Bible Guys Classics: Acts 12

So yesterday you may have heard us introduce the wrong passage, Yes,

where Peter gets left out in the dark and James.

Loses his head. That's what we're going to talk about

for sure. Today. He's Chris, I'm Jeff. We're the Bible Guys. Well, hey,

we're we're going to continue the stumped pastor yeah.

Yeah. So so just again, as a reminder, three weeks

ago or so, we asked people to send in questions

at this email right here, which is info at the

Bible Guys dot com. And so we want to make

sure that if you are listening today and you won't

have a question, send it in because we want to

do this segment a few weeks more, maybe perhaps down

the road.

Yeah yeah, and these these have been really challenging questions.

Yeah, very challenging, right.

And today it might be one of the hardest.

Yes, it is. And I'm really glad that you went

into the office this morning and looked at verses because

that really helps me because I didn't.

Not just today, I didn't just look it up today,

but I did write them down on my paper today.

Okay, good, okay, Well, you know you always study, is

that what you're going to say always.

Actually, I'm just that guy, all.

Right, So let me read stuff the pastor so Stephen

W writes this. We Christians all know the Easter story

of Jesus on the cross, died and was buried, then

three days later he returned from the dead. My question

is what are your thoughts were? More importantly, what does

the Bible say, if anything, about what took place during

those three days of being dead. Is Jesus in hell

battling with the devil? Is he in heaven sipping tea

with the Father? Or nothing?

Well, one, how cool would it be if you was

in hell battling with the devil? That makes for a

cool movie. And you know what, and also Cameron Cameron

could be yes.

Cameron saving Hell. Yeah, no, it also be very cool

if he was in heaven.

Sipping tea with him cavizel, because you.

Know, the British should be like, I knew he was British.

That's right, that's right. But so this question comes is

rooted in the what we would call the Apostles Creed. Right,

So without the Apostles Creed, they're probably this question probably

wouldn't cross most people's minds. Most people would just assume

Jesus died and went to heaven or like. As a

matter of fact, in Luke chapter twenty three, Jesus told

the thief on the cross today, you'll be with me

in paradise. So wherever paradise is, right, So that's a

whole other conversation. But he he was wherever you go

after you die. That's what we, most of us would think,

except for the apostles Creed says that he descended into

Hell and then that then people go.

Way that comes pause and say, what is the apostles

Creed and is that part of the Bible.

Yeah, So the apostles Creed was a declaration of orthodox

Christian beliefs right that identifies the Trinity, the Father, Son,

and the Holy Spirit, that they're equal. It identifies the

work of Christ on the Cross and the resurrection, and

identifies the core beliefs of Christianity. And Christians would quote,

oftentimes would quote that it sprang up in the five hundreds,

and sometime around five hundred eighty was the earliest that

we really see this popping up, and then it became

a standard in these seven hundreds where this became part

of the liturgy of the church, where people would quote

this almost every weekend or every time they gather. And

the reason was, you know, now you're beginning within one

thousand and eighty, you start to move into the dark ages,

and people couldn't read, and so in order to really

down as it was dark, well because they were illiterate,

right it really you know that the great libraries of

the world had been burned and looted, and education was

not core values. So there were educated people, which was

usually theologians and business people, but the rest weren't in

government leaders, and so they would teach the people a

creed that established the core of their belief system. So

that's where that came from. The nice scene Creed, which

was from three eighty eight, does not include this phrase

he descended into Hell, but the Apostles creed does, and

so it seems to be attached to I looked this up.

It seems to be attached to First Peter chapter three

eighteen and twenty and Ephesians four eight Those seemed to

be the two that kind of reference something along these lines.

So the one First Peter three eighteen Peter says that

after Jesus died, he preached to the spirits in prison

and then he ascends to heaven. Right, So what does

that mean? What are the spirits and what is he doing?

He's preaching the word preach. There is not the same

word in Greek that we use for preaching the gospel.

So this is it's clearly a declaration, but it's not

a declaration of the good news. So this may have

been that Jesus went to the those demons that are

trapped in hell and declared his victory. That's that could

have been what it was. Sure, I don't know there's

room for it, but that certainly seems like a legit

thing that hey, you thought you defeated me and instead

here's the victory.

Right.

