SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/31/2018
10:13 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Intro to
Acts Twelve
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 12:1-25
Message
of the verses: “Now about that time
Herod the king laid hands on some who belonged to the church in order to
mistreat them. 2 And he had James the brother of John put to death with a
sword. 3 When he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter
also. Now it was during the days of Unleavened Bread. 4 When he had seized him,
he put him in prison, delivering him to four squads of soldiers to guard him,
intending after the Passover to bring him out before the people.
5 So Peter was kept in the prison, but
prayer for him was being made fervently by the church to God. 6 On the very
night when Herod was about to bring him forward, Peter was sleeping between two
soldiers, bound with two chains, and guards in front of the door were watching
over the prison. 7 And behold, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared and a
light shone in the cell; and he struck Peter’s side and woke him up, saying,
"Get up quickly." And his chains fell off his hands. 8 And the angel
said to him, "Gird yourself and put on your sandals." And he did so.
And he said to him, "Wrap your cloak around you and follow me." 9 And
he went out and continued to follow, and he did not know that what was being
done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. 10 When they
had passed the first and second guard, they came to the iron gate that leads
into the city, which opened for them by itself; and they went out and went
along one street, and immediately the angel departed from him. 11 When Peter
came to himself, he said, "Now I know for sure that the Lord has sent
forth His angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the
Jewish people were expecting." 12 And when he realized this, he went to
the house of Mary, the mother of John who was also called Mark, where many were
gathered together and were praying. 13 When he knocked at the door of the gate,
a servant-girl named Rhoda came to answer. 14 When she recognized Peter’s
voice, because of her joy she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced
that Peter was standing in front of the gate. 15 They said to her, "You
are out of your mind!" But she kept insisting that it was so. They kept
saying, "It is his angel." 16 But Peter continued knocking; and when
they had opened the door, they saw him and were amazed. 17 But motioning to
them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had led him
out of the prison. And he said, "Report these things to James and the
brethren." Then he left and went to another place. 18 Now when day came,
there was no small disturbance among the soldiers as to what could have become
of Peter. 19 When Herod had searched for him and had not found him, he examined
the guards and ordered that they be led away to execution. Then he went down
from Judea to Caesarea and was spending time there.
20 Now he was very angry with the people of
Tyre and Sidon; and with one accord they came to him, and having won over
Blastus the king’s chamberlain, they were asking for peace, because their
country was fed by the king’s country. 21 On an appointed day Herod, having put
on his royal apparel, took his seat on the rostrum and began delivering an
address to them. 22 The people kept crying out, "The voice of a god and
not of a man!" 23 And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because
he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died. 24 But the
word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied. 25 And Barnabas and
Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their mission, taking
along with them John, who was also called Mark.”
In John MacArthur’s last chapter in his first volume on
the book of Acts he entitles the chapter “The Folly of Fighting God,” and as
one reads through this chapter they can understand why he chose this title of
Acts chapter twelve.
True to the title that John MacArthur give this chapter
he writes in his introduction to Acts twelve about how fighting against began
with angels and with men and then goes on to talk about different men who
fought against God and of course lost.
We know from the study of Scripture that the angelic fight against God
began when Lucifer who was the highest of all created beings rebelled against
God. In both Isaiah and Ezekiel we see
part of the story of how Lucifer began his battle against God by rebelling
against Him and then one third of the angelic realm followed him as seen in
Rev. chapter 12 and verse 4 “And his tail swept away a third of the stars of
heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who
was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.” Man’s rebellion against God began in the
garden of Eden when the forbidden fruit was eaten by both Adam and Eve which
caused every person who was born of the seed of man to be born with a sinful
nature and thus the fight was on and is still on this day. Solomon writes about the hopelessness of fighting
against God in Proverbs 21:30 “There is no wisdom and no understanding And no
counsel against the LORD.” How foolish
it is for man who is impotent to battle against God who is omnipotence, it is
like throwing eggs against a wall as all will crushed and broken.
In his introductory commentary MacArthur mentions men
like Friedrich Nietzsche, Sinclair Lewis, and Ernest Hemingway, who all hated Christianity
thus hating God, and all wrote against Christianity in their books and all died
either by taking their own lives or being a drunken or went insane.
We know the story of Pharaoh in the book of Exodus and
how he fought against God and caused Egypt to fall from any significant power
even losing all their first born through the last plague that God put against
them.
John MacArthur writes “In the New Testament era one
family of rulers stands out in the battle against God: the Herods.
The patriarch of the family was known in all modesty as Herod the
Great. He ruled Judea from 47 B. C. to
37 B. C. Then, having been dubbed ‘King
of the Jews’ by Antony, Octavius, and the Roman Senate, he ruled all of
Palestine from 37 B. C. until his death shortly after Christ’s birth (Matt.
2:15).”
He goes on to write about how Herod the Great killed his
wives, his mother and three of his sons, and the last son he killed five days
before he died. Now the Herod in this
chapter was Herod Agrippa I and he reigned from A. D. 37 to A. D. 44, and he
was the grandson of Herod the Great.
The Herod in this section of Acts 12 was on shaky ground
with the Romans and one of the ways to find favor with the Jews was to kill
some of the leaders of those who were Christians the hated sect of the
Jews. Herod killed James who was the
brother of John and was about to kill Peter.
Herod’s ploy was successful in killing James as it did please the
Jews. This was done “during the days of
Unleavened Bread” which was the weekly feast following Passover. We see that Peter was in prison and was to be
killed after the feast and while in prison he was guarded by “four squads of
soldiers.” If we go back to Acts 5:19 we
read “But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the gates of the prison,
and taking them out,” this speaks of the Apostles who were also let loose from
prison.
Now if we go back to the 21st chapter of John
we see a promise that Jesus gave to Peter on how he would die for the cause of
Christ and it was by crucifixion and so I think that because of that promise
that Peter was able to sleep the night before he was to be executed by Herod.
Now before I quote the last paragraph from MacArthur’s
introduction, something that I usually do to show the direction the chapter
goes, I want to remind you once again that we live in a world where conflict
goes on continually. Paul writes “12 For
our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against
the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual
forces of wickedness in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12).” Our battle is something that goes on as soon
as you become a believer in Jesus Christ, so I have found that there are
especially two things that all believers should know about. The first one is to know the attributes of
God so that you can know who the God you worship, the God who saved you really
is. Next we are to know our enemy and
what he is trying to do to all believers and what we can do according to
Ephesians chapter six to be protected against these battles we go through. You have to realize that you are in a battle
first of all and then realize what to do about it.
John MacArthur writes “Three reasons for not fighting God
stand out in Acts 12: God’s power cannot
be contested, His punishment cannot be avoided, and His purposes cannot be
frustrated.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Moses” (Exodus 17:11-14).
Today’s Bible
question: “What happened when Paul and
Silas were in prison?”
Answer in our next SD.
1/31/2018 11:33 AM
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