The Word Of God Lives On | Tyrone P. Jones | Book of Acts

we're going. It's more than 2,000 years ago when this scene took place, when Herod arrested Peter. Since then, governments have still been trying to stop the preach word or to do something to keep the Word of God from being relevant. We could look at rulings that was in Finland and Northern Ireland and Canada and England, where they're flirting with language of trying to say that the Bible or preaching of the Bible is hate speech. In some countries, as you know, whether it be North Korea, India, I could talk about Iran, churches are being stumped out, or pastors are arrested, persecution, persecution taking place for that. That just seems to be the lot, even to this day, Christians are being persecuted for their faith. The story we're going to read though talks about Herod, Herod had the sword, Herod had the prison, and Herod had the authority to do what we did, but we're going to read about a church that was praying and a God who intervened, and even though Herod tried to do what he did, the Word of God is still alive, amen? Still being preached today, Acts chapter 12 verses 1 through 5. About that time, Herod the King laid violent hands on 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. Some of your translations may say during the days of the Passover. And when he had seized him, he put him in prison delivering him over 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 Ernest's prayer for him was made to God by the church. Can you say, "Man, for the word." Amen, you may be seated. Now the heret that's mentioned here in chapter 12 is part of a family, actually it's called the Herodian dynasty, where many of the leaders that Rome appointed to oversee the Jewish region that they had conquered and was overseen.

They appointed people from this particular family. We've read about them, you hear the stories of them, Herod, the great, who was probably the first one, I think, in the lineage that was appointed. He was the one that tried to kill Jesus, and when he didn't find Jesus, he was the one that ordered that every child two years and below in the region was to be killed because he could not find Jesus and hoping to kill Jesus in the sweep of all of that. And then Antipas, which was also in the family, was his brother, I believe. He's the one that executed John the Baptist. And then we'll read about Herod, a grip of the second. We'll read about that in, I think, in Acts chapter 14 or so. But here we have Herod, a grip of the first, and he was the one that put the death, James. Now the James that was killed because, again, reading the Gospels, you know, there was three Jameses that was prominent. This is not James the brother of Jesus. He came to the Lord, of course, after Jesus' resurrection and did become a leader of the church, but it wasn't him, nor was it James, the son of Alphys. This is James the brother of John that was killed, called the son of Zebedee, and they're marked throughout the Gospels. James and John, Jesus called them from fishing. James and John are the ones that Jesus called the sons of thunder. And you might recall what prompted that. They were leaving a particular city, a particular region. And the people didn't, they didn't receive Jesus. Actually, they kind of acted a little bit negative toward Jesus. And you might remember James and John went up to Jesus and said, why can't we And so when they did that, Jesus called them the sons of thunder. James was around when Jairus' daughter was healed. He witnessed a transfiguration when Jesus revealed himself and was one of the three, Peter, James, and John, that was asked to pray for Jesus while he retreated in Gethsemane

before his arrest. Now, what's ironic, I guess, would be the right word for this, is that in Mark chapter 10, James and John actually came up to Jesus and asked Jesus that when he goes into his kingdom, can one of them sit on the right hand and the other sit on the left? Just think of the audacity. I mean, the other fellas are listening, which the Scriptures talk about, and they'd go up there and say, hey, Jesus, when all this is all said and done, can one sit on the right hand. Now, I don't say this at all negative, but I think their mother had something to do with it. If you read the Scriptures, it kind of implies that Mama was involved in that. Jesus said to them, though, you can, if you're able to receive the cup of suffering that I'm going to endure, can you suffer for that place that you're asking? And sure enough, James is-- what they said they could. James is the first one of the original 12 Apostles. That's its record in the Scripture was martyred. Whenever you read this, you have to really think about this from one perspective, right? They were all married, these Apostles was all married. And you probably got to wonder, especially if you're the wife of James. James gets killed, but Peter gets released. You got one wife who's rejoicing that her husband was released. You got the other wife grieve and the loss.

