May 17, 2026 - Evening Service

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SPEAKER_00 0:05

Good to see you night. Hope you're doing well. If you have your Bibles, just take a look. We're gonna be in Acts uh chapter eight this evening. As you're turning there, uh just thinking about the song that we just seen saying that Course goes, his truth is marching on. When I think about the fact that truly the Word of God is moving forward, I'm reminded of a couple things. First of all, I'm reminded that uh God's all powerful, he's all knowing, he's in control. The truth is marching on. We know that because he had a plan from the very beginning of time for the salvation of mankind. Satan tried to stop that, tried to mess it up in the garden, you know. But all along, we even see from the very beginning to Genesis that God had a plan that was going to be with his son, that was going to be the ultimate sacrifice for my sin and your sin. You look over church history, and now's another time of course on church history. I'm in the process of putting together a course for that for us of the Methodist, where we're gonna teach the students that as part of their missions course. As you look at church history, there's been so many times where God's done some great things, and then there's been some times where there's been persecution, and you think that the word has stopped. But obviously, because I'm in with standing before you today, and because you've made a profession of faith, you're falling after Jesus, you know that God is still moving forward. What God wants, He gets. He is God, we're not. Now, on a local level, that takes a lot of pressure or should take a lot of pressure off me, knowing that as we go through good times, you go through difficult times, God's still in control. As a leader, I want to make sure that good time or bad time, that we're humbly walking before Him, getting rid of sin in our life. So when there are troubles, it's not because we're doing something sinful, it's because maybe we're being attacked or something. But even in the midst of that, God is still in control, his word is still gonna go on. And yeah, we can admit sometimes we have difficult times in the life of church. Uh, you know, just here recently, we different people come, different people go. I stress out because there's slots that need to be filled. And I'm thankful for those. Uh, we even had a meeting today to cover our slots of the music. And we've got three ladies going to lead it, and they've already got a plan to keep us moving forward with the music. So God's working those things out. Uh, but what we're gonna see tonight is you go back to the early church, and you think we've got problems now just because maybe sometimes the music just don't come out like it needs to, we get off beat or something, or or maybe the sound system messes up. That's nothing compared to real persecution, real persecution, when people who are involved in the church are being persecuted because they believe in Jesus Christ and preach his name, and people come to kill them. Okay, now today that kind of I see that kind of working in a twofold way. One in the sense that sometimes that persecution comes and God protects that person because he's not done with it. But I've also had friends that have died preaching the name of Jesus. So each circumstance is gonna be different. I get that. But when God's at work, Satan's not gonna be happy, he's gonna try to stop the work of the church. So, as Christians, we gotta stand up and have to be bold to preach the truth and be faithful to the word day in and day out. How do I know that? Because we're about to read. Take a look at Acts chapter 12. As you're turning there, Acts chapter 12, realize we go from the very beginning when Christ is speaking in the first of Acts and letting people know that when power comes on you, you're gonna be my witnesses. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth. As we walk through Acts, we've seen that. We've seen that with Peter going to speak, we've seen that with Saul's uh conversion, now Paul the apostle, and he's the one going to the Gentiles. And even just recently in Acts, the last week or two, we've seen that with Peter, in the sense that he had a vision. About the time he had the vision, Cornelius' men come up, and he comes to the realization that what God's called clean, he should not call unclean. It was talking about specifically about food and the actual vision, but that's the point in time where he realized the Gentiles need to hear the word of God too, not just the Jewish people who had heard or made the connection that Christ was the Messiah that they had been waiting on. Okay? So that's kind of what's going on. In the midst of that, Peter's doing some pretty unique things. There's some healings that take place, true healings. How do we know? Because scripture tells us this person was healed, the crowd noticed it, people who had known him for a long time noticed it, they made a difference, the person's up praising the Lord, and people come to know Jesus because of it. A real, real deal healing, if you call it that, okay? So that's what's going on. So when we pick up in Acts chapter 12, all of a sudden we're gonna see an attempt, what I'm gonna call an attempt at persecution in the life of the church. Okay? Different from persecution David Us in terms of I don't know if we've ever been, our life's been threatened because of our faith. Okay, I don't know that it maybe it has, but you've never told me that and hasn't really truly experienced that, so I don't know. But look what happens in the early church. Um says here in Acts chapter 12, verse 1 about that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some of those who belonged to the