10-5-25 Study of Acts Chapter 12:1-25 The Foolishness of Fighting God

➡ This Bible study focuses on the book of Acts and Ephesians, exploring the history of the church and how it was established. It emphasizes the importance of understanding God’s laws and applying them to our lives, highlighting the foolishness of fighting against God. The study also discusses the influence of biblical laws on the formation of the United States government and the importance of understanding these laws and their history. Lastly, it stresses the need for seeking wisdom and understanding through God’s counsel.
➡ This text discusses the historical and ongoing struggle between human power and God’s authority. It emphasizes that throughout history, many powerful figures, including kings and military leaders, have tried to challenge God and have always failed. The text suggests that this pattern continues today, with powerful individuals and governments still attempting to fight against God’s authority, but ultimately destined to fail. The text underscores the futility of trying to fight against God, regardless of one’s power or influence.
➡ The text discusses the history of the Herods, a family of kings who defied God, and their impact on the New Testament. It highlights Herod the Great, who tried to kill all firstborn sons to protect his throne, and his descendants who continued to rule. The text also emphasizes the importance of humility and selflessness in achieving salvation, using Herod as an example of self-centeredness. Lastly, it mentions the spread of the Gospel and the role of persecution in this spread, with Herod’s persecution inadvertently leading to the global expansion of Christianity.
➡ James, a close follower of Jesus, was killed by Herod for political reasons, as Herod wanted to gain favor with the Jews who were against Christians. Herod then planned to kill Peter, another follower of Jesus, to further please the Jews. However, Peter was known for his boldness in spreading the Christian message, even when faced with imprisonment. Despite the persecution, both James and Peter remained dedicated to their faith, fulfilling a prophecy of suffering for their beliefs.
➡ After Jesus’ resurrection, Peter became a strong leader in the church. Herod, hoping to weaken the church, imprisoned Peter, planning to publicly judge him like Jesus. Despite Herod’s efforts, Peter’s followers prayed intensely for his release. The story emphasizes that God’s power cannot be contested, even by those who seem powerful, like Herod.
➡ Peter was imprisoned and set to be executed the next morning. Despite being chained between two soldiers, he was able to sleep soundly because he knew from a previous prophecy that he wouldn’t die until he was old. An angel came, woke him up, and his chains fell off. Despite the guards, Peter was able to escape because he trusted in God’s past actions and future promises.
➡ Peter, in a daze, is led out of prison by an angel, passing guards and through an iron gate that opens on its own. He walks a block away before the angel leaves him. Realizing this isn’t a dream, Peter decides to go to his friends’ house, where they’ve been praying for him, to show them that God is still in control and answers prayers. He arrives at the house of Mary, mother of John Mark, and knocks on the door, waiting to be let in.
➡ The story is about a woman who recognizes Peter’s voice at the gate during a prayer meeting. She’s so excited that she forgets to let him in and instead tells everyone inside that Peter is at the gate. The people inside don’t believe her at first, thinking it might be an angel, but they’re astonished when they open the door and see Peter. The story emphasizes the importance of faith, the power of prayer, and the joy of answered prayers.

Well, welcome. This is our Sunday morning Bible study. We’re in the book of Acts and we’re trudging our way through it. But we’re doing it in, in a fashion that you can actually understand the history of the church, history of, of the collective body of the church and the, the way the church was actually formed and established and the, the nature by which the apostles provided, you know, the, the ability to, to fulfill the great commission that Christ set out for them to do about taking the, the Gospel throughout all nations. Now we’re doing this for those of you who are going to listen to this study.

We’re doing this in conjunction with Ephesians on a Thursday night basis. And Ephesians is looking at the process of you being individually and how you apply the application of God’s regulatory system to your individual lives in the church is what took place in order for that to happen on a worldwide basis. Okay. The collective whole. So we’re going to look at this particular piece of subject today deals with. I changed the word on this from what I first wanted to name it of my first wording was the stupidness of fighting with God. I made it the foolishness of fighting with God instead.

It was a little bit softer instead of being harsh. But. So we’re into the 12th chapter of acts. Okay. We’ve now sort of turned the corner of looking at the history side of how the church got started and the transition from Judaism or Jews and faith based acceptance of Christ into the Gentiles with. We looked at Cornelius, we looked at Cornelius in a lot of ways as applies to you. And the fact that basically what went on in Cornelius’s life that we’ve identified is exactly what the salvation process that you have to go through as well.

Okay. There is a calling by God himself in form of Jesus Christ. So you are called to be said to go, to be saved. You have to have a response to that and you have to receive from somebody a message of what all that means. So there has to be a messenger that is programmed to be sent to you in regards to you hearing the word of God. And it’s in the hearing that you’re actually saying you can’t do it yourself. All these religions that portray the fact that you can actually begin to deal with this yourself are absolutely false.

And there’s only one true doctrine, theology of Christianity and it’s not a religion based doctrine. Okay. So we, we’re still hounding on that because we need to understand that our current religion is not based 100% on scripture. It is based upon the creation of man, and it is based upon the fact that they have a doctrine that they started the church with that actually came from the Roman Catholic Church doctrine through, through the Reformation. And all throughout history we’ve learned that basically the letters in Revelation are basic, are basically the. The time frame in history of the age of the Church as it migrated throughout history.

And we happen to be in the last days of the Church of Laodicea. So foreign. We’re going to come to chapter 12. And like so many chapters in the Scripture and so many verses for us to teach, there is always a dilemma of how do you approach the passage? And that is the dilemma here that I went through to figure out how I wanted to do this or how I was being led by God to do this. That’s the reason why the changing of the words from a harsh word of stupidness to a more, you know, casual word, if you call it, or a soft word called foolishness.

So as I sat down and I thought about this and how I could teach this in my prayer from this passage, it. It what was really just emphasized in prayer throughout this passage because prayer is such an important feature. So I’m going to talk on persecution, because persecution is what this chapter is all about and how the early Church responded again to another persecution. Really that this is about the fifth persecution of the early Church. And we get that in chapter 12. Now we could talk, we could talk about this in, in many, many ways. We can continue to talk about this for weeks.

But really what we’re going to talk about is the power of God and how God operates in the lives of men. But I wasn’t really satisfied with all of those things. So I went back to the Holy Spirit of God and I says, lead me through this. So I believe in my heart that he’s leading me in the things that I have finally come around for us to talk about this morning. The greatest lesson of this chapter keeps hitting. It kept hitting me over and over and over again throughout the week. And I read, as I read it over and over again was, was basically what I wanted to call it, the stupidity of fighting with God.

And basically it’s. We’re going to call it the foolishness. God has made a universe that reflects his nature and is built on his law. And a man is a fool to live against the grain of that nature and that law. Now there was in the process of learning our history, which we did not. We did not learn. And I hope you guys have completely realized that after this week, we did not learn our history at all. And while I have moved you through history in a lot of foundational points getting you to this end type of learning experience, the, the gentleman is that we call the barrister actually has begun to lay out how much details that you have to understand over hundreds of years of history to understand exactly how this government that was set in place by the, by the empire of the UK, formulated from the Roman Empire, that’s 2,000 years, guys, is how this complete government of the United States has been set up.

