This tape contains the 15th of a series of teachings on the Book of Acts by the Reverend John W. Howe of Truaux Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia. The teaching is entitled Death and Deliverance and covers chapter 11, verse 19 to chapter 12, verse 25 of the Book of Acts. Father in heaven, we recall and we confess today that your word is sharper than any two-edged sword. And among many other things, that means that it cuts two ways. It brings comfort to the disturbed, and sometimes it disturbs the comfortable.

Father, we pray that you would open our minds, hearts, and wills to what your word actually says, not to what we think about it, for your name's sake. Amen. Acts chapter 11 and verse 19.

Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to none except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Greeks also, or Hellenists that could read, to the Gentiles in other words, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number that believed turned to the Lord.

News of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose. For he was a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and a large company was added to the Lord.

So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a large company of people, and in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians.

now on two different occasions we've already looked quickly at what's going on in this particular section of the book of acts toward the beginning of our series we jumped way ahead of ourselves and traced what happened back in jerusalem as part of the result on the one hand of persecution and on the other hand of making some decisions to sell everything they had and give it away which left them very much defenseless when the persecution coupled with famine came so we've taken a quick look at that. And then a couple of weeks ago, we also jumped ahead of ourselves to trace the pattern of relationship between Barnabas and Saul. So we're already today on familiar ground, but we want to look at it from a slightly different point of view as we come to it in its proper place today.

Last time you recall, we looked at the story of Peter, who was in the city of Joppa, And we speculated he may well have been thinking himself terribly broad-minded to be staying with a tanner, who was really a pretty lowly figure in Jewish society. Peter staying in the home of Simon a tanner, being called of God to go up the coast to the city of Caesarea to the home of Cornelius the God-fearer, a Gentile. And whereas Peter may have thought himself so broad-minded to be in the home of a tanner, it was unthinkable to go into the home of a Gentile, to partake in fellowship there, to sit down and eat with a Gentile, to treat a Gentile as anything other than the great unwashed.

And yet God came to Peter and told him to do precisely that. He went, preached the gospel to Cornelius and his family, and we saw that even before he finished his sermon, the Holy Spirit fell upon that household and Pentecost was reduplicated on a sort of a mini scale. Spirit visited them, even it specifically mentions with the speaking in tongues.

And so Peter's reaction to that is we've got to get them baptized immediately. They're immediately to be included as full-fledged citizens of the new kingdom that God is building up to this point called the way or the church. Now, I would say to you that we cannot overstate the implications of that event.

This is a breakthrough of incalculable dimensions. It is a major, major turning point, not just in the book of Acts, not just in the history of the church, but in all of human history, in all of God's dealings, in all of holy history. It opened a door of relationship between Jews who up to this point have seen themselves as exclusively God's people in a way that was not shared with anybody else.

it opened a door between that community and the gentiles and the gentiles you understand are now to be included within the framework of what god is doing as if they had become jews but they had not they're not being required to be circumcised they're not adopting all of the dietary laws they're not adopting all of the ceremonial laws they're not engaged in temple worship they don't become Jews in order to become Christians. That is shattering in its implications for a traditional Jewish mentality. I really cannot overstate that.

I think it would be very difficult for us to get into the mindset, but I want you to just meditate on that for another moment to see that this is absolutely unprecedented. It is of the greatest kind of implication. And one of the things that follows from it is that it cranks up the persecution all over again.

Put that back into context. You remember, persecution initially broke out in Jerusalem over what? Over Stephen.

And as we looked at Stephen's witness, I suggested to you that he was taking the gospel to a logical conclusion that nobody else was taking it to. Peter and some of the others would pay lip service to Jesus being the Lord of all the earth, in fact, the Lord of the whole universe. They would confess that, but nobody was really taking that to its logical conclusions, that that means God is acting to do something even out there in the Gentile world.

Nobody else was drawing the implications. Stephen took that to the logical extreme, and when he made that defense, persecution broke out. It was Stephen's bold pronouncement of the gospel that so enraged Saul in the first place.

