Favorite chapter in the Book of the Acts,
I'm referring to chapter twelve, the twelfth chapter
of the Book of the Acts.
I think when we've turned to it, you'll
recognize it as a very well-known chapter
because of the subject that it presents.
Acts, the twelfth chapter.
Now, about that time, Herod the king stretched
forth his hands to vex certain of the
church, and he killed James, the brother of
John, with a sword.
And because he saw it pleased the Jews,
he proceeded further to take Peter also.
Then were the days of unleavened bread.
And when he had apprehended him, he put
him in prison and delivered him to four
quaternions of soldiers to keep him, intending after
Easter to bring him forth to the people.
Peter therefore was kept in prison, but prayer
was made without ceasing of the church unto
God for him.
And when Herod would have brought him forth,
the same night Peter was sleeping between two
soldiers bound with two chains, and the keepers
before the door kept the prison.
And behold, the angel of the Lord came
upon him, and a light shined in the
prison.
And he smote Peter on the side and
raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly.
And his chains fell off from his hands.
And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself,
and bind on thy sandals.
And so he did.
And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment
about thee, and follow me.
And he went out, and followed him, and
wished not that it was true which was
done by the angel, but thought he saw
a vision.
And when they were past the first and
the second ward, they came unto the iron
gate that leadeth unto the city, which opened
to them of his own accord.
And they went out, and passed on through
one street, and forthwith the angel departed from
him.
And when Peter was come to himself, he
said, Now I know of a surety that
the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath
delivered me out of the hand of Herod,
and from all the expectation of the people
of the Jews.
And when he had considered the thing, he
came to the house of Mary the mother
of John, whose surname was Mark, where many
were gathered together praying.
And as Peter knocked at the door of
the gate, a damsel came to hearken, named
Rhoda.
And when she knew Peter's voice, she opened
not the gate for gladness, but ran in,
and told how Peter stood before the gate.
And they said unto her, Thou art mad.
But she constantly affirmed that it was even
so.
Then said they, It is his angel.
But Peter continued knocking, and when they had
opened the door, and saw him, they were
astonished.
But he beckoning unto them with a hand
to hold their peace, declared unto them how
the Lord had brought him out of the
prison.
And he said, Go, show these things unto
James and to the brethren.
And he departed and went into another place.
There are two scriptures in the Gospels which
we need to keep in mind when we
study a chapter like this.
The first of those is found in Matthew
chapter 20, where you have the story of
the mother of Zebedee's children coming to the
Lord and asking that her two sons might
sit, one on his right hand and the
other on his left.
And the Lord Jesus replied to that by
saying, Ye know not what ye ask?
Are ye able to drink the cup that
I shall drink, and be baptized with the
baptism that I am baptized with?
And without a moment's hesitation they said, We
are able.
And the Lord Jesus says, Ye shall indeed
drink the cup that I shall drink.
And in the opening verses of this chapter
tonight, we get the record of that, at
least so far as it concerned James.
John isn't included here at this time.
But James certainly knew what it meant to
drink the cup that our Lord drank.
We understand, of course, that our Lord is
there using the term cup in its figurative
or symbolic sense.
It stands for sufferings that he had to
take for us.
And we frequently use the same figure of
speech.
One of our hymn writers has put it
very plainly when he said, Death and the
curse were in our cup.
O Christ was full for thee, but thou
hast drained the last dark drop, left but
the love for me.
So this was a cup.
Our Lord, you remember, in the Garden of
Gethsemane likewise, he prayed that this cup might
be taken from him, and was so happy
for the words which followed when he said,
Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.
I mention these to show you that the
term cup is used in a symbolic sense.
And the Lord said to these two, James
and John, ye shall indeed drink.
And here James is drinking the cup.
Herod stretches forth his hands against certain of
the church, and he kills James with a
sword.
You know, of course, that our Lord had
two apostles by the name of James.
The other one is mentioned here in the
seventeenth verse of this same chapter.
But here is the brother of John, who
is sent into eternity, into the presence of
the Father, into the presence of his Lord.
