People may note that I skipped over doing anything from chapter eleven. One of my concerns in preaching through the book of Acts is time. There are great stories and lessons here and as much as I would like to do a message on the all, I know that given time constraints that is just not possible as I still have more than half of the book yet to go and Summer is half over. I am definitely going to be preaching Acts into Fall. Chapter eleven has its own importance but it is basically Peter returning to Jerusalem and retelling the story of chapter ten and so I would kind of be giving the same lesson anyway. I will basically be looking for when the Book of Acts repeats itself I will probably skip the repeat and move to something unique, it is the only way I can finish the book and not be preaching Acts into Christmas.
Acts twelve is the story of how Peter escaped from prison. It starts with Herod Antipas killing James the brother of John and then locks up Peter intending to do the same. It should be noted here that James was still pretty young when he was killed and that he was the first of the twelve apostles to die. There is a great deal of irony to this martyr. Firstly, that James brother John will be the last of the twelve to die and will die an old man in exile. Second is that while he dies, Peter escapes death. Two apostles, two very different ends.
We cannot look at Peter’s escape from prison as anything less than an act of God. Unlike movies where the protagonists use their ingenuity and cleverness to escape, Peter really has no time for that. Plus, the security used is pretty substantial. Chained, between to guards, guards at the door plus two more levels of guards to go through after that is pretty substantial security for the time. Only an act of God could have done this and that is what really happens. People in the city are praying for this very thing because they know without God’s intervention Peter is a dead man.
That said, it becomes a comedy of sorts as God does begin to act. Peter thinks he is dreaming the whole time. He is awoke, dresses and watches the chains fall off. He follows the angel past all the guards and through the gate and still does not think it is real until the angel disappears. When he goes to the house where the believers are praying he gets the same disbelief. Rhoda is so joyful she forgets to let him in and the rest of the crowd, even though they are praying for Peter’s release, thinks Rhoda is crazy to believe that Peter is free. It is not until they see Peter themselves that they believe their prayers have been answered. Isn’t it strange that even today we have a problem believing that God has come through for us? It illustrates the two problems with prayer that we often have. One we really don’t believe that God is going to come through and orchestrate our ‘Great Escape’ and we are praying for these great things to make ourselves feel better by praying and that when God does come through we don’t believe that it happened so we delay praising him for answering.
The results of ‘The Great Escape’ are multiple. 1) The guards that guarded Peter are put to death. Some of these guards may have been part to the mocking of Jesus and the killing of James. 2) Herod Antipas himself after giving a speech is praised by men as a god and he fails to confront this as false so God strikes him down he is eaten by worms and then dies. The man who beheaded John the Baptist, who it was rumored was trying to kill Jesus, had his soldiers mock Jesus and has killed the apostle James now stand before God’s throne for justice. 3) The gospel goes forward and more people come to Christ. It is this advancement of the kingdom that seems to be the focus of the story.
There are many lessons from this story. 1) When a person prays they should indeed pray for great things. If those great things don’t happen the other lesson is that even the apostles experienced this inequality. 2) If you are going to say you going to pray for someone makes sure you do it and don’t doubt that God will do great things for them. 3) That the ultimate aim of our lives and our relationship with God is the advancement of His kingdom and not necessarily our own personal benefit in this life.