Well yeah, Ephesians four eight. It uses the phrases. It

just says that Jesus took captivity captive And that's a

confusing phrase too. It could have meant that Jesus cleared

out paradise and took them to heaven. So do you

remember when Jesus tells the story of the rich Man

of Lazarus. Yep, And there's there's Abraham's boosom seems to

be paradise and then there's hell. Right, those seem to

be the whole place of the souls of humanity. So

then the people who were in Paradise prior to Christ,

maybe he took them from there to Heaven. That could

have been what that's talking about. The problem is both

of those are incidental statements. They're not the point of

either of those passages, and so it's just like a

casual statement and move on. The Bible is not super

clear on that. So it does look like perhaps he

went and declared his victory to the evil ones. It

wouldn't have been a battle, it was just a declaration

because it just says he preached and then he maybe

clears out Paradise and takes all of them to Heaven.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the other piece that we talked about before was,

you know, when when Mary sees Jesus at the garden tomb,

he says, don't touch me, Mary, for I've not yet

ascended to my father, right, So, and so you know,

he had been already dead for you know, on the

third day. And by the way, he wasn't in the

tomb for seventy two hours. He was in the tomb

just before Saturday, late Friday rose early Sunday. So he

was actually in the tomb for.

Like on three days.

Yeah, on the third day is, but it wasn't fully

seventy two hours anyway. So he gets he gets out,

and it raises from the dead, and then he says,

don't touch me because I've not yet a sin in

my father. But then later on he appears in the

disciples room in the middle of the room and says,

Thomas touched my hands, touch my feet. Yeah, So so

we know that something had happened between you know, the

resurrection and then. And yet before then he had said

to Mary, I've not yet a sin to my father, right,

which means he wasn't in heaven sipping tea.

Right.

That's what we know, right.

So there's there's this the physical side that we totally

get death, burial, resurrection, Thomas touched my hands, touched my side,

But there's also a spiritual battle happening here, and so

there's Jesus is interacting now on both the spiritual realm

and the physical realm. That's why the apostles were, you know,

the disciples were amazed when Jesus just walked through the

through the door, right, right. And then the other time

he just appears with them, but at the same time

he eats fish and he says touch me. So he

Jesus is interacting both on the spiritual plane and the

physical plane at the same time, which is pretty cool concept. Yeah,

So it seems like maybe those are the two things

that the apostles Creed is referencing, but beyond that, we

can't really know for sure what Jesus did.

Right, So so the answer, of course to almost all

the questions and stuff the pastor is probably going to

end with we don't know, right, Yeah, maybe, but it's maybe, yeah, maybe,

But there's there's a there's a take on uh, there's

a take on it, yea. And so your take is

you're just unsure it was.

So there's plausible uh, explanations that perhaps first Peter is

talking about he declares a victory to the evil spirits,

and that in Ephesians he perhaps is clearing out paradise.

Those are plausible. Yeah, Neither one of those are central

theological things with regard to salvation. So, you know, the

Bible is very clear about Jesus as the virgin born

son of God. He lived a sinless life, he paid

the price for our sin on the Cross, That justification

of our sin is through repentance and believing by faith

in the finished work of Christ on the cross, right,

the resurrection is the central element of Christianity. All those

things are super clear. Every once in a while you

get one of these free fringe things, and the Bible

just mentions it. Incidentally, God knows, and we're kind of

left to kind of put those extra pieces together. But

it doesn't affect one way that it doesn't affect salvation,

which is the central message of the Gospel.

And that's very important to be reminded of. And so

that's great. That's probably a great segue.

Cool. So now we're going to get back into the

passage that we said we were going to talk about yesterday.

We were building anticipation, getting people excited. So in Acts

chapter twelve, we're reading from the New Living Translation. We're

just going to read the first twenty five verses, so

I'm going to get through it quickly. About that time,

King Herod Agrippa began to persecute some believers in the Church,

and he had the apostle James John's brother killed with

a sword. When Harod saw how much this pleased the

Jewish people, he also arrested Peter. This took place during

the Passover celebration. Then he imprisoned him, placing him under

the guard of the four squads of four soldiers each.

Herod intended to bring Peter out for public trial after

the passover, but while Peter was in prison, the church

prayed very earnestly for him. The night before Peter was

to be placed on trial, he was asleep, fastened with

two chains between two soldiers. Others stood guard at the

prison gate. Suddenly there was a bright light in the

sellon and the 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 wrists. And 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. 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. And they passed the first and

second guard posts 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 what the Jewish leaders had planned to do to me.

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 standing at the door, you're out of your mind,

they said. When she insisted, they decided it must be

his angel. Meanwhile, Peter continued knocking. When they finally opened

the door and saw him, they were amazed, and he

motioned for them to quiet down, and he told them

how the Lord had led him out of prison. Tell

James and the other brothers what happened, he said, and

then he went to another place. At dawn, there was

a great commotion among the soldiers about what happened to Peter.

Herod and Grippa ordered a thorough search for him, and

when he couldn't find him, interrogated the guards and sentenced

them to death. Afterward, Herod left Jude to stay in

cesarea for a while. Now, Herod was very angry with

the people, Attire and Sidon, so they sent a delegation

to make peace with him, because their cities were dependent

upon Arod's country for food. The elegants won the support

of Blastis, 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, made a speech to them.