How hard would it have been for her to celebrate her friends, husband, being released? And not her. That's not my message at all, but just thought I'd make you think about it. But it does cause you to ask, why rescue Peter and not James? And there's no answer to that in the text, and there won't be. What it does show, though, is the divine faithfulness of God should never be measured simply by what a believer goes through. It should never be measured by that. Is God more faithful to Peter than he is to James? Is he less faithful to James because James was killed and Peter was released? I can tell you, the character of God is faithfully the same. You never measure God's faithfulness by what you endure or what he helps you through. Am I talking to the right church on that? There is this thing, and I'll probably deal more with this next week when I talk about prayer, there is this fact that is always in the forefront that every one of us should remember every time we think about the goodness of God. And or, honestly, the times when we don't think God is good, that remember that we are living in a fallen world. Death, disease, sickness, this stuff occurs because of our sin, our rebellion. God did not create that, our sin brought it into. And there's times when God just allows the natural course of death, disease, and sickness to occur. It doesn't mean that God is less faithful.

God is always faithful. And hear me church, God is always good. So you can't measure God's faithfulness and God's goodness by things that happen in this world based on our sinfulness. Now, even on that matter, on that matter with James and Peter, I can assure you James ain't complaining. He's in the presence of God. I actually think it's a good trade-off. Me being killed and be out of this evil corrupt world to be in the presence of God, I'll take that deal any day. I'll take that, y'all a little slow. Maybe the presence of God just ain't exciting you this morning, but I'll tell you, it does me a whole lot of good. And if it don't excite you, I got bad news for you because if you're a believer, you're gonna be in this presence. So I think it's good to get excited about the presence of God right now, knowing that that's where you're headed. It's a wonderful story. This ain't even on my notes. I don't even know if I should say this story, but I probably should. There was this fellow named Smith Wigglesworth and he was known as a healer and has great stories of healing that was recorded. But his wife died in his arms. Man, I may throw myself off so bad, but let me just finish this. His wife, Lord, just between me and you for right now,

we'll catch up with them in a minute. But his wife died in his arms and he kept praying for her to come back, praying for her to come back while he's holding it. Eventually, she lifts up, lifts up, and says, why don't you leave me alone and went back to the beginning. All right, let me just get back to the message. So what we see here in this matter is the intervention of God, the intervention of God. Look at verse six through eight. The night before Peter was to be placed on trial, he was asleep, fastened with two chains between two soldiers, other stood guard at the prison gate. Suddenly, there was a bright light in the cell and an angel of the Lord stood before Peter. The angel struck him on the side to awaken him and said, quick, get up. And the chains fell off his wrist. Then the angel told him, get dressed and put on your sandals and he did. Now, put on your coat and follow me, the angel ordered. Now, I do think there's a couple of things that alarm. I, you know, when Jesus, they only put two guards in front of Jesus. And Jesus obviously got out of the tomb. I think it's quite funny that they figured they learned their lesson. So this time they put four sets of guards

as if that was gonna solve the problem. Like, we let Jesus get away, but we ain't letting this one get away. But that didn't fix it, of course, because of God's intervention. But also it's to be noted that Peter was asleep. He was asleep. The dude was told, in the morning, you're gonna be killed. And he's sleeping. He's not walking the floor. He's not stressing. He didn't have a phone so he couldn't call home, but he sleep. I think it says something about Peter's trust in God. I think it says something about, and there's actually a song. Psalm 48 says, "In peace, I will lay down and sleep for you alone, Lord, is the one that keeps me safe." I think Peter was in a place in his life, which all of us should be, that, hey, if this is it, I'm fine. Why should I lose sleep just because they're gonna kill me? Why should I lose sleep? It says something about that peace. And surely, I'm sure he wanted to be released. He had no idea. I can assure you that Peter, when Peter went to sleep, he didn't say to himself, I'm just gonna sleep 'cause the Lord gonna send an angel. No, no, no. I think Peter just had a sheer confidence. Whatever God does is all right.