church, following that same pattern that Paul had been doing when he was called Saul. Remember, he was, like I said this morning, he was very zealous for the church. What we call the church the Jewish nation didn't understand who Christ was. So he was Saul had been going around persecuting Christians. He had letters uh that he had gotten to take down actually to Damascus to find any people who belonged to the way, any believers, to take them, to have them put in jail. So persecution had been going on, and it continued to go so much so Herod the king is now involved with it. And notice it says violent pins on some who belong to the church. It wasn't just like, okay, you're you're you're part of the church, we want you to stop talking about Jesus, so we're gonna slap your hand. Here's a $50 fine, or maybe 50 talents, you know, 50 days worth of wages. Okay, violent is a lot more than that. Very likely could be up to losing your life. How do we know that? Well, the majority of the disciples lost their wife because of their Christian faith. But listen to what it says here, verse 2. He killed James, the brother of John, with a sword. Okay, so there's proof. Massive persecution without believers. Kill him with a sword. You know anybody that died from the sword? Likely. Military, you may have seen some stuff. I'm talking about it right now, but it's possible. But James was killed because of his faith. Because he was praising and lifting up and preaching the name of Jesus. But here's the catch. Aren't people fascinated with death like that? And the gore? And on top of that, when there's a cause behind it, sometimes people will jump on the bandwagon. That's what happened here. Look what it says in the verse um verse 3. When he saw Herod speaking here, when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. What's the big deal about going after Peter? One of 12. What's the big deal? Let me know about Peter. Jesus is a big guy. Great way to put it. Right-hand man, excellent. What Peter, the one who Christ said, Who am I? You're the Messiah. What he's the one that Jesus said, if your name is Peter or rock or stone, but upon this rock, I'm gonna build my church. Peter, he was the one that defended Christ when he was about to be rearrested. Now he had fallen asleep with the rest of them before they came, but as soon as he got caught in his way, he pulls out his knife, doesn't he? Or sword or some kind of sharp device, and cuts off a servant's ear, right? That same Peter was standing for the faith, religious zeal in a good way. He shouldn't be cut the God's ear off. Jesus took care of that and put it back on healing. But he was also the one who didn't deny Christ three times. And even though he denied Christ three times, didn't Christ tell him before he sent it, if you love me, feed my sheep. You see, Jesus wasn't done with him. So we're in the midst of persecution. Peter's about to be chased. He's going to be killed for his faith later on, but as we'll see right now, now's not the time. Because God is the one who's in control. He is all powerful. Now, it's easy for us today to look back and to read the story. For us to say, today I'm under spiritual type and I'm about to be persecuted for my faith, and maybe I will or won't get out of this and that. Maybe it's God's will. We have to be careful with that just because it's a little bit different. We know this, it's written in scripture, it's recorded. What happens in our own life could just be because of our own sinfulness, and we're just not cognitive enough to think about that. We just think, oh, it just happened because it just happened. Okay, so we have to be careful with that, but still, there's some lessons that will be learned. One, persecution is still gonna be around today if there's a need for it. There's not a need for it. The church is like lukewarm, Christ ain't gonna spit us out. So there may not be a need for it, but if there is a need for it, happen, are we ready for it? So we need to acknowledge that it's a real thing. Okay, we shouldn't be surprised. We need to be ready to handle it. Even like if it's just a case of simple spirit, well, not simple, but case of spiritual warfare. So let's look what happens. The Jews are pleased because they get the blood of somebody, and then he decides he's gonna go arrest Peter. He says this was during the days of unleavened bread, verse 4. And when he had seized him, so he got Peter, they seized him, it says they put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after Passover to bring him out to the people. So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer was made for him to God by the church. So you got one man named Peter. He kept somebody's ear off. Okay, that's about the worst thing he had done physically to somebody that I know of. I don't remember anyway. But four squads that I didn't look up to see how many people that actually is, but that's a four good big groups of people to watch over him. They're not worried about him that he's gonna get out. They get him arrested, they're waiting until after the religious ceremonies, the Jews are following them right with the Passover is over and then they're gonna bring out 40 people to go have a trial. What's Herod wanting to do? Probably the same thing they've done to James. Want to get his sword at him, take him out. But who's in control? Herod thinks he is. He's got this governmental system set up. You got the guards, everything's in place. You got Peter and Joe, he's ready to go. But the same God that I serve, the same God in the Old Testament, the same God in the New Testament, the same one who gotten Jesus out of a tomb with soldiers there, is about to do something amazing in the life of Peter. Let's take a look and see exactly what happens there. Oh, before