Finally, when the angel left and Peter was standing on the street, he said, "Hey, it wasn't a dream. For he appealed to Caesar when he realized that he was getting the royal run-around by Festus, a political pawn, and he appealed to Caesar. And not the angel but the Spirit guides now. There were Gentiles who truly looked to the Lord, and not to self or man; who had been taught of Him to look for a coming Saviour, though they quite rightly connected that Saviour with Israel; for such was the burden of the promise. For these reasons he was popular with the people; and it was no doubt in order to achieve further popularity with the orthodox Jews that he decided to attack the Christian Church and its leaders. Then said they, It must be his angel ( Acts 12:13-15 ). Precautions could go no further. Because it is not connected with events in the chapters immediately before and after it, however, it may seem rather isolated and unimportant for Acts as a whole. . How confirmatory it must have been to the apostle's heart to learn that Ananias was now sent by the same Lord Jesus, without the slightest intimation from without, whether of Saul himself or any other man! These gifts, at least such as were of an extraordinary sort, were the outward signs of that gift in early days; and it was of great importance that there should be a decisive palpable testimony to it. Observe that, although the next words are beyond a question scriptural, and so far the case differs from verse 37 referred to in the last chapter, the last clause of verse 5 and the first of verse 6 belong properly speaking to two other chapters (Acts 22:1-30, Acts 26:1-32) rather than to this. The house of Mary the mother of Mark. Herod laid hands upon some of the church to afflict them, so some read it; he employed his officers to seize them, and take them into custody, in order to their being prosecuted. It says Easter there, and that's a King James translation. To these the Emperor Claudius afterwards added Judea and Samaria; which were nearly all the dominions possessed by his grandfather, Herod the Great. Man, Israel, not merely Saul, was altogether blinded: the flesh never knows God. He said to him, "Wrap your cloak round about you and follow me." Shall we turn now in our Bibles to Acts 12 . (Then were the days of unleavened bread.) ACTS Prayers (Adoration, Confession, T I merely make this remark lest any should draw from this the inference that there is a necessity for men commissioned from God to lay on hands now in order to confer such a spiritual blessing. Stephen speaks of Him as Son of man. This man was incensed to afflict the Church not so much for any love he had to religion, as that by this means he might flatter the common people which did otherwise not greatly favor him; or rather, he was moved hereunto with tyrannical cruelty, because he was afraid of innovation, which tyrants do always fear, lest it trouble the quiet estate of their dominion. Warning: array_slice() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /var/www/html/familytimes/includes/rss/esvLookup.php on line 15, View this passage in NIV (Bible Gateway) , Acts 9:32-43Peter Used by God in Joppa to Heal Beloved Dorcas, Acts 10:1-8Cornelius on a Mission for God, Acts 10:9-22Gods Message to Peter through a Vision, Acts 10:34-48Peter Preaches to Cornelius Household, Acts 11:1-18Peters Defense to the Legalists, Acts 11:19-26Barnabas Seeks Saul to Help with Discipleship, Acts 11:27-2Antioch Believers Send Encouragement to Jerusalem, Acts 12:3-11Continual Prayer Brings Results, Acts 12:18-25Gods Judgment on King Herod, Acts 13:1-12Paul Confronts a Sorcerer at Cyprus, Acts 13:4-12Saul (Paul) Confronts a Sorcerer at Cyprus, Acts 13:13-25Paul and Barnabas Say Farewell to John Mark, Acts 13:26-41Paul Preaches the Gospel of the Resurrection, Acts 13:42-52Gentiles are Receptive to Pauls Message, Acts 14:13-20From God to Stoning Paul Still Committed to Preach, Acts 15:6-11Jerusalem CouncilDiscussion Re: Moses Law, Acts 15:12-21A Decision based on Gods Word, Acts 15:30-41A Disagreement about John Mark, Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our personsbut they are helpless against our prayers. (. The King James translators just translated this word Easter because it does signify that same time of the year. I call your attention to this. ., 2:11:6; Bruce, "Chronological Questions . Strikingly, beautiful it is to see the devoted simplicity with which he answers to the call of his Master. They went out and proceeded along one street; and thereupon the angel left him. ( Acts 12:1) Herod harasses the church. I am out! Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church ( Acts 12:1 ). And he realized that God had delivered him from the hand of Herod. So far from it, as we shall find by and by inActs 10:1-48; Acts 10:1-48, the Holy Ghost was given while he was yet speaking, before they were so much as baptized. When day came there was no small disturbance among the soldiers about what had happened to Peter. This I ask in Jesus name, AMEN. This is the second difficulty which it is conceived lies in the way of our interpreting the apostle's language literally. . But for himself and his household, what could he do but pray till the rich blessing came? I cite from the Calvin Tr. . Of any typical or sacrificial element, St. Paul makes no mention: the whole service, with the exception of the Lord's Supper, was manifestly homiletic or verbal. 'Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria,' etc. Prayer was a normal part of their daily ministry (Acts 2:4247; 3:1; 6:4) 4. This phraseology would have been somewhat like this, 'The church had rest throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria,' i.e., the part of the church that lies in these countries." And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man ( Acts 12:20-22 ). Cornelius prayed that God would show him how to be saved (Acts 10:14), 9. The people cried out, "It is the voice of a God and not of a man." Nincsenek jl bevlt helyszneim, helyette keresem az jabb helyeket, gy biztosan egyedi fnykpeitek lesznek. There were two exceptional occasions on which one or more of the apostles so acted, but at times of more general interest and importance nothing of the sort was heard of. Verb - Imperfect Indicative Active - 3rd Person Plural. Could it be otherwise, when, spite of proud unbelief and conceit of distinctive privilege, they were forced to feel that they were none the less the constant resisters of the Holy Ghost like their fathers, who had been guilty themselves, and suffered the consequence of their guilt in their prostration to the Gentiles; to feel now that they themselves were no better, but rather worse; that there was the same unbelief bringing out its effects even more tremendously; that they were guilty of the blood of their own Messiah, who was now risen and exalted in the highest seat of heaven? Yet the Holy Ghost was given in especial power on that day. They did not know anything about Easter in the early church. Theirs was not the joy that saw into the presence of God. And when he had considered the thing, he came to the house of Mary the mother of John, whose surname was Mark; where many were gathered together praying ( Acts 12:12 ). "When Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple." No notion is more at variance with the spirit of apostolic Christianity than that of societies of Christians existing in the same neighbourhood, but not in communion with each other, and not under 'common government'" (pp. That is, to destroy its chief ornaments and supports. But this other James, who will write an epistle after his name and will take a role of leadership in the council in Jerusalem, is not the James of the gospel, except that Mark does name him as one of the half brothers of Jesus. Morning Prayer: Thursday, 15 June Acts But it is still more strange as evidence of the slipshod criticism of the Reformers that Beza, who was more of a scholar than his predecessors, uniformly edits , and writes a blundering note to the effect that it is here used in the sense of . Now about that time,. That the famine was in Judea, and Saul and Barnabas were sent thither with what the church at Antioch had collected. Prayer He was ruler of Ituraea and Trachonitis. They have power to shut up heaven, that it does not rain during this period of their prophecy. And he did not know that what was happening through the angel was real but thought that he was seeing a vision, They went through the first and the second guard and they came to the iron door that led into the city and it opened to them of its own accord. They refused utterly the Holy Ghost's testimony to the Son of man glorified in heaven, and slew or scattered the witnesses, Who then was specially used as the instrument of the free action of the Holy Ghost elsewhere, without plan, without thought of man, and apparently the simple result of circumstances, but in truth God's hand directing all? By the Holy Ghost there is imparted all the firmness of a divine bond, and all the intimacy of a real living relationship of the nearest kind. If Christ were the object of our souls, we should bow as one did called of God with incomparably better tokens of the Lord's favour than any other, this blessed man, Saul of Tarsus. Philip had not the discernment to see through him: evangelists are apt to be sanguine. The time for the call of the Gentiles strictly was not yet come, though the way is being prepared. And yet he had in his possession that famous Graeco-Latin Uncial (D) which he presented to the University of Cambridge in 1581, which MS. supports the Alexandrian. Thus Cornelius was aware that God had sent the gospel to the Jews; but there was precisely where he necessarily stopped short. But what a rebuke is this to those that would make the church to be merely a creature of government, or in any wise to be of man's will, which is still worse, How blessed to see that it is a real organic whole, not only a living thing, but that He who is the spring of its life is the Holy Ghost Himself a divine person, who cannot but answer to the grace of the Lord Jesus whom He is come down to glorify. When Peter escaped he took his way straight to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark. Evidently it was power in external display, then so richly manifested, which acted on the fleshly mind of Simon, himself having the reputation of a great one, and before this the vessel of some kind of demoniacal power the miserable power of Satan, with which he dazzled the eyes of men. Loving Father, thank You for the hope of our resurrection and rapture knowing that