Deliverance, or Power Encounter
Introduction: Acts 12 presents one of the great power encounters of the New Testament. The power of prayer and the power of God go up against the power of Satan, with the same victorious result as in the case of so many the great power encounters in the Old Testament, like Gideon and the Midianites, Samson and the Philistines, or Elijah and the prophets of Baal.
I suggest to you that victory is also ours today if we will use the same weapons at our disposal to defeat the Enemy of our souls. Please stand, if you are able, for the reading of God’s Word from Acts 12:
About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. 2 He killed James the brother of John with the sword, 3 and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. 4 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. 5 So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.
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 sentries before the door were guarding the prison. 7 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. 8 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.” 9 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. 10 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. 11 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.”
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. 13 And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. 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. 15 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!” 16 But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed. 17 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.
18 Now when day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. 19 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.
20 Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and they came to him with one accord, and having persuaded Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their country depended on the king’s country for food. 21 On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. 22 And the people were shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!” 23 Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.
24 But the word of God increased and multiplied.
25 And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service, bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark.”
Let me set the stage. The time is the spring of A.D. 44, about a decade after the crucifixion of Jesus. The King of Judea is Herod, the third ruler by that name to cross the pages of the New Testament: first Herod the Great, who was king when Jesus was born; then Herod Antipas, who was the ruler when Jesus was crucified; and now we meet Herod Agrippa I, grandson of the first Herod.
Herod’s youth was spent in Rome, where he cultivated a friendship with the man who later became the notorious Emperor Caligula. Caligula favored Herod by granting him rule over numerous territories in Palestine, including Galilee and Perea. Later, Caligula’s successor, Claudius, increased Agrippa’s realm by the addition of Judea in A.D. 41. Herod was politically astute, adopting policies agreeable to the Jewish people, and they responded by according him widespread popularity.
I have divided our text today into three main parts: the Power of Satan, the Power of Prayer, and the Power of God.
The power of Satan (1‑4)
As you can tell from reading these first four verses, Satan is not even mentioned, but his fingerprints are all over the place. And should we be surprised? Whenever the Church grows in numbers and impact, you can be sure Satan will marshal his forces for an attack. And the Church is being eminently successful here in the early chapters of Acts. Not only has a solid portion of the population of Jerusalem turned to Christ (probably 10-20% of the population), but the Gospel is also spreading to the Jewish quarters of foreign cities as well. Even more troubling to Satan is the fact that his principal domain, the pagan Gentile world, is now being invaded by the Gospel for the first time in Antioch. Something must be done to stop this hemorrhage in Satan’s kingdom.
His counterattack comes in the form of the arrest and persecution by Herod of some of the members of the church and the murder of the Apostle James, all to please the Jews and to keep them loyal to Herod. James and his brother John were the sons of Zebedee and members of the original Twelve disciples. You will recall perhaps that they once asked Jesus for the privilege of sitting with Him in glory, one on his right hand and the other on His left. Jesus asked them if they were able to drink the cup He would drink from or be baptized with the baptism with which He was to be baptized.
When James and John responded that they were able, Jesus confirmed that they would indeed drink the same cup and be baptized with the same baptism, but the privilege of sitting on His right and left was not His to give. Of course, they did not understand that the “cup” and the “baptism” Jesus predicted for them was actually martyrdom. And here in Acts 12 that prediction is fulfilled in respect to James, as he becomes the first of the Twelve to suffer death for his faith. He would not be the last, as perhaps as many as eleven of the Twelve were martyred. And though his brother John did not suffer actual martyrdom, he was severely persecuted for his faith and died in exile on the Isle of Patmos.
When Herod saw the political milage he got with the Jews for executing James, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. Peter was a natural target in that he was the recognized leader of the Apostles, and in addition, had taken the initiative in preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles. Herod’s intention, no doubt, was to murder him as well, after a sham trial, but it happened to be a religious holiday, and just as in the case of our Lord’s crucifixion, the Jewish leaders were hesitant to commit murder on a religious holiday.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread was a week-long feast that occurred just before Passover, so there was possibly a period of as long as ten days when Peter languished in prison, awaiting an almost certain execution. “Languished” is not really an accurate term, however, for it signifies a state of weakness, depression, grief and worry. The fact of the matter is we find Peter sleeping like a baby.[i] Later Peter would write in his first epistle, “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you!” He practiced what he preached.