All right? That's one thing for Stephen to say that, and persecution so intense that it virtually empties Jerusalem, except for the apostles themselves. All the other presumably thousands of members of the church flee for their lives, okay?

Now think of the implications of Peter baptizing, welcoming a Gentile and his family. Word of that gets back to Jerusalem. The elders are very seriously disturbed.

Finally they buy Peter's story when he explains it. He said, how could I forbid God? Who was I to withstand what he was doing? And we read in verse 18, when they heard this, they were silenced and they glorified God saying, then to the Gentiles also, God has granted repentance unto life.

Well, you better believe that they didn't keep that to themselves. That got all over Jerusalem in a matter of just a very short time. And the persecution that was lying somewhat dormant cranks up again.

All right? It's like pouring gasoline on the dying embers of that persecution's fire. Suddenly, the word is back to the city of Jerusalem, and there are two consequences of this.

We'll come to them in just a moment. Number one, in Jerusalem itself, rage. Violent, bloody persecution breaks out once again.

And as a secondary consequence of that, the sort of center of operations shifts. It moves from Jerusalem. In just a moment, we're going to see it moves up to Antioch.

Now, the apostles still, in spite of all this, are based in Jerusalem. But the real center of operations begins to move from there, at least as far as Gentile expansion is concerned. And the church is going to be planted in Antioch, and it's going to be very clearly a church which mingles Jewish and Gentile converts together.

And that is about to become the center of Gentile expansion, all as a result of this. So again, just to recap, we said that Peter was, in a very special sense, given the keys. Not that he would exercise the turning of those keys exclusively, but that he would establish a pattern.

As soon as Peter turns the key in the lock and opens the door to the Gentiles, as soon as that happens, we see many other people streaming through that door to evangelize the Gentiles. You follow what I'm saying? That's what we just read.

That up to this point, in all of the wanderings, in all of the scatterings, they've been preaching the word to Jews only. Right? But, now, assume, and we don't even know if they knew about it.

All right? It's spiritually, as soon as Peter turned the key in the door, others began to do the same thing. All right?

They may not even have known what happened with Peter. That doesn't matter. God knew it.

It says, verse 20, but there were some of them. We're not even given their names. Isn't that interesting?

We don't even know who we're talking about. There were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Greeks also. Okay?

So that's the picture that we have. Now, this is Syrian Antioch. There were two Antiochs in those days.

There's an Antioch in Syria, and there's an Antioch up in Galatia. This is the Syrian Antioch. This is no mean city.

It's the third most important, the third biggest city in the whole empire after Rome and Alexandria. It's a place of tremendous immorality. Tremendous immorality.

The Syrian Antioch was known for the worship of Apollo and Artemis. male and female deities, and their worship involved male and female prostitutes. If you wanted to worship those deities, you did so by engaging in the work of the prostitutes.

That's how you worship them. So it was a tremendously immoral place, and it was known for its immorality. In fact, if people wanted to distinguish between the Antioch up in Galatia and this Antioch, they would call this one the dirty Antioch.

That's how it was known, the dirty Antioch. Interesting that God would choose this as the place from which now the church is going to be moving out, as a new base of operations, a new powerhouse of strength. You're going to see in the next couple of weeks how tremendously important Antioch becomes.

Now what we see here is a tremendous number of Gentiles responding to the preaching of whoever it is. We don't even know who's preaching. Tremendous number.

And so the apostles back in Jerusalem say they need a shepherd. They need a pastor. And so they look around and thank God that they sent Barnabas.

All right, Barnabas, who we've already encountered before, goes up to care for the work in Antioch. And what happens when he gets there is he doesn't just pastor those already converted, but in fact it just begins to explode. And many, many others become converted as well.

And so Barnabas looks around for somebody to help him. He says, Saul, just around the corner over in Tarsus, goes and finds Saul and brings him back to help him. Now mind you, 11 years has gone on, gone by, since we last encountered Saul just a chapter ago.