Well, that is predicated on the fact that we in this country formulated our ability to operate based upon the Bible. And that is going to come out more and more and more to you. And you’re not going to understand then the true history of this government if you don’t understand biblical history. That’s the point that I’m trying to get to. Our history in this country is based upon documents of words. And if you don’t study the words with their correct definition, you’re not going to understand the laws that establish this country. And if you don’t understand the lies that establish this country because you don’t have the ability to understand the history from the Bible.

Okay, so for a man to live in war against the Creator is basically foolish. For a man to live in violation of the laws of a universe infinitely more vast than the man just doesn’t make any sense at all. And yet most men live their whole life long fighting God and God’s laws, God’s plans as Ephesians 1, 2 and 3. And it doesn’t make any sense at all for that to happen. Why? Because your whole history around you is all biblical history. You’ve learned that this way. We’ve said all along that the change in this world is going to be biblical.

Why? Because everything in this world legally is based upon the laws of God. I don’t care how you read temporary law, how you read common law, how you read maritime law. What you’re going to get to is the root of those laws is biblical laws. So it doesn’t make any sense for us to not want to live by the standards by which God has set. For centuries, men have clenched their fists and gritted their teeth in the face of God and they still do it today. They pit their own will against the will of God. You know why? Because a lot of it is not knowing the truth.

And when you know the truth, why do you even want to do it? Oh, but then you got to overcome yourself because you been programmed in order for you not being to be in control of yourself and in regards to that, you can’t change. That’s the battle that we face now. Solomon stated how feudal it was in Proverbs 21:30. These are the words that he said. There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord. I want you to get that. You will not understand. You will not have any wisdom about what you understand if you don’t seek the counsel of the Lord to give you that understanding that associates with your the wisdom by which you’re going to live your life in accordance to the laws of this world founded from the Bible.

And what he meant by that was anybody who goes against God is a fool. There’s no wisdom in that that shows you don’t understand. And there’s no wise counsel in that at all. Nothing can stand against God. And yet man foolishly slam their own wills against the will of God like shattering eggs against the granite. And all you have is the strong refuge of lives broken against a God that cannot be violated. We learned this week just how important it is to understand the words associated with our laws. Because that is the reason why the military has been in charge of this country from day one.

And Congress is not in charge, has never been in charge. The allegiance to the military was the British Crown. The British Crown came from the Roman Empire. So from history, from the time of Christ walking this earth and began to change the landscape. People understanding the gospel, removing the pagan gods from government and replacing government by God’s government and taking the the gods as we’re learning in the return of the gods and put them in hell that we’ve unleashed is, is because of the fact that our military fell under the rule of the paganistic government of the Roman Empire vis a vis the United Kingdom.

And this country has never been separated at all from that process. Men have always tried to fight God. That isn’t anything new. It’s just common to our age, although it is common to or the church age that we live in, Laodicea, for example. You can go back to the very beginning and you’ll find out that God had a standard. Oh wow. We’ve talked about that standard all the way back to Eve decided to fight it and Adam decided to join the fight. And all of us are cursed because of that. Well, we absolutely know why that had to happen.

Adam was the incarnate incarnation of God as the first Adam and Christ was incarnation of God as the second Adam. Why? Because they had to build the system to allow us to Go home. Okay. And it’s that standard for sacrifice that existed. Abel obeyed it, Cain fought it and wound up cursed. God had a standard for morality. Noah kept it, the rest of the world fought it and and was drowned. God had a standard for separation from the world and sexual purity. Abraham kept it, Lot fought it, lost his wife and his seed was cursed. God had a standard for spiritual priority.

Jacob bought it, Esau fought it and lost the blessing. That is history, that history exists today. You could go all the way from that ancient time, all the way through scripture, even into the church in the New Testament, follow it right on out into today’s history, and you’re going to find the same thing. You can’t fight God. It does not work. You can’t find one man in history in the revelation of God that ever fought against God and won. It’s the most dumbest thing that you could ever think about. That’s only in Genesis. That shows us the hopeless stupidity of fighting with God.

You can go from there into Exodus. You’ll find another that tried to fight God. He’s the first of the long time, a certain type of people who tried Pharaoh, the first of many kings who tried to fight God. And I think the scripture over and over and over and over again talks about kings and rulers fighting against God. Remember, the old, Old Testament is about war. It’s about war to protect a bloodline. It’s about war to take kings and put them with God. And God comes in and just destroys them. What’s going on today? Finally we’re getting the truth.

And the reason for that is this. The most powerful of men are unable to fight God and win. It’s one thing when a man like myself or one of us who, who fights God, but when a monarchy of the world fights God, that means he. He’s amassing all of the human power against God, and yet he is defeated as well. That is government. We have put all of our human power inside a pagan garamite. And that government, as you can see by the Democrats and you’re seeing on the streets of London and in Paris and throughout the whole world, watch Putin.

You are seeing the fact that the monarchs are amassing all of the human power against God and the people, and they’re going to get defeated. And so God has a long history in the Old Testament of all the kings who tried to fight him and what happened to them. And the whole Old Testament is strong with wreckage of kings who tried to fight God. Well, what happened in the New Testament? The same thing when the apostles went into a territory and preached the gospel of faith based salvation and the people changed. So did their government. Their government lost.

Pharaoh tried to fight God. You remember that story? It cost him what? His honor, his people, his slaves, his army, his son and even his own life. King aid the the Canaanite fought God and God destroyed the people and destroyed the armies. Cheon, king of the Amorites, Og of Bashan all tried to fight God. There were everyone slaughtered and their land possessed by Israel. Bayla, king of Moab tried to fight God, plotted against God and lost the Midianites for God. God slew all of the Midianites males and took the 5m Midian kings and slew them. The king of AI fought God and was hanged.

All of the kings in Joshua n fought God. They plotted all kinds of clever little devices against God. And all five of them were taken and hanged on five trees in a row. The northern kings of Palestine fought God. Joshua hamstrung all of their horses and burned all of their chariots and slaughtered them all with a sword. The Bible tells us In Joshua chapter 12 there were 31 kings who tried to fight God that were slain by Moses and Joshua alone. The greatest men on earth, the monarchs of the world who could amass armies of the world, try to fight God and they couldn’t do it and came out on top.

You go through the book of Judges, you find that there’s people tried to fight God. Go into 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles and you’ll find king after king after king who tried to fight God and it ends in disaster. In fact, if you go and study the Northern Kingdom, even today, guys, every king of the Northern kingdom after it split, everyone without an exception tried to fight God. What do you think Bibi’s doing? You start with Jorabun and you go right down Zimri Omri, right down through the whole line ends up in.