And one looks at these things with deep
admiration, to think that these men were willing
to lay down their lives without any resistance
whatever, with no appeal to any higher governments,
not saying, You ought to give me an
opportunity to defend myself and so on.
They simply took it.
They bowed their heads, and they took it.
We thank God for the courage of these
men in the first century of the Church's
history.
But now we come to Peter, and here
we need to keep another text of Scripture
in mind, and that is in the last
chapter of John's Gospel, where Peter is told
by the Lord that when he was young
he went where he wanted to go.
But he says, When thou art old, another
shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou
wouldst not.
And the next verse says, This he said,
signifying, By what death he would glorify God.
And so, having taken James, and having killed
him, it looks as though he intended, in
fact, it says he intended to do the
same thing to Peter.
And since Peter had already been in prison
two times before this—remember earlier he was in
prison, and they released him in the morning.
The second time he was supernaturally, miraculously delivered
from the prison.
And here he is in prison for the
third time.
About nine years, as I understand it, between
the second and the third imprisonments here.
Nine years had passed.
But there were those words of the Lord
Jesus.
Yes, you're going to die a martyr's death.
This, as someone has said, is the only
text we can cite to show that the
Lord's coming could not take place until Peter
himself had been martyred.
And now the time seems to have come
for that.
And we're going to look at the reaction
of the Church for a moment, for this
is one of those classic texts that we
have in connection with our prayer life, both
individually and corporately.
You notice in verse 5, Peter, therefore, was
kept in prison, but, but prayer was made.
This has always been the recourse of the
Church.
They never gave up.
They never said, well, there's nothing you can
do about it.
They didn't say, well, prayer is just one
of those emotional exercises that you have that
makes you feel better.
But they were led to believe, and they
knew from experience, that here was a method
by which the God himself could change things.
And I wouldn't be surprised, but what they
had in mind, not only that prophecy of
our Lord Jesus, to which I've referred in
the twenty-first chapter of John's Gospel, but
they were also thinking of Peter in his
weakness.
In that time of stress, you remember, after
saying that if all forsook him, Peter says,
I won't.
And the Lord says, Before the cock shall
crow, thou hast denied me thrice.
And of course he did.
And you may be sure that things like
this were not forgotten.
And I wouldn't be surprised that this is
one of the things that was before them
as they gathered here for prayer for this
man, Peter.
For you read here, prayer was made without
ceasing.
They didn't just simply say, well, let's mention
him and let's go home.
But they just kept this thing up.
There was something fervent about this.
Indeed, the margin of my Bible says it
was instant and earnest prayer was made.
If you have one of the older Schofield
Bibles, you'll see this in the margin.
I don't know whether it's in the new
edition or not.
I'm using the older authorized version, you see.
And in the margin here we have the
literal meaning of the original word, that it
was instant and earnest prayer was made.
And the thing was made by the whole
church.
It wasn't simply a few individuals who gathered,
but the whole church.
This was a unified appeal to God himself.
And it was made unto God, not merely
to the congregation.
Years ago I read the story of a
prayer made in the city of Boston, and
the editor of the newspaper said it was
the most eloquent prayer that had ever been
offered to a Boston audience.
Well, dear friends, here's a prayer to be
offered to God.
One wonders sometimes just how many of our
prayers are sort of horizontal affairs, you know.
They reach out to the people that we
like to communicate with, but we haven't got
the nerve to face them.
And so we talk about that certain brother,
you know, or that certain sister.
But here is something that goes straight up
to God himself.
And then those last words, for him.
Notice it doesn't say that they prayed for
his deliverance.
It simply says that they prayed for him.
And it so happens that we have a
passage which fits right into this.
I'd like you to keep your place here
in Acts 12 for a few minutes and
turn back with me to the Gospel according
to St. Luke, to find an almost exact
expression here in Luke chapter 22 and verse
31.
Luke 22 and verse 31.
And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan
hath desired to have you.
That word you is in the plural.
And as we say in the Southland, you
all.
That's what it really is.
Satan hath desired to have you all, that
he may sift you all as wheat.
