Arrogant Response

Acts 12:18 – 23 documents Herod’s response to God’s miraculous release of Peter from Herod’s maximum security lock up.  He pitched a fit.  He executed the 16 guard.  When the world and its systems do not get their way, they lash out violently.

Herod was arrogant.  He thought that God was not a real issue.  He saw himself as a god.  In his case, God took him out in mid-sentence.  Herod suffered the same fate as those whom he used to stand against God, the guards he executed.  Those who place themselves over God are destroyed unless God draws them.  All who reject the relationship God offers, are placing themselves over God in that they are saying that He is irrelevant and not needed in their life.  They are autonomous, the poem Invictus, which I really like, is a prime example of that attitude.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Henley, William Ernest (1888). A book of verses. London: D. Nutt. pp. 56–57. OCLC 13897970

As good as this is, it describes a life committed to self and self-determination as opposed to trust and dependence on God.  It is our nature to live this way.  It appeals to us.  2 Chronicles 36:16 reminds us that while God is one of patience, grace, and mercy; there is a limit to the latitude He gives us.  We do well to respond to Him before the last clause of that passage… “until there is no remedy.”

Contrasting “Powers”

Acts 12:3 – 17 is an interesting contrast in purpose, instrumentation, and power.  Herod’s purpose was to execute Peter to please the religious, which was his end, his purpose.  Herod’s means were a jail and four squads of soldiers.

In contrast the purpose of the church, their end, was to have Peter released, delivered.  Their means was prayer, fervent prayer.

Herod threw all he had to contain one man.  A jail and four squads of soldiers.  A squad had 4 soldiers; so sixteen men.  Sixteen men and a jail vs prayer.  The people praying did not really believe it would work, when Peter showed up, they did not believe it.  By the way their halting faith and the result of their prayer gives me hope.  Because in reality they in large part reflect much of my attitude in prayer.

The outcome of the contrast between the ends and means of Herod and religion vs the church is stunning.  All of the means that the tetrarch had at his disposal could not prevail against the prayer, the halting, unbelieving prayer of the saints.  It was not a matter of the faith of those who prayed rather it was a matter of to whom those prayers were directed.  This was about God’s purpose, His control, His sovereignty over one who thought himself important and one who was committed to the world’s system.  He thought himself as one who could stand against what God was doing.  We find in the next couple of paragraphs the end result of his delusion.  We will leave that for tomorrow.

Hostile Environments

Acts 12:1 – 3 is an interesting read.  In there we see two systems or entities that resist Christ and by extension Christianity.  The first is the government.  Herod rounds up believers including apostles and kills them.  He kills John’s brother James, and then makes a move on Peter.  The believers were not functioning as the government wanted.  So they used power and force to attempt to stop the spread of their influence

The other entity that rejects here Christ and Christians is religion.  John 16:1 – 4 also speaks to this.  The alignment of the world and religion is close.  All forms of religion including “Christian” religion is hostile toward Christianity.  Religion by definition is a system of trying to please God through performance or standards.  It is man’s, the flesh, the world’s choice.  On the other hand, Christianity, discipleship, is God’s choice.  He chooses to relate through His Son’s sacrifice to those whom He has chosen.