Acts - Lesson 19

Up to this time, Luke had been covering a period of time in which the Church was spreading in influence and growing in size. Persecution had occurred sporadically but it was not uniform yet in the Roman Empire. In Jerusalem, Jewish Christians were viewed as a threat by those Jews who rejected Christ. Persecution of Christians was a spiritual problem but it had political components and we’ll see that this week.

Acts 12:1-5 … 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.

Stephen was the first martyr and we read the story of his martyrdom in Acts chapters 6 and 7. James was not the second martyr but he was the first Apostle as far as we know. We don’t know the names of all those who were martyred. God does know their names and we will know their names someday. They were martyred but they did not perish.

The increased hostility toward Christians in Jerusalem was likely a reaction to the work of the Holy Spirit in the Gentile community. The conversion of Gentiles had become well known and the idea that the Gospel would go to the Gentiles and bypass the Jewish traditions was especially objectionable to some of the Jewish community. Remember that even in Stephen’s time that it was Jews from outside Jerusalem that were especially upset with the Christian teachings, for example, with the Greeks in Antioch.

Plese keep your James’ straight. This is James the brother of John the son of Zebedee. He was called to be a disciple from fishing along with his brother and Peter who were partners in their fishing business (Luke 5:10). He was one of the three disciples that were kept very close to Jesus. He was present at the transfiguration (Matthew 17:1; Mark 9:2) and he and John stirred up the controversy by asking to sit at Jesus left and right hand in the kingdom (Mark 10:35), and they were called upon to go with Jesus in Gethsemane for prayer before the Atonement but they fell asleep (Mark 14:33). The James who wrote the book of James was Jesus’ half brother who was saved after Jesus was raised from the dead and was then active in the early Church.

Peter, James, and John were the three leaders among the 12 disciples. You can imagine the fear in the Church when James is killed and Peter is in prison waiting to be killed and John is mourning the loss of his brother with his close friend in prison.

Luke lets us see the political aspect of the action here. Herod was motivated by the approval he gained from the Jewish leadership. He took the occasion of the Passover with many extra people in the city to arrest Peter. He was thinking it would make a good show to bring Peter out right after Passover while he had a good audience and have him killed. Peter was a key leader but 4 squads of Soldiers is overkill for guarding one guy. They used 4 squads of 4 so that with changes of watch you could have one chained to him on his right, one on his left, and two outside the door to his cell 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. However, Herod didn’t have good enough security to keep God out.

Acts 12:6-10 … Now when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries 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.

I wonder if this angel had a problem with standing by and watching Peter sleep as Jesus was sweating drops of blood in Gethsemane. He sure seems to enjoy rousting Peter up who this time was sleeping before his own execution. Peter surely could sleep. The angel and Peter can’t be in much of a rush. The difference between getting him out in 5 minutes or 25 minutes doesn’t seem to have been critical. God may have had a whole group of angel volunteers to go wake Peter up after Gethsemane.

The angel gives orders and Peter follows orders. He might have been hoping to avoid being hit again but it is clear that he is groggy. As soon as the angel has him outside the prison he vanishes.

Think about these points in this deliverance:

1)    Deliverance came at the last moment,

God often delivers at the last moment. He isn’t in a hurry and in His omniscience it makes sense to act when He knows to act and not before. In our ignorance, we like to act early to stay ahead of the curve. God sees the whole curve perfectly and can act whenever He wants to act.

2)    Peter and James were both examples of God’s sovereignty, and

We must rest in the knowledge that neither Peter nor James perished. Jesus promises that we will never perish (John 10:28). James didn’t perish and he was not snatched out of Jesus’ hand. Christians focused on success and prosperity in this world will find themselves unsettled in times of trial with doubts of God’s sovereignty and goodness in their heart.

3)    Peter’s deliverance illustrates spiritual deliverance in the Gospel.

Charles Wesley’s is at his best when he is inspired by Scripture in his hymns. Here is the fourth verse of his hymn “And Can It Be”: Long my imprisoned spirit lay, Fast bound in sin and nature’s night; Thine eye diffused a quickening ray; I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

At this point, Peter has an all night prayer meeting to attend (or at least he will make an appearance).