the Lord Jesus is the firstborn from the dead. The name Herod is the surname used by all the linage of Herod the Great. He was led into no small perplexity by the reading current in his day, and, to the shame of Christendom, still tolerated as the received reading. It was so ordered of God that the Holy Ghost should not at first be conferred on the disciples at Samaria: I do not mean merely on such as Simon or false brethren, but even on those that were true. The saints in Jerusalem not only suffered as a result of the famine, they also suffered because Jewish and Roman governmental opposition against them intensified as time passed. Wherefore, we must think with ourselves that he was tied by one that had the rule over him, that he might not more vehemently oppress the Church. That the gifts mentioned in the chapter were, for the most part, extraordinary, and in process of time were to cease, makes no difference as regards the argument; for it is the essential character of Christian worship, not the particular vehicle of its expression, that is the point now under consideration" (pp. In His name I pray, AMEN. It is not the church of Judea, the church of Galilee, and the church of Samaria, but the churches of Judea, etc. Then we find that if the church at Jerusalem had become impoverished, the Gentiles minister of their carnal things to them. Here is an account of Peter's imprisonment (Acts 12:4; Acts 12:4): When he had laid hands on him, and, it is likely, examined him, he put him in prison, into the inner prison; some say, into the same prison into which he and the other apostles were cast some years before, and were rescued out of it by an angel, Acts 5:18; Acts 5:18. By and by the power of the gospel and the action of the Holy Ghost fill their souls with desires as to the need of others. To pray like that, is to pray with Gods love on our hearts. 515-517). The Vatican and all others, uncial and cursive (as far as collated and known), support the error. 20 Prayer Points With Bible Verses | PRAYER POINTS - prayerguide This was called Jacobus major--James the greater; that, minor--the less. PRAYER POINTS "Always when you get ready to run, get ready to fight, or get ready to work, you would gird yourself up or get ready to serve. There was the freest action of the Holy Ghost, sovereignly free, and it is impossible to maintain this too stringently; and there was the utmost care that all should be left open for the Holy Ghost to act according to His own will, not only within the church, but also by evangelizing outside. When Peter had knocked at the door of the entrance a maidservant called Rhoda came to answer the door. At the same time scripture shows there might be and often was an interval after the gospel did go forth. And when she knew Peter's voice, she did not open the gate for gladness, but ran in [scatter-brained girl], and told how that Peter was standing at the gate. Prayer was a normal part of their daily ministry (Acts 2:4247; 3:1; 6:4), 4. Male facta male factis tegere ne perpluant--One evil deed is covered with another, so that there is no passage through them. The change in James may well be another great example of the power of the Cross to change the lives of men. He killed James the brother of John with the sword,Acts 12:2; Acts 12:2. Legtbb ismersm s jmagam is egy ltszlag teljesen idegen szakterletrl rkeztnk. "Nor is there any weight in the objection that many of these primitive Churches were very defective in doctrine or in, practice, or in both; that St. Paul speaks of the Corinthians as being, on account of their divisions, 'carnal,' and not 'spiritual,' as 'babes in Christ,' and sharply reproves them for their laxity of discipline in the case of the incestuous person, and their want of discipline in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Summary: Acts 12 has both answered and unanswered prayers within it. How then could so fatal an error have been committed? He killed James, John's brother, with the sword. And it continues still. To a reflecting believer it will be plain that the reasons for this do not hold at the present time. This was suitable to them. From sun and athroizo; to convene. As there was a Job in the Old Testament, independent of the law and perhaps before it, so we find a Cornelius before the glad tidings in the New Testament had been formally sent to the nations. In fact, I don't expect you to keep them all straight. The chapter itself proves that he had to be forced to go. Was his faith nothing more than a profession of Christian doctrine? The promise was not merely to them and to their children, but to all "afar off, as many as the Lord their God should call." He stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church,Acts 12:1; Acts 12:1. Agabus had come to Antioch and predicted a great drought was going to come, and so they took up a collection to take back to the saints in Jerusalem. F terleteim:eskv fotzs, csald , portr , glamour , s reklmfotzs. The personal holiness of the Christian is a property of the individual, not of the society as such; hence a professing Christian society, however large a proportion of holy men it may contain, does not predicate of itself that it is a part of Christ's holy Church as long as it exercises no formal official act implying that assumption. . "The Lord hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost." 0UR hearts are thrilled by the remarkable deliverance of Peter from prison, recorded in Acts. Jehovah's house had been left doubly desolate; Jerusalem had this added to her other sins that, when the blessing had come down from heaven, she would not have it. From pros and euchomai; to pray to God, i.e. Certainly the Ethiopian received the truth; but verse 37 had better be passed by in your minds, at least in this connection. That, to me, is very interesting how close the spiritual world was to these men. So meanwhile, back at the prison Now as soon as it was day, there was no small stir among the soldiers, what was become of Peter ( Acts 12:18 ). So there were sixteen soldiers altogether watching Peter in three-hour shifts, at all times chained to two of them while two were watching the door. ., 19:8:2; idem, The Wars . God answered prayer and gave a It may be interesting to many readers to read as follows from Mr. Edward A. Litton's work on "The Church of Christ in its Idea, Attributes, and Ministry; with a particular reference to the Controversy between Romanists and Protestants." What in our Lord's discourses is a matter of anticipation or prophecy, here appears as a matter of fact. It is not to be treated as mere human arrangement. How to Pray with the ACTS Prayer Method he would probably, without hesitation or difficulty, reply, that a Christian Church as it appears, for example, in St. Paul's epistles is a congregation or society of faithful men or believers, whose unseen faith in Christ is visibly manifested by their profession of certain fundamental doctrines, by the administration and reception of the two sacraments, and by the exercise of discipline. There are accessaries ex post facto--after the fact; and those will be reckoned with as persecutors who take pleasure in others' persecuting, who delight to see good men ill used, and cry, Aha, so would we have it, or at least secretly approve of it. For assuredly he would never have been content with one or two murders, and so have abstained from persecuting the rest, but he would rather have piled up martyrs upon heaps, unless God had set his hand against him, and defended his flock. Acts 13:5,13 And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews: and they had also John to their minister, Acts 15:37-39 And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark. When Peter escaped the soldiers were led away to execution because it was the law that, if a criminal escaped, his guard should suffer the penalty the prisoner would have suffered. God knows exactly the day and the circumstances by which He's going to take me home. For according to the Roman law, if you were guarding a prisoner and he escaped from you, then you received the sentence that would have been given to the prisoner. "In the opening chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, the Christian dispensation is seen in actual operation; for that with the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost that dispensation properly commences will probably be admitted by all parties. When he had considered; better, with Meyer and Alford, when he perceived it, viz. (vi) To complete the list we may note that Herod Agrippa ( G67) , was the father of (a) Agrippa the Second, before whom Paul was examined and before whom he made his famous speech ( Acts 25:1-27; Acts 26:1-32). [Alas! He did so. We have only to extend this undoubted principle of interpretation to the Jewish people itself in its national that is, its legal-character, to perceive that the terms by which, in the Old Testament, its privileges are expressed, assume, when applied to Christians, a different meaning, or rather betoken the spiritual realities of which the former were but the types" (pp. Then they said, "Well, it must be his angel. Therefore, in an effort to please them he took action against the apostles by having one of them, James, executed (12:1-2).The execution of James pleased the Jews more than Herod expected, so next time he planned to kill the leading apostle, Peter (3-5). If he must have meant something more than this; if his own faith and his own sanctity were living and real, the effect of the Holy Spirit's operation; then, inasmuch as he makes no distinction as regards this point between himself and those whom he addresses, we must suppose that he looked upon them also as real saints and believers. What a wonderful change for these poor Gentiles to know Christ for themselves, and to be called after Christ! WebActs 12:12 And when he had realized this, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered together and were praying. The Passover Feast was on 14th Nisan; for that day and the seven following no leaven must be used and the week was called the days of unleavened bread. See the notes on Matthew 2:19. 