The people gave him a great ovation, shouting it's the

voice of a God, not of a man, and instantly

an angel of the Lord struck Herod with a sickness

because he accepted the people's worship instead of giving the

glory to God. So he was consumed with worms and died. Meanwhile,

the word of God continued to spread and there were

many new believers. When Barnabas and Saul had finished their

mission to Jerusalem, they returned, taking John Mark with them. Boy,

we covered some ground on now one.

Let's say this is three podcasts.

Yeah, this is so cool? Is it really is?

Yeah? So we're gonna, but we're gonna tackle it anymore.

So obviously, the big highlighting part of that passage is

Peter escaping from prison. Right, But let's not before we

get to that. Let's let's at least spend a little

bit of time on the fact that James is killed.

Right.

So James, John's brother was killed. This is James and John,

the sons of Zebede, that's right, right, And so then

later on who writes the Book of James.

That's the brother of Jesus, right, And and that's the

James that is mentioned when Peter says, go tell James

and the other apostles. He's talking about James, the brother

of Jesus. Hey, let me say this. This king Herod

Agrippa is the grandson of Herod the Great, the one

that wanted to kill Jesus when he was born. Right, Yeah,

So same same family rulers.

Yeah, isn't that cool?

Yeah?

And so he is a he is a Roman appointed

king of.

The Jews, that's correct.

So he's he calls himself King of the Jews. But

his job is just to keep the Jewish people on line,

which which, by the way, yet here we have you know,

you know, years and years later, decades later, after Herod's

big deal, and and yet still they're just really playing

to the crowd because he says he killed James and

then he loved the fact that the that the people

who are anti Christians liked it.

So that's his motivation for a technical politician. What the

Poles say. The Poles say, keep killing creations.

Right, right, so they grab Peter right, So that's that's interesting.

I love the fact that Peter's in prison, going to

trial tomorrow. I think he's going to die and he's

totally zonked out. The total peace, right, Hey, what's going

to have is going to happen? I say this sometimes,

you know, we've been in some dangerous situations around the

world doing you know, different work that we knew that

God was having us to do. And you will not die.

You will not show up and haven one minute before

you're supposed to. So if this is your time, you

can't prevent it. Right. If it's not your time, it

can't happen. Right, So you're invincible, And until you're not,

you're invincible until the minute. Got sides, He's going to

bring you to heaven when it comes to serving him.

I'm not saying just you know, don't don't take up

Evil Canebel's job jumping motorcycles, you know, over the fountain.

But I mean, yeah, right, uh, but when it comes

to serving God, then I really do believe that. And

so Peter, here's Peter totally sleeping, so much so that

the that the angel has to it's bright light, doesn't

wake him up. He has to. It doesn't say that

he just shook him. He had to hit him in

the side side right.

By the way, That makes this interaction in my mind

so human. Right, So in other words, you know, like

if we were if Hollywood were to depict this, it'd

be like Peter, a glowing echoey sort of like uh,

you know, effect on a microphone. But uh, but you know,

the bright light shines and then all of a sudden

it appears to be this this you know, he probably

looked like a man. You know, he punches him in

the side. Peter get up, and all of a sudden,

these magical things start happening, you know, the chains fall off,

the gates miraculously open, and then this person just disappears.

And by the way, let's not breeze over the fact

that Peter has seen so many visions miraculously from God,

and he's like, oh, another visions, even though his senses

tell him. You know, he's physically getting up, he's physically

walking and putting on his jacket and touching things and

smelling things.

Well, how worried was was King Herod that he had

Peter chained between two soldiers.

And then Roman guards posted outdoors.

That's right, that's right. How dangerous is Peter? Right? And

he's just sharing the gospel.

Well, the last time they put a couple of guards

there to guard a tomb that didn't work out, Jesus disappeared.

So the same kind of thing here, And then, you know,

I think it's I love this. This is typical Christians,

and this is what I love about. It's one of

my favorite stories in the Book of Acts. The people

are praying, Oh God, deliver Peter. God, don't let Peter die.

He's so important us, we need him for the work.

Peter is such a good leader. Oh God, rescue Peter.

Rescue Peter. And Peter and iun door rode open to her.

Oh my goodness. She slams the door and run and goes.

You never gonna leave. It was Peter's outside.

They're like, you're nuts, right right, They're like, they're like,

we don't believe it. We're praying, we've been we've been praying,

but surely God didn't answer the prayer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah right, Rhoda, you're crazy. Be quiet. We

need to get people. We're praying for Peter. We're praying

to God to deliver Peter. Well, he's standing this outside

the door, and the Bible says, while they're telling her

that she's crazy, you're out of your mind, she insisted,

and so they go, oh, well, it must be maybe

his angel is coming to tell us something. Meanwhile, Peter's

knocking out. Okay, he just keeps knocking.

