Back in 2004, I think it was around about then, I made an application on behalf of my previous church to the New South Wales Department of Commerce in order for us as a church to access government contract rates on a number of different purchases.
The process was painful, to say the least, in terms of the paperwork going backwards and forwards and the amount of time it took.
It took weeks and weeks and weeks.
Eventually, after not hearing anything for some time, I rang them up and spoke to the person dealing with our case.
He said to me, it's been sitting there and I've been holding on to it because I don't know what to do with it.
He asked me, in the course of that conversation, to finish this deal, if you like.
What I need to do is I need a copy of your business's constitution.
I wasn't sure such a thing existed.
I said to him, we're a church.
He said, well, yeah, but any organisation and institution has a constitution.
I pushed it a little bit harder.
What is it that you want from this constitution?
He said, well, basically, I need a wind-up clause.
He said, so if the church or when the church ceases to exist, what happens?
So I'm kind of a little bit testy at this point.
And I said, I wasn't quite sure what to say.
And so I said the first thing that came into my mouth, which is always, not always the best idea.
But I said to him, well, we've been operating since the day of Pentecost.
I'm not sure exactly when that was, but it was probably something like 1,700 years before New South Wales government even came to exist, let alone the New South Wales Department of Commerce.
There's around 2 billion members worldwide.
And I think our wind-up clause, whatever that is, kicks in when Jesus comes back.
And I can't give you the date for that.
That didn't seem to satisfy him.
And so I sent him a copy of the Australian government's Anglican Church Constitution Act of 1902, which has got no wind-up clause in it, but seemed to satisfy him.
And then eventually, after a number of weeks, I got a piece of paper.
You see, we were operating on two different worldviews.
His worldview is that the church is just like any other institution, and it will come to an end.
And that is the tide of the culture in which we exist now in our country.
The church has had its day.
In fact, more specifically, God has had his day amongst us.
We are now living in enlightened and technological advanced times that don't need God.
My worldview, driven by the scriptures, says that God was the living God when the universe banged into existence.
He was the living God when James Cook put his foot on Australian soil for the first time.
He was the living God in 1966 when Time magazine put a title on its front cover saying,
Is God dead?
And so, I'm not thinking of a wind-up clause in terms of God and his purposes.
No thing, no person will prevail against him and his purposes.
No matter how big the head of state is right now, no matter how powerful a person might be,
Tony Abbott, Barack Obama, whoever it might be,
there is not a single head of state in all the world right now who will be ruling in 100 years.
They'll be gone.
All of them.
The turnover is 100%.
And in a brief 120 years, this planet will be populated with, apparently, around 10 billion new people.
That means all the 6, 7 billion, whatever it is right now,
that currently have got their feet planted on the earth,
will be all vanished and gone.
You and me, gone.
Dead.
But God will still be alive and ruling and his purposes still being worked out.
And so, the main thrust of today's passage is,
try as you will, as powerful as you may be,
you stand against this God and you lose.
It's that simple.
There is no wind-up clause to his purposes.
That's the reality here.
So, open up your Bible to Acts 12.
So far, Acts 1 to 11.
It's an incredible account of the fulfillment of Acts 1, verse 8,
which is the key verse in understanding Acts.
You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
The word of God and the message of forgiveness of sins, new life in Jesus Christ,
has spread rapidly in chapters 1 to 8.
And it is simply saying that in chapters 1 to 8, it's simply saying Jesus reigns.
He is doing what he said he would do.
He is alive and he is active in this world.
And so, in the first 11 chapters of Acts, all in all, it's been a pretty good start.
They've had a few hiccups along the way, a few little issues.
And, you know, Stephen was killed in chapter 7 and things like that.
But all in all, vision 8050 or whatever it is that they had, it's had a pretty good start.
But when you get into Acts 12, the days couldn't be much darker for this church in Jerusalem
and certainly for the early church.
Have a look at it there, verse 1.
It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who were belonging to the church,
intending to persecute them.
He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.
And when he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also.
This happened during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
After arresting him, he put him in prison.
Now, that is a major blow for this early church.
Major blow.
So imagine here for us at St. Paul's.
If Chris was just beheaded down at the concourse because he was proclaiming Jesus just before Christmas,
and Brian's arrested, he's in Chatswood lockup, or Hornsby lockup,
and awaiting the same thing as soon as Christmas and Boxing Day is over.
They'll bring him out to the concourse and do the same thing for him.
Can you imagine what we would feel at that point?
It would be an unthinkable tragedy.
It would be an enormous blow for us as we consider, God, you've given us this mission.
