heard anything.

Next, Acts 12.8, and the angel said to him, gird yourself and put on your sandals. And he did so, and they were not Nikes. and wrap your cloak around you and follow me. So this was just leather sandals, which would have been typical wear during those days.

Go ahead and get yourself ready to travel here. Get your shoes on, everything you need, and take the time to do that. It wasn't run for your life. It's take the time to get ready because we're going to travel. You're going to get out of here. Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.

Now, the angel said after that four more things. So the angel told Peter to gird himself, put on his sandals, wrap up his cloak around himself, and then to follow the angel. And the angel had been giving Peter some very specific brief instructions here. As a matter of fact, it's interesting, if you follow through the instructions, it's almost like talking, a parent talking to their child.

Okay, put that on, put this on, do this. And part of it's because Peter's, one, trying to have, you know, catch up with what's actually going on. As we'll see shortly, he thinks it's a vision. He's not really fully awake. He's groggy enough that he's having a tough time interpreting what's going on. But the angel gives them very specific instructions about articles of clothing. Get your sandals on, you know, gird up your clothing, get the cloak on, you know, get ready to go.

And about unlocking the chains, just the angel took care of it. And what's interesting is that there are at least, between the handcuffs that he had on and the doors he went through, so at least four locks just went poof. went down with no apparent effort at all. By the way, just so you know, angels don't need keys. They just don't.

So the combination of events that are briefly described here are some miraculous events, and then there's some of it that's non-miraculous, like Peter putting on his sandals, putting the cloak on. So you have a combination of miraculous and non-miraculous events.

Here's Acts 12.9, and he went out and continued to follow.

He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought that he was seeing a vision. You can imagine a little bit ago, remember the vision that he had before going to the house of Cornelius? The vision was all about instruction. So you can imagine Peter, instead of thinking, oh, I'm being released from jail, he's thinking, oh, I wonder what I'm supposed to learn from this, right?

No, you're supposed to get out of there, right? And that's why the angel had to give him particular and specific instructions. He was trying to interpret in terms of what he was supposed to learn, and the angel was saying, we just want to get you out of here, right? Get you ready.

So, after the light came into the cell and the angel had struck Peter and spoke instructions to him about all the basically things he's supposed to wear, Peter followed all of the spoken instructions. The chains fell off, the door was unlocked and opened. Again, angels don't need keys.

The four Roman soldiers neither saw nor heard nor felt any of these things. What the depictions are is that they were asleep. Again, the text does not say that the soldiers were asleep. The text not only doesn't say it, but the Roman culture and what we know of Roman military practice said that they probably weren't asleep.

They just simply didn't see and hear what was going on. They were having a different experience. I don't know, maybe the angel went and messed with the video camera recording. You know, I don't know. But anyway, so these guys couldn't tell what was going on.

So Peter thought, so here's what was going through Peter's mind, as we all read and studied previously in Acts chapter 10, Peter had experienced at least one vision before. So that was just the prior chapter there, a couple chapters prior. It seems that he thought this was just another vision, he was interpreting it that way. The previous vision was instructive. Maybe he was thinking, well, okay, what is the Lord trying to tell me? This is another vision. Instead of seeing it as this is actually really happening and God has something else in mind, it isn't instructive other than get your sandals on and your cloak on and get out of here, right?

So, here's Acts 12.10, "...and when they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate that leads into the city, which opened for them by itself. And they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel departed from him." So here's Peter, and he's still trying to figure out, okay, what's going on? What am I supposed to learn? And then the angel disappears.

So, he passed the first and second guard. And those guards were there to make sure nobody escaped, and of course that wasn't happening. Then there were four squads of four soldiers each in order to make sure that each set of soldiers was fresh. Can you imagine what's going to happen to these guys when this thing catches up with them? You're telling me you didn't see anything? You didn't hear anything? Were you guys asleep? What is the matter with you? These guys are really going to get it.

The iron gate was not unlocked and opened manually, but rather it appeared to Peter it opened by itself. Well, it didn't open by itself actually. The angels don't need keys and this is the last locked gate. As they went out, the angel left Peter, and Peter was then up to himself to, you know, go somewhere else. Acts 12, 11, then Peter came to himself and he said, Now I know for sure that the Lord has sent forth His angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.

Guess what? He just woke up. Whoa! You ever have a time like that? Kind of stumbling around. Whoa! Okay. That's what he'd just gone through. It's like, oh, now I get it. Right. So he'd had that kind of an experience. Acts 12, 12. And when he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, who was also called Mark. And there were many gathered together and were praying. Now, this is the only instance of the mention of this is John Mark. This is his mother. That's the only instance of mention of her name. We're not going to see that again We are going to see John Mark again and fairly soon as a matter of fact but so this is the place and Her her house apparently apparently is large enough to have many gathered in that place So many were praying they were praying and notice what was going on.

They prayed directly to God, okay, and It says they prayed to God. They didn't pray to angels. They didn't pray to saints. They weren't making political appeals. Hey, everybody, sign this petition. We'll give it in the morning to King Agrippa. No. None of that. We're going to pray. We're going to go to God. We're going to go to Him.

And they were all praying, and they were neither demanding that God take some specific action. Ever been in a circumstance where people demand God take a specific action? Maybe you've heard that. Christians praying, oh God, you do this. And they're demanding God do it.

Some people think that if you have lots of people praying that God's somehow compelled to just twist his arm and he's got to do it, whatever it is. They weren't making bargains or deals. God, if you will do this, then I'll do X, Y, and Z. None of that. They weren't even expecting a miracle, as we'll soon see.

