That Night Peter Was Sleeping

Well, to make it here this morning through this beautiful little
snowstorm we’re having, we’ll probably be gone in a few minutes,
who knows? May snow all day, I don’t know. Someone said on Friday night,
it wasn’t supposed to start raining at 10 o’clock. I said, I guess
no one told the rain. So God’s in control of it all,
ultimately, amen. We thought people would be happy. Or at least we thought that some
people, especially our close friends and family, would be
genuinely happy, at least in some measure. But things did
not end up being the way we thought they would be. When the Lord
graciously brought us to faith and repentance, we knew that
something radical, something amazing, something that we wanted
to tell people about had happened to us. We just thought people
would react differently than they did when we told them. Now
we understand that everyone’s experience is somewhat different,
but unless you found a way to go out of this world, when you
are delivered from the power of darkness and transport transferred
into the kingdom of the father’s beloved son, your relationship
with those still enslaved to the evil one is going to radically
change. As our Lord said, do not think
that I’ve come to bring peace on the earth, but rather what? division or sword in one one
verse says and he said from now on in one house there will be
five divided three against two and two against three. Now thankfully
most of us at least here in the Western world were not immediately
disinherited or beaten or threatened with death. But we did begin
to experience from the very earliest days of our conversion something
over which we may have been tempted to be surprised. Jesus did, after
all, say, don’t be surprised. We may not have known that when
we first came into the kingdom. We began to sense that we did
not really belong in the same way we had belonged before. It
was not that we didn’t want to still fit in. We had a new love
for, perhaps even appreciation of our family and friends. As
John the Apostle writes, we love, because he first loved us. And
that love of which John speaks includes everyone, sinner and
saint alike. So in many ways, we wanted to
have a genuinely close relationship with our family and friends.
But in reality and at time past, we were becoming
increasingly aware that we did not belong, could not belong
as we had once belonged. And it was really quite disconcerting. for many of us. And that sense
does not really go away with the passage of time. It was part
and parcel of our new life as citizens of the kingdom of light
and life. And though no experience in life is as wonderful as coming
to know the grace of God in truth, I cannot really say I liked that
aspect of it. That which I experienced then,
and I can’t really say I like it now. It’s a strange thing
to be given the gift of genuine love for people for the first
time in your life. And yet, for many of us, the people closest
to us reject that genuine love. But over time, hopefully we have
grown in our ability to understand the sense of alienation, the
subtle sense of rejection that became a day-to-day reality for
us. And it is that subtle, but very
real sense of being the object of the world’s displeasure and
how we should respond to it that I want to talk about today. As
we look at an incident in the life of the apostle Peter found
in the 12th chapter of the book of the acts of the apostles.
As most of you know, we’ve been doing a study. in the Book of
Acts during our adult discipleship class on Sunday mornings over
the last month or so. We’ve covered chapter one and
two and most of chapter three. You might say that these first
three chapters present something of a honeymoon period for the
fledgling church. In Acts chapter two, after the
Holy Spirit was powerfully poured out upon and filled the 120 disciples
gathered in an upper room, the apostle Peter preached an amazingly
powerful sermon, you’ll remember. at the conclusion of which 3,000
of the gathered Jews who received his word were baptized and added
to the church. Then in Acts 2, verse 46, we
read, and day by day, attending the temple together and breaking
bread in their houses, they received their food with glad and generous
hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And
the Lord added to their number, day by day, those who were being
saved. Amen. Hallelujah. Sounds pretty
idyllic, doesn’t it? Who would not have wanted to
be part of that? I certainly would have. But as
some people say, things were fixing to change. Things were
fixing to change. And after a notable miracle of
healing is performed by Peter and John upon the lame man who
was constantly begging at the gate of the temple, they again
preached the gospel of Christ to the people assembled at an
area known as the Portico of Solomon. Acts 4.4 reads that
many of those who heard the word believed and the number of men
came to about 5,000. Now, whether that’s 5,000 total,
including the 3,000 that are already saved or 5,000 additional,
there’s some discrepancy about that. But needless to say, a
lot more people believed on that day, at least 2,000 more, right? So because of this, Some of the
priests and the captain of the temple and others were, as it
says, greatly annoyed, greatly annoyed. You ever run into someone
that’s greatly annoyed because they were teaching and proclaiming
in Christ the resurrection of the dead. We could say that these
people were highly triggered in our modern parlance. The rulers
in question had an intense and unusually negative emotional
reaction to what they were doing. But since they could say nothing
against them, instead they do what we see. Unfortunately, oftentimes
with authorities, they abuse their power and threw them in
prison for no reason. and kept them there to the next
day. Now, in this instance, the arrest resulted in nothing more
than threats and warnings, because they said that a notable sign
is performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. So they let them go after
Peter and John famously said to them, we must obey God rather
than men. For they said, we cannot but
speak what we have seen and heard. More literally, we cannot not
speak. We cannot not speak what we have
seen and heard. In Acts 5, we see a further escalation
that the apostles are arrested and beaten. Some of the crowd
were so enraged they wanted to kill them. But eventually, again,
they were set free after being warned not to teach or preach
in the name of Jesus. In Acts 6 and 7, we see the arrest
and eventual stoning of Stephen in response to his masterful
recounting of Jewish history from the time of Abraham to the
building of the first temple under Solomon. And that history,
as Stephen pointed out, was a history marred, marred by rebellion against
the Holy Spirit and persecution of those who had announced beforehand
the coming of the righteous one, whom he said they had now betrayed
and murdered. And to say that they did not
take his holy inspired assessment well is kind of an understatement. We might want to take note of
the fact that Stephen was a deacon. He wasn’t an evangelist, nor
pastor, nor teacher in the early church, but he was an extremely
powerful witness. Amen. So you deacons take note. First Christian martyr was a
deacon and a powerful preacher of Christ. So we see that the persecution
of the church in Jerusalem was gradually increasing. And in
fact, after the martyrdom of Stephen, we read that we read
of in Acts 8, a great persecution arose against the church spearheaded
by none other than an extremely zealous Pharisee named Saul.