Things have been going fantastic.
And all of a sudden, this has happened to our key leaders.
It would gut us in many ways.
And so here in Acts 12, we see that Herod is the main enemy.
This is Herod I.
He is grandson of Herod the Great, even though he wasn't the first Herod.
He was entitled Herod I.
He was grandson of Herod the Great, the Herod the Great who hoped to kill Jesus himself
by getting rid of all the infant boys around Bethlehem and around the time Jesus was born.
Herod I was sent to Rome to be educated after his grandfather killed his father.
Close family, this one.
And then he grew up in Rome as a friend and of the imperial family.
He became something of a playboy.
And in AD 23, he fled Rome to Palestine to escape his creditors.
He spent time in prison.
And at times he lived in pretty humble, destitute circumstances.
However, that all shifted for him when a few of his boyhood mates rose to power in Rome and appointed him to be ruler of Judea and Samaria under their rule.
This is the sort of story that magazines sell for, you know, this is incredible.
For example, Herod I was preeminently a politician.
When amongst the Romans, he would act like a Roman.
When amongst the Jews, he would act like a Jew because that was his heritage.
He was won by heritage, not by conviction.
And so he would do anything to maintain his popularity with the Jewish people who were his main constituents.
He saw Jewish Christians as divisive and believed their activities would disturb the population.
And so with the sudden word here, James was gone.
Just one verse, gone.
Put to death by the sword.
And as soon as the Feast of Unleavened Bread was over,
because you weren't allowed to do executions during the Passover,
you had to kind of wait for church to be over so you'd go and kill people,
there would undoubtedly be a mock trial and Peter would join James in death.
And so the Jerusalem church here would have felt overwhelmed and powerless in this scenario.
And there was nothing they could do except verse 5 says,
the church was earnestly praying to God for him.
The word translated earnestly comes originally from a word that means to stretch or to strain.
They were straining in prayer, or as one person puts it,
they were praying with agony for Peter.
Does anything look more ridiculous to oppressors than a ragtag,
harried group of believers praying for God's help in the midst of oppressive darkness?
To those outside the family of God, this looks like terminal weakness.
Getting around to pray?
You know, one of you leaves is dead, another one's on the way,
and the best you can come up with is pray?
It would have been much more sensible to organise a petition.
Picket the prison or the palace or something like that, a few placards, release Peter.
Plan a reprisal attack, that'll do it.
Car bomb, not that they had them back in those days.
Camel bomb, outside the palace.
Or a kidnapping, sorry to camels.
Or a kidnapping, one of Herod's close confidants or a family member.
Show some strength, put political power against political power.
The opponents here must have thought, what fools?
Herod's power is irresistible.
The sword had fallen once, and it would fall on the helpless neck of another of their leaders.
Even verse 11 indicates that everyone in Jerusalem figured that Peter was done for.
And so, zero hours at hand, Passover was complete,
and now Herod and his staff could come out of church and kill Peter.
The victim of a kangaroo court.
Verse 6 begins the description of this final night.
It says,
The night before Herod was to bring him out to trial,
Peter was sleeping between two soldiers,
bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance.
Peter was sleeping.
In fact, quite soundly asleep.
It says that an angel a little bit later had to nudge him to wake him up.
But his restfulness on this night simply means that he was at peace with himself.
He was at peace with God, and he was at peace with these circumstances in which he found himself.
It's quite possible that he shared Christ as best he could with his captors,
had a time of prayer, fell asleep, resting in Jesus,
and on the shoulder of one of the soldiers.
It tells us, verse 4,
that Peter was guarded by four squads of four soldiers each.
Herod wanted to make sure that this really dangerous prisoner that he's caught was not going to escape.
These are extraordinary precautions.
Normally, they only chained a prisoner to one soldier,
and he's got chains on both sides of him.
And to make it even more so,
there's two soldiers standing outside his cell door to keep guard of him.
It's pretty hopeless,
and then all of a sudden,
there's an unexpected turn of events.
Verse 7,
Suddenly,
an angel of the Lord appeared,
and a light shone,
shined in the cell.
Boom, brightness.
He struck Peter on the side,
and woke him up,
quick,
come on, get up.
And the chains fell off Peter's wrists.
Now, Peter's been in a deep sleep here.
He must have been groggy,
because the angel had to tell him in verse 8 to get dressed.
Put on your clothes and your sandals,
wrap your cloak around you,
and follow me.
Just imagine,
early in the morning,
Peter obeyed,
probably in disarray.
Sandals are on the wrong feet.