Okay? It's a real collapsing of time here. Saul went back to Tarsus, and so far as we know, he just made tents.

Obviously, you couldn't shut him up. But we have absolutely no evidence that he had a powerful ministry. He's just making tents.

And Barnabas has to go and seek him out and draw him into the work. I find that very interesting. Do you remember what was said to Saul when he's first visited and Ananias comes and lays hands on him?

And he prophesies over him. Do you remember? And he says, Brother Saul, the Lord has anointed you to preach the word to thousands.

to stand before kings and a total of 14 years has gone by now and Saul does absolutely nothing so far as we can tell to try to manipulate the circumstances of his life to make that prophecy come true could I commend that to you? you may have had at some point or you may yet have somebody come and give a prophecy over you and it may or may not be from God. If it's from God, let God work it out.

Let God work it out. It may not be from God. Just put it on a shelf and if it's from God, as it happens, that will strengthen your confidence and your faith and your enjoyment of what he's doing.

Karen and I had some remarkable prophecies uttered over us years and years ago when we were just first married and I think we're beginning to see of them come into fulfillment today. I just thank God that I put them on a shelf and didn't try to manipulate things to make them happen. So Saul gets drawn into this, and as we saw, he spends about a year with Barnabas, and the church just prospers. A large company, it says, a large company.

And for the first time, it was here that the disciples were called Christians. It's interesting that that word, Christian, was apparently first used as a kind of a slur, an epithet. It was hurled at them. It was a ridicule kind of a word, you know, like the same way about a decade ago they began to talk about the Jesus people, you remember?

And when they first said that, that was a slur word. It was a way of laughing at them. And then the Jesus people accepted that title and they owned it and they dignified it. They would take the abuse and they dignified it. Same thing on lots of campuses.

They've called the Christians as they met together the God Squad, you know. Well, at Yale, they accepted that name and they called themselves the God Squad and dignified the word to some extent. Same kind of thing.

As near as we can tell, there are a couple of theories about this, but probably the origin of that word comes from the adding of a suffix to the word Christ, a suffix ianios, which would be a way of saying the slaves of. Interesting. If Billy owned slaves, he would be Billy Ianios.

All right? And these folks apparently were laughed at by being called the Christianios, the slaves of this dead prophet who they think is still alive. Anyway, they are first called that here a term of ridicule, which they own gladly and eventually begin to call themselves by that name.

We read on. About that time, Herod the king laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. He killed James, the brother of John, with the sword, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also.

This was during the days of unleavened bread. And when he had seized him, he put him into prison and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.

Herod the king is a grandson of Herod the Great. It's Herod Agrippa in this story. Actually, we meet him later.

Herod the king, a grandson of the Herod who was in power at the time that Jesus was born. And he's apparently incited by the Jews who are reacting again to many things, but among them to the fact that Peter and others are now breaching the wall that separates Jew and Gentile. You know, bad enough that they would be followers of a deluded prophet who was put to death.

Bad enough if that's just a Jewish sect. But if Judaism itself is at stake, If they're doing away with temple, priest, sacrifice, dietary laws, ceremonial laws, the whole thing is at stake, it cranks up the persecution. And so apparently Herod, incited by the Jews, instigates a new wave of persecution.

He kills James. James, brother of John, sons of Zebedee, right? The sons of thunder, initially.

The Jews like that so well, they're really pleased to get rid of James, that Herod says, well, if it worked with James, just think what it'll do for me if I get Peter as well, the leader of the whole thing. So he grabs Peter. It's the time of the Passover, late springtime.

Doesn't want to kill somebody in the midst of the Passover celebration, but he throws him into jail until it's over, and then he wants to do away with him. It's interesting, four squads of soldiers means 16 men. I want you to get the picture.

Here's Peter, handcuffed, chained between two soldiers. He's locked inside a cell, inside a building, with an iron fence around it. And at every doorway, there are soldiers guarding him.