This persecution caused the church, except for the apostles, to be
scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. They could
no longer stay in the comfort of their own homes. and continue
to gather at the temple as they had been doing. And what did
the church that was scattered do? They had just seen an escalation
of arrests and violence and even an unlawful execution or the
unlawful execution of a remarkably godly member of the church. This
wasn’t just someone who was out doing something he shouldn’t
do and harassing people and he got himself in trouble. No, he
was. He was a deacon, he was powerfully preaching, and now
he’s gone. And things were so bad that the
whole church was forced to flee Jerusalem. And what did they
do? It says, and those who were scattered went about preaching
the word. Amen? Remarkable, isn’t it? They were not really responding
in a way that is normal or natural, were they? Do you think they
went about preaching the word primarily because they had been
told it was their duty to do so? I can not imagine how that
conversation would have gone. We’re being forced to flee in
our lives for our lives, but make sure that you check that
preaching the word everywhere box. I just can’t imagine that
that’s the way it went. Now, we know that there was this
thing called the Great Commission, reads, as you go or having gone,
then disciple all the nations. And we must not forget that it
begins with our Lord and Savior declaring, all authority in heaven
and on earth has been given unto me. What they were doing, I would
argue, flowed out of their understanding of, therefore, and their faith
in the power of the gospel. The more natural response to
the kind of open persecution the disciples were facing is
to say, we need to rethink what we’re doing or saying. That’s
the natural response, right? We need to rethink things. We
need to look at this again and maybe, you know, maybe we didn’t
hear Jesus quite right when he said, go and disciple all nations. We need to tone things down if
people are upset with our striving to be a faithful Christian witness.
Have you ever heard something like this? Have you ever thought
it? Now, of course, we are commanded
to strive to speak the truth in love. But most often this
call for a softer, gentler approach goes well beyond that. We had
one well-intentioned brother who we love very much tell us
that if what you’re doing offends people, you’re doing it wrong. Let that sink in for a minute,
okay? If what you’re doing offends
people, you’re doing it wrong. I guess Jesus and the apostles
and deacons like Stephen did not get that memo. And if they had embraced that
kind of thinking, what would have become of the church? We
know that when Peter tried to rebuke Jesus concerning his teaching
about the necessity of the Son of Man’s suffering and death
and resurrection, it did not go so well for him. We don’t
want to be guilty of the same type of thing when it comes to
this issue of persecution. We don’t want to tell Jesus,
may it never be. When he says, I’m going to suffer.
I’m going to be crucified and rise again. We don’t want to
say, no, no, no, no. May it never be. What did Jesus
say? He said, get behind me, Satan. Wasn’t Peter’s finest hour, was
it? Now this same Peter is transformed
by the grace of God and all of us are in the process by Lord
willing and by his grace of being so transformed. So don’t. Don’t despair if you aren’t where
you should be today. None of us is right. So speaking of this issue of
persecution, the word is often a malign term. especially in
the secular context. A lot of seculars seem to frequently
scoff about the idea of Christians suffering for their faith. Whenever
it’s brought up, it says, though it’s not really possible that
people are being mistreated simply because of their faith in Christ.