In every one of them tie tried to fight God and every one of them ended in disaster. The sad tragic story of Jeroboam in 1st Kings 14 and what happened to him. The promise that because he tried to fight God, not only would he die, but he stepped his foot in the threshold and the minute his foot hit the threshold, his son would die on the spot. And that’s exactly what happened. You can’t fight God. It doesn’t matter how powerful you think you are. In second Kings there’s the most important text to relate to this. In 2nd Kings 19 I’m just going to read it to you here.

You don’t, you don’t need to turn to it. I’m just going to read it. 2nd Kings 19:35. It came to pass that. Right. That, that. That that night that the angel of the Lord went out and smoked in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred four score and five thousand. That’s 185,000 slaughtered in a single night by what? One angel? And when they arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. So the king of Assyria departed and went and returned and dwelt in Nineveh. And it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the house of Nishrash, his God, that the king and his sons were smoked with the sword.

All of the 185000 of his people died. And he himself died. Why? Well, you go back to verse 22 of Second Kings. It’s a very important statement. Whom hast thou reproached in blasphemy? And against whom hast thou exalted thy voice and lifted up thine eyes on hot even against the holy God of Israel. The Assyrian king fought God and lost. It can’t be done. Ahab tried to fight God, remember him? The dogs licked up his blood. You cannot fight God. In the southern kingdom as well as the northern kingdom, most of the kings fought God Railga, Jehoram, Asherah, at Hola, right on down.

And finally the tragic last one was Zedekiah. You got to remember, if you don’t remember the story, you need to read it. Of how his eyes were burned out and he was chained and taken off the Babylon. You cannot fight God. The greatest in the world have tried. They’re trying today. There have been Napoleon’s, there was Hitler, there was Stalin, there was Genghis Khan and everybody else along our history. That’s why I said you can take the Old Testament, walk right through the New Testament, bring it into history today, and you’re going to find the same thing.

These people have amassed the fortunes and the armies of the world and they cannot fight God and win. They never have been able to do it. That’s the reason why you’ve had war after war after war. The same war that existed at the war from Genesis 1. And what makes a man think just a little insignificant, puny man on the face of the globe, that he is going to stand in defiance of God. That is the most foolish thing a man could ever conceive of. Self assessment. Guys, you now are learning some important concepts of your history.

That you now should identify with in self assessing yourself with the knowledge and wisdom of who you really are. You who can’t even figure out the simplest facts of human existence are going to continue to fight God who are authored the universe. It makes no sense guys. Today it makes no sense. You should turn completely away from this world as of today and know that the only way that you’re going to survive is get on God’s side. And since scripture has been complete, men have continued to do it. You’re going to do it anyway. But you know what? They all are dead.

They’re withered, they’re gone, they’re decayed. And you know he’s still alive. God. One of the most famous families of all kings that ever fought God were the Herods. And that we come to the 12th chapter of Acts and we are introduced to the main character Harry. Now about the time Herod the king stretched forth his hand to vex certain of the church. That is about the time of the famine predicted by Agabus the prophet in verse 27 to 30 of the chapter just proceeding in chapter 11. Remember, the church in Antioch had sent an offering down to Jerusalem because the famine was going to hit during the time of Claudius Caesar.

And about the time the famine was coming, Herod stretched forth his his hands to Vex. That means to injure certain of the church. He decided to persecute the church. Now who’s Harry? Well, the first of the Herods. Okay, it’s like a group of kings, like pharaohs. The first of Herods was Herod the Great. And we see modest, modest ran in their family. Herod the Great was the first one who ruled about 41 B.C. to about the time of the birth of Christ. Remember Herod the Great was the one who wanted all the firstborn sons killed. And he’s the one who put out the decree that all of the male children be slaughtered to try to get rid of this would be king who would be a threat to his throne.

Now Aaron the great was married 10 times and he had a lot of children. And his children in and out of the New Testament scriptures dominate the scene. Harriet Agrippa the first. That’s the Herod here in chapter 12. Herod Agrippa II, Philip the Tetrarch Philip there’s several characteristics who came out of the Herodian family who dominate realership in the history of the New Testament in the early years important. Now Harry the Great was a Jew and he had all of the Jewish tradition and background. He knew the scripture. He knew the prophecies. Oh, so does all of the pagan world better than you did.

Why? Because they’re Satan control. And of course his children were Jews. In fact, the female side of the family came from the Maccabees. You may not know much about the Maccabees because they’re not in the scripture, but they appeared really during about the 400 years between the Old Testament and the New Testament, between Malachi and Matthew. The Maccabees are what fought the Khazarians history. And they were a great family of patriots. They fought on the side of Christ against Greek rule in Israel. When Anticus Epines, who was a ruler of the Greeks in Israel and he was a great one, he called himself Anticus the Great One and people called him Anticus the Famines, which meant madman in Greek because he was so bizarre.

And he went into the temple one day and stuck pork down the throats of the priest and sacrificed a pig on the altar. And he did terrible things like that that irritated the Jews, to put it very mildly. And the Maccabees came out of the hills against him and they led great revolution revolutions during those 400 years. You’ll see in the Apocrypha sometime in the Catholic Bible as well. And you’ll notice there are three books of the Maccabees that tell about their history. But anyway, so it was a great Jewish family. Well, Herod came out of that kind of stuff.

He had been well educated in Rome and he had been bought off by Roman Empire. He was a Jew only for the sake of expediency, though he was anything only for the sake of experience. The come to really think about his whole life. He was so self directed and self styled and self motivated that all he ever cared about was self prosperity, self assessment. He had no concept of justice or law or what was morally right. He only did what was expedient to get himself what promoted. And it’s an interesting thing that as he begins his persecution, he doesn’t really care about the Christians, he only cares about winning the favor of the Jews because he knows a lot of people have had a lot of trouble trying to rule in Israel for the Romans it’s a really tough thing for him.

And if he can keep the turmoil down and the revolt down, then he’s on his way up the ladder in the Roman society politics. And he sees this as a stepping stone. And so he wants to gain the favor of the Jews. So he begins a persecution of the church. He’s a despicable character. We see him beginning something in the beginning of chapter 12. We see him ending everything at the end of that chapter and we’ll get to that in just a few minutes. But he is the picture that I want you to get of the fool and fights God.

Why? Because he’s you. You want everything for yourself. What do we learn in Ephesians verse 9? Salvation doesn’t happen unless you’re humble. And humble means that you what you seek out the out the best outcome for others and not yourself. If you never get anything else out of what we’re talking about this morning, I want you to remember Herod. I think you will be able to do that when we’re all done with this. Why? Because it is a picture image of the human life on this earth. Non say, and now we come to chapter 12 and we got to notice that this is the last part of the first section of the book of Acts, right? Eleven chapters 12 is a transition and 13 is Paul in the church.