And I wanna say this to you, that the peace, the word peace, the shalom of God means just that, that no matter what is taking place in your life, you have such a trust and confidence with God that your mind, your will, your emotions, and your soul is at peace with God. That's shalom, that everything about you is at peace because your confidence is in him. The church is praying, and then here comes an angel. They're prominent throughout the scripture seven times adjusting this in this chapter alone. It is particular to note that in verse number 15, which we're gonna get to, they thought it was Peter's angel that showed up there at the home. And Revelation one through three says that there's angels assigned to the representatives or the pastors of the church. And then Jesus seemed to give a indication in Matthew 18 that angels of heaven have their eyes up on the child when Jesus said the little ones. He said there's an angel in heaven that has their eyes upon them. The Jewish people really believed that every one of us have a guardian angel assigned. I don't know if there's enough evidence in scripture to prove that. But let's say that there is. Let's say that every one of us here has a guardian angel. This is what I still know. You don't pray to that angel.

You don't call out to your angel. Angels minister to us, but they're not our servants. Angels are servants of God that He sends to minister to us. And we see it through our scripture where the Lord sent angels to do some intervention, some miraculous stuff. And Daniel chapter six, this is the story, the case of Daniel who was the prophet of God. They were in Babylon, maybe Persia, well, that would have been the same region. But where there was an edict made, remember the other religious leaders, Daniel had got elevated. And he was, I think, now like number three in charge of the kingdom. And he was a foreigner. And the other leaders were jealous of that. But there's one thing that they noticed about Daniel is that three times a day, he would go to his room and he would pray. And so they wanted to get Daniel out of the favor with the king. So they went to the king and said, "King shouldn't everybody bow down to you and you alone?" Of course, the king and his ego and arrogance said yes. And they said, well, then they should not bow down to any other God or person, the king says, of course. So they made an edict saying no one can bow down to anyone else. And he signed it instead of anybody did that that they would be thrown in the den of lions.

What the king didn't know is they were using that to set Daniel up. He had a good relationship with Daniel. Now you can read the text, I can assure you, they didn't follow anybody else around. Only person they followed was Daniel because they knew what Daniel was going to do. And Daniel knew the edict. Even when Daniel knew the edict, Daniel goes home and guess what Daniel does. He opens up the window, bowels down and pray for everybody to see him pray. He did what every Christian ought to do. I'm not saying you open your window. But anytime somebody tells you not to pray, that ought to be the very thing you do. You don't let anybody tell you you can't pray. That's a good reason to have some good old civil disobedience. I don't know what judges are in here today, but that's a good reason to have some good old civil disobedience. So they see Daniel, and of course, right away, they go tell the king, oh King Daniel is praying to his God. That hurt the king because he liked Daniel, but he had to follow through with his edict. He couldn't change it, puts Daniel in the den of lions. But the next morning, this will be on the screen, verse number 19, at the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lion's den. When he reached the den, he cried out an anguish to Daniel. Daniel, servant of the living God, the king said,

has your God whom you continually serve been able to rescue you from the lions? Let me just pause here for a minute. Daniel's faith was such a witness to the king that the king acknowledged that Daniel's God was the right God. His faith, I love it. Then Daniel spoke with the king, may the king live forever. My God has sent his angel and shut the lion's mouth and there was no harm to me. We see it throughout scripture that God sends angels, and I believe it today. I believe a lot of you have been saved from things because the Lord sent an angel to protect you or watch over you or fix some things. It's not that people never see an angel. But don't fool yourself. Don't think they look like these little things you got up on your counters. You know, all white and bright and wings and all of that kind of stuff. But I do believe the Lord still absolutely sends angels to minister to his people because they are servants of him. Amen? Now, it took a bit for Peter to realize what was happening. 9-3-11, I don't think it's on the screen. So Peter left the cell following the angel. But all the time, he thought it was a vision. He didn't realize it was actually happening. They passed the first and second guard post