And that's the best detail. So all this is happening

and the inside in the meanwhile, Peter's still knocking, right.

Hello, Yeah, there's people looking for me.

Right right. I don't want to be out of here too.

Long that I love the story. This is just one

of my favorite things. It's so like us. It's so human,

right that we're totally dependent on God enough to pray,

but not enough to believe that he's at kind of answer, right, right,

So you want to know how much faith it takes

to get God to move enough faith to ask, right,

so God doesn't always give us what we ask for,

but he says the prayers of a righteous person avails much,

it accomplishes much. And so when we go and we

have the courage to ask, if it aligns with God's will,

God will intervene and God will alter the course of

otherwise what may have happened. Who knows Peter might have been,

that he might have been up for the execution that day.

And by the way, total sidebar here, but a lot

of times when people have a tragedy in their life,

like they have cancer or they have a surgery. So

I read a post of my good friends in Texas

who just posted today that her husband's getting surgery on

some lymph nodes. Cancer has spread to the lymphodes. So

she's like, I want everybody to pray. And then there

are other people in this world who when they have

some sort of a health problem, they're completely silent, they

don't want anything to know, They're completely private, which prevents

people from praying. And so I'm the type of person

where I tell people, hey, this personally is going on

in my life. We really need prayer, And then some

people say, why do you share that? And sometimes even

my family members would say like, well, I don't want

that private, and I'd say, well, then you're not going

to have the army of people praying for you, because

if we truly believe that, you know, that prayer accomplishes much,

then you know, fifty people praying is better than one

person praying, because we believe it actually matters. So unless

we believe prayer actually matters, then I guess there's really

no point of sharing it.

Yeah, right, I think if it's something that's deeply personal

for you, sharing with the people that you trust is important.

If it's deeply personal for somebody else and you, then

I think you should maybe keep that group a.

Little narrower, right, or get the consent.

Yeah. So, sometimes you know, there are people who share

way too much when they're sharing prairie quests. It would

be okay to say, hey, you know, it might be

you might know their name, the exact circumstances of things,

and every little detail about how a marriage is falling apart.

You don't need to tell any of that. You can say,

would you pray for my friend? Initials are c z

and marriage is coming apart right now. Yeah, yeah, and

a marriage is really struggling right now, and they just

need a miracle, right or whatever.

For our listeners, that was an example.

That's an example, not the truth story, right. I have

no idea how Liz stays with you. It's just it's

a miracle.

Yes, it is a miracle every day.

Yeah yeah, same thing with Bonnie. I have no idea.

Every time I come home, I'm always surprised he's there, right,

God blesses us. So, but we don't have to share

every detail all the time. I think you have to

be judicious with your details. But there's great value in

going to the crowd of Christians and saying would you

lift me up? Would you lift this person up? That

I love? In prayer. That's why we use the prairie quests,

you know, on the connection cards and things like that

is so important. So then they Herod gets so mad

that Peter's gone, he has these guards executed, and then

later on it just has this incidental story here. It's

just a few verses long. If Herod accepts the worship,

you want to know what kind of horrible human this

guy is? He accepts the worship of these people. This

isn't the voice of a man, it's the voice of

a God. And God sends an angel to kill him,

but in a gruesome way. Yeah. I mean he's eaten

alive by worms.

Yeah, that would be you, that would be you. Well,

let's be clear. Everybody eventually gets eaten by worms.

Yeah. True, it just happened before he died here, right.

Before he died. So yeah, that's actually pretty pretty crazy.

And so this is King Agrippa, right, yes, yeah, King

herod Agrippa.

Yeah.

So when I was in college, I worked at Baptist

Baba College where I was attending Baptist Baba College, and

I worked as a janitor.

Uh huh.

And I had this mop that had a grip and

you would open up that's where I named it. It

had teeth and then you would you would put it

on top of a like a mophead, uh huh. And

then then you'd lock it and it would grab it

and and I would walk and every time I would mop,

I'd be like King of Grip. Yeah, and it was

this this man.

This guy here. So then it ultimately ends with Meanwhile,

the word of God continues to spread. There's many New Believers,

and then Barnabas and Saul. They finished their mission, taking

all that money and resources back to Jerusalem, and they

pick up this guy named John Mark and they begin

another journey. So uh, I think that the big takeaway

from from today's thing is prayer really matters. God answers prayer,

and even when persecution is happening, the gospel continues to spread.

That's great. All right, Well, we'll see you next time

on the Bible guys,