One man dominates the 12 chapters of Acts, Peter. This is the last chapter of Peter’s ministry. By the way, we say goodbye to Peter at the end of this chapter. He only has a brief appearance appearance in the 15th chapter and. And he has to get out of town after the 12th. We don’t know exactly where he went and I don’t know what he did when he got there, wherever he went, but he ended up dying for the Lord upside down. So he must have been stirring up stuff everywhere he went, just like he did in Jerusalem.

But Peter fades out. And we start with verse 25 of chapter 12 on the ministry of Paul. And from now on through chapter 28 of Acts Word where Paul dominates the picture. Now to come to this, we also have another thing that we need to understand. The Gospel has spread to Jerusalem, right? Where did it go from there? Judea, Samaria. Where was it supposed to go next? The other most part of the earth. And that’s going to start in chapter 13. The groundwork has been laid with the salvation of Cornelius. Why? Because that was the Gentile that began, that brought the Gentiles into the Church.

We understood how the Gentiles were going to come into the church. And it was at Antioch that the first church, first Gentile church was started. Now they’re ready for a full scale worldwide explosion. Jews, Gentiles, Jerusalem, Samarias, you know, Judea, around the world. This is now ready to explode. And what is it that God used before to scatter the church in missions, persecution? You know, you’re over the Target of your calling of God if you’re being persecuted, if you’re not being persecuted, you need to do a self assessment as the reason why. Because Scripture says and you will be persecuted always.

That’s exactly what he uses. This time, the persecuted church moves out. And so Herod starts a persecution which he thinks is a real great idea to get rid of Christians. But all it does as a result is the evangelism of Christianity throughout the world. But that’s always how God works. We’ve learned that in all of our studies. Now as we come to verse one, we find Herod beginning his plot. From here on, as we get to chapter 13, it’s Paul and the world. Now let’s consider the second, third and fourth verses as a setting for what we’re going to see here.

Verse 2, he starts to vex the church. The first thing he does, he kills James, the brother of John, with a sword. And you can imagine what a sad experience that was for that early church, James. And believe me, Jesus loved him dearly. One of the inner three was James, John and Peter. They killed him with the sword. He was the son of Zebedee, the brother of John the apostle. And the sword is interesting because you see, to kill somebody with a sword, according to the Talmud, people died of the sword. When they had led people away after false guns, they had accused James.

Then perhaps they provided false evidence against James of leading the people after false gods. A false God in Christianity, not the true God, and therefore they executed him. And the interesting thing about this, the irony is, is that all of the political side of this was done by Herod. That Herod is not anti church or anti Christian in the purest sense. He’s just pro Herod. And so it’s a political thing. Oh, learning history again, Harry, is no different than the governments today. He sees it as an opportunity. He was a typical Roman playboy adventurer because his way, his willing nature and his good contacts and his in with all of the murky mucks in Rome, he was moving up the ladder of society.

And he knew that he could pull it off in Judah Judea and do well. He’d really be in for a very big promotion. Oh my gosh, what did we just learn? Okay, let’s screw everybody that we work with so that they can get thrown under the bus and we can get promoted. That’s Harry. And he knew the best way to do well in Judea was to succumb to the Jews. And the Jews more than anything else was were antagonized by The Christians? Why Gentiles? J We now the battle is still going on. And a and so he started in on a slaughter of the Christians.

And one writer said that Jerusalem church was under the gun so much that they were like a cornered rat waiting to be clubbed. They were trapped by Herod. James had been slaughtered with the sword. But you know something? Even in that, as a footnote, one time James and John sent their mother to Jesus. Remember that little deal that happened? They were talking about the kingdom, and they were always arguing about who’s going to sit next to Jesus in the kingdom. That was their argument, which was a stupid thing to argue about because it wasn’t humble at all.

They were always debating about that. And so James and John said, mom, would you go ask Jesus if we can sit on the right and left? So his mother, mother loves her sons. So mother goes and says, my boys would like to sit next to you in the kingdom. What a terrible, embarrassing thing for the poor mother to do. But anyway, Jesus says this, go you undergo what I’m going to undergo. Can you undergo what I’m going to undergo is what he was saying. Can you take and go to the cross and undergo what I’m going to undergo to even allow this or make this happen? Can you be baptized with a baptism with which I will be baptized? Oh, why sure.

They said they had no idea. Jesus said in Matthew 20:23, you will be baptized with baptism which I will undergo. And what was it? It’s a baptism of persecution and suffering and blood. Here it is. James fulfilled the prophecy. I want you to think about this. James fulfilled the pro prophecy. John suffered in a different way. He didn’t die. He had to live in exile and in punishment. Both of them went through lives of pain for the cause of Christ. And so it fulfilled the prophecy. Now, you might not understand this, but you might want to, might find this interesting, is that all of the apostles that Christ picked out to kill, he picked the one that Jesus said would suffer.

Men think they’re so smart and they’re doing just carrying out the plans of God consistently. I bet if we had to sit down and had a conversation, we could probably end up in that same line of thinking. All right, Verse three. So he killed James, Herod killed James. And because he saw it pleased the Jews boy, he knew he had struck gold. The Jews got so excited about that. So he said, I’m going right to the top. He proceeded further to take Peter also. And of course, Peter was the one that would hate the most because he was the one that was the most vocal.

He was out shouting the gospel in every corner in town. They tried to put him in jail, but he was like that proverbial bouncing ball. They no sooner got the door locked, he was out preaching again. Angels and so forth were always letting him out. I want you to think about that. You’re to be bold, you’re to be humble, but you’re. You’re supposed to be boisterous for Christ. And in so doing, when you get persecuted or you get in a position where you feel like you can’t get out of majority of you don’t thank God for that persecution.

Therefore you don’t get out. He’s been in jail twice before, and every time he got near the Sanhedrin, they had to listen to his sermon. So they were reluctant to even arrest the guy. But when Herod saw that it was very pleasing to the Jews to kill one of them, he figured, I’ll just kill the leader and they’ll really love me and I’ll secure my popularity. Oh, my gosh. What does that teach you of society, Your society, your mindset, of the people you circle yourself with. He could be bought. So can you. That’s such a sick thing.

You know what? That’s the lowest kind of humanity. The man who can be bought for popularity, money and prestige. Well, then there were the days of unleavened bread. It was Passover time. Herod was there before Christ wanted to kill the babies. He was there. Christ’s ministry. He was there at Pentecost, his Passover time. And Herod had this all laid out so beautifully. Passover meant everybody would be in town, Jews from everywhere. Everybody would be there. I’ll put the deal on display before the whole Jewish world. And they’re going to love me, man. Will this secure my place in society? But see, he was smart.

He wanted maximum coverage by the populace. And he knew there were very busy during the time of the Passover. So he didn’t want to try to run parallel to the Passover. He figured out, I’ll just wait until it’s over, when everybody’s still hanging around town. But the deal over with, that they’ve been involved with, I’ll move in with the big moment, and that moment will be mine. In verse four, when he had apprehended him, him being Peter, he arrested Peter. That must have been a terrible trauma for the church as they came and captured Peter and he put him in prison.