and came to the iron gate leading to the city. And this opened for them all by itself. So they passed through and started walking down the street. And then the angel suddenly left him. Peter finally came to his senses. It's really true, he said, the Lord has sent his angel and saved me from Herod. And from the Jewish leaders had planned to do to me. It took him a bit to realize this is real. He thought, again, as the scripture says, he was in a vision. But when the angel left, he recognized. Oh my goodness, the Lord has sent an angel. That was an angel that was guiding me all along. And he goes to John Mark's home. If some of you, the men that were here yesterday, you know a little bit more about John Mark. He goes to John Mark's home where we see this prayer meeting going on. So there was this expectation of prayer. Listen to verse 12 through 16. When he realized this, he went to the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many were gathered for prayer. He knocked at the door in the gate. And a servant girl named Rhoda came to open it. When she recognized Peter's voice, she was so overjoyed that instead of opening the door, she ran back inside and told everyone, Peter is standing at the door. They said, you're out of your mind.

They said, when she insisted, they decided it must be his angel. Meanwhile, Peter has continued knocking when they finally opened the door and saw him. They were amazed. This is one of the most comical things in Scripture to me. They're praying for Peter to be released. And then when Peter is released and is knocking at the door, Rhoda says-- I heard a sermon. It was titled, Rhoda Ain't Wrong. Rhoda, Rhoda, Rhoda says, Peter's out there knocking. That's ridiculous. How can that be? As if the prayer had no expectation at all. It didn't mean anything. It just a complete exercise. They said it was Peter's angel. It takes more faith for it to be Peter's angel than Peter himself. So here's the deal. The believers had enough faith to gather and pray for Peter. But not enough expectation to believe that Peter was released. It says something to us that sometimes our faith is strong enough to take us to our knees. But our expectation is too small to recognize what God does when he doesn't. Too small to recognize what God does when he does it. This is what I know. If you ever need a miracle, that means you're in trouble. You hear me, right?

If you need a miracle, something then went chaotic somewhere. And here's what I know. If you need a miracle, believe God for it. Just believe God for it. If you're going to ask him to do it, believe God. Have a trust in God. Have a confidence in God. There is a power and prayer that prevails. The Lord will work his will. First John 5, 14, and 15 says, this is a confidence we have before him. If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. I hear so many people say that they pray it. I don't believe God here. Listen, you're his child. I'll talk more about this next week. You're his son. You're his daughter. The Lord always hears you. What I think we're saying most of the time is what I'm praying for is not happening. But trust me, God hears you. God hears every one of his people. There is a verse in the Bible that says, God doesn't hear people of iniquity. But there is no scripture that indicates at all that God doesn't hear the cries and the sound of his people. Matter of fact, there's. Here's what the scripture goes on to say. And if we know that he hears whatever we ask,

we know that we have what we ask of him. Here's our obedience. Our obedience is to pray. Our obedience is to pray and give things to God and let God align that up with his will and purposes. Let him do that. If, if, if it's prayer and you get upset because God didn't do what you want, you're not praying, you're demanding. I'm gonna drink on that one. (congregation laughs) You're demanding. But I'm gonna believe that when you pray, what you really want from God is what God believes is best. Am I talking to the right church? What God believes is best. There's two realities in this. Prayer is commanded for us even when our faith is imperfect. But God is not limited to our imperfect faith for him to still do what is right, what is good and what is accorded to his will. Here it thought that he was done per se with the Christians because what he, what he did was when they couldn't find Peter, what Peter did when he went there, he told them that he was gonna leave the region. He knew that they would be looking for him. Here he couldn't find him. He has all the guards killed. Things that he's made a statement

