Acts 12 is the Scripture which gives the account of one very interesting Passover at the time of the early New Testament Church. The Apostle Peter had been put in jail, and after the Passover he was to be killed; but instead, God set him free. Would you like to see your apostles that are in prison set free? Would you like to see the prophets set free, as well as all of the people?
Now about that time Herod the king laid hands on some who belonged to the church, in order to mistreat them. And he had James the brother of John put to death with a sword.
Peter, James, and John often received special instruction from the Lord that the rest of the disciples did not receive. They were also the ones who went up on the mountain with the Lord and saw Him transfigured before them, as He was talking with Moses and Elijah (Matthew 17:1–3). Peter spoke about that experience in his epistle, as he explained his positive certainty of the glorious Kingdom of the Lord, because he had already seen it and he knew what it would be like.
The book of Revelation, too, is filled with the vision of the Kingdom. John is often called the beloved disciple who leaned on Jesus’ bosom; however, there is very little in his writings—the Gospel of John, his epistles, and the book of Revelation—to indicate that he felt a special bond with the Lord on a human level. At least he did not speak of it. We might expect that John would be concerned with the very tender and human side of the deep friendship that he felt with the Lord. Instead, John magnified the deity of Christ in his Gospel. John saw Him as the eternal Word. He began his Gospel with these words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He emphasized the divine, glorious side of the Lord more than the other Gospel writers, even though we would think that the close human relationship which existed between him and the Lord would have led him to another emphasis. But it did not. This shows that the closer you come to the Lord, the more you see Him as the Almighty.
The Gospel which deals most with the human side of the Lord is the one written by the physician, Luke. He pointed out the Lord’s concern for the sick. In Luke 6:6, for instance, we read that he was careful to indicate that it was the man’s right hand that was withered. He emphasized the human viewpoint and saw Jesus as the Son of Man. Matthew looked at the Lord differently. He saw Him as the Messiah. He explained in his Gospel that certain things happened because “it was written,” or “that it might be fulfilled.” Mark, from the time of his youth, was raised in a Roman atmosphere. After the Romans invaded the land of Palestine, their efficiency—as seen in the building of roads and their military influence—was very evident. As a consequence, young Mark was absorbed with the way the Lord did things “immediately” and “straightway.” These are key words in his Gospel.
The fact that James was killed was a great loss to the Church. This incident has always seemed to me to be a great waste, even though it illustrates that God has His own ways of dealing with us and alerting us.
The entire Herod family was cruel and cold-blooded. Herod the Great killed all the babies in Bethlehem after Jesus’ birth. He also killed his wife and two sons. Herod Antipas, his son, killed John the Baptist and mocked Christ at His trial. Fourteen years later, Herod Agrippa I came on the scene and killed James the apostle with a sword. Herod Agrippa II tried the Apostle Paul (Acts 25). All of the Herods were extremely brutal.
Herod Agrippa not only killed James, but when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. Now it was during the days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out before the people. The Christians in Jerusalem began to consider how they were going to get him out of prison.
The Passover, technically, was observed only one night, when the Passover lamb was eaten. Then followed the Feast of Unleavened Bread which lasted for seven days. They were really two feasts, combined in one. It was on this first night of the Passover that Christ ate the Passover meal with His disciples; and it was that night, about midnight, that He was seized and taken before Caiaphas, the high priest. He was tried, but no sentence was pronounced; so He was sent to Pilate. Pilate washed his hands of the matter and sent Him to Herod, who sent Him back to Pilate. Then Pilate ordered Him to be crucified. It was during the time of the Feast of Passover, as we know it, that Jesus was crucified.
From noon until three o’clock, a great darkness came over all the land. It was during those three hours that He endured His greatest suffering. At three o’clock in the afternoon His death was declared. Because a high Sabbath was coming up during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Jews wanted to have His legs broken to hasten His death. The soldiers did that with the two criminals who were crucified on either side of Him. However, when they came to break Jesus’ legs, they found that He was dead already. The soldier pierced His side, and blood and water came out.