Or at least they say that the amount of genuine religious persecution
is greatly exaggerated. Religious freedom is claimed
to abound all over the world, even in places where it obviously
does not exist. And it’s not just the secularists
who have a hard time with the idea that people who have genuine
faith are being mistreated on any kind of grand scale. Many
of us who live in areas that do enjoy some measure of freedom
have a very difficult time grasping the kind of difficulties that
our brothers and sisters around the world face from day to day. We have a hard time fathoming
that something that we’re not experiencing or have not experienced
ourselves to any great extent. Many years ago, I had an opportunity
to travel to Mexico and meet with a pastor. I was part of
a team that went down. And we were able to visit his
home in Mexico. And he mentioned to us that he
would tell his wife, and I’ll try not to mess the pronunciation
up too bad, but in Spanish, he’d tell his wife, Toma el gozo, or get the joy, when it was time
to go outside and draw water from the well for their daily
needs. He would say this to bring to
remembrance the place in Isaiah 12, where the prophet writes,
with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
So he would say, get the joy. every time she was going to get
the bucket. Just to remind, it’s with joy
that we draw waters from the well of salvation. I still vividly
remember one of the choruses they so energetically sang. Tengo
paz y gozo en mi corazon porque Jesucristo el me liberto. Some of us might be able to translate.
I have peace and joy in my heart because Jesus set me free. He
set me free. He set me free from the chains.
He set me free. And those people we visited in
Mexico seemed very much to have in their lives an abundance of
joy. And this joy didn’t come from their physical circumstances,
their material possessions. They didn’t have much. I mean,
those of you that have been to other parts of the world, it’s
very different than from here. It’s like going back in time. You see people using carts and
donkeys, but they had something that was very evident in their
lives, this joy that I’m talking about. Pastor Tomas used to hike
for days to reach the isolated villages in the mountains around
that area in order to preach Christ to the people there. He
was accosted in one of these lawless areas and taken out into
the woods and told that he was going to be killed. And it was not unusual in those
areas for people to be killed simply because they were not
Roman Catholics. One man they told us about was
shot dead as he knelt praying in a church building. So the
danger was very real, and it was not strictly a matter of
criminal activity. These guys may have been thugs,
but it wasn’t necessarily just that they were thugs. It was
also a matter of religious persecution. They only let Tomas go because
he showed an amazing lack of fear as he preached Christ to
them. And though most of us do not
face that level of threat to our goods in person, we do nevertheless
face real, in some ways, much more effective forms of persecution
from the standpoint of the enemies of God. But today I want us to
get the joy. as we draw spiritual water from
the wells of salvation, remembering the words of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who said, blessed are you when they revile you and persecute
you and say all kinds of evil against you. Falsely, for my
sake, rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward
in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before
you. Amen. And today in our passage in the
book of Acts chapter 12, we’re going to look at three points
concerning persecution in the lives of those who belong to
Christ and how we as ambassadors of Christ should respond to it.
First of all, we’re going to look at the inevitability of
persecution in the lives of genuine followers of Christ and how subtle
forms of persecution, as we said, are often the most effective.
Secondly, we’re going to look at ways that we should respond
to all forms of persecution. We look at also at ways that
we should not respond. and how bad responses to persecution
oftentimes create unhealthy churches and unhealthy Christians. Bad
responses create unhealthy churches and unhealthy Christians. So
thirdly, we’ll look at how we can be empowered by God’s spirit
to react to all forms of affliction for the sake of the kingdom of
God and react with courageous optimism. So first of all, I’m
going to pray. and ask God to empower us this
morning to hear and understand and respond as we should to the
truth of his word. Would you pray with me? Lord, we come before your throne
today. We thank you for your word, for your people, for Christ
and all that he’s done. We acknowledge today, as always,
our dependence upon you, the teacher of the church, to guide
us into all truth. We need you who are the strength
of your people to give us insight into who you are and what you’ve
done to rescue your people. We believe, Lord, but we need
you to help our unbelief. We desire to be faithful witnesses,
but apart from you, Lord, we realize and we acknowledge we
can do nothing. Help us today, Lord. Give us
your grace and your strength and your wisdom. In the name
of your great and glorious son, Jesus, our Lord, amen. So open
your Bibles if you have them, hopefully, to Acts chapter 12,
and we’ll begin reading our passage for today. I’m reading from the New King
James Version. Someone asked me the other night,
so do you read that James King Version? I’m like, sometimes. But yeah, New King James. Chapter 1, Acts chapter, I mean. Verse 1 of chapter 12. Now, about
that time, Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from
the church. Then he killed James, the brother
of John, with a sword, and because he saw that it pleased the Jews,
he proceeded further to seize Peter also. Now, it was during
the days of unleavened bread, so when he had arrested him,
he put him in prison and delivered him to four squads of soldiers
to keep him, intending to bring him before the people after Passover. Peter was therefore kept in prison
but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church.