He's got 16 men, plus chains, plus at least three locks to hold one itinerant fisherman preacher. All right. Herod may have heard that the last time they tried locking Peter up.

He just walked out. Remember in Acts 5? So he's taking no chances.

Interesting too that on the night, we read in verse 6, that he's about to bring him out. That may imply that he was going to kill him by night. On the night that he was about to bring him out, Peter is asleep.

Deeply asleep. He's unconcerned. In fact, he is so asleep, you can for yourself and really enjoy it he is so asleep that the angel comes into his cell and he's not waked up by the splendor surrounding the angel the angel has to come over and bang him on the side wakes him up and then he has to say get up you know i mean wouldn't if you were waked up out of a sound sleep by somebody banging you on the side and you crack open your eyes and there's an angel standing there, I suspect you'd get up.

He says, get up. And then he has to say, get dressed. And then he has to say, don't forget your shoes.

And then they start out and he says, go back and get your coat. I mean, the guy is kind of really, he's not even really fully cognizant until they get outside into the cold night air and realizes it's really happening. I don't know if he thought he was dreaming or having a vision or what's going on, but this may be the only instance in scripture when an angel appears and you're not terrified because he's not even sure what's going on. Peter was unconcerned.

He was completely asleep, relaxed, with 16 men guarding him, chains on his wrists, knowing that the next morning or perhaps that night he's to be taken off to execution. Kind of interesting to think about that, isn't it? I've heard it speculate that he was very much aware of what Jesus had said to him in the last chapter of John's gospel.

You remember Jesus said, when you are an old man, there will be others who come and take care of you, right? And it may be that Peter said, well, if Jesus said I was going to be an old man, no way is he going to kill me tonight. Or it may be that he was just so secure in his relationship with God that he would say in his spirit what Paul said to the Philippians, my only concern is that I glorify Christ.

Whether by life or by death, I'm ready to go. If they want to take me, praise God because that means glory for me, you see. I'm willing to be delivered and to stay here and work some more.

I'm willing to do that. I'd be very pleased if that's what God has up his sleeve for me. I'm willing for your sake to hang around.

But frankly, I'd just as soon go and be with Jesus. That's what Paul said. I suspect that's something of Peter's spirit here.

It hasn't been super easy. And he's ready to go and depart and be with the Lord if that's what God has for him. And so he's going to go to sleep.

Herod, you want to come get me? You come get me, but I'm going to get my sleep here. In any event, he's completely relaxed about it.

And whether the soldiers are stunned, somehow unable to see, unable to respond, we're not told. Whether they're asleep, we don't know. Whatever happened, the chains fall off and out Peter goes in the company of the angel.

The angel disappears when they get outside. In verse 11, Peter came to himself and said, Now I'm sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting. Now he goes straight to the home of Mary.

This probably is the same Mary in whose house they had met at the very beginning of the book of Acts. It's probably the place of the upper room, probably in fact the place where the disciples had the last supper. She's evidently a relative of Barnabas and we're told specifically she's the mother of John Mark.

He goes directly there. The church is in prayer for him, intensive prayer, mind you. and he comes and he knocks at the door, and a maid named Rhoda goes to the door when Peter knocks, and she gets so excited.

Here's Peter standing at the door. We're just praying about his release. She forgets to unlock the door.

He goes running back inside. Here's the prayer meeting going on. Okay, everybody else is there praying up a storm for Peter, right? There's Peter standing outside the locked door, and it's really a funny picture.

Rhoda comes roaring in. He's there. He's there.

He's right there at the door. And do you know what they say? It's his angel.

Now what that means, that's a Jewish superstition of the time. What it means really, the word is angel, but what it really means is his spirit. And the Jewish superstition was that just before you're about to die, your spirit leaves your body and kind of hangs around the place.

Now these are people who the foundation of their world view is the resurrection of the dead. They ought to know something about the relationship between body and spirit. Alright?