2 And he had James the brother of John put to In the reign of Claudius also, the dominions of Herod Agrippa were still further enlarged. There can be no doubt that the facts at Samaria were analogous; but this remarkable feature is to be noticed, that the Holy Ghost was here conferred by (not, as at Jerusalem, apart from) the laying on of the hands of the apostles. The great tragedy of this particular wave of persecution was that it was not due to any man's principles, however misguided; it was due simply to Herod's bid to gain popular favour with the people. But the point here is lost in our English version. We must recollect that in the Apostolic Church an effective discipline the very idea of which seems to be lost amongst us existed. How not to pray is prayer just for the sake of prayer. Prayer Points 1 Father, I thank you for sending Jesus Christ to us. Unlike the law, it addresses all; there is no narrowness in a rejected heavenly Christ. The light that shone suddenly on him was from heaven. The following extract from the late Dr. Carson's Letters in reply to Dr. John Brown's Vindication of Presbyterianism will show how far an able and excellent man went astray in defending Congregationalism through not knowing that his argument was based, not on God's word, but on man's corruption of it. And every word was made good. The place once so famous for its nicknames was now to give a name that will never perish a name of incalculable sweetness and blessing, connecting Christ as it does with those that are His. The church at Antioch fasted and prayed before sending out Barnabas and Paul (Acts 13:13; and note 14:23), 12. the truth of his deliverance. Saul of Tarsus was yet breathing out his threats and slaughter when the Lord was pursuing His onward gracious work among the Samaritans and strangers. ], 4. How essential to the idea of a Church the exercise of discipline is, may be seen from the embarrassing contrarieties between theory and practice which the virtual suspension of it in the Church of England is constantly occasioning" (pp. Nowhere in the New Testament does the intervention of Almighty God on behalf of his church appear any more timely and dramatic than in this chapter. But a moment's reflection will show that the difficulty is only imaginary. To regard him as unawakened at that time is to mistake a great deal of the teaching of the chapter. He was guarded by four quaternions of soldiers. But it would seem that special reasons operated at Samaria to make it necessary there. The exercise of discipline is the true and legitimate expression of the sanctity of a visible Church considered as a society. Prayer 16c - Acts 12 1-19, Earnest Prayer - Summit Church Those to whom they addressed themselves were really Gentiles. "He commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead. Where they really didn't know if it was reality or just some spiritual revelation. God had published it already to the sons of Israel, and the good man rejoiced in it. Although most of the Jews in the Jerusalem church still held to former beliefs and customs, James was not a slave to the law. When Caligula was slain, he was at Rome, and having ingratiated himself into the favor of Claudius, he conferred on him also Judea and Samaria, so that his dominions were equal in extent to those of his grandfather, Herod the Great. Evidently the authorities remembered the last time Peter had been arrested, and how he had mysteriously escaped from jail. Peter was present, but he certainly laid no hand of his on a single soul that day before the Holy Ghost was given. The fruits of the Spirit, whether they be produced within our own inclosure or beyond it, are always the same, and always to be recognized; otherwise our Lord would never have given us the simple test whereby we are to distinguish false from true prophets 'by their fruits ye shall know them.' To vex certain of the Church. Thus, although the others no doubt had the same Saviour taught them by the Holy Ghost, still there was not in every case the same measure of entrance or appreciation. And you say, "Well, Jesus was tried during the Feast of Passover." (iii) Archelaus ( G745) . How painful must it be to the Spirit of God if the old pride of Samaria were to rise up against Jerusalem! WebThe following are prayer points for personal revival and spiritual awakening that you can use to pray and bring back the fire of the Spirit into your life, church and community. * The external authority is very decidedly for the singular against the plural. How continually too where we least think they do! Question. *The copyists of old seem to have confounded in writing, as the Latin and most other ancient translators did in rendering, (Greeks) and (Hellenists), here and elsewhere. In fact, it tells us much about prayer. C. Evangelistic: Shows the saving power of the Gospel (Acts 16). Gird yourself up and tie on your sandals. He struck Peter's side and wakened him and said, "Rise quickly." 2. Oh Lord, deliver Peter" and all. For whereas some make him a third cousin of Christs, who was only some one of the disciples, I do not like of that, because I am by strong reasons persuaded to think that there were no more. The same event doomed secular Israel. Thus we see the Lord was working, and, as so constantly happens, it was not only that He called out Paul for the Gentiles; it was not only that He sent Peter to a Gentile; but now these men, who might have been despised as irregular labourers, were in the current of the same work of God, even if they knew nothing of it, save by divine instinct. DIVINE PRESERVATION - PRAYER POINTS And he commanded us to preach unto the people." Therefore, the more godly Cornelius was, the less would he dare to put forth his hand for the blessing before the Lord told him to stretch it out.