Cloak sort of hanging loosely,
his hair's all over the place,
grabbing for his long back and his baraka
to try and kickstart the morning.
He's dazed,
he's bewildered like a sleepwalker,
not quite sure where he's going,
or even why he's going.
And verse 9,
it says,
Peter followed him,
that is the angel out of the prison,
but he had no idea that what the angel was doing
was really happening.
He thought he was seeing a vision.
He was confused.
But there was a dawning awareness,
a reality,
and as he rubbed his eyes,
the reality must have staggered him.
Verse 10,
they passed the first and second guards,
came to the iron gate leading to the city,
and it opened for them by itself,
and they went through it.
And when they had walked the length of one street,
suddenly,
the angel left.
And then Peter came to himself.
His chains fell off.
He walked right on out by the two guards,
which were chained to him.
He walked right past the two sentries,
and then the gates of the city just swung open.
The word translated by itself in verse 10
is automatae.
The gates opened automatically.
I mean, these gates are more reliable
than the one we've got out the front here.
It opens a close of his own mind.
Sleepy or not,
he's wandered out there in the streets in Jerusalem,
and he must have felt the goose bumps
and the adrenaline,
and the angel's gone.
Stood on the streets of Jerusalem,
the middle of the night,
he's rubbing his wrists,
rubbing his eyes,
holding back a yawner thinking,
rightio then.
You can just imagine the experience.
Do you get the picture?
Those ragtag, beleaguered, weak Christians
knew a God with greater power
than Herod's armies and his prisons.
The legions of Rome barred the door,
but it only took one of God's agents
to liberate the captive.
And what happened here
is that Peter's experience
re-equated the embattled church in Jerusalem
with the true nature of its strength.
No matter how grim,
perplexing,
and difficult our situation is,
God and his angels are present to minister to us.
He can deliver at any time,
anywhere,
in any place.
There is nothing too hard for him.
Having said that,
let me just take a short diversion
and raise one big question
that these verses pose.
why was Peter preserved,
but James wasn't?
James got it,
head cut off,
Peter didn't.
James died by the sword,
Peter was marvelously preserved.
Why is one saint rescued
and another not?
Why are we sitting here tonight
in complete freedom,
with no fear for our life
whatsoever,
under any kind of threat
whatsoever?
We've got it pretty cozy and comfy
and yet 100 million Christians
around the world today
will do this sort of thing
under great threat of their life.
And in fact,
some will give their life for doing this.
Why is that?
What's the difference?
Let me start with the stupid answer.
The stupid answer is,
well, because the church didn't pray for James.
As if by our praying,
we order God to act in certain ways.
Our prayers ought to be informed by humility
because they have been taught
by God's mystery.
We don't always get God's ways.
His understanding is unsearchable.
It is infinite wisdom and understanding,
but it is unsearchable.
And at the very least,
the example of James here tells us
that the cross of Christ
hangs over the existence
of every Christian life.
And sometimes we are called
to suffer for Christ's name.
And yet on the other hand,
the example of Peter
tells us that the power of Christ
hangs over every Christian life.
And sometimes our Lord delights
to show us how thrilled He is
to rescue us from any danger.
So on the one hand,
we must not forget Philippians 1.29,
for it has been granted to you
on behalf of Christ,
not only to believe on Him,
but also to suffer for Him.
And yet to hold that together
with Psalm 116, verse 8,
for you, O Lord,
have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
and my feet from stumbling.
To keep those together.
We need to recognize the mystery
of God's providence
and rest in that mystery.
We need to understand with clarity
that God's greater purpose
than our safety and comfort
in this earth,
in this world,
is His glory
through the fulfillment of His plans.
God will always act
to glorify His name
and advance His gospel.
Now that does not mean
that we are simply tools
in His hands or pawns
to be thrown around
wherever we like.
God's providence
is always perfect.
And He is a careful shepherd
of His sheep.
I just quoted from Psalm 116
just a moment ago,
verse 8,
where it says,
For you, O Lord,
have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
and my feet from stumbling.
Psalm 116, verse 15,
seven verses later,
says,
Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of His saints.
Reflecting on this verse,
the great Charles Spurgeon wrote,
They shall not die prematurely,
referring to the saints,
they shall not die prematurely,
they shall be immortal
till the work is done.
And when their time comes to die,
then their deaths shall be precious.
The Lord watches over their dying beds,
He smooths their pillows,
He sustains their hearts,
and He receives their soul.
Do you recognize your perfect safety
until your work is done
for the Lord Jesus?