And when Herod was about to bring him out that night Peter was
sleeping bound with two chains between two soldiers and the
guards before the door were keeping the prison. And now behold, an
angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shone in the prison. And he struck Peter on the side
and raised him up, saying, arise quickly. And his chains fell
off his hands. Then the angel said to him, gird
yourself and tie on your sandals. And so he did. And he said to
him, put on your garment and follow me. So he went out and
followed him and did not know that what was done by the angel
was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. When they were
past the first and second guard posts, they came to the iron
gate that leads to the city, which opened to them of its own
accord. And they went out and went down
one street, and immediately the angel departed from him. And
when Peter had come to himself, he said, now I know for certain
that the Lord has sent his angel and has delivered me from the
hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the Jewish people.
So when he had considered this, 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 girl named Rhoda came to answer. When she recognized
Peter’s voice, because of her gladness, she did not open the
gate. but ran in and announced that Peter stood before the gate.
But they said to her, you are beside yourself. Yet she kept
on insisting that it was so. So they said, it is his angel.
Now Peter continued knocking. And when they opened the door
and saw him, they were astonished. But motioning to them with his
hand to keep silent, he declared to them how the Lord had brought
him out of prison. And he said, go tell these things
to James and to the brethren. And he departed and went to another
place. Now as soon as it was day, there was no small stir
among the soldiers about what had become of Peter. But when
John had searched for him and not found him, he examined the
guards and commanded that they should be put to death. And he
went down from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there. Amen and amen. So, as we mentioned already,
if you ever read through or studied the Book of Acts, you will remember
that those who belong to the church have by this point been
subjected to various trials and tribulations because of their
association with and their faith in Jesus. Beginning in Acts 4,
we see Peter and John arrested after the healing of the lame
man. at the beautiful gate of the temple. In Acts 5, as the
church began to grow, even more rapidly, the high priest and
his associates rose up. And filled with jealousy, they
placed the apostles in the public prison. During the night, an
angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and told them, go,
stand, and speak the words of this life in the temple. When
the people who put them in prison found that they had disappeared
and were now in the temple teaching, They brought them before the
Sanhedrin and commanded them to stop teaching in Jesus’ name
and beat them and let them go. In Acts 7, we see the arrest
of a deacon in the church named Stephen, whom God had used mightily
to perform signs and wonders, and he debated so well with the
Greek-speaking Jews that in order to defeat him, they suborned
slander and then perjury against him before they rose up and murdered
him, despite the fact that they saw his face as the face of an
angel, as he stood before the council. Immediately after the
death of Stephen, we read how a great persecution led by Saul
of Tarsus arose against the church that caused all of them except
the apostles to scatter throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.
Then in Acts 9, after the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus,
we see that he too became the target of persecution in the
form of plots against his life that forced him to flee the city
by being let down through the wall in a basket. Saul then returned
to Jerusalem a number of years later, but had to flee when another
plot on his life by the Greek-speaking Jews there came to light. And
then here in our passage in Acts 12, we see a resurgence of persecution
under King Herod Agrippa, as he begins to harass some who
belong to the church, including putting one of the apostles,
James, the brother of John, to death by the sword. James had
been a member of the Lord’s inner circle of disciples that included
John and Peter. Herod then had Peter arrested,
intending also to execute him after the Passover celebration
was complete. All of these instances and many
more that were not specifically recorded by Mark are confirmation
of the truth that persecution is inevitable in the lives of
genuine followers of Christ. The harassment of those who belong
to the church were the harassment they’re experiencing should not
have been a great surprise to them. The kind of treatment which
they were being subjected to was something that they would
have known it happened to the prophets before them. And they
had a front row seat to view the treatment of the Lord Jesus,
who despite living the perfect life that God requires, was despised
and rejected. And as the prophet Isaiah says,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. When the Lord appeared
after his resurrection to two of his disciples on the road
to Emmaus, he challenged their lack of faith by saying, O foolish
ones, and slow for it to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to
enter into his glory? And so, as you probably know,
he went through the Psalms. He went through Moses and the
prophets, and he expounded to them in all the scriptures, the
things concerning himself. He said, ought not the Christ
to have suffered and entered at these things and entered into
his glory. Persecution is and was inevitable in the lives of
Christ followers because suffering for righteousness sake is at
the heart of the gospel. The Apostle Peter would later write,
when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this
is commendable before God. For to this you were called,
because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example
that we should follow in his steps. Jesus said to his disciples,
in this world you shall have tribulation. And he also said, if they’ve
hated me, they’ll hate you. The Apostle Paul wrote that all
who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will what? Have a great time. That is true, too. It says, all
they that live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Albert Barnes, commenting on
this passage, said, it is undoubtedly true at all times and ever will
be that they who are devoted Christians who live as the Savior
did and carry out his principles always will experience some form
of persecution. The essence of persecution consists
in subjecting a person to injury or disadvantage on account of
his opinions, end of quote. Now, it’s not exactly on account
of our opinions. Because hopefully we’re not giving
them our opinion, right? We’re giving them the truth of
God’s word. But as far as they’re concerned, it’s just your opinion. You’re trying to push other people,
which I want to ask, so is that your opinion? I shouldn’t be
pushing my opinion, right? But Albert Barnes, injury or
disadvantage on account of his opinions. The second part of
this point. is that often more subtle forms of persecution are
more effective. The claim is made that we who
live in certain parts of the world do not really suffer persecution.
