Acts 11:19-12:25 -More Stories from the Frontlines

Summary:
Acts 11:19-Acts 12 may start out with something like a newscast but like most stories in the Book of Acts, it quickly takes a wild turn. Listen in as Gregg DeMey (Lead Pastor), Jeff Klein (Pastor of Outreach), and Caryn Rivadeneira (Director of Care and Worship Planning) wade into what this passage has to tell us about angel behavior and appearances, the power of normal people, and what it means to be a Christian in America.

Today's Hosts
Gregg DeMey, Lead Pastor
Jeff Klein, Pastor of Outreach
Caryn Rivadeneira, Director of Care

Questions/Comments:  We'd love to hear from you! Email ASK.

Note: Wade in the Word is a weekly podcast designed to take a deep dive into scripture for the weekend message. Join our pastors, staff, and occasional special guests as we reflect together.

Wade in the Word podcast is a production of Elmhurst Christian Reformed Church, located in Elmhurst, IL. Wade in the Word is produced and audio-engineered by Billy Heschl, Worship Production Assistant. For more information about Elmhurst CRC or to find out about other tools and resources to grow you and your family in faith, visit elmhurstcrc.org.

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

angel, people, Herod, god, peter, jesus, happening, harrods, antioch, barnabas, church, world, praying, christian, roman empire, christians, jerusalem, gospel, soldiers, life

SPEAKERS

Caryn Rivadeneira, Gregg DeMey, Jeffrey Klein

Gregg DeMey  00:02

Hey Friends, Welcome to this week's Wade in the Word podcast at Elmhurst CRC. We're leading up to Sunday, August 22, going to cover the end of Acts chapter 11. And Acts chapter 12. Gregg DeMey here sitting with Jeff Klein. Good morning, and Caryn Rivadeneira.

Caryn Rivadeneira  00:20

Good morning.

Gregg DeMey  00:21

Hello is making the ultimate sacrifice first day of school for kids here in Elmhurst, and Caryn here in the early morning hours is on the job dive into the Bible.

Caryn Rivadeneira  00:31

That's right. Well, I did get one kid off. He had to get there early at the normal time. And but my, my daughter, I left her before she had to leave—so happy first day.

Gregg DeMey  00:41

All right, the first day of school, we are in a part of the Bible that's all about new beginnings. And yeah, one of the things that recur in our passages for today are angelic messengers who get a whole bunch of new things rolling. And I feel like