This God is to be trusted,
no matter how dark things appear.
Calm, secure trust in Him
must be our response
in all situations.
This Peter who slept soundly
in the prison cell
had just seen one of his mates,
heads cut off,
and he knew what the outcome
was likely to be for him,
and he rested in God's purposes
and providence
in between two Roman soldiers.
I don't think he expected
to get out of it,
but God was delighted
to demonstrate His power,
not just to Peter,
but to the church,
and to Herod and to everyone else,
and to bring him out of prison.
And so there he is,
standing in the streets in Jerusalem,
probably asking just as many questions
that we have about the mystery of God
and why.
And then finally dawns on him
what God has done for him,
and so he went to the house of Mary
where many people had gathered for prayer,
and he knocks on the door.
What follows is a story
of confusion and joyful humour.
A servant girl named Rhoda
came to answer the door
that Peter was knocking on,
and she became so befuddled
at Peter's voice
that she ran to announce his arrival
without even opening the door for him.
She excitedly busts in
to the prayer meeting
and says,
Peter's at the door.
And the response
of the prayer meeting,
the church that's gathered
is now famous.
Verse 15,
you're out of your mind.
You're crazy, Rhoda.
And when she kept insisting,
no, I'm not crazy,
he's at the door.
No, it must be his angel.
But Peter kept on knocking,
and when they opened the door
and saw him,
they were like,
Peter's here.
At first they thought she was mad,
then they switched the story
to that she was just,
you know,
Peter's angel or spirit.
You just imagine it.
The church is there,
agonising in prayer for Peter.
Rhoda comes busting in.
Peter's at the door.
And they're,
shh,
quiet Rhoda.
Can't you see we're praying in agony.
Don't bother us
with the answer to our prayers.
It's not a very idealistic picture
of the church here,
is it?
But is this not a picture of ourselves?
Sometimes we go through the motions
and even the earnestness of prayer
and when God answers those prayers,
we are just taken by surprise
that God would answer our prayers.
We pray fervently for the conversion of relative
and when it happens,
it's like,
that was unexpected.
Dude,
amazing.
What is amazing here
is our slowness to believe God's ability
and his willingness to answer our prayers.
This section is a humorous rebuke
for this church in Jerusalem
as it is for us.
Can it be the case
that even in our most earnest prayers,
we sometimes find
that we're almost going through the motions
without actually expecting
that God will hear us
or that he will act.
It's almost a throwaway line,
oh, I'll pray for you.
A throwaway line,
I'll pray for you
hoping that we can potentially
stop this conversation happening further.
I'll just pray for you
and then forget about it altogether.
Some of us have been reciting
for years,
creeds,
singing songs,
reading the Bible
that declare that God is creator,
that he sustains everything,
that he is almighty
over all that is in this world.
And when he answers a prayer,
we're like,
that's surprising.
it's like we weren't expecting him
to be listening.
Or maybe we weren't expecting
him to be able to do anything.
Or maybe we weren't expecting him
to actually want to do anything.
I think that when we go through
the motions in this way,
we tend to treat prayer
like a technique
forgetting what we want
rather than seeing
that prayer is a relationship.
The really encouraging thing here
is that God is not bound
by our imperfections.
Apparently in this passage,
God answered unbelieving prayer.
We may say things incorrectly
or say things without sufficient belief,
but God just loves
to hear his people pray.
And he is well able
to do immeasurably more
than we can ask or imagine.
My friends,
prayer,
one of our core values
is to devotion to prayer.
Prayer ought to be
a constant statement to God,
to our world,
to us as a church here,
St. Paul's,
to our own consciences
that we exist
to do things
that we cannot do
without the supernatural grace of God.
That's what happens
when we pray.
We can rattle off the creed
about who we believe as a God,
but we actually demonstrate
that we believe
what we just said
in prayer.
That's how we truly believe it.
is when we pray,
this God,
is a God who is not just
in relationship with me
and wanting to hear my prayers,
but he is able to act
and wanting to act.
St. Paul's exists mainly
to do the humanly impossible,
everything good
and worthwhile
and eternal
and God glorifying
that we want to do
as a church
we cannot do
without the supernatural power
and grace of God.
It is pride
and it is arrogance
to think that we can build a church
that we can see
ministry flourish
and people come to Christ
just by putting in
right strategies
and having the right language
and the programs
into place.
We must be devoted to prayer.
And so,
we now come to the end
of the passage
because the rescue of Peter
isn't the end of it.
God hasn't finished
with Herod
just yet.
Verse 20
and 24
tell us what happens next.