But now notice the change of number.
But I have prayed for thee.
As much as to say, Peter, Satan wants
all of you.
But I'm just going to use you as
an example.
You know, sometimes we hear something about the
primacy of Peter.
Our Roman Catholic friends refer to this when
they speak about Peter as the first Pope.
But they never seem to refer to this,
the primacy of Peter, that the Lord was
using him here as an example and saying
to him, Satan wants all of you, but
I have prayed for thee, that thy faith
fail not.
And I'm just wondering if this was what
was in the minds of the Church when
it says, And prayer was made without ceasing
unto God for him.
I'm persuaded they weren't praying for his deliverance.
Because later on when he's delivered, they're surprised.
I know sometimes some preachers take this as
a lack of faith on their part, but
as a matter of fact, I don't think
they were really looking for this.
Because as already said, Peter had this prediction
from the Lord that he was going to
die a martyr's death, and he'd been delivered
miraculously before, and now doubtless his time had
come.
You see, James was dispatched, and what was
going to keep Peter?
What was going to keep Peter?
But I'm sure they must have thought about
Peter's defection in the days of the Lord
Jesus.
And my beloved friends here tonight, I just
want to make a point of this with
all of us.
You know, it's so easy for us to
see the weakness of a brother, a sister,
and do nothing about it.
We realize that they're in a precarious position.
And then after they have fallen, that the
expected thing has happened, they go around and
say, yes, I expected it.
I knew it would come.
But it need not have come.
I lay it upon your hearts tonight, beloved,
because everywhere we go we have pictures just
like this.
There's so many like Peter.
In fact, one has to confess that he's
very much like himself.
How wonderful to think that we had those
who prayed for us, lest our faith should
fail.
I believe I had parents who did this
for me.
I'm sure that I had others among God's
people who did this very thing for me.
I know when time came and was an
opportunity to go to the University of New
Mexico.
I know how my father was warned and
urged to keep me away from the school
of higher learning, because some of our young
people had gone into these schools of higher
learning, and they had come out, if not
atheists, at least agnostics.
And so people had their fears about me.
I never learned till years later what my
father replied to some of them.
But one of them told me that he
said, well, I realize that my son is
human, just like every other man's son.
But he said one thing about him, he's
got on the helmet of salvation.
That'll protect his brain.
He's got on the breastplate of righteousness.
That'll protect his heart.
And friends, thank God for this dual protection
that we have.
But how thankful we should be that we
have those who pray for us, as the
Church here gave itself to prayer for Peter.
Now, he didn't get immediate release, because we
read here the details of the story, and
Luke the historian is very faithful in recording
all the details here, as to how they
had taken extra precautions to be sure that
this prisoner did not escape this time.
They remembered that he did escape before.
But this time they got four quaternions of
soldiers, which I take would be about sixteen,
and probably two more to sleep with him
right there in the prison, to whom he
was chained in his sleep.
It eminently had never bothered him.
He didn't have to take any barbiturates or
salmonex or anything else.
He's off.
No tranquilizers necessary.
To me, this is very wonderful.
And when we read here that he was
sleeping between these two soldiers, that's in verse
6, and I don't read that he had
any sleeping pills at all.
And, beloved, we won't need these things either.
You say, well, it's easy enough for you,
preacher, standing up there tonight to talk this
way.
Have you ever been in such a situation?
Well, if you'll allow one to be a
bit personal tonight, yes.
We've known what it meant on at least
two occasions to face our would-be assassins,
look them right in the eye.
Once in Honduras, in South America, and once
in Columbia, in South America, hearing men calling
for one's blood.
In Honduras, I stood alongside of a fellow
worker.
In Columbia, I stood all alone.
But I had this wonderful thing some thirty
years after the first experience in Honduras.
I went again to Honduras under the auspices
of the Moody Bible Institute and the Central
American Mission, of which I'm a member now.
And I went to the very city in
which I had lived, in San Pedro Sula,
in Honduras.
And I had the privilege of preaching in
what was then the largest Protestant church in
all of Central America, a church built by
the Evangelical and United Brethren.