An article in The Guardian, a newspaper in the UK, had this to say on
the subject. Christians in Britain and the
U.S. who claim that they are persecuted should quote grow
up and not exaggerate exaggerate what amounts to feeling mildly
uncomfortable. According to Rowan Rowan Williams
who last year stepped down as Archbishop of Canterbury after
an often turbulent decade. This is from the article. It’s
been a while since he stepped down but he says you need to
grow up not exaggerate. You’re mildly uncomfortable.
You’re not persecuted. Sounds good, right? In a way.
He goes on to say, when you’ve had any contact with real persecuted
minorities, you learn to use the word very chastely. Persecution
is not being made to feel mildly uncomfortable. For goodness sake,
I want to say grow up. Persecution, he goes on to say,
is systematic brutality and often murderous hostility that means
that every morning you wonder if you and your children are
going to live through the day. He cited the experience of a
woman he met in India who had seen her husband butchered by
a mob. Now certainly we should not in any sense minimize the
difficulty that many of our brothers and sisters in Christ around
the world are being forced to endure on a regular basis. We
think about our brothers and sisters in the Ukraine. And they’re
going through stuff that it looks like a movie, but it’s not a
movie. It’s real life. It looks like World War II all
over again. Hopefully, Lord willing, it’s
not the start of World War III. And we don’t want to minimize
any of that in any way from our comfortable seats. But neither can we really imagine
that the Apostle Paul meant to say all those who desire to live
godly in Christ Jesus will be made to feel mildly uncomfortable. We have agreed ourselves at times
that we have not suffered real persecution when we compare experience
with those who have endured physical violence and even death at the
hands of the enemies of the gospel. But here’s the problem when we
say As Rowan Williams has said, that true persecution is systematic
brutality and often murderous hostility. We ignore the reality
that the essence of persecution is to subject someone to injury
or disadvantage because of what they believe. These subtler forms
really are persecution and are often the most effective in those
places and at those times that they are more subtle. And in fact, I would argue that
it is these more subtle forms of persecution that have done
the most damage to the church over the centuries and certainly
in our lifetime. If the blood of the martyrs is
the seed of the church, the subtle coercion of the church to keep
silent has been its downfall. And unfortunately, much of that
subtle coercion has come from within the ranks of professing
Christians. When we were told that the problems
we face in seeking to interact with the world in a godly manner
are the result of a lack of what amounts to an effective marketing
strategy and not because of natural hostility to the message of the
gospel, we are being subjected to injury and disadvantage because
of what we believe. And that understated nudge in
the direction of disobedience is the result at its core of
the same hatred that boils over in some instances to more open
forms of hostility. It all comes from the same source.
It is not God or godly men striving to speak and act consistently
with God’s word that are advising us that the best strategy for
us as Christians in this day and age is to be mostly silent
about the gospel of God. at least outside the building
we call the church. And for many, that way of thinking
leads to less and less gospel preaching inside the church as
well. If the godly thing to do is to
be quiet about Christ and his gospel outside the four walls,
at some point we’re going to believe the godly thing to do
is to be quiet about it in here too. Right. Because it’s it’s the it’s the
pragmatic thing to do. So the first point is that persecution
is inevitable in the lives of genuine Christians and more subtle
forms are often more effective in causing injury to the church. Number two let’s look at how
we should respond to persecution. Acts 12 5 Peter was kept in prison
but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church.
And when Herod was about to bring him out that night, Peter was
sleeping, bound with two chains between two soldiers, and the
guards before the door were keeping the prison. First of all, we
should respond to the persecution we all experience with constant
prayer. Genuine prayer acknowledges God’s
sovereign control over all things, which is a big, an important
thing to acknowledge and see when there’s time when there’s
times of difficulty. It’s not just that we got God’s
in control, but God is in control. God doesn’t allow anything to
our lives that we don’t need. You ever said to yourself as
your trying to fight your way through traffic, or, I didn’t
need this today, or your kids make a mess, or your boss gets
mad at you, or someone cuts you off, and you say, I didn’t need
this today. Well, the God who’s in control
disagrees. And there’s a lot to that, but
the basis of prayer is God’s sovereignty. If God’s not in
control, why pray, right? Somebody else is in control,
you know, praying wouldn’t do a whole lot of good. God’s doing
everything he can, so. But we pray because we trust
God’s sovereign control. The prayer of faith does not
demand that God act according to our dictates or desires, but
rather the prayer of faith humbly makes our requests known to God.