They have previously seen Peter walk out of a locked jail. They're praying up a storm that God would release him. Rhoda comes in and says, He's at the door!

And they're more ready to believe a Jewish superstition, that his spirit has escaped his body, than they are to believe that God could set him free from jail. Of course, none of us can identify with that, I know. They finally let him in.

They're thrilled. I want you to understand now that Saul is at this prayer meeting. The church at Antioch sent Saul and Barnabas to come down to Jerusalem because they had received a prophecy that there was going to be a worldwide famine and they took up a collection even before the famine hits knowing what that famine is going to mean to the church in Jerusalem.

You got the picture? That's fairly astonishing when you stop and think about it. Somebody comes into our midst and says there is going to be a famine.

It hasn't even begun yet. And our response is not only to accept the word but to take up a collection before the event to help those who are going to be most severely afflicted by it. So Saul is here.

Barnabas is here. And if you compare this with Galatians chapter 2, you discover that Titus is also with them. It doesn't mention it here when it says they sent down Barnabas and Saul.

But compare it with Galatians and you find out that Titus was also with them. They're without any question at the prayer meeting. And as a matter of fact, it's interesting.

This is the first time that Saul has checked out the gospel that he is preaching with the original apostles. It's 14 years since Saul was converted. And you may remember that he made a very big deal in Galatians 1 about the fact that he did not receive the gospel from any other human being.

But that he got it by revelation from God. You put together Book of Acts in Galatians 1 and 2. This is the first time that he's had a meeting to really check out the details of the gospel.

He met Peter very briefly just before he went back to Tarsus. But this is the first time that they really went over the whole thing. Okay?

So it's a very important meeting. And after this meeting, Peter disappears. Verse 17.

Then he departed and went to another place. He just drops out of sight for the next few years. He goes into hiding.

We don't know where he went. We're not told. And the chapter ends with Herod vaunting himself, calling himself a god, and people saying as much about him, the people shouting, the voice of a god and not of man.

And immediately an angel of the Lord smote him because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died. A very ugly, disgusting picture here. I don't know quite what it means, but he dies.

And then we read verse 24, but the word of God grew and multiplied and Barnabas and Saul and Titus with them returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their mission, bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark. So three came down and four go back. And as I say, at this point, the focus begins to shift to Antioch as a place of center of operation for Gentile expansion.

More and more, we're going to see the thing shifting from primarily a Jewish emphasis to increasingly a Gentile one. I just want to reflect on one very important thing that we've just seen. Persecution cranks up.

James is killed. Peter is delivered. What do you say about that?

I'll tell you what a lot of people would say about that. Say that James didn't have enough faith. Or they'd say that James didn't believe the scriptures about deliverance adequately.

Or they'd say that the church didn't pray hard enough for James. That Peter made the right confession and James didn't. I don't think that's what the Bible says. I think what the Bible says is sometimes God delivers and sometimes people die in his service.

And that's okay. To God be the glory. My goal in life is that I would glorify Jesus Christ, whether by life or by death.

And if he wants to deliver me by letting the shackles fall off and stunning the soldiers and giving me several more years of work to do, that's just fine. And if he wants to deliver me by taking me out of this body to himself, that's just fine. Do you follow what I'm saying?

I think Peter's ready to be delivered or he's ready to die and I think the truth of the matter is James was ready to be delivered or ready to die and I don't think that there's any promise here that you can absolutize that says if you belong to Jesus Christ you're never going to face persecution and you're never going to die he didn't say that he didn't say you're never going to suffer Oswald Chambers said think of the arrogance. If it pleased God to bruise his son, how dare I say that he may not bruise me? Some of us were thinking about John the baptizer a couple of weeks ago.

It's like you just think for another moment in the light of this story about John. There he is in prison, languishing in prison, knowing that he ought to be there on the front line with Jesus, preaching and bringing in the kingdom. All right?