Satan is called the Prince of the Power of the Air, which means that God has delegated to him a certain amount of authority over the Cosmos. However, while he is powerful, he is not omnipotent; while he influences human governments, he does not control them; while he oppresses the Church and tyrannizes believers, he cannot move against them without God’s express permission; and while he is to be feared, he need not be dreaded, for there is a power greater than his.
I believe Satan himself realizes his limitations, and one of the ways we see this is in verse 4, where we read that Peter is delivered over to four squads of soldiers to guard him. Later we will learn that he was actually bound with chains to two of these guards, others stood at the door of his cell, and still more at the door of the prison. If Satan were all‑powerful, such precautions would be unnecessary. But Peter has already escaped from prison once (chapter 5) and Satan and his servant, Herod, are going to unusual lengths to prevent it from happening again.
The power of Satan is great, but there is a power that is greater than his, the power of prayer, to which we now turn our attention in verse 5.
The power of prayer (5)
We read in verse 5, “So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.” Prayer is one of the most difficult disciplines of the Christian life. It is spiritual warfare, and we get weary so quickly. I suspect all of us are at times like the disciples who fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane when they were supposed to be praying. But God commands us to pray and the Scriptures indicate in numerous places that it does make a difference. James 5:16 says that “the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” And here in Acts 12:5 truly effectual fervent prayer is being offered to God by His church. I suspect they had been having a round-the-clock prayer meeting for ten days! And the results are amazing!
We will return to this matter of prayer in a few moments, but right now I want us to notice that the power of prayer releases the power of God.
The power of God (6‑24)
In our text we actually see at least three different manifestations of the power of God.
The power of God’s deliverance (6‑19). Verse 6 tells us that on the very night his execution was scheduled Peter was sleeping, and an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in his cell. He was sleeping so soundly that the angel had to strike him to wake him up, and the chains fell off his hands. Peter thought he was seeing a vision as the angel ordered him to put on his sandals, wrap his cloak around him, and follow. Walking past the three sets of guards, apparently because they were sleeping (or because God made Peter invisible to them), they came to the huge main gate of the prison, which opened by itself. As soon as Peter was outside and down the street, the angel left him. Peter soon came to the realization that this was no vision, but rather that God had rescued him from the hand of Herod.
Now one would think that Peter’s first thought would be for safety, but before he could flee, he must go and inform the church of what has taken place. So, he goes immediately to the house of Mary, where many of the Christians were gathered for prayer. This Mary, the mother of John Mark, who will figure rather prominently in coming chapters, was probably a rather wealthy woman, as can be seen by the fact that her house was large enough for the church to meet there, and she had at least one servant. Some believe the Upper Room where the Last Supper was held was in her home; certainly, her house was the nerve center for the church in Jerusalem.
At any rate, as Peter stands knocking at the outside gate we find unfolding before our eyes a scene that is at the same time humorous, sad, and encouraging, and the scene brings us back to the power of Prayer. When Peter knocks on the outer gate a servant girl named Rhoda responds, and hearing Peter’s voice, she becomes so excited that rather than open the gate she rushes back into the house to tell the pray‑ers that Peter was standing out front. It’s humorous to see her torn between wanting to rush to the gate and wanting to be the one to announce the good news.
But there’s something sad also about this encounter. Rather than accept the fact that God has answered their prayers, the Christians gathered in Mary’s house prefer to believe that Rhoda has gone bonkers from the pressure. But she is so persistent that they decide on a second option—maybe Peter’s angel is here. The early Christians had a universal belief in guardian angels, and some taught that upon the death of a believer, his angel assumed his form. The appearance of Peter’s angel at the gate, then, seems to have signified to them that Peter was already dead.
These responses, then, beg the question, “If they are praying fervently for ten days, why weren’t they prepared for the answer God gives them?” Well, maybe they were praying for the wrong thing. Maybe they weren’t praying for his release at all! We are told only that prayer was made “for him.” Maybe they were just praying that God would strengthen him in the hour of trial. More likely they were praying for his release but didn’t really believe it would happen! That is, they were praying for his release but without faith!
I want us to take a few minutes to explore some of the things that can go wrong with our prayer lives. First, like these early Christians, we sometimes fail to pray in faith. We mouth the words as to what we want, but we don’t really believe it will happen. I think that’s an affront to God.
Second, sometimes we fail to pray boldly because we don’t want to be embarrassed by an answer which is less than we asked. We feel we must protect God’s reputation by not getting out on a limb with requests that are too big!