And in my audience that night was a
man whose eyes fairly bored through me.
I just couldn't get away from him.
I like eye contact with my audience.
But this time it really bothered me.
I tried several ways to get something between
me and him, but it didn't work.
He just kept his eyes glued to me.
And after the service, he was the first
one to come forward to shake hands and
ask me if I was the man who
had been stoned down in Colinas de Santa
Barbara.
And I said, yes.
And he said, I was one of them
that stoned you.
And I thought he'd come to finish the
job.
He looked, his face was solemn.
And then he went on to tell me
of an incident later when he went to
hear me preach in another little village in
Honduras.
I had walked to the place because there
was nothing for our animals to eat because
of a grasshopper plague.
And he said, that night the Lord spoke
to me.
He said, I can tell you the text
on which you preached.
I said, what was it?
And I began to fish around my own
memory.
He said it was the fourth chapter of
Romans.
And it was.
And he told me, he said, that night
the Lord spoke to me, brother.
He says, I've been waiting these 30 years
to tell you.
Friends, it really pays off.
But I said to him, calling him by
name, Federico Castellano.
I said, Federico, what was it that seemed
to influence you?
Well, he said, when I saw the way
you and your companion took the stoning in
Colinas de Santa Barbara.
He said, your faces never registered a bit
of fear, of anxiety.
You seemed to be peaceful.
You were masters of the situation.
We didn't think so at the time, but
we must have been.
Friends, the Lord can do this.
He does it.
He did it for Peter.
He can do it for you.
And mind you, as we see things going
today, it may be that before the Lord
comes, we too may see a wave of
persecution, even in our country.
Remote as that seems tonight to some of
you, it has happened.
It has come.
But here Peter is in such a dead
sleep that when the angel comes into the
living room, naturally he has to, well, he
turns on the light, there's a light here,
and then he slaps him on the side
and wakes him up and gets him to
dressing himself.
He doesn't even want to leave his sandals
behind.
Everything has to be done in perfect order.
And all the while Peter doesn't know whether
this is a vision or whether it's the
real thing.
He doesn't realize until he's out there in
the street, had passed through the iron gate
which leads to the city, the scripture says
he came to himself and realized that this
was the real thing.
The real thing.
Yes, we like to think, dear friends, that
God can do just that for us today.
This is the real thing.
These stories are not fictitious.
This is the history of something that actually
happened.
And one is sorry when you go to
the city of Rome, for example, and you
never hear about this.
Oh, you hear a great deal about the
bones of Peter.
I remember the guide who took us through
the St. Peter's Church there in Rome.
He was more concerned about the size of
the church.
They had marks on the floor to show
where St. John, the church of St. John
the Divine would come and where St. Paul's
Cathedral would come if it stood on the
same ground.
And this man who could speak English with
an accent said, we have here the biggest
and the richest church in all the world
now.
And what's more, he said, we have here
the bones of San Pietro.
They say they've got the bones under that
altar which was built by one of the
great Italian sculptors.
But they haven't got his skull there.
His skull is over at St. John's Lattern.
In fact, some people say they have two
skulls, one when he was a baby and
one when he was a man.
But anyhow, I repeat that for what it's
worth.
Yes, I suppose it's like a snake shedding
its skin.
But no, Peter had to go through none
of this.
The time of his martyrdom had not yet
come.
He could have said like his Lord said,
my time is not yet.
Now is your time, the power of darkness,
yes, but God sets the time when his
servant is going to yield up his life
for him.
And so now he comes to the church
which is gathered for prayer, gathered in the
home of John Mark, and they're in there
praying.
And I repeat, I don't believe that they
actually thought he would be delivered.
I believe the most that they could think
of praying was, oh Lord, keep Peter from
denying his Lord tonight.
They wouldn't have been surprised that they'd heard
in the morning of his martyrdom, but oh,
just to know that he had laid down
his life for his Lord as he said
he would.
And of course it took a lot to
convince them that he was actually there.
Rhoda is persuaded of it right now.
Sometimes these young people have better ears than
we have, haven't they?