we do that, don't forget, while he's in prison, while that persecution is going on, the church sat around and was scared and didn't do anything. No, right? No, look what it says. Yeah. Verse five um verse five. Peter was kept in prison, but the earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. So there's a lesson in that. One we already mentioned, expect persecution. There's going to be times of trouble. But during the time of trouble, can we follow the example of the early church and be in prayer? And I'm not talking about Lord bless grandma. I'm not talking about Lord help my back to keep hurting, as you probably saw me wobbling this morning. It's hurting again today. I've taken some medicine, I'll be all right. I'm just getting old. I'm talking about prayer like tonight when we prayed. Or like we prayed this morning. It was more verbal tonight, as I heard what you said this morning, obviously, you're alive. But when we take prayer seriously and ask God to intervene during those times of persecution, are we willing to do that? To make a commitment to do that? What happens when we do that? Well, God is God, if he's going to do what he wants, and it could be a lesson learned whether the prayer is answered or not. But look how the prayer gets answered in the book of Acts. Take a look at this next part. It says in verse 6. Now when Herod was about to bring him out on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and centuries before the door regarding the prison. Okay. To put that in today's terms, Peter's in jail, uh, probably restrained, maybe a four or five point restrained where he can't hardly move, maybe suicide watch. And you got the electric gates, the doors, bars connected together, he's not getting out. Oh, but there's also a fence around the prisoner, and there's guards on the inside and the guards on the outside. That's how we'd say it today. They had maximum, sounds like pretty much maximum security of what they could have at the time. That's what we see here. Okay. Not just chain, but chain what? What's it say? Any chain between what? Between two dogs? Two soldiers. Two soldiers. So people who are equipped with the right equipment, he's chained up with them. Like me standing here between these two guys. He's he's he's in there, right? Security's inner in man's eyes. Herod's doing all the right things, but then you have to remember but God. Watch what it says here. Verse 7. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him. So he's in there in prison. Actually, I think he was asleep, right? And he's sitting there, and all of a sudden, boom, there's an angel standing right there in the middle. And look what happens. He says here, uh, and a light shone around the cell, which is typical when an angel shows up. Usually there's a bright light, people are scared, people fall down often. This case we're all sleeping, so there wasn't quite that dramatic part of it. Let's look, let's look at what happens. It says here the angel says he struck Peter on the side and woke him up, saying, Get up quickly. And the chains fell off his hands. But that's a miracle. Well, you mean chains don't just normally fall off? No, they never do. The other day I heard they were some people were chasing somebody near our area where we live at who was handcuffed. So you're telling me those chains just don't automatically fall off? Magician can't just make them fall off? No, normally not. Either you got a key or God does a miracle. And our guides a miracle working God. Now understand the chains need to come off, not because Peter was bad and had done something wrong against the Almighty God. He was chains on because he was serving the Almighty God. And God's going to prove a point. He's got something he's going to do. So the angel, he wakes Peter up. Peter, imagine waking him up. I think like when I woke up today, it takes me a minute to get on cognizant or get awake. And the angel says, Get up quickly. And probably the first thing you're thinking is, Well, I can't move my, I can't get up. But all of a sudden, boom, those chains are gone, and he goes to get up. And look what happens here. It says, The chains fell off his hand in verse 8. And the angel said to him, Dress yourself, put on your sandals. And he did so. And he said to him, Wrap your cloak around you and follow me. Angel had a plan that plan was it's time to get Peter out of the situation. Peter needed to finish getting dressed. Not that he was necessarily naked, but he was clothed for the night, and he needed to be clothed to get out of there. So Peter does exactly what the angel told him to do. Now, when we're in the persecution, could an angel come and speak to us? Sure, if God wants to do it that way, he didn't necessarily do it that way, but if he did, and we know it's an angel of the Lord and not the devil, we need to be obedient because God's up with something, right? So he does that. It says he did so, and he said to him, Wrap your cloak, follow me. Look at verse 9. And he went out and followed him. It did not know what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. You ever had a dream and you get stuck in that dream, you don't really have to lie? Maybe the next morning you gotta think, where am I? Or did that happen? And I just dreamed that. Does it get worse the older you get? Is that just normal for all stages of life? I don't know. Yeah, don't tell me that. I was afraid I don't want to know that. But no, but but this case, it it it uh it does kind of make sense because he's asleep, something happens, and all of a sudden, what he's hoping would happen, but never thought would happen without security takes place. An angel comes to him and he gets up and he walks out. So he thinks he's in a vision, but check what happened