Now that’s pretty secure, right? I mean, we should assume if you’re going to have a prison, you’ve got to have one that can be at least locked up, right? So that prison in Jerusalem was fairly secure. But he was afraid of it. And so just to make sure, he delivered to him four soldiers, four legion, four sections of soldiers. Now this was these sections, these four sections of soldiers, about four soldiers per sections, about 16 soldiers that watched over Peter when the Romans had divided the watches into four watches of three hours each. And so each of these four would take a three hour period.

Two of them were chained to Peter, two of them were outside the cell that is maximum security even in that day. And he was going to hold him. And so you got to look at what the scripture says, intending after, and your Bible might say Easter, which is an impossible, hopeless translation of the word pesha, which means Passover, and was struck, it was stuck in there by some confused anglo saclins in 16 whatever, who translated the King James Bible and wanted to use the word Easter because it was an Anglo word. We know Easter comes from Estar, the goddess of love that the pagans worshiped.

And we know that Easter is based upon that. And Easter is not the condition of, of worship, of worshiping and honoring Christ. It is going back to the Roman Empire of Estar. So unfortunately, the pagans worshiped Estar at the same season that the Passover was. And at the same season the Christian exalted Christ and his resurrection. Now all of those three things happen in the same period of time. And when the Christians got meshed with paganism, Easter became the umbrella term for all of it. Underneath, you’re a big guy in 3, 25. And so they put the word Easter in here, which is not even there by scripture.

It’s not even a Hebrew word, it’s an Anglo Saxon word. So you can just put it in there whoever you want to as Passover. So they were going to wait until after Passover was over and then Herod was really going to pull this big thing off. Peter being the head of the apostles at that time was a key man. It was very powerful. We know that because after he learned the fulfilling of the scripture by Christ and teaching Peter, in the 40 days after he was resurrected, Peter became powerful, dynamic, strong. He was a leader in the church.

And if they could just get the leader, they could probably decimate the entire ranks of all apostles. And so Herod had all of his soldiers stationed and everybody was connected to Peter and he was put in a prison. Now there was no way to release him. He thought he being herod thought that Peter was secure. He thought his plan was to bring him forth. The idea was to bring him up to the tribunal for public trial and public judgment just like Christ was. He was going to put him on display just like Jesus and had put on display by Pilate.

Okay? The process was the same. The playbook that they use will always be the same, is the same today as it was then. And that is what they’re doing from one government to another government to another government. And BB is now revealing himself as the, the maker of the same playbook. So for the third time Peter was put in prison. And you know something? Herod is just another in a long line of self deceived, power hungry fools who think you can fight God. And guys, you can’t do it. You know, there were some Jews who weren’t Christians at that time as well, who had the sense not to fight God overtly.

In other words, they didn’t fight him outwardly in front of everybody. They might have fought him inwardly among themselves or small group, but they were not going to fight God in massive sense of the word. You remember a man by the name of Gamala. He was a smart man. Matter of fact he was the one who taught Paul. Gamala was brought into the council about what to do with these Christians that were wreaking havoc in Jerusalem. This is what Gamal’s advice was in Acts chapter 5, verse 38. And now I say to you, refrain from these men.

Leave them alone and let them alone. He says. Why did he say that? For if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nothing. If it’s of men, he says, it will won’t come to anything. But if it be of God, you can’t overthrow it. Listen, this test, I’m sorry, lest perhaps you be found even to fight against God. Gamaliel was a smart man. He says you can’t fight against God. Now there were some scribes of the Pharisees party, that’s a political party by the way, who exist today. Sadducees and Pharisees exists today who knew the same thing.

Chapter 23 and verse 9 it says this. They arose and there arose a great city. And the scribes who were of the Pharisees party arose. They were really out after Paul. And they said to them, we find no evil in this man, but if the spirit of an angel has spoken to him, let us not fight against God. In other words, I wouldn’t mess with Paul. You’re liable to be fighting directly against God. Now these Pharisees were becoming smart. Remember Eliphaz, the would be friend of Job? He was describing the man who fights against God. What a stupid man.

But you got to listen to this description. And he stretches out his hand against God, does he See this man? And strengthens himself against the Almighty. Works out with weights so he can get strong to defeat God. That’s premise of being this human figure. Then he gives this fantastic description, Bella Festus. He runs at God even upon his net, upon his heavily embossed shield. He points to this man and says, here’s a man attacking God. He works out, gets real strong and then he runs and jumps on God’s neck and starts beating on his heavenly embraced shield.

Oh how stupid. This is so foolish. You know, it’s foolish to fight God for one classic reason. You are all ready for this. Because one Kai fights back, did he not? Throughout the Old Testament, did not God fight back against his enemy? Do you not think God fights back today against his enemy? Self assessment. Which side of the fence are you on? Jeremiah 21:5, I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand, with a strong arm, even in anger and in fury and in great wrath. You know, in the pegamist Church, chapter two of Revelation, in verse 16 we, we studied this, there were some people who were fighting God.

And God said, you better change and repent or I will come and fight against you with the sword of my mouth. That’s some revelations guys. God fights back. But the fools of the ages go on and fighting God. And they go and smashing against the granite of God’s wisdom. The fools you say. Well John, what does that matter? And what does it matter to have to do with this chapter? I’m going to show you three reasons in this chapter why man, a fool, defy God. Three reasons. Number one, because God’s power cannot be contested. God’s power cannot be contested.

You can pit all of your strength against the power of God. And you aren’t even beginning to touch his nature, his person or to alter his plans. Oh my gosh. Gotta realize you were created and your life is was determined before the foundation of the world. And now you’re living a simulation and you want to fight. His power cannot be contested. Now here’s old Herod. He says, I will take care of those Christians. I’ll put them in my jail. He gave it everything he had. Strong walls, big bars, iron gates, soldiers, change, prison cell authority and everything.

He put him in there, put Peter in there. But Harry trying to capture Peter was Like trying to catch a rainbow in a net. It couldn’t be done. Look at verse, look at the scene in verse 5. Now this is got. Guys, this has got to be most exciting. Peter, therefore, was kept in prison. Well, how long is he going to be kept? Till the Passover was over. Well, the church, this was tough on them. But prayer was made without ceasing by the church unto God, for him, for Peter. They all started praying. Oh Lord, Peter’s in prison.

They started to pray. The first thing anybody ought to do when something comes along is to begin to pray. They don’t organize a prison, prison relief committee. They start praying. They knew that the source of power was prayer. And so they began to pray. And I mean, they really pray. You got to love what the scripture says. But prayer was made without ceasing. That word just doesn’t mean without ceasing nearly as much as it means intensity. It’s the word octos. It comes in the form of a word, which means it’s a medical term, by the way.

It has to do with stretching a muscle to its limit. It means total effort. They were totally lost in prayer. Here’s a good illustration. The word is used of Jesus when he prayed in the garden in anguish. And as it were, great drops of blood fell from him. That’s the same term. They prayed literally in total anguish of soul. They put out a total maximum effort in prayer. That’s what they did. They were totally absorbed, lost in prayer. And it continued day in and day in and night and day in and night. And I’ll tell you something.