He,
Herod,
had been quarreling
with the people
of Tyre and Sidon.
They now joined together
and sought an audience
with him.
Having secured
the support of Blastus,
a trusted personal servant
of the king,
they asked for peace
because they depended
on the king's country
for their food supply.
On the appointed day,
Herod,
wearing his royal robe,
sat on his throne
and delivered a public address
to the people
and they shouted,
this is the voice
of a God,
not of a man.
And immediately,
immediately,
because Herod
did not give praise
to God,
an angel of the Lord
struck him down
and he was eaten
by worms
and died.
And so what happened was
Herod presents himself
to the theatre
in Caesarea
to make a speech.
The historian Josephus
said that
he wore
a very impressive
royal ornament,
a gown
that was woven
out of silver
and so that
as he walked
in the sunshine,
the reflection
blinded the people
can you see
the
divine
poetry here
as the
angel
went into
the cell
with Peter
and
made bright
the cell.
The crowd
heard him speak
and they shouted
the voice
of a God
and not of a man.
And this
incredibly
twisted king
received
their worship
in verse 23
he was
immediately
struck
by an angel
and again
we have
the divine
poetry here
because the
same word
was used
when the
angel
struck Peter
to arouse
him from
his sleep
in verse 7
and possibly
it's the same
angel
here striking
Herod
though the
results
are very
different.
The historian
Josephus
says that
immediately
upon giving
his speech
Herod hit
the ground
in excruciating
pain
in the
abdomen
area.
They
carted him
from the
Caesarea
theatre
and five
days later
he died
having suffered
for five
days of
excruciating
agony.
Immediately
he was struck
down by the
angel.
The one
thing Herod
didn't realise
when he went
for his
diplomatic
journey
was that
God
hadn't
closed
the
case.
He
thought
he had
executed
the
soldiers
but the
blood of
James
still cried
out to
God
from the
earth
and Herod
was going
to learn
what Isaiah
40 verses
23 to
25 means
when it
says
he brings
princes to
naught and
reduces the
rulers of
the earth
to nothing.
No sooner
are they
planted,
no sooner
are they
sown,
no sooner
do they
take root
in the
ground,
then he
blows on
them and
they
wither and
a whirlwind
swips them
away like
chaff.
To whom
will you
compare me
or who
is my
equal
says the
Holy One.
Acts chapter
12 is all
about God
and Herod.
This chapter
begins with
Herod killing
James
and it
ends with
the angel
of the
Lord
killing
Herod.
The main
point of
this chapter
is very
plain.
If you
oppose
Jesus,
you lose.
He has
no equal.
You
cannot
stop
his
purposes.
Luke put
this chapter
together in
such a way to
make it plain
for this church
in Jerusalem
in its
dark day.
you may
feel small
and insignificant
in the
Roman Empire.
You may
think that
you are
overpowered
when your
best leaders
are killed
on a
political
whim.
But the
truth is
that if you
stay with
Jesus and
stand firm
with him,
you win.
And if you
oppose him,
you lose.
God
here
turned
the tables
entirely on
everything that
Herod was
trying to do
in squashing
the church.
He turned
it around
so that in
verse 24,
Herod is
dead,
but the
word of
God grew
and multiplied.
God
exalted
God and
not Herod.
He made
the reputation
of Jesus
spread,
not Herod's.
And this
is the goal
of all that
God does,
to magnify
his wisdom
and his
power and
spread the
fame of
his son
who saved
sinners.
So be
encouraged.
We're not
facing what
the Jerusalem
church faced,
but we have
our own
issues in
this country
and for us
as a church.
Do not be
impressed or
discouraged by
temporary worldly
triumphs over
the gospel.
Be bold and
courageous to
spread the
word of God
and leave the
outcome to
God.
God will
bury the
messengers
of his
message,
but he
will not
bury his
message.
His
messages will
come and
go and
they will
enter their
eternal reward,
but God's
gospel of the
Lord Jesus
Christ continues
to move on
to the ends
of the earth.
It will not
stop.
God's gospel of the
gospel of the
Lord Jesus.
And in this
commitment series,
I am calling
you to commit
your life to
the unstoppable
God and
seeing his
unstoppable
purposes being
fulfilled through
us here as a
church at
St.
Paul's.
will you
give yourself
to this
God and
move with
Jesus rather
than stand
opposed to
him?
Amen.
Finally,
if you
can
come and
you
will
take
seu
plain to
a
Christ
will you
and
will you
be
and
will you
Give
open
Your
withdrawals
and
see you