Notice an interesting fact: Christ, our Passover, was crucified for us, yet not at the same time nor on the same day that thousands of lambs were being killed in Jerusalem for the Passover meal. Jesus ate the Passover meal with His disciples, probably at the home of John Mark and his mother. (Incidentally, this was the same place where Peter went as soon as he got out of jail.) Jesus kept the Passover with His disciples, and the next day He died. The lambs were killed to commemorate the events of the first Passover: those first Passover lambs were killed and their blood put on the doorposts to avert judgment. But for Christ, judgment could not be averted. He was the one upon whom all judgment was vented. That is why He died on the day after the lambs were killed and the Passover meal was eaten.
It was at midnight that the death angel passed over the land of Egypt at the first Passover. It was approximately the same hour of the night when Jesus was taken from the Garden of Gethsemane. From that time on, He was committed to judgment. He died, not as a lamb that would avert judgment, but as the target of judgment, taking our place completely. He died with the wrath of God upon Him. Just as the wrath of God was visited upon Egypt, so the wrath of God that was upon the whole world was visited upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was during the Passover that Peter was in jail. James had already been slain. So Peter was kept in the prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church to God. And on the very night when Herod was about to bring him forward, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains; and guards in front of the door watching over the prison. From the security upon that prison it looked as if no one could get in or out. And behold, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared, and a light shone in the cell; and he struck Peter’s side and roused him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And his chains fell off his hands. And the angel said to him, “Gird yourself and put on your sandals.” This reminds us of the first Passover, when the children of Israel were told to partake of the lamb with their loins girded, their staff in hand, sandals on their feet, ready to travel. In effect, the angel was saying to Peter, “Come on, Peter. We are getting ready for another Passover. There will be an exodus right out of this jail.”
And he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” And he went out and continued to follow, and he did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. And when they had passed the first and second guard, they came to the iron gate that leads into the city, which opened for them by itself; and they went out and went along one street; and immediately the angel departed from him.
And when Peter came to himself, he said, “Now I know for sure that the Lord has sent forth His angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.” And when he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John who was also called Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. And when he knocked at the door of the gate, a servant-girl named Rhoda came to answer. And when she recognized Peter’s voice, because of her joy she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter was standing in front of the gate. And they said to her, “You are out of your mind!” People can become so busy praying like beggars, that they are unable to recognize the answer when it comes. But she kept insisting that it was so. And they kept saying, “It is his angel.” They understood all about that. Do you think that your angel looks like you? There must be some similarity. It is surprising to what lengths people will go to find an excuse for their unbelief. They were praying, but they did not really expect the answer. Always pray with expectation. When you pray for rain, never forget your umbrella. When you pray, expect it to happen. If you believe it is going to happen, it will happen.
But Peter continued knocking; and when they had opened, they saw him and were amazed. But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had led him out of the prison. And he said, “Report these things to James and the brethren.” Even here we see that there was a sense of divine order. The leaders among the apostolic company were to be told what was taking place. Peter did not want them to find out secondhand; they should receive the information almost immediately. This dedication to instant communication, which existed in the apostolic company of brothers in the beginning, is the secret of what is taking place in today’s apostolic company.
Now when the day came, there was no small disturbance among the soldiers as to what could have become of Peter. And when Herod had searched for him and had not found him, he examined the guards and ordered that they be led away to execution. And he went down from Judea to Caesarea and was spending time there.
Now he was very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon; and with one accord they came to him, and having won over Blastus the king’s chamberlain, they were asking for peace, because their country was fed by the king’s country. And on an appointed day Herod, having put on his royal apparel, took his seat on the rostrum and began delivering an address to them. And the people kept crying out, “The voice of a god and not of a man!” And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died. But the word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied.
After this, fantastic things began to happen almost immediately. And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their mission, taking along with them John, who was also called Mark. That Passover was like the turning point. Both Barnabas and Saul moved into their apostleship. The young man, John Mark, is a part of this story because he was projected into his ministry at that time. Acts 13 tells us that he went along on the first missionary journey with Barnabas and Paul. The enemy had killed James; but God saw that was enough, because the prayers of the people turned the tide. The early Church developed this kind of motto: “Pray and free your apostle”; and that was exactly what they did. As they prayed, they freed their apostle out of the prison where demon powers and circumstances had held him in bondage. The entire Herod family, from Herod the Great on, were devil-possessed and demonically motivated. But now it was time for a change.