This is a glorious truth for us to remember. James said, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscles of omnipotence. And that’s true. So they pray that total effort word. Sometimes you ought to do a word study on it. But it’s used three things in the Bible that are so important in the New Testament. Ektinzi E K T N E S Greek word love. First Peter 4, 8 were to stretch our love and love people totally. In other words, we are to reach as far as we can to the capacity of the limits of our ability and love.

People can’t have salvation without humbleness. Then it’s used in Acts 26:7 to speak of service. We’re not supposed to serve Christ half baked or half hearted. We’re supposed to serve him with total maximum effort. Literally, agonizingly. We’re to serve him until we work up a spiritual sweat now, the third way it’s used is here in prayer. The Christian is to serve intensely in love, intensely in service, and intensely in prayer. So they stretched out, they were on the rack. They were really praying. Well, what the Bible says you have not because you what as not. So God responds to much asking.

They didn’t say God, you know, Peter’s got a problem. See you in a couple days and see what you can do about it. They agonized in prayer over Peter. Verse 6 says, oh, Herod thinks he’s got everything secure and they’re just praying. A bunch of little old Christians in there haven’t got any governmental power, can’t do anything, don’t have the key to the jail, can’t do anything but pray. And when Herod would have brought him forth into the public, Herod says, guys, it’s time to go get him. Go get Peter. The same night. Now Herod’s getting ready to execute Peter in the morning.

Big public deal. Dramatic. He’s going to kill Peter. So the same night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains. And the keepers before the door kept the prison there. The there are the four guys. Two outside, two inside, chained Peter. Now it’s really, I would imagine it would be really tough to sleep in a jail floor. I don’t know if I could sleep there anyway and have two guys chained to me. I can’t imagine just the pain of trying to go to sleep with two guys hooked to them, toss and turn so much.

That would be horrible. I mean, you, you know how it is in the morning when you get up and all the kids jump in bed. It’s just like that. So here he was on the jail foot with all of these people chained to him. It would be a little tough to even sleep the night before your execution. But he’s asleep. Peter is sound asleep. You say he was just dozing? No, no, no, no. Why? Because the angel had to come in and he had to poke him to wake him up. That’s according to scripture. You don’t just nap.

You have to be in a deep sleep for that to happen. In fact, the angel arrived in a minute and lit the whole place up. And that never even budged. Peter, the angel started poking him, saying, get up, get up, get up. He got all the way out of the jail before he knew what he was doing. He thought he was dreaming the whole thing. He was really out of it. I mean, in a society that spends somewhere close to $4 million annually on sleeping pill, how does he do It. I mean, you guys understand. We spend almost $4 million on tranquilizers.

This guy, the night before his execution is so sound asleep, chained to two soldiers in a DY jail. Well, somebody once said, if you can keep your cool while all others are losing theirs, you just don’t understand the situation. But that’s not true of Peter. He knew he was going to be crucified, executed the following morning. So John 21:18 says, Remember when Jesus restored Peter, Peter had blown it so many times. And the Lord says, go to Galilee, Peter, and stay up in that mountain. Peter went up in the mountain for a few days and said, I don’t know what I’m doing in this mountain.

He had itchy feet. He just couldn’t stand that. That anymore. He just was going all of the time. So he says, I’m going fishing. Remember this story? I don’t know how many. How about this? When the world thing is going to happen, I don’t know what’s really going on. I haven’t seen the Lord in a few days. I’m just going to go fishing. And he was the leader. So everybody said, okay, Peter, we’re going to. All of the apostles went fishing. And so they marched down and went fishing. So the Lord rerouted all the fish in the Sea of Galilee.

They couldn’t catch anything. When they come morning, he says, have you caught anything? Hey, guys, have you caught anything? Which is, you know, striking the knife in a bit, right? He’s sort of turning the screws with them. So he says, no. And so Christ says, try the other side of the boat. Which your first reaction would be, what does he think we’ve been doing? We’ve been going from left side to right side all night. Do the fish know which is right and left? But anyway, Peter, he pulled in so many. And they came to the shore, and Christ had already created breakfast, instant breakfast for them.

And they sat down and ate. And then Peter sat down to eat with Jesus. And Jesus began to talk to Peter. Remember that whole story? And what did he say? He said, if you love me, feed my sheep. Do you really love me? And he restored him. And then he told him this in verse 18. Peter, when you were very young, you went where you wanted. You did what you wanted to do. When you get old, you’ll stretch forth your hands and another shall grid you and carry you where you wouldn’t go. This, he said, signifying by what death should glorify God.

He said, peter, you’re going to die when you get old. You know why Peter was sleeping in this jail? He wasn’t old. He wasn’t old. When you read scripture, you got to read all the details. Peter, he told Peter that he was only. He was going to die as an old man. Peter wasn’t all. Therefore he wasn’t going to die. Even if Herod had him in jail and was going to execute him the following morning. Just by the fact that Christ had already told him he was going to die. Only at an old age, Peter didn’t have to worry about it.

Same type of thing with Abraham. If he would call in the Old Testament, he had nothing to fear. You know, one great security that is that a believer has is promise. You know why you don’t need to lose sleep when you can’t meet your needs. But because God says, I supply all your needs. That’s a promise. That’s not something you request, that’s not something you seek. That was a promise made to you and you just have to declare it. The second feature that put Peter to sleep was past performance. He didn’t. He’d been in jail before and it really wasn’t a big deal for him.

Every time he went to jail, he got out. He just got to witness and soon got out. Now he went to sleep because he knew two things. His future promise and his past performance. Do you know why I trust God? Because of what he said he’s going to do and what he’s already done. That’s it. So if he’s done what he’s done in the past, will do what he’s going to do in the future, I’m not going to worry about the present. Why? Because God lives in the present. It’ll soon become the past and it’s nearly the future now.

So I’m secure in his past performance as well as his future promise. So Peter went to sleep. What’s to worry about? He’s young. Peter also said in 1st Peter 5:7, casting all you care him for, he cares for you. So Herod had everything rolling. But there was something about to happen that Herod would not. No. In verse seven and behold, an angel of the Lord came in on him and a light shone in prison. Angels and light are often associated. Do you know it? The reason for that is because they spend their time in the glory of the presence of God.

And they radiate it when they come out of his presence. Just like Moses did coming down from outside Sinai. There were just like Moses. He came down and it was all over him. While angels have been in the presence of God radiate that glory. Celestial beings and the glow of God go together. And so this angels come into the prison and they light everything up. Like the song said, it flamed with light. And that didn’t even wake Peter up. He was so out of it. In his, in his mind nothing was happening because he was asleep.