Acts 12:11-18 … 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 sentries and ordered that they should be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent time there.

John Mark is possibly the young guy who ran on the night of Jesus’ arrest (Mark 14:51-52) and got away naked (or nekked for those who were raised in the South). He was the author of the Gospel and (as with John’s Gospel) it seems to be the style for the Author not to use his own name. John Mark was active with Peter, Paul, and Barnabas in missionary outreach efforts. One of the early Church leaders named Papias calls John Mark the interpreter of Peter. His mother was named Mary and that gives us another Mary to keep track of. Generally we look at Rhoda and think she was a little bit dizzy since she got so excited that she ran to report that Peter was at the gate and forgot to let Peter into the prayer meeting. However, they were praying for Peter and when God answered their prayers they told Rhoda that she was crazy and it must just be Peter’s angel. At least Rhoda conceived of answered prayer at the gate (even if she left it at the gate for a time). All those in the prayer meeting for Peter struggled to believe that God answered their prayers. That is more like us when we pray than we would like to admit.

We know that God is sovereign and we can ask, “Why should Christians pray?” After all, if God is omniscient and omnipotent then He knows what He will do. If you are in that frame of mind then you are in serious sin. Your prayers are the instrument of God. He has ordained that you pray and that your prayers are instrumental in bringing His grace and mercy to the world and especially to His Church. Here we see an all night prayer meeting for Peter that resulted in a miraculous deliverance. The prayers of the saints (yes driven by the Holy Spirit) brought more mercy and grace from God. It is sinful to refuse to pray because God can see the future when He has commanded you to pray. He is omniscient but you are not. He is transcendent but you are not. You are living out your one life and He says that your first problem is that you don’t ask and your second problem is that you ask for things that would corrupt you (James 4:2-3).

Prayerlessness is such a dimwitted sin that it is hard to think that rational Christians would find themselves there. I know the feelings that put me there. I hate to quote Garth Brooks but “Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.” We have a Father who has commanded us to pray and has promised not to give us things that will corrupt us or hurt us. We have a list of folks that are unsaved that we have prayed for. God has commanded that we pray that His kingdom would be established and HIs will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. We have many places that we can focus believing prayer in obedience to Scripture and it is to our shame that we hesitate to pray or else pray in unbelief like these brothers and sisters of ours praying for Peter.

Acts - Lesson 18

Last week Cornelius and his relatives and close friends were saved by the power of God after Peter preached. As we discussed last week this was contrary to the way the Church thought it was going to grow. Prior to God’s work with Cornelius’ group, the Church was made up of saved Jews. So it was a very Jewish Christianity and they were having intramural debates with regard to how they were to relate to the law.

Antinomianism is common today but it was not common in the Church when it was made up of saved Jews. However, it was a problem at certain times in the early Church as we see in some of Paul's epistles. The law is made up of moral commands and ritual commands and the challenge is to put down the ritual commands that had been fulfilled in Christ and (in the power of the Holy Spirit) to obey the moral law to please God our Father. This is in response to God rescuing us from the kingdom of darkness and moving us into His kingdom of light. It is not in order to earn the position we hold by grace. This principle was not worked out in the Church at the time we are reading. Peter was heading back to a large group of Christians in Jerusalem that would not understand what had happened.

Acts 11:1-11… Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” But Peter began and explained it to them in order: “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to me. Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I said, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’ This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven. And behold, at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesarea.

Peter must have anticipated that he would have some opposition and would need to explain himself. Notice that God, through inspiration of the Scriptures, is telling you this story again. If God says something once then you are responsible for knowing what it says about God or about you but here God is repeating Himself. This will be the fourth time that we hear about God sending an angel to speak to Cornelius and the third time we will hear that God told Peter not to call someone common or unclean if God has called it clean.

Acts 11:12-18 … And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

The Circumcision Party recognizes this was a move of God. They couldn’t really argue about that because they knew that only God can bring repentance that leads to life. After hearing Peter, they rightly concluded that God was saving Gentiles. As I’ve said, this seems obvious to us who are (at least generally) saved Gentiles but this was a radical move of grace in the first century.