and then he goes to his throne in Caesarea. He thought he was done with the Christians but what he's gonna find out is that God wasn't done with him. God wasn't done with him. Look at chapter 12 verse 20 and 23, it'll be on the screen. Now Herod was very angry with the people of Tyre inside him. That's in the region that he's in of Caesarea. So he goes to his throne there. He's upset with the people. So they sent a delegation to make peace with him because their cities were dependent upon Herod's country for food. The delegates won the support of blastist, Herod's personal assistant. And an appointment with Herod was granted. When the day arrived, Herod put on his royal robes, sat on his throne and made a speech to them. The people gave him a great ovation shouting, "It's the voice of a God, not of a man." Instantly, an angel of the Lord struck Herod with a sickness because he accepted the people's worship and steadying giving the glory to God. So he was consumed with worms and died. So Herod goes, the folks, he's upset with the folks. He's, and the folks are, no, if Herod's upset with us then we're in trouble because we need him for food, et cetera. Everything was coming through him. So they want an audience with Herod. They get the audience and Herod dresses himself up in these royal garments to identify how great he is

that the people need to come to me. He gives this speech upon his throne. The people are shouting, he's a God. It's the voice of a God. And because Herod accepted that praise and that glory and angel of the Lord comes and strikes him and worms end up eating his body. And this is the lesson that God wants all of us to learn. We never take God's glory. When we say that all glory, honor, and praise belong to him, I truly hope you mean that because it is a fact. You take God's glory, you put in yourself in jeopardy. Everything about us is because of God. And yes, we can thank God for accomplishments. We can thank God for the things that he's blessed us with and done, but I pray that hopefully at the end of the day or at the beginning of the day, you know that all glory belongs to him. It's not my brains, my smarts, and what I've done. It's him that's done it. And we put ourselves in jeopardy and I'm talking about even believers. Herod here was struck unto death. But we see some consequences even in the life of those who are close to God. The scripture says that Moses would talk to God face to face. They were close, but you might remember in Numbers, chapter 20, that once again, the children of Israel was complaining about not having something. The Lord was providing for them on their entire journey

out of Egypt, going toward the promised land. Listen, these folks, God was so providing, do you know that their shoes never wore out in 40 years? 40 years, husbands, what would that do for your budget? (congregation laughing) For 40 years, their shoes, I saw you, I saw you. For 40 years. So the Lord told Moses again, "Just go up, gather the people together, speak to the rock." And once again, they'll see that I am providing because water will come out of the rock. When you speak to the rock, what Moses was so agitated with the people and so upset, he called the people together, and then he makes this statement to them. He makes a statement, and he hits the rock twice, and sure enough, the water comes out. But God immediately says to him, "Because you didn't believe in me to uphold me as holy in the eyes of people, therefore you shall not go into the land of promise." It was a consequence, why? And sometimes we put the emphasis on the fact that Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to the rock. Yeah, that was a problem because God did tell him to speak to the rock. But it's what he said that was a bigger problem, because after he hit the rock, or before he hit the rock, he said, "Must we fetch you water?" He didn't say, "Watch God give you water." Y'all follow me, right? Must we fetch you rebels water, and out of the rock comes a water. You can't mess around with God's glory. You can't do it. We ought to be thankful and give praise to God for all things, because all glory belongs to the Lord, it belongs to him. Now, Herod dies. But verse number 24 is really the crux of the message. Meanwhile, while Herod is being struck down, while Herod is actually trying to imprison the

believers and kill the believers, meanwhile, the Word of God continued to be spread, and there were many new believers. That's the point I want you to get out of this, the government, the authorities, and the enemies of the cross. They'll do what they do to try to stop the Word of God being preached, and to bring a restriction to Christianity. But God in his Word can never be stopped. Everything that God intends to be done will be done. In his eyes they have 55, 10, and 11, for as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my Word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty. Hear this, but it shall accomplish that which I pursue and shall succeed in the thing for which I send it. God's Word will always accomplish what he intends. God's Word cannot be stopped. Herod had it all. He had it all. He had the courts, he had the jails, he had the laws, he had the sword. But here's a stunning reversal that we see about God. The disciples still want out, no sword, no vote, and no resources. Why? Because you cannot stop the Word of God from going forth. You cannot stop it. persecution can't do it, shipwrecks, riots, circumstances, it can't do it. The king is dead, but the Word of God is still alive. The Word of God is still alive. While I was in Nashville this week there was a remarkable story of a young lady in one of our meetings that was from Germany and there was a story related. She's part of a church called Amen Berlin.