Third, on the other hand, there may be some brothers and sisters who pray too boldly. They are always naming it and claiming it. They say, “God did miracles in the NT and he’s the same God today, so He will do the same thing today if we just have enough faith.” Let’s think about that a minute. Do you realize that miracles were not even that common in biblical times? There are few, if any, miracle stories (i.e., first-class miracles, miracles that contravene the laws of nature) in the time of the great patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph—or during King David’s or King Solomon’s day. In the whole of Scripture there were only three primary periods of miracles—at the time of Moses and Joshua, the time of the major prophets, and the time of Jesus and the Apostles.
Why only these three periods? Because that was when God was delivering His revelation, which we have in the Scripture. God used miracles to validate His messengers. Now, of course, He can do miracles anytime He wants, but we should probably not expect miracles at the same level as when God was revealing His Word. By the way, do you realize that even at the height of NT times, God didn’t routinely step in with a miracle. Early in this very chapter James was arrested and put to death. Don’t you think the church prayed for him, too? Of course, they did. But God chose not to rescue him, but He did rescue Peter. And that raises a fourth issue:
Fourth, we sometimes fail to consider God’s will. We are urged in Scripture not only to pray in faith but to pray according to God’s will. In order to do that we have to take into consideration as best we can what will bring God the greatest glory. “Not my will, but thine be done,” should be attached to every prayer, not necessarily verbally but in our hearts. I often pray, “Father, I have no right to demand anything from you, but I am your child, and as your child you have urged me to express my desires to you. This is what I want, and if it will bring glory to you and good to me, then please grant my request.”
Now the story of the power of God in delivering Peter has two postscripts. In verse 17 we learn that when Peter was finally admitted to the house, he described what God had done for him and asked them to report it to James, the Lord’s brother, who became the recognized head of the church at Jerusalem as Peter went into hiding. We aren’t told where he went, and we see him only once more in the book of Acts—at the first Church Council in chapter 15. He didn’t retire, of course, as he wrote 1 and 2 Peter and continued to preach to the Gentiles. (BTW, perhaps the reason he apparently failed to inform the Church where he was going is that to do so would have endangered not only his safety but theirs in case Agrippa instituted interrogation of church members.)
The second postscript concerns the situation at the prison when day broke and it was discovered that Peter was missing. The mention of “no small disturbance among the soldiers” is an understatement. These soldiers well knew the penalty for letting a prisoner escape, and I imagine they were busy thinking up alibis or leveling accusations against one another. All to no avail, however, for when Peter is not found Herod orders the execution of all the soldiers and then returns to Caesarea. The impression one gets is that he has had enough of these Christians—it’s time for a retreat.
God’s power in deliverance, however, is not the only kind of power He demonstrates in this chapter.
The power of God’s wrath (20‑23). In verses 20‑23 we find the account of Herod’s sudden death, which occurred in about A.D. 44. I believe this is recorded here for us because it is directlyrelated to the execution of James and the attempted execution of Peter. The point is that God will not stand idly by while His enemies persecute His children. He will act, and He will act with power.
The text tells us that Herod, for some reason not divulged, was very angry with the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon, just up the coast from Caesarea. Those cities imported most of their food from Herod’s territory and so deemed it wise to regain his favor as soon as possible. They approached his chamberlain Blastus and gained an opportunity to present themselves before the king and make their peace with him publicly. It was the emperor’s birthday party. We are indebted to the Jewish historian, Josephus, for a parallel account that provides more detail than is given by Luke:
“Agrippa (i.e., Herod) put on a robe made of silver throughout, of altogether wonderful weaving, and entered the theatre at break of day. Then the silver shone and glittered wonderfully as the sun’s first rays fell on it, and its resplendence inspired a sort of fear and trembling in those who gazed on it. Immediately his flatterers called out from various directions, using language which boded him no good, for they addressed him as a god, and invoked him with the cry, ‘Be gracious unto us! Hitherto we have reverenced thee as a man, but henceforth we acknowledge thee to be of more than mortal nature.’ He did not rebuke them, nor did he repudiate their impious flattery. But soon afterwards he looked up and saw an owl sitting on a rope above his head, and immediately recognized it as a messenger of evil; and a pang of grief pierced his heart. At the same time he was seized by a severe pain in his belly, which began with a most violent attack …. He was carried quickly into the palace … and when he had suffered continuously for five days from the pain in his belly, he died, in the fifty‑fourth year of his age and the seventh of his reign.”[ii]
Josephus doesn’t make the specific claim that Herod’s death is divine retribution, but Acts 12 does.
God’s wrath is a subject neither the world nor the church takes very seriously today, as evidenced by the fact we do not talk about it much. One cannot imagine that talk of divine judgment was eververy popular, yet the biblical writers engage in it constantly. A study of the concordance will show that there are at least as many references in Scripture to the anger, fury, and wrath of God, as there are to His love and tenderness.