No doubt the church was praying for Peter to be delivered, but
They were not praying only for deliverance. They were praying
no doubt for that, but they were praying also that if he was not
to be set free, that he would be faithful unto death. After all, Peter’s track record
in regard to responding to persecution was not the best, if you remember. He denied the Lord three times
when the situation wasn’t nearly as dire as it was at this point. So they were praying for his
deliverance, and no doubt, they were praying that he would be
faithful, regardless of what happened. And we should pray
for each other, especially for leaders in the church, our elders,
that God would empower them to remain faithful throughout their
lives, even to death, and for all of our brothers and sisters
in Christ. We should pray for each other, because we need it. I need your prayers. Oh, it’s
not anything that any of us can say. I’ve got this. I mean, fortunately,
Peter grew beyond the I’ve got this kind of mentality, right?
His faith grew, his realization that, no, I don’t got this. I
need the Lord to be my strength, to be my ability, so that he
went from denying the Lord to sleeping when they’re about ready
to kill him. Big difference, right? And it’s
a good idea to pray with your Bible open if possible, or at
least with scripture in mind. As he says, if we ask anything
according to his will, he will do it. Psalm 34 verse 1 through
10 says this, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise
shall continue to be in my mouth, my soul. shall make its boast
in the Lord, the humble shall hear of it and be glad. Oh magnify
the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. I sought the
Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears. They looked
to him and their faces were radiant. Their faces were not ashamed.
This poor man cried out and the Lord heard him and saved him
out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps
around all those who fear him and delivers them. Who is this angel of the Lord? This is a parentheses. If it’s just talking about an
angel that’s gonna deliver you and deliver everyone who fears
him. Last I checked, angels are not omnipresent. It was said,
the angels of the Lord. It kind of makes sense that it’s
talking about a created angel, but the angel of the Lord encamps
around those who fear him and delivers them. Can’t be just
one guy with wings, you know? Got to be somebody else. Who’s
the angel of the Lord? Well, you know, that’s just a
parenthesis. God is the one who comes around
us and delivers us. Amen. Verse 6 and when Harry was about
to bring him out that night Peter was sleeping. The fact that Peter
was sleeping and sleeping soundly is not an incident incidental
detail in the story. Peter may have been informed
that this was his last night before being taken out of prison
to be executed as James had before him. You can imagine the guard
saying, this is your last night, Peter. I hope you enjoy it. We’re
going to do to you like we did to James. This little fledgling
church thing you’re doing, it’s going down in tubes. What did Peter do? Stayed up
all night worrying? No. He was sleeping between two
soldiers, chained to them, not very comfortable probably, right?
He was asleep. He was sleeping so soundly that
the angel had to strike him on the side to wake him up. Any of you ever watched that
show, Touched by an Angel? It’s been a while that it’s been
on. Well, Peter was touched by an angel, but it was more of
a whack. He was whacked by an angel. And even though this angel stood
by him and the light was shining in the prison, he didn’t wake
up, the angel had to smack him. Wake up, Peter. Perhaps Peter
was being empowered by the Spirit of God to imitate his master
who slept while the storm on the Sea of Galilee raged. Peter
was enjoying, perhaps, God-given sleep. And our second key to
responding, as we should, to persecution is found in Psalm
127, verses one and two. Unless the Lord builds the house,
they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guards the
city, the watchman wakes in vain. It is vain for you to rise up
early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for he
gives his beloved sleep. And rest is a very important thing.
And for those of you that struggle with sleep, I realize it’s a
very real struggle. My wife is one of those people
that she’s like, yeah, I woke up. Like, how did you sleep?
But every other night, it’s like, yeah, I was up for two hours.
So as old you get, fortunately, harder to sleep sometimes. But this rest that he’s talking
about, it’s more than just physical sleep. It’s a rest in the spirit. It’s a rest. Even if you’re awake,
you can rest. Spend some time in prayer. He gives his beloved the ability
to truly rest. Jesus said unto me, Jesus said,
come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. There’s no rest like the rest of the person whose
conscience has been made clean through faith. So how should
we respond to the hatred of the world? We should respond with
constant prayer, both for those who are being persecuted and
those who are the persecutors. Don’t forget to do that. People
that we think of that are Man, that person is just nearly insane
with their hatred for God and for his people. And let’s pray
for him. I mean, at very least that God
would restrain evil in their lives. Maybe God will do more
than that. Maybe God will save them. We
should rest in the Lord’s sovereign powers, the one who builds and
sustains the church. This is what we see them doing
in Acts 12. Next, we need to address how we should not respond
to persecution. Clarity of constant prayer and
reliance upon God’s sovereign power and ability is the way
we should respond. The opposite response is what we should not
do. Prayerlessness is not a good response to persecution. The
fact that God is sovereign in all things should never cause
us to say, why bother praying? If God is going to do what God’s
going to do, why should we spend time praying? God is either going
to set Peter free or not, right? God is either going to save our
friends and neighbors and family members or he is not right. Why
put ourselves out and subject ourselves to hatred and ridicule
by praying and seeking to evangelize these people. If there’s no maverick
molecules in the universe isn’t it pointless to do what the church
did in response to Peter’s arrest. Some would say didn’t they pray
when James was arrested. A lot of good that did. The simplest answer, of course,
is that we should respond with prayer because God has commanded
us to pray and obedience to the Lord’s commands is not optional.