She's only five years old and it's about 1,000 young people reportedly, hardly none of them above the age of 30. Just a real move of God in Berlin and it's reported, there's probably over 300 empty church buildings in the Berlin area and outskirts of Berlin. Churches that just shut down because just the way things have gone in Europe unfortunately toward the faith, because of the size they have to meet in different smaller groups in different locations around the city, but for their five-year anniversary they wanted to do one service where they can bring all of their congregation together. They went around to empty church building after empty church building, asking the people who owned the buildings or the government who had the building, if they would let them do the service. There was one, Zion Church I think is I'm not doing my German property of course, but that allowed them to go into that building where they were able to have their anniversary service. What struck me about it, what was so remarkable about this building, this is the church that It was a pasture. And if anybody knows the history of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he was martyred for his faith. He resisted the Nazi regime in Germany in the 1930s and eventually was killed because he stood for Christ and led a bunch of people to resist. It struck me that even though they tried to silence the man in the 1930s and the church ended up going a direction that it went, here's a group of people that go in there, almost a hundred years later, still declaring the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot stop the gospel. Second Timothy 2.9 says this and because I preached this good news, I'm suffering and have been chained

like a criminal, but the word of God cannot be chained. Herod had all the authority, so he thought. But God was a true authority. He had the soldiers, but God had the angels. He had the prisons, but God had the church that was praying. He had the sword, but God had his word. He killed James, he tried to imprison Peter, tried to threaten the church, but the one thing Herod could not do was stop the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. But you know, the enemy will be foolish enough and do that over and over again. This ain't the first time he's tried to stop the gospel and stop the move of Christ. As you well know, he did that even 2000, actually 30 years before this, 40 years before this. Because the same devil set people up to believe that Jesus was an imposter. Set people up to believe that Jesus was false, that Jesus wasn't who he was. Sure enough they put Jesus on trial. Sure enough he was convicted of something that he didn't do. Sure enough he was arrested. Sure enough he was crucified. He killed, put in a tomb for three days and three nights. They put a stone over it and guards over it to stop what Christ was doing. But you know the rest of the story? After three days, that same Jesus they tried to stop came right up out of that tomb,

came right up out of that grave, declared the disciples, declared the many that he was alive. And every one of us are here today because some government official tried to stop the work of the church and the preaching of the gospel. But every one of you are here witnesses, you cannot stop the word of God. Governments come, kings come, presidents come, prime ministers come, rulers come, they come and they go. But the one thing that's still moving is the word of God. The word of God is still alive. Thank God you cannot chain the gospel. The parrot is dead, but Jesus is alive and the word of God is still advancing. I love these, this is the last two stanzas of mighty fortress is our God and you can stand. By the way, here's the last two stanzas. And though this world with devils field should threaten to undo us, we will not fear for God has wheeled his truth to triumph through us. The Prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him. His rage we can endure for low his doom is sure. One little word shall fail him. That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them abideth. The spirit and the gifts are ours through him who is with us sighteth. Let goods and kindred grow. This mortal life also, the body they may kill.

God's truth abided still, his kingdom is forever. We're in an everlasting kingdom. We're in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We got a word that cannot be stopped. We got a gospel that will continue to be preached and lives will continue to be transformed no matter what governments do. The word of God is alive. Every headbound, every out close prayer team, you can come father. I wanna thank you now for this opportunity to preach the gospel. I thank you Lord God for just reading the stories in the scripture that highlights the miracles, the extent that you will go through to prove over and over again that this gospel will continue to be preached. That the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is unstoppable, but that the move of God will continue. We see it here in this story with Peter. Here it is there, but the word of God is alive. Lord, let us be people that be excited, that are rejoicing. And so thankful that we're part of an unshakeable kingdom, a kingdom that cannot be stopped, a church that's on the move and the word of God that's alive. And may we be people that give you all glory, all honor and praise as we go forth and do your work. In Christ's name we pray.

God bless ya, have a great day. [MUSIC PLAYING]