She recognized Peter's voice and they couldn't shake
her from it.
They said, oh, you're mad.
Oh, you've seen his angel.
That is, you've seen his spirit.
No, she said, it's Peter himself.
And sure enough, there it is.
He's there.
Comes in and makes himself known.
Now this is exceeding abundantly of all that
they asked or thought.
That's just the way God would do it.
But that isn't the end of the story.
We left a few verses to read at
this point so that we might see the
bonus that God gives here to a prayer
meeting like this.
Things that they never thought of asking for.
I've already suggested that they didn't think that
Peter would be delivered on this occasion, but
at least we've got this scripture for this.
We notice here in verse 18 of our
chapter, Acts 12, verse 18, As soon as
it was day, there was no small stir
among the soldiers what was become Peter.
And when Herod had sought for him, and
found him not, he examined the keepers, and
commanded they should be put to death.
And he went down from Judea to Caesarea
and thereabove.
That isn't the end of the story.
God isn't through with this man.
This man who had taken the life of
his choice servant James, God isn't through with
him.
So we read here in verse 20, And
Herod was highly displeased with them of Tyre
and Sidon.
See, what's this got to do with the
story?
Well, this is the way it's brought in
here to show you how God allows this
man to express what's in his heart.
And here are these people, he's displeased with
them of Tyre and Sidon, but they came
unto him with one accord to him, and
having made blast of the king's chamberlain, their
friend, they desired peace, because their country was
nourished by the king's country.
And upon a set day, Herod, arrayed in
royal apparel, sat upon his throne, made an
oration unto them.
Notice how the Lord lets this man go
the limit.
Just like he did Nebuchadnezzar in an older
day, you remember?
Nebuchadnezzar could walk around the walls of Babylon
and say, Is not this great Babylon that
I have built?
And friends, that's a dangerous moment for anybody.
That's a dangerous moment for anybody.
Don't think that this is put here merely
to inform you how this man blew himself
up like a frog on a wet night.
None of this.
This is a lesson for us.
Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed
lest he fall.
Pride goeth before destruction, so the word of
God teaches us.
And here we see a perfect illustration of
it.
And so he made this wonderful oration, and
the people gave a great shout, verse 22,
and said, The voice of a God and
not of a man.
And immediately the same angel, I suppose, that
slapped Peter on the side and set him
free—perhaps he probably was around there, you know,
the Lord didn't have to order another one
down to take care of this—an angel of
the Lord smote him because he gave not
God the glory, and what an awful death,
eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.
As you see, that's wonderful.
They didn't even ask for this, but they
got it.
That isn't the end of the story.
You know, I'm so glad that those who
divided this book up into chapters didn't stop
at this point.
But let's see what happens in verse 24,
and this is what interests me, dear friends,
so much.
When I think of those who have laid
down their lives in the service of the
King, it says here, But the word of
God grew and multiplied.
Now the question is, how does the word
of God grow?
Does it mean that we have a bigger
Bible, or we'll have a bigger Bible tomorrow
than we've got tonight?
I suppose we could use that expression in
this sense, that a person who's making discoveries
in the Bible would say, Well, my Bible
means a lot more to me today than
it did yesterday.
But I think we have another answer to
the question, is how does the word of
God grow?
You know, when you and I were born
again, dear friends, it was because a certain
seed had been planted in our hearts, and
that seed grew.
And today it expresses itself, and in the
case of some of us, for long years
it's there.
And we trust bearing fruit for God.
In this sense, the word of God is
growing.
As you and I sow the seed, and
we see it taking root in the hearts
of men and women, boys and girls, this
is the way the word of God grows
and is multiplied.
And this, again, I repeat, beloved, is over
and above anything that they asked for.
They didn't pray for this.
All the Scripture tells us back then, the
early part of the chapter is that they
prayed for Him.
And yet God gave them all these extra
things.
He judged—He not only gave them more than
they asked for in the case of Peter,
but He also judged the man who would
have put Peter to death if he'd been
allowed to.
And the same one who permitted him to
take the life of James says, You can't
take the life of Peter yet.