Satan is still trying to destroy the apostles, the prophets, and the other ministries that God is establishing today. He continually comes against them, one after another. Serious accidents and illnesses have attacked the brethren. As soon as God proclaimed the fact that the apostolic company would begin to move forward throughout the world, we watched these things come to pass in our midst. Where is our immunity? We are coming into it, just as the early Church did after the slaying of James. After that incident, the civil leaders were no longer successful in stopping the Church. There were persecutions and there were harassments, but nothing was ever effective in stopping the Christians. Even before this, as recorded in the early part of the book of Acts, the apostles were often put in prison and then released soon afterward.
This is something that God is teaching us today. I do not think that the promises of God, in themselves, are enough. (And I am not saying that with unbelief in my heart.) There are many promises in the Bible that the Christian world will never enjoy because they are never going to believe them. They will never stand on those promises, nor will they ever contend to see them come to pass. There are prophecies over you and prophecies over me that will never happen either, unless we wait before God with persistent faith and hold on to them. Those prophecies are relative; they are dependent upon other factors. The perfect will of God does not happen automatically in any man’s life. It happens only as that man hungers and thirsts and seeks after it.
Mingled with the sovereign proclamation of revelation that fills this end-time walk with prophecies and commissions over individuals, there must also be a deep driving violence of faith which seizes us and demands that those prophecies come to pass. The promises will not happen automatically. They will happen only when you contend for them. The Kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force (Matthew 11:12). This requires striving and seeking the face of God—and not only with human zeal, but with consistent, persistent faith. We might think that the believers were not believing very much in the events of Acts 12; yet they held a degree of faith and of expectancy that God honored, for God did deliver Peter. True—when Peter walked through the door, they were very surprised. Maybe we will he surprised too, when God brings the liberation we are seeking. We may he so devoted to the prayers that it will surprise us when the answer finally comes. As soon as we make one more push to break our impasse, and “get Peter out of jail,” we will see many other things begin to happen. Every ministry that God is raising up seems to experience many difficulties. Pray for them, if you do not want them killed. Loose them in the name of the Lord! This is the time that apostles and prophets from all over the country are to be released.
In many instances, the people have been delivered because of the prayers and the prophecies of the leaders. At one time, God threatened to destroy the Israelites from the face of the earth, and fulfill all His promises to them in Moses. But Moses was faithful to pray for the people. The time finally came when Moses was so harassed by the people pressing him that he sinned against the Lord by striking the rock instead of speaking to it. The result was that Moses did not make it into Canaan. The same process applies to us. People are not going to make it unless they have a man like Moses to intercede for them. However, a leader like Moses will not make it either unless the people intercede for him. There is a mutual exchange back and forth. In his epistles, Paul continually reminded the people to pray for him, to pray for a door of utterance, to pray for his liberation. We read, too, that day and night he was praying for them and ministering to them. This interdependence of faith is necessary.
One of the principal apostles, James, was expendable when the people were not praying, but when the people were praying, there was no limit to what could happen. Acts 10 tells how Peter prayed and received the vision of his ministry to the Gentiles. When an apostle prayed, doors were opened. When the people prayed for Peter, the prison doors were opened. We need that mutual ministry of opening doors for one another. This exchange back and forth between leaders and people, with the constant attention to prayer and believing God for one another, is opening up a time when the spiritual bonds are becoming very close; we can almost feel one another’s spirits.
There is nothing selfish or arrogant in the foundational ministries, whom God is raising up, as they appeal for your prayers. You must realize how much they are at your mercy. The apostles were not at the mercy of Herod, because when the people began to pray, Herod was smitten with worms and died. When the people pray, the angel of the Lord begins smiting someone. He smote Peter and the chains fell off. He smote Herod and worms ate him up.
Those who share in the ministry of the living Word with me find that they also share in the same harassment and oppression from Satan. Instead of being miserable together, let us all pray and break out of this level as fast as we can. No chastening for the present is joyous, but grievous; therefore, let us get it over with as fast as we can and move right on into the next step that God has for us.