We should not respond by giving into that anxiety, be anxious
for nothing. Feign to rise up early, to sit
up late, to eat the bread of sorrows. Be anxious for nothing,
but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving,
let your requests be made known to God. Delight yourself in the
Lord, and he’ll give you the desires of your heart. When our
desires coincide with God’s will, we have a powerful combination.
So we pray, not because it’s going to change God, Right? It’s not going to change God.
It’s not going to. I’ll say, well, I wasn’t going to let this
happen because you prayed. I won’t. It doesn’t really work
that way, but prayer will change us. Prayer will give us the strength
and the ability to to be more and more Christ like in our response. So why was James arrested and
slain with a sword? Why was he beheaded in all likelihood? Why were the Jews of that day
universally pleased about it? Why were they looking forward
to Peter’s execution? What made their anger burn to
such an extent that they rejoiced when the objects of their anger
were murdered? The bottom line is that the apostles and the
New Testament church refused to conform to the demands of
the world to stop teaching and preaching in the name of Jesus.
Had they been willing to be silent, had they been more culturally
sensitive as some would like to put it, had they embraced
this idea that you shouldn’t offend anyone, that it’s all
about really making friends with people first and foremost, they
would have stopped doing what the Jewish leaders and the Greeks
and everyone else that stands opposed to Christ wanted them
to do. or did not want them to do, they
would have stopped doing what they didn’t want them to do. If they
would have embraced this idea, right? That it’s, it’s about
somehow pleasing them and not God. They would have shut up about
Jesus person and work. What they did not do and what
we must not do is to give in to the pressure to obey God rather
than men. Whether that pressure is the
cold sting of a sword against our throat or whether it is the
subtle whisper of the serpent saying how effective is it after
all to preach to people who don’t want to hear it. Or what you’re doing is never
going to work because no one is listening to you. And we don’t
want to destroy the relationships we’ve worked so hard to build.
And another one we heard is handing out Christian literature is just
keeping the trash man busy. Or fill in the blank with one
of the myriad of pragmatic arguments you’ve heard as to why it is
really better not to do what God has called us to do. But
what does God say? Is it not as the passage that
our Brother Ron preached last week clearly says, where the
Apostle Paul wrote, for if I preach the gospel
that gives no ground for boasting for necessities laid upon me,
woe to me if I preach not the gospel. Now, I will admit that
Most of the time when I’ve read that, I’ve more or less taken
it as Paul saying, it’s my duty to preach Christ and that I’m
going to experience God’s discipline if I don’t. But what if he’s saying that
in a very real sense, I need to do this for my own sake? I need to resist the temptation
to be silent because if I forgo this means of grace in my own
life, I’m not going to be better off,
I’m going to be worse off. Woe is me if I don’t preach the gospel,
not because God’s going to discipline me necessarily, but because this
means of grace is something that I will have foregone. Paul was
not saying he didn’t want to do it, but rather that he needed
to do it, even though it was hard to do. And I think we can
say that subtle coercion has gone much further in harming
the church than the swing of the sword ever has. Why is there
so little of what many call real persecution in the United States?
Might it be that it is because the best weapon is the one that
works the best? If the goal of persecution is
to silence the true preaching of the gospel, there is no need
to use a sword where a little helpful advice will suffice. The enemies of the gospel could
not care less about how many people sit in our pews, as long
as those people leave without a clear understanding of the
gospel and the central place gospel proclamation plays in
the life of the church. Even though many churches say
things that are true, they are way too often willing to turn
around the next Sunday or in the next breath and say things
that spoil all the gospel truth they’ve so eloquently affirmed.