here in verse 10. When they had passed the first, and the second, I was gonna say, when they had passed the first, and the second guard that came to the iron gate leading to the city, and it opened for them of its own accord. They went out on their own, they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him. So Peter wakes up, he says this vision, he wakes up, the angel says, quickly, stand up, let's go, get dressed, get out. All of a sudden he's obeying all of commands, even though he was not sure if it was real or not. Next thing you know, you get out to the main gate. And how do you get out of a main gate? You got to open the gate. You know, today we do gate openers. Sometimes we push the button, they pop open, or uh, maybe sometimes uh we saw a lot in Guatemala when there was guarded gates for communities and stuff. The guard had to get out of his little booth and walk around and pull the gate open, let you drive through. This gate right here, I'm pretty sure this was a city gate. It wasn't just a jail gate, this was a city gate. I'm pretty sure it's a pretty big gate. It would probably take a couple people to move it. But you know who moved it? The same person who shut the door and Noah's art. God did it, not man. Okay, it says here the gate opened of its own accord. The gate didn't have a brain, the gate's just a material thing, it's tangible material thing, but it doesn't have a way to function on its own. There was no electricity at the time. It couldn't have been a trip of electricity, a circuit couldn't have messed up to make it open. God opened that. What happens? God opens it, they walk out of the street, next thing you know, he's outside, outside the city, right there, and boom, the angel's gone. So the question is okay, God, what are you doing? And what is next? So let's take a look at what God's doing here. Look at verse 11. Um, but Peter came to himself, he said, Now I am sure that the Lord has sent this angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting. He had a wake-up call, he finally understood exactly what was going on. He's outside the gates, he's cognant enough. I'm a little chilly, the temperature is different outside the jailhouse. He realized this is really real. God must be up to something because he's protecting me from Herod, who right now is still alive, and from the Jewish people who we've already seen previously wanting to kill him. So, verse 12. When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark, and there were many people there together, and they were playing bingo. They were drinking coffee. That's the house of people where there's a church. And they're doing what we should be doing during times of persecution. We should do 24-7 without ceasing anyway, especially during times of persecution. They were praying. Okay. Now, I've always heard, and I've experienced on a couple occasions, that now's not the time to give testimony, but you have to be careful what you pray for. Because God is listening, sometimes He'll give it to you. Now, sometimes it might be something you really didn't need, but God's gonna say, okay, here it is, deal with it. But other times, it's what you need to hear, is what God's doing, and you're like, wow, God actually did that. And this is one of those case, those cases. He gets there and it says that we're gathered together, the church was praying. So what's he doing? Well, he probably still need to get inside because eventually words gonna get out. Hey, we're missing somebody, right? Look what happens in verse uh 13. And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. Real simple, you knock on the gate, want to get in. Well, they're having a current time, everybody's praying, somebody's gotta do it. Well, the one who's kind of serving at the house, she gets up and goes to the door. Does she answer the door? No, she doesn't answer that. So, what does she do? It says, Recognizing Peter's voice in her joy, she didn't open the gate, but she ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. The fact Peter would be like, What? I just knocked on the door, you hear my voice, and let me in. And she's so caught up in the moment, because that's what they're praying for. And I'm sure you mean that she was a servant, she probably could hear the praying, even whether or not she was praying with them, I don't know for sure. But she goes and tells people Peter's at the door, right? In her joy, she didn't even simply just open the door, you know. But look what happens. She she goes, she says, Peter's sending it to Gain. Verse 15. They said to her, You were out of your mind. They didn't believe it. Their faith was in the fact that, oh, he's been arrested, this kind of works. You get put in jail, you don't get out until. You go through trial of whatever. But he says to they said, Oh, you're out of your mind, but she didn't stop. She knew what she had heard, so she kept on insisting that it was so. And they kept saying, It's his angel. But you can only discuss it for so long. But what you can't stop is that continual. Okay. So eventually somebody gets wind of that and says, Oh, we better go check out, see what's really going on. Right? Look what it said. Verse 16. But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened the gate, they saw him and they were amazed. What would it be like to be in that room praying? And all of a sudden, God didn't wait six months to answer your prayer. What if he answered it immediately, instantly? That's something else. Now, how would you react? Would you say, Yeehaw, or praise the Lord, or start shouting and dancing, running around? Well, we got a little problem here. What's the problem? Uh, he's still a fugitive in the eyes of the king, King Herod, right? They're still gonna look after it