And so the Bible says this, and he smoked Peter on the side. He whacked him. That’s what he did, he whacked him. Now that’s the same word used down later in verse 23 of the chapter. And that really was a smiting. If you look at the definitions of words, it’s east modem, it’s the same term but had opposite effects. And we’ll, we’ll see that again in a little while as we progress through this. So the angel really gave him a good shot and raised him up. He poked him and then he kind of helped him up.

Angel says get up Peter, arise quickly, get up he said. And his chains fell off from his hands. Now meanwhile these two guys have been given a divine anesthetic. They’re out cult. The chains were, were over. He’s up and he’s standing there and he doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s out of it, he’s groggy, he’s blurry headed, he’s still fog of sleep. Standing there in his sleep, you say, how do you know that? Well, we’ll show you by scripture. And God is freeing him. And so in verse 8, the angel notice here that there’s no hassle, there’s no struggle and there’s no hurry.

The commentary by Barclay said, we don’t need to see a miracle here. This was just a clever plot in Peter’s escape, which of course is ridiculous. There was no struggle. The angels just came in, the guys were asleep, the chains fell off. The angel said to him, now get your clothes on Peter and put on your shoes. He didn’t just say let’s run. They were used to wear an inner garment that hung very loosely and in the daytime that cinch it up with a belt at night that loosened the belt and let it hang loose so they didn’t bind them in the sleep.

So he says, get your belt, pull it all together Peter, get your sandals on Peter, we’re leaving now. And he said unto him, cast your garment. The word garment is a cloak or mantle about view and follow me. Get your jacket on, throw it on, follow me. Peter’s there in a stupor. He hasn’t got Any idea of what’s really going on. And all of a sudden he’s on his feet, he’s got his sandals on and he’s all there. And he’s probably kind of blurry eyed. And he says, this angel says, follow me. And off they go down the dark corridors of the prison.

And he went out and here’s the really good part, and Peter followed him. Here’s old Peter following the angel in his sleep. And he knew, not that it was true, which was done by the angel, but thought he had saw a vision and very likely he had been dreaming about probably getting out of prison and just figured that this was part of his dream. Now remember, he had already had a dream once vision because of corneas. So it’s not uncommon for Peter to have these dreams and visions. And he’s just marching down the halls, they’re all groggy and bird eyed, thinking it was just another dream.

Well, if we go down to verse 10 when they were past the first and second guard already, the other two guards are knocked out in, in the jail cell. Now here, here goes guard number one. Guard number two, that takes care of the four that were on guard duty. And it came to the iron gate. Now you think they’re going to have to have something here. Something’s going to happen. What are they going to do? What are these two guards standing at the gate going to do? Well, they came to the iron gate today being Peter and the angel, which leads into the city.

City of what? Jerusalem. Apparently the prison was elevated. There were maybe according to the Bison text, nine steps down into the street of the city. And so they came to this big gate and the Bible simply says it’s a beautiful gate which opened to them of its own accord. It just as they approached the gate, it just swung open. There’s this old angel and Peter walking right out the main gate. All the guards are out and they’re gone. And they went out and passed on through one street, just went a block away and immediately the angel departed from him.

1 the angel’s job was done. In Hebrews 4:14 it says angels are ministering spirits sent to minister to the saints. Watch their ministries done. They leave. This angel had done his job with Peter, got him out of there, just turned him loose in the middle of the street. Now here’s Peter in the middle of the night, the middle of the street, half awake, doesn’t really know what is really going on. He’s doggy stupid, still probably half asleep. And it, it reminds us of Acts chapter 5. When they were in prison before, remember that story went through and the authority said, you got to go get them and bring them.

And they went down and they said, we’ve got something to tell you. The prison is locked, the gates are secure, the locks are all on, the guards are there. However, Peter’s gone and the next guy runs in and says, well they’re not going to believe this either. They’re back in the temple preaching. So he had been released again by an angel that time. So this was just another angelic opportunity. No prison can hold the servant of God that God wants out. Self assessment, you buying yourself. If you’re walking in obedience to God, doing God’s service and total obedience, you can’t be housed, you can’t be locked up.

You may be persecuted, but you are not destroyed. Now Peter wakes up and comes to his senses. In verse 11, when Peter was come to himself, come to his senses, in other words, he stood out there in the middle of the street and started to think and he finally gets some whereabouts about him. And now I know of a surety, this is no dream. The Lord has sent his angel and delivered me out of the hand of Herod and from all, all the expectation of the Jews. He knew the Jews wanted him dead and he knew about Herod’s plot.

He says, the Lord has done it. Here, here, here I am. It’s happened, it’s not a dream. Well, there he is in the middle of the street. He knows he’s a marked man. He knows that he has no idea how long those soldiers are going to be out. He knows that if they come to and look for him and can’t find him, they’re going to come running and when they see the gate stand wide open, they’re going to start running down the street. And he doesn’t have much time and he’s thinking to himself, what does a guy do now? What should be my first move in a deal like this? Go to your friends.

Verse 12. And when he considered. I love that word, considered, okay? In the Greek, sun means together and eldon means to see sun. Eldon is the word for consider. To consider means to see together. It means to take all the parts of something and see it put together in perspective. So Peter thought the whole thing through all of the spiritual ramifications, physical ramifications as well, and he asked himself, what should he do? Well, I can probably say that majority of our first reaction would be to get out of town, go and let God worry about confirming something to the believers.

Just fell out of here. But Peter began to contemplate it and he sees it in a different perspective and he said, no, I’ve got to go their house where the believers are gathered to pray and I’ve got to tell them why those Christians were under persecution. It was really, really hot in Jerusalem, not by sign, but by fear, persecution. They needed something more than anything they needed to say. They needed to know that God was still in control because Harry was really moving out hot. And secondly, they needed to know that God answered prayer. Oh, self assessment.

They had been praying for Peter for a few days now and they hadn’t seen anything happening. And if Peter had bailed out, they would have been left holding the bag for praying for Peter, not knowing that Peter was already released. And if the church you under persecution didn’t have the confidence that God was still in control and that prayer was still being answered, everything would be really shaky. And so Peter knew in his mind that he needed to go see them. He’s got to convert firm to them how powerful God is and that God answers prayer.

Wow. Self assessment. And so he fires out in verse 12 and he comes to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying. The church always met in homes. Apparently this woman married and there were many Marys in the Bible as you well know. This one was the mother of John Mark. The one was wealthy, she was a maid, Rhonda and she had household servants. She was a very large enough to have prayer meetings. Her house was and gatherings. Her son John, whose surname was Mark is the same Mark who wrote the Gospel of Mark, by the way.

He was a companion and buddy of Peter and got most of his information for the Gospel of Mark from Peter. So of course the Holy Spirit gave it to him. But it comes out of experiences that he had in in the time of Peter. And so here’s the house of Mark. Incidentally, it’s the same John Mark that accompanies Saul and Barnabas on the mission journey at first and is finally sent home and later stored. But anyway, this is the house that they were in. So Peter says I’ve got to go and tell them. So here he’s going through the streets, he’s a marked man, he hasn’t got much time.