The Bible makes it clear that just as God is good to those who trust Him, so He is terrible to those who do not. Take just one passage from the minor prophet, Nahum (1:2‑8):
2 The Lord is a jealous and avenging God;
the Lord is avenging and wrathful;
the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries
and keeps wrath for his enemies.
3 The Lord is slow to anger and great in power,
and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.
His way is in whirlwind and storm,
and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry;
he dries up all the rivers;
Bashan and Carmel wither;
the bloom of Lebanon withers.
5 The mountains quake before him;
the hills melt;
the earth heaves before him,
the world and all who dwell in it.
6 Who can stand before his indignation?
Who can endure the heat of his anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.
7 The Lord is good,
a stronghold in the day of trouble;
he knows those who take refuge in him.
8 But with an overflowing flood
he will make a complete end of the adversaries,
and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
And lest you think that this is simply an OT emphasis, we can refer to a passage like 2 Thes 1:6-10:
“God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, 10 when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints.”
J. I Packer suggests that one of the reasons we soft‑pedal the wrath of God is that for some reason we consider it unworthy of God. “Wrath” suggests a loss of control, an irrational bad temper. But God’s wrath in the Bible is never the capricious, self‑indulgent, irritable, morally ignoble thing that human anger so often is. It is, instead, a right and necessary reaction to moral evil. God is only angry when anger is called for. God’s wrath is always righteous, always judicial, always proportional to the evil done.[iii]
We must also realize that God’s wrath in the Bible is something men choose for themselves. John writes in the third chapter of his Gospel, “He who does not believe in Jesus is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Nobody stands under the wrath of God except those who have chosen to do so. And Herod Agrippa chose God’s wrath.
It would not be right to expound on the wrath of God without a word about how one is delivered from that wrath. In Romans 5:9 the Apostle Paul proclaims, “Being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from God’s wrath through him.” Jesus is the propitiation for our sins, according to I John 2:2. A propitiation is a sacrifice that averts wrath by satisfying the one who is angry. Jesus Christ has satisfied God’s wrath toward you in that He has already paid for your sin. But if you say “no” to Him, that you don’t need His help, then there is no hope whatever for you to survive on the day of wrath and judgment.
So far, we have seen the power of God’s deliverance and the power of His wrath. Thirdly and finally, we are informed of the power of His Word.
The power of God’s Word (24). Verse 24 says, “But the word of God increased and multiplied.” Herod was eaten of worms and died, but the Word of the Lord prospered. One of the strongest arguments for the divine character of the Bible is the fact that it has survived every effort to eliminate it. The Bible has withstood vicious attacks of its enemies as no other book. Many have tried to burn it, ban it, and outlaw it from the days of Roman emperors to present‑day Muslim caliphates.
In A.D. 303 the Roman Emperor Diocletian issued an edict to destroy Christians and their sacred book, but just 25 years later the Emperor who followed him, Constantine, commissioned Eusebius to publish the Scriptures at government expense. Voltaire, the noted 18th century French infidel, said that in one hundred years Christianity would be swept from existence and passed into history. But only fifty years after his death the Geneva Bible Society used his press and house to produce stacks of Bibles.
The Diocletians and the Voltaires and the Islamists of our day could have saved themselves lots of effort if they had just read 1 Peter 1:24: “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord abides forever.”
Conclusion: We began this morning by noting that a power encounter was taking place in Acts 12. The power of Satan was going up against the power of prayer and the power of God, and Satan’s power proved to be no match. The death of one Apostle and the imprisonment of another cannot halt the triumphant march of the Church. As Jesus Himself said, “I will build my Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against her.” But Satan has not quit trying, nor will he until he has suffered his final defeat and is thrown into the lake of fire prepared for him and his demons. In the meantime, he is alive and well on planet earth, and when we begin to experience victory, he is not going to stand idly by and shake his head in despair. He’s going to fight.
The resultant battle can get fierce, but we still have at our disposal the power of prayer and the Word of God. Satan cannot defeat a praying church or one where the Word of God is preached and believed and lived.
Tags:
Satan
Prayer
Miracles
God’s wrath
[i] John did not fear for his life, perhaps because Christ had predicted he would live to an old age (John 21:18). I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if it crossed his mind that old age is a relative term.
[ii] Josephus, Antiquities xix.8.2, cited by F. F. Bruce, The Book of Acts, 255.
[iii] J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 150.