more to get him. So he does what would come and do. Shh, just point it down. Listen to what he says here uh in in verse um seven uh 17. But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of prison. And he said, Tell these things to James and the brothers. Then he departed and went to another place. So the Lord would lead him to share his testimony. He goes where the churches at they're praying for him, and he shares his testimony, and then he says, Go tell all the other disciples and other believers, let them know what's taking place, and then I'm out. He's gonna go where God would take him to go. Last couple more parts of this first section, 18 to 20, listen to what it says. Now, when the day came, there was no little disturbance. But I like how it says there was no little disturbance. The meeting's quite the opposite. There was big disturbance. There was quite a bit of turmoil, upset, people freaking out. Why? It says, uh, there was little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. And after Herod searched for him and did not find him, he examined the centuries and ordered that they should be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent time there. So imagine the two soldiers were chained between the two. Imagine the ones that in the room, imagine the ones on the other side of the gate into prison itself, that those four sets have been around him. How do they explain he's not there? How do you do that? And they tried that with Jesus, and they said, We're gonna make a lie and say the disciples came and stole his body. That was a little bit different in that case because he was actually dead. Peter wasn't dead, Peter was alive and changed. And now all of a sudden he's gone. You know what that means. Heads are gonna roll. That happens today when things get messed up with police and situations like that. Somebody messes up, heads are gonna roll over that. A lot of times from the top down. So, what's Harry do? Slap him on the wrist. Oh, it's okay. Let's go find him. No, heads roll. The soldiers die over that. And then after that, what happens? Said Harry takes a little trip. Then he went down from Judea down to Caesarea to spend some time there. Well, what's happening in that? Well, not going to the same place Peter's going. And I'm not gonna tell you what's actually happening because we're gonna read it uh Wednesday night or next Sunday when we come back together next time we're together looking at this. But because he goes in a different direction, that gives Peter time to get further away and to continue doing what Peter does best. And that's preaching the gospel. How many times has there been persecution and the one in charge dies and then the church picks back up? Didn't that happen in the life of Christ? Has it happened in other cations? They took Jesus and they go down to Egypt until the death, and then he comes back. Same thing that's gonna happen here. We're gonna see them here. Next couple verses, he's gonna die. Spoiler reference next week. That's not. What are we looking at? We should expect persecution of the church. Yeah, it might look a little different now than it did then because then the Holy Spirit was moving in a mighty way, in a unique way, in my opinion. Um, and the gospel was just kind of getting out. Right now, I'm pretty sure you can travel almost anywhere in the world and have access to the gospel, either the printed copy, or even if you took your phone and had it. That didn't mean everybody that wherever you go can understand it because they may not have it in their language, but you can get the gospel very, very quickly. It's already kind of gone around a lot. But still, we should expect persecution. And in the midst of that, what do we do? Well, if we get arrested, don't resist it. But don't stop standing up for the truth. And when the persecution comes, even if it's not just in a simple, well, I say simple, not simple, but if it's not in a big form of being arrested, if it's in other ways, still standing for the truth. Take God seriously in prayer, put it in his hands and watch and see what he'll do. When that happens, some amazing things can happen. And when that takes place, who gets the credit? Not the preacher, not the Sunday school teacher, not the deacon, not the church member, but God gets the credit because he's doing something, he's worked, he's acting. So let's keep pressing on, pressing forward. Watch what God's gonna do as we seek to move forward as a church in the days to come. Allow him to be the Lord, and assembly walking before him, and maintaining a spirit of prayer in the days to come. Make sense? Let me pray for us, and then we'll I'll make a we'll cut that off in a minute and edit all that out of what I'm saying now. So I'm gonna pray for us to be dismissed, and I'll make a few quick comments real quick. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this evening. Thank you, Father, for the time to come out to look at your word. I thank you that your word is true, reliable, is faithful, it's perfect, and it's useful, Father, for us, for our lives today. Uh doing what it was intended to do from the very beginning. Help us, Father, to be faithful, to be people of prayer, to be people in your word, and to be ready to stand up for truth and stand firm, as was mentioned earlier, even putting on the forearm of God to withstand the tax from the devil. Thank you again that you're working and help us, Father, just to continue and humbly walk before you and follow all that you've called us to do today and the days to come. We love you, we look forward to your return. But until then, thank you for being our God and being with us. We pray all this in the precious name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior. Amen. All right.