Herod's Duplicity and Death
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
We come now to our final message concerning Peter's third imprisonment. We are about to present the other side of the message. We have seen Peter's side, and the Lord's side; now, we must follow the effect of Peter's deliverance upon the part of the enemy.
I. THE STARTLED SOLDIERS (Acts 12:18)
Acts 12:18 says, "Now as soon as it was day, there was no small stir among the soldiers, what was become of Peter." The soldiers realized that it would have been humanly impossible for Peter to have unchained himself without arousing the two soldiers to whom he was fastened. They knew that it was humanly impossible for Peter to have evaded the four quarternions of soldiers who had been stationed to keep him. They knew further that Peter unaided could never have opened the iron gate. However, the impossible had happened, and Peter was gone. They knew not how it happened, nor did they know where he had gone, but it was evident that he was not there.
We need not marvel that there was no small stir among the soldiers, because in Rome, in those days, the soldiers were held responsible for the prisoners. That was the chief reason that the jailer at Philippi, when Paul was delivered, would have killed himself, supposing that all the prisoners had fled.
God had intervened; He had wrought a wonderful deliverance, and the soldiers were startled.
We remember how at the resurrection of Christ the men, who guarded the sepulcher, were startled when the stone was rolled away. The Bible says, "The keepers did shake, and became as dead men."
When Peter had been released on a former occasion, the officers came and found them not in the prison. Then they reported, saying, "The prison truly found we shut with all safety and the keepers standing, without before the doors: but when we had opened, we found no man within."
How wonderfully doth God work! But how fruitlessly do men contend against Him! We have read in the Psalms how the kings of the earth will set themselves, and the rulers will take council together against the Lord, and against His anointed, saying, "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us." Will this antagonism make impossible the Lord's setting of His King upon His holy hill of Zion? Not at all. We read, "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure."
The antichrist may open his mouth to speak great and blasphemous things against the saints who dwell in the heavens; he may even exalt himself as God, and he may gather his armies together to contend against the Lord at Armageddon's great onslaught; however, he that sitteth in the heavens will descend. His arrows will be hot in the heart of the king's enemy; whereby the people will fall under him. With the breath of His lips and with the brightness of His coming, He will destroy the man of sin.
No hand that is lifted against God can prosper.
II. HEROD'S FRUITLESS SEARCH (Acts 12:19)
When the report of the soldiers reached Herod, his anger knew no bounds. A man in his position did not like to have anyone rise up against his will. He wanted nothing to frustrate his purposes and his plans; even God, who ruleth, he utterly contemned, Herod at once inaugurated a search for Peter. He found him not. There is one place where we can safely hide from Satan. That place is the brightness of God's presence. David spoke of hiding in the light of His countenance. This may seem parodoxical. Men hide in darkness; saints hide in the light. The reason of the security of the saints when they are hid with Christ in God is that none can approach into the glory of God's presence.
The Lord Jesus said, "I give unto them (My sheep) eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand."
"The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not, desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake."
Peter could not be found, because the Lord had hid him. We, too, have a hiding place from the storm, for Jesus Christ is our covert. In the Rock of Ages we will hide from the wrath of man, and from the snares of Satan.
III. HEROD'S HEARTLESS COMMAND (Acts 12:19, l.c.)
When Herod found that his plans were foiled, and that Peter had escaped him, he commanded that the keepers should be put to death. Herod knew well enough that these men were not guilty: he knew that God had delivered His servant out of his hand, and yet, Herod, unable to wreak his vengeance against God, let it fall upon the soldiers, and jailers, who had been stationed to guard Peter.
Sin knows no pity! Sin wrecks homes, breaks hearts, steals from man everything that is worth the while, and then laughs at the wreckage. Sin turns a quiet home, where peace and prosperity reigns, into a slaughter house, strewn with blood and carnage.
Sin turns a garden of Eden into a howling wilderness; it drives people made happy with the smiles of Heaven, into a veritable inferno where there is no light and no love.
Satan is the father of sin. He tempted man, thus sowing the seed of sin through which death entered into the world. What a weary, sad, crushed world this is! Its history is the history of disappointment, despair and death. Its story is a story of wickedness and of wreckage.
Once more Herod stands before us as a type of the antichrist, under the regime of the coming man of sin. No mercy will be shown to saints. They who refuse the mark of the beast, and the number of his name, can neither buy nor sell in the marts of trade. The Jew who refuses obeisance to this false shepherd shall be hounded to the death. The beast will cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman. The dragon will be wroth with the woman (the Children of Israel) and will make war with the remnant of his seed which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Christ.