So you say a lot of things that are true, but then if you contradict
yourself or you say something that’s not true, you can take
it all away. And this is what happens, unfortunately,
a lot of times. R.C. I do miss R.C. How many miss R.C.? It’s good
to have all the R.C. Sprouls every time. He passed
away a few years ago. Great preacher. And, you know, that guy, God,
he was such a great gift, and it’s a blessing we still have
his his so much of his preaching that we can we can just flip
on YouTube and watch. But J.C. Ryle said this, you
may spoil the gospel by substitution. You only have to withdraw the
eyes of the sinner from the grand object which the Bible proposes
to faith, Jesus Christ, and to substitute another object in
his place and the mischief is done. Substitute anything for
Christ and the gospel is totally spoiled. You may spoil the gospel
by addition. You have only to add to Christ
the grand object of faith, some other objects as equally worthy
of honor and the mischief is done. Add anything to Christ
and the gospel ceases to be a pure gospel. So his argument is, look, you
can preach a lot of truth, but when you add falsehood to it,
it spoils it. You can have a beautiful stew
or whatever. And I had a friend once, and
I don’t know if I have time to tell this story. But he created this stew. And
he took all of our groceries. And I was living with a bunch
of guys before I was married, batching it, so to speak. He
took this stew. He threw all of our groceries
in. And for some reason, he decided, or he threw a lot of our groceries
in. I’ll take that. Then he decided he was going
to put some anchovies in it. I don’t know who likes anchovies.
Probably some of you do. But I guess he liked them, but
it basically ruined the stew. And then to try to kill the anchovies,
he took the rest of all of our groceries and threw it in. And
eventually, this ended up in the freezer and eventually went
in the trash, because it was inedible, right? So you add something
to the gospel that doesn’t belong, and it can spoil it. And unfortunately,
it is what happens. A lot of churches, a lot of Christians
have a very good, statement of faith and everything else, but
they’re not that careful as to the purity of the gospel. And
so there, there’s a problem there. And the world, the world doesn’t
and the enemies of the faith don’t want us to give the pure
gospel to people. Conformity demands the world
to stop preaching the gospel or allowing fear and anxiety
to shift our focus away from prayerful attention to Christ
in the gospel or wrong responses to persecution. Lastly, we’ll look at how we
can be empowered to react as we should react to the hatred
of the world and to the pressure to conform to the world’s demand
that we should be silent. It’s one thing to say we should
react in a certain manner, should act with prayer, we should trust
God’s sovereignty. It’s another thing to say how
we can do this. What does scripture say about
how we can react as we should? Here’s the bottom line, really,
we can only do what we should do because of who Christ is and
what he has done. Jesus said to his disciples on
the eve of the most heinous act of persecution that has ever
been perpetrated. These things I’ve spoken to you
that in me, you may have peace in the world. You will have tribulation,
but be of good cheer. I’ve overcome the world. Be of
good cheer or take heart or be courageous. Why? because I have
overcome the world. Jesus said, these things I’ve
spoken to you that in me you might have peace. He told them
the days of open persecution were on the way. He told them
again he’s going to die in such a way that while the world rejoiced,
they would weep and lament. But I will see you again and
your heart will rejoice. And your joy no one will take
from you, he said. How can we respond as we should
respond to the hateful attitude of the world towards God and
his people. He said to his disciples and
especially to his apostles and your joy joy no one can take
from you or will take from you. His promise is for all believers
but. I don’t know we can say his promise
applies to all believers equally in the sense that. Without the
joy that Christ’s victory over the world gives us, we will never
be able to continue to grow in our ability to respond to persecution
as we should. Without the joy that Christ’s
victory over the world gives us, we’re not going to be able
to respond as we should. C.H. Spurgeon said this concerning
the lack of joy that many Christians experience. He said, can give
a greater light in your path than a clear understanding of
divine things. He said, it is a mingle-mangled
gospel too commonly preached that causes the downcast faces
of Christians. Give me the congregation whose
faces are bright with joy. Let their eyes glisten at the
sound of the gospel. Then I will believe it is God’s
own words they are receiving. Instead thereof, you often see
melancholy congregations whose visages are not much different
from bitter countenance of poor creatures swallowing medicine.
Because of the word spoken terrifies them by its legality instead
of comforted them by its grace. Spurgeon says we love a cheerful
gospel and we think all the truth will tend to comfort the Christian.
As we close, I want to go quickly back to Isaiah 12. It’s a very
short chapter. You will say in that day, I will
give thanks to the Lord to you, O Lord, for though you were angry
with me, your anger turned away that you might comfort me. Behold,
God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid
for the Lord. God is my strength in my song and he’s become my
salvation with joy. You will draw water from the
wells of salvation, and you will say in that day, give thanks
to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the
peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted, sing praises to the
Lord, for he has done gloriously. Let this be made known in all
the earth. Shout and sing for joy, O inhabitant
of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel. Why
did the apostles and those who belong to the church have joy
that no one could take away from them. It was all based upon who
Christ was. The Lord is my strength and my
song. He also has become my salvation
and what he had done be of good cheer. I’ve overcome the world.
He had told them they continued despite threats and beatings
and murders to call upon his name and declare his deeds among
the peoples. And because of that, no one could take away their joy.
Amen. Let’s pray. Thank you, Lord.