Ephesians 3:1-6 … For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

In Scripture, a mystery is something that was not understood but is now understood. The salvation of the Gentiles was not understood in other generations. This was a shock. Gentiles, who now sometimes say they live in a Christian nation, had no reason to think that they had any part in the grace that was poured out for Israel. Maybe you could hope, as the Gentile lady said to Jesus (Matthew 15:27 or Mark 7:28), to be a dog that gets crumbs from the table of the children but you couldn’t have any reason, before this mystery is revealed, to think you’d actually become a child or enter into the promises.

Ephesians 2:11-13 … Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

You were, 1) separated from Christ – you weren’t part of a people waiting for a promised messiah, 2) not part of Israel – your fathers were not chosen by God, 3) not part of the covenants of promise – you had no part in the promises and covenants that God had made with Israel, and 4) without hope and without God – you were surely dead in your trespasses and sins and waiting for judgment. But the blood of Jesus has brought you to look for a messiah, given you the patriarchs, given you a covenant of grace, and given you hope in God.

Galatians 3:7-8 … Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”

We are in a blessed position not because of our wisdom but rather because of the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. Paul says, “Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in (Romans 11:25).”

Acts 11:19-26 …Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.

As this early persecution drove the Christians out of Jerusalem they did not generally share the Gospel with anyone who was not a Jew. This underlines their very reasonable understanding of the promises and covenants of God with Israel. However, especially after Peter broke the ice, some Christians began to try sharing with Greeks who were not Jews. God blessed here in Antioch as He had earlier with Cornelius. This required a visit by Barnabas who soon recruited Paul to assist in the discipling of the Church in Antioch.

It isn’t clear if the term “Christian” was something the Church in Antioch came up with or if it was a name that they were called. The term is a New Testament term but it only occurs here (Acts 11:26) and in Acts 26:28 and in 1^st Peter 4:16.

We found out about Barnabas in Acts 4. He was a Jew, he was a Levite or from the tribe of the priests, he came from Cyprus so he was likely accustomed to Gentiles, he was generous, and he was such an encourager that the Apostles didn’t call him by his given name (Joseph). Barnabas was glad when he saw was God was doing in Antioch and that says a great deal about Barnabas. He truly was a good man full of the Holy Spirit and faith to respond as he did to Gentiles getting saved who were not even “God Fearers”. Not only that, but as an official representative sent by the Apostles, Barnabas realized that his gifting was not teaching and went and got Paul/Saul and had him minister for a year to build the level of discipleship in the city. Barnabas didn’t leave. Barnabas used his gifts to build the Church and recruited what he needed.

Acts 11:27-30 … Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius). So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

There are a couple of really unique aspects to this action taken by the Christians in Antioch. First of all, this was an outreach activity. We reached out to Gautier Mississippi when they were in need because of hurricane damage. We were not inventing something. It was an action with great precedent. Antioch was inventing, under the leading of the Holy Spirit, an appropriate action for other Christians in need. Secondly, they were demonstrating by their actions that they were Christians first in their minds. They were one race of mankind collecting money for another race of mankind but this wasn’t true in a spiritual sense. Almost immediately, they were Christians and one with the Christians in Jerusalem.

You need to be a Christian first and a citizen of the United States second. In God’s eyes, your identification with your brothers and sisters in Benin is more important that your identification with the political unit that is the United States. I think we all love our country but our first love must be God. 

The Anabaptists of the 1600s refused to acknowledge any allegiance to a political power. They were viewed as treasonous. They are the ancestors, for example, of the Amish. The Anabaptists argued that worldly governments had no authority over them. They wanted to be left alone.

We, as baptists, are not their descendants, we had other ancestors. The mainstream of the Reformation saw value in government. We follow those commands that tell us how to honor government. However, our first citizenship is with the household of God. If we don’t remember that then we’ll raise up a generation that is more prepared to die for their nation than to die for the Gospel.