Acts 12, 13 and 14 says, And when he knocked at the door of the gate, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. And when she recognized Peter's voice, because of her joy, she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter was standing in front of the gate. Peter's going, What?

I'm sure I heard somebody. One of the things we've got to take a look at here is what was the custom? In Revelation chapter 3, Church of Laodicea, it says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if anyone hear my voice. The custom in biblical New Testament times was not to just knock on the door. By the way, that's what the dramatic depictions have. The custom was not to just knock on the door, but the custom was to knock on the door and announce who you were and what you were there for. So it's, Behold, I stand at the door and knock, If anyone hear my voice, because I'm talking while I'm knocking, that was the custom.

If someone just knocked at the door, you'd say, well, I can't hear your voice. I don't recognize who you are. I don't know what you're here for. I'm not opening. If someone just called out their voice, it would say, well, I'm not sure what you're here for. Do you want in? So you would knock and talk.

So rhoda, that would be rose, would be the meaning of the name. He answered Peter's knock and voice at the entry gate by coming up to it. The translations have her as a servant girl, but actually the word there could mean that she was just a young woman, right? Didn't necessarily have to be a servant. She recognized Peter's voice, which means that she had spent some time around with him to be able to recognize the voice through the doorway, okay? So she knew who he was.

She was so filled with joy just beside herself, she ran inside to tell everyone, but didn't open the door to Peter. And Peter's probably, what's going on here, right? Here's Acts 12, 15, and 16. They said to her, you are out of your mind, which tells you they weren't expecting a miracle. But she kept insisting that it was so. They kept saying, it is his angel. But Peter continued knocking, and when they had opened the door, they saw him and were amazed. Wow! Rhoda's telling the truth. It really is Peter.

We weren't expecting you. First they told Rhoda, you're out of your mind. You've lost it. The other thing they said, it's his angel. Now here's the weird thing. In the Jewish culture, they had a custom that each person had a guardian angel, and the angel would sometimes take on the facial appearance of the person that they were guarding. That was the custom, and so that apparently was coming out here.

So one, these people were praying like crazy, but they weren't really expecting a miracle, and not only that, but they came up with some basically pagan assumption about why Rhoda was saying it was Peter. Rhoda was persistent and so was Peter. Rhoda kept saying, No, I'm telling you, it's Peter. I know his voice. And Peter is being persistent. Hey, how come you're not letting me in? As he knocks and calls out, right? So, they opened the door. They were all amazed. Oh, Rhoda's right. Oh, Peter, what are you doing here? So questions.

Here Peter had said it was the Lord, but in fact what we read earlier was an angel. So was it the Lord or an angel? Which one? Is the Bible mistaken? Are Dr. Luce wires crossed there? Actually, we're going to find out differently here. It's both. By motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had led him out of the prison. He said, Report these things to James and the brethren. Then he left and went to another place." So what had happened is, here in verse 17, Peter tells them that the Lord led him out of prison. So which is it? The Lord or an angel?

Acts 12.11, as you may recall, now I know for sure that the Lord has sent forth his angel, okay, so it's both, and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all the Jewish people were expecting. The Lord acted to send an angel.

He said, report these things to James and the brethren. Jesus' half-brother James had become an elder in the church in Jerusalem with others whose names we don't know. to serve the church body there in Jerusalem. We're going to hear about James some more here. The elders in the church in Jerusalem began to take on a significant role. We're going to see them again.

We saw them first mentioned in Acts 11.30, last chapter. Funds for the church were brought to the elders rather than as previously to the apostles.

So James, we're going to see him a couple more times here, Acts 15.13 and 21.18. So we'll anticipate hearing from him again. Now, God has had his purposes and timing for James and Peter. We're not told why God took James home earlier or why Peter was preserved from the same fate as James. Why should God treat them so differently? Why not miraculously save James too?

We will not always have a good sense as to why God will allow or do or not do things in our lives or in others. We oftentimes are simply not given those kinds of pieces of information. We oftentimes can have questions that have no answer. We should not expect that God will do things the way we would do them. Ah, this is key. God will not do things the way we would do them.

By the way, if you were going to pick apostles, would you pick somebody like Peter? He messed up so many times. The guy had foot-in-mouth disease. Right? Would you pick somebody like that? Would you pick somebody who went around killing Christians to be your principal apostle to the Gentiles? I think rather not.

We should also not expect God's timing to make sense to us. God waits to the last minute. Sometimes we don't find out information we wish we had known until later. Also, we see many miracles. Jesus did miracles, as did the apostles. We see that the miracles the apostles performed were for ministry purposes, not self-serving, and in the case of James, not even self-preserving. Even today, God can perform miracles as He sees fit. We're not to expect them or demand them. We're not to expect them so as to be disappointed. We're not to demand them as if we had the authority. God will not make it His job, it is not His job, to make everything smooth in our path.

But prayer. Things will sometimes get bad, but pray. There will be times when there is no visible hope in the circumstances, but prayer. There will be times when it appears that we can do absolutely nothing at all, but prayer. And even when everything is going smoothly, most certainly ought to be praying.

You must not think that prayer is powerful. Have you ever heard that? Prayer is powerful. No. That's dangerous. Only the God we are praying to is powerful. Not prayer. A huge and substantial difference. Prayer is not powerful. Our God is. Let's pray.

Lord, we do thank you for everything that you've laid out here. Thank you for the many surprises in this passage. Thank you even that Peter and the others were surprised. We know that you have your purpose in these things. We learn from them. And we know that though we are surprised, you are never surprised. And we trust in you through that. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.