And John opens up his scripture and reads Isaiah 61, and it says, He comes with the Spirit of the Lord upon him because the Lord has anointed him to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to those who are bound. And John says to himself, What in the world am I doing here in prison? And he quotes the scripture, and he claims it, and he claims the promise.

and he doesn't get delivered that way does he and it's because of that that he sends word to jesus are you the one or should we look for somebody else and jesus gives him the proof that he's looking for yes i am the one and then he says blessed is he who takes no offense in me do you remember that little phrase blessed is he who takes no offense in me i don't know if you've wondered about that phrase i've wondered about it I suggest I suspect and I suggest and I want you to pray about it and meditate on it and search out the mind of God for yourself don't take it because I said so but I suspect that what is really going on there is Jesus is saying John I understand I know what you're going through I know there are prayers that you've been praying which I am not answering in the way that you have prayed them I know there are scriptures which you've been reading which I'm not going to fulfill in the way that you expect me to fulfill them. And I know how confusing and upsetting and disturbing that may be and I know how easily you could find yourself taking offense. But blessed is he who takes no offense when I turn out to do things differently than you think I might.

you know when we absolutize the promises of God which he applies differently to different people do you know what happens our theology becomes a weapon of destruction now the promise is there he releases the captives he proclaims liberty to those who are oppressed but when we absolutize that and say this is how he must always do it and then he doesn't do it that way but we cling to our theology then we use our theology to browbeat those whose experience is different. And I want to say to you we do that in the church and we do that with regard to sickness and suffering. Now the promise is there.

By his stripes we are healed But he applies that differently to different people. And when you absolutize that, and then somebody's experience is different, your theology becomes a weapon of destruction. And rather than being a source of comfort to those who are suffering, we accuse them and add to their problem by saying, you don't have enough faith, you're not claiming the promises adequately.

If you just believed it strongly enough, if you confessed it strongly enough, If you stood on the promise, then it would be so. Well, maybe it would and maybe it wouldn't. God forgive us for adding to the distress of those who are suffering when we ought to be a source of comfort to them. I believe in healing and I've seen it.

I've seen supernatural healing in a moment and I've seen God heal over a period of time. I've seen him do it by the laying on of hands. I've seen him do it through doctors and nurses.

I've seen him do it through prayers and the people weren't even there. And I've also seen him heal by taking somebody to himself. And that's less than I would wish for.

I'd wish that they'd be restored to me. And that's very selfish. Because it's better for them.

That's what Paul said. Better to depart and be with the Lord. Who am I to say that God shouldn't give them the blessing?

The promise is there and it's absolute. but it's applied differently. Do you understand what I'm saying?

And I see, especially throughout the renewal, people applying as absolutes that which God distributes differently and browbeating each other so that the person who is a bruised reed, we crush. God doesn't do that, does he? The one who's a dimly smoldering wick, we quench.

God doesn't do that I would bid you to really meditate on this little story in the middle of the book of Acts James dies Peter's delivered and to God be the glory you claim what God has done say that again you claim what God has done not what you wish he might do when he's done it you claim it and stand on it don't let anybody talk you out of it when he's done it but who do we think we're fooling when we say he's done it and he hasn't done it Peter's there chained to two soldiers sixteen men guarding him and he's saying but I'm free, I'm free, I'm free he's free in his spirit his body's in a whole lot of trouble okay, do you understand? May God add to this meditation. Let's bow our heads together.

Father, we want to believe you for mighty things, and we know and confess that you're doing a new thing in our generation. The arm of the Lord is not shortened, that we're entering into a day of latter rain, and we can expect to see miracles. God is moving in power again.

by the anointing. Jesus breaks the yoke. But Father, give us caution.

Give us love and compassion for each other as you deal differently with us according to our own separate walks with you. God, help us to be an encouragement to those who struggle. Help us build up each other and forgive us, Father, Forgive us for accusing each other when you deal in each other's lives differently than we might wish or expect.

For your name's sake. Amen.