Wait for that.
God has His own time, even for those
who lay down their lives as martyrs.
I believe every one of these things is
divinely timed, dear friends.
When the news came to us about the
death of the five martyrs in Auckland, I
remember we were in Wheaton having listened to
the shortwave radio coming back from the field
with these tragic news, because these five lads
were well known to us.
In fact, one of them was really a
distant relative of mine.
I'm referring to Jim Elliott.
His mother and I are rated as cousins.
Not exactly first cousins, but there's a relationship
there.
And so this did something to us, to
hear that these men, these young fellows, probably
had died and did die a tragic death.
And we had Mr. McCulley there and others.
Oh, yes, we heard about that.
I can't tell you the weight that was
upon College Church that night when this news
came.
Everyone in that church felt as though a
member of the family had been taken.
It was just that weight.
I saw men and women weeping together as
the news came.
And yet we read a story like this.
We said, well, our times are in his
hand.
He times all of these things.
He timed the death of these men.
He times the death of James, whom Herod
killed with a sword.
He times Peter's death, which came later.
But, oh, out of it all comes these
wonderful fruits.
And I'm sure that those who are in
eternity now looking back upon the results of
their labor and realizing that the blood of
the martyrs is the seat of the church,
they thank God for having had a part
in this.
Friends, I would that we might in this
day have more young people who would step
forward for just this kind of thing.
I'm glad that we have some.
For example, in Operation Mobilization, I'm thanking God
for some of these young people.
It's true that they make their mistakes.
But, oh, I thank God for the martyr
courage.
I have a niece, a graduate of Moody
Bible Institute, who was given two years of
her life just now when it would be
important to her to be making plans for
marriage and so on.
I don't even know that she has a
boyfriend.
But, Betty Ann Taylor is given two years
of her best years of her life to
see that the gospel is spread in countries
like Spain and Italy.
Friends, we need to challenge our young people
these days.
I believe this is one of the reasons
why we have so many people going off
into these strange things like taking drugs and
one thing and another.
They haven't been challenged with anything that's big
enough.
To claim everything that's in them.
These men had that stamina.
Peter, yes, arrested three different times.
That didn't make him flinch.
He's going to be caught once more before
this.
We don't have the record of it in
the Bible, but we have the prophecy of
it.
So, we thank God for a man like
Peter tonight, and we are encouraged to pray.
I trust you will be encouraged to pray
for God's servants as they go forth.
As I said to you, friends, I speak
feelingly on this subject, for my bones might
well have laid in either Honduras or Colombia.
But God has been pleased to spare me
till now for reasons that only He knows.
Who is there tonight in this audience to
whom God is speaking about some dangerous path
of service?
I challenge you to live dangerously for Him.
Let's turn to hymn number 331.
331.
O God, our help in ages past, our
hope for years to come, our shelter from
the stormy blast, and our eternal home.
Number 331.
Tell me why.
O God, our hope in
ages past, our hope for years to come,
our shelter from the stormy blast, and our
eternal home.
We thank Thee that in my prophecy, and
I have included this chapter in mine, we
thank Thee, Lord, for the encouragement to our
faith, as we think of many of our
dear brethren who are standing in places of
danger tonight.
Lord, we are not concerned about the color
of their skin.
We are thinking about those in China who
are on the firing line.
We are thinking about those in Africa who
are on the firing line.
We are thinking about those in Mexico and
Central America and South America who are on
the firing line.
And those in Europe, and especially in Russia
and Spain.
O Lord, give us a fellow feeling for
them, that we may feel what Thy word
says, that when one member suffers, all the
members suffer with it.
So Lord, we pray for our suffering brethren
tonight, and we pray, Lord, that if there
be one person here present this evening whom
Thou can still challenge with a life like
this, we pray, Lord, that Thy word may
not be lost upon that heart.
But that Thou mayest use it this very
night to speak to that one about the
possibility of laying down his life for the
Lord Jesus.
So we commit to Thee Thy word and
all who have heard it, in the precious
name of our Lord Jesus Christ.