Herod was heartless in his slaughter of James, and in his attempted slaughter of Peter. He was also heartless against the men who had failed to work his will. Thus, the antichrist will rule with an iron hand, and seek to please only himself, and to establish no kingdom but his own.
IV. HEROD'S FINAL END (Acts 12:21-23)
Following the scenes just described, Herod received an ambassage from Tyre and Sidon, with whom he had been displeased. By means of their friends, Blastus, the king's chamberlain, make proffers for peace, because their country was nourished by the king's country. Acts 12:21 tells us, that, "upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them." And, as Herod spoke, "the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man."
Herod, himself, received this approval and this deification of himself with evident pleasure, and gave not God the glory. The result was that the angel of the Lord smote him immediately, and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost. He who had smitten others was himself smitten. He who had slain, was himself slain.
In all of this we are taught that what a man soweth, that shall he also reap. We are reminded how God spoke concerning Babylon, saying, "Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much of torment and sorrow give her."
God's unerring rule is both to saints and to sinners, to reward them according to their works. If saints give, it shall be given unto them good measure, heaped down and running over. If they withhold, God will also withhold them, allowing no rain to fall upon their crops nor blessings to come to their hands.
If men of the world mete unto others that which is evil and cruel so will God also mete to them. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." "He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword."
Herod in his final end once more stands forth as the type of the antichrist. As Herod was proclaimed god, he was smitten of God. There is a little verse in Isaiah which says, "I am the Lord: that is My Name; and My glory will I not give to another." The moment of Herod's death, was the moment when he accepted human deification, refusing to give glory to God. We believe that the moment of Christ's Coming and of the destruction of the antichrist will be that moment when he "opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." When this occurs, the Lord will no longer forbear.
Let us follow for a moment the story of Herod's final end:
1. There was Herod robed in regal fashion.
2. There was Herod seated on a throne.
3. There was Herod acclaimed as God.
4. There was Herod slain by an angel.
5. There was Herod eaten by worms.
The five steps we have just noted perfectly dovetail with the Bible story of the antichrist's final end.
Let us tabulate a like vision of Satan and of the man of sin, as set forth in Ezekiel twenty-eight:
1. Robed in regal fashion. "Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardis, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold."
2. Seated on a throne. "Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so."
3. Acclaimed as God. "Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness."
4. Slain by an angel. "I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. * * I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee."
5. Eaten by worms. I will "bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee."
While the analogy we have just given is not perfect, it is most suggestive, and the story follows along the same line.
There is a similar vision of the overthrow of Satan and the Man of sin in Isaiah 14:1-32. Let me read a portion of it, "How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: * * I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High." This is the spirit that marked the Herod of today's message.
Isaiah continues telling how Satan and his man of sin shall "be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. "They that see thee, shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms?"
Here is the end of the man of sin.
V. THE WORKINGS OF THE WORD OF GOD (Acts 12:24-25)
After the death of Herod we read, "But the Word of God grew and multiplied." This is an expression with varied applications, We wish to apply it today more particularly to that blessed period commonly called the Millennium which follows hard upon the destruction of the antichrist and the Coming of the Saviour, It was when Herod was slain that the Word of God grew and multiplied. It will be when Satan is chained and the antichrist is put down that the whole world will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. The Prophet, Isaiah, in anticipating the overthrow of Israel's arch-enemy and the Return of the Lord writes in the Spirit, "Arise, shine; for thy Light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. * * The Gentiles shall come to thy Light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising."
In the day of Israel's return when the Word of God runs and has free course, and is glorified, then the righteousness of Jerusalem, God's Zion, will go forth as brightness and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. Then God has said, "The Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory." How wonderful will be the world-wide sweep and sway of the Word of God as the Lord sits in Zion, when Satan shall have been chained and placed in the pit of the abyss, and when the antichrist and the false prophet shall have been cast into the Lake of fire!
In those days, thousands of "Apostle Pauls" from among Israel; men who were saved by the forth-shining of God's great light and by the revelation of the Son of God whom they had persecuted, shall go forth as evangelists carrying the Gospel of redemptive grace to the ends of the earth.
May God hasten that happy day!
The Lord will sit on David's throne,
He'll gather to Himself His own,
The Jews will come from east and west,
Forgiven cleansed, they'll be at rest.
The Gentiles of His grace will hear,
They'll come and worship year by year,
Jerusalem will glory bear;
Jehovah-Shaminah, Christ is there.