He knows he’s got to get out of town, it’s too hot. And so he comes in verse 13 and knocks at the door of the gate. Now every house was kind of like a big square or rectangle around the patio that had an exterior door that was on the outside. And then you would go in and there was interior doors going into various apartments. So he’s banging on this outside door in the middle of the street, in the middle of the night, being a marked man. Everybody knows him. Everybody in town knows Peter. Oh my gosh, think of yourself.

I don’t think there was a guy in Jerusalem who wouldn’t know Peter. Oh, small town. And so there he is and he’s saying, open the door. He’s looking up and down, banging on the door. So this little mate, a doorkeeper, came to Harkin named Rhonda. Her name means Rose. So here comes Rose to the door and she says in effect, probably, who is this? What’s going on here? Because she gets an answer. And when she knew Peter’s voice, how do you think they knew his voice? He talked to them all the time. He taught them, he preached to them.

It’s like you calling up somebody on the phone, you say, hey. And they say, hi Mary or hi Jim or hi Sam or who, whomever. They know your voice, they. Because they’re familiar with hearing your voice and they knew Peter’s voice. So she had heard his voice. And she opened not the gate for gladness. She got so excited she forgot to let him in. She ran back in and told how Peter stood before the gate. He’s outside. She’s going back in and telling all the people inside the house that Peter’s outside the gate and what they are doing in there, having an all night prayer meeting for Peter.

And she says, your prayers are answered. He’s at the gate. And meanwhile Peter’s going, where did she go open the gate. I’m standing in the middle of the road. I’m a marked man. I don’t need a debate. I need to get inside. And you know that this is what’s so numerous here is because they’re so typically like Christians today who pray with all the zeal in the world, but none of the faith to believe. You hear what I said? Self assessment, you know, you hear a guy give his testimony and you know, the Lord answered my prayer.

Well, shock, you know, by the way, verse 15, they said unto her, you’re crazy. Now isn’t that unbelievable? God gets Peter out of jail. Peter’s here. You’re crazy. He’s in jail. I’m glad God answers the prayer of zeal as, as well as prayers of faith. I think sometimes a lot of our prayers are zealous and they’re not always faithful. And so they wouldn’t believe her. But she consistently affirmed it was even so, it is Peter. It’s Peter. It’s Peter. And probably some said, do you see him? Well, she only recognized his voice. They said, well, it’s an angel.

And the Jews had a common tradition. They believed that every Jew had an angel of his own, a guardian angel. And that angel could materialize in the form of and the face of that person. And so perhaps this was just his angel. Rhonda, you’re a good kid. You haven’t really been untrustworthy in the past. It’s his angels, probably, but you kept it up. It says in verse 16, Peter continued knocking. Self assessment. Knock at the door. You’re to continue to knock at your door. Meanwhile, in the street, Peter’s knocking. And he can’t knock too loud because he doesn’t want to wake up everybody in the neighborhood.

He doesn’t want to be seen. So finally, they all come to the door. There, they know something’s going on. And when they had opened the door, they saw him and they were astonished, which shows you how much faith they really had. Self assessment. You do not generate your own faith. Christ gives you your faith. Your faith is a seed. It grows by your actions. It grows by keeping in the word of God. It grows by your sanctification. As it grows, your faith becomes your reality. And we’re going to end there. Hope you like the story. Story of you, me, Maria, I.

I really enjoyed the gym. Thank you. I just wanted to tell you I enjoyed listening. Thank you. So, anything else, guys? Comments? Transitioning into Paul. Jim, this is no different than the three men being thrown in the fire with Nebuchadnezzar. Their faith was with God and not his idols. Right? All right. Yes. It’s no different than Moses at the Red Sea. It’s no different than Daniel in the lion’s den. It’s no different than David slaying Goliath. It’s no different than David chasing out the demons. It’s. It’s all the same. History is history, guys. It’s just a.

A different story with a unique perspective of a man at that time. But that perspective and the outcome of that man is no different than any other Old Testament figure that ever went through persecution. Is it working? Yeah. Oh, good. I think it’s so funny that it didn’t work at first. I’m just way too excited and that I feel like I am that woman who forgets to let Peter in. And so that’s part of what I don’t know how to do is have the level of joy and peace and all the fruits that come come. It’s really.

It’s a different experience. So as much as I so appreciate you talking about the foolishness of fighting God, at least for me, the ecstasy of joining with him is this new experience that I feel like I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. So it just feels really good to confess that. And then I also really appreciate the God’s timing for how what you presented to us today because it feels to me he’s about to show us he has heard our prayers and he is going to answer them in a biblical way like we’re going to be blown away.

And so I so appreciated. Well, I just appreciate you and Misty and the group. I wouldn’t be here without you. So thank you so much. I could say the same about all of you. One thing I’ll leave you with Peter. The thing that I wasn’t the thing I’ll probably pick up next week. Leading into Paul, the symbology of Peter knocking on the door is Christ knocking on your door. The symbology of Rose not letting him in is the same as you closing out Christ. Nothing at the door. That’s really what after you get through all of the storyline and all of the ability to understand history repeats itself and the fact that basically you had God.

God fights. God fights back. Guys, he’s not this, you know. Oh yeah, he’s an all loving God but he loves in. In the wrath as he loves in humility. And that’s something that we typically have not learned throughout our history is this is a war. It’s a constant war. It can sometimes be physical, but that is 100% spiritual. Yes. So this is why in Amos he talks about the three transgressions and on the fourth he was just going to annihilate them. Y and that’s why he drew the plumb line that they weren’t going to be able to cross anymore.

Right? Yep. All right. Number the number three. The number three. Gotta take that. Okay. Gave them three. Gave them the. The ability from the head of the Godhead three times. Just like the Jews were given three times. Yeah. To accept Messiah three times. Fourth time it’s out. You’re done. Self assessment guys. History repeats itself. This is not going to last forever. And when God says enough’s enough. What’s enough? You don’t get. You don’t get a second second look at this. Anyway guys, anything else? I was looking forward to telling this story today because it need to be told in a story format to get it, I think.

And it was able to do that by applying it to today’s history as well. So I thank God for presenting it to me that way, giving me the wisdom to do it. All right, guys. Anything else? All right, let’s pray. Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for the morning, to allow this family together once again for a message of truth, message of understanding your scripture in a manner by which it cannot be understood. Father, we ask you to continue to open our hearts and minds for your truth, giving us the discernment of exactly what it is of your scripture that requires so much obedience.

And it’s only from that obedience that we gain the wisdom and the knowledge of your glory and your mercy and are able to not only take that and apply it to us, but we need to give it to others. Thank you for the death of your son. Thank you for loving us, dying for us, giving us the ability to go home, saving of salvation, transformation, regeneration, all of that good stuff. And we just look to you towards your glory of what’s being revealed to us even in current days. And we thank you for that. Be with us, protect us, give us joy, peace and comfort that you’re all in control.

We ask all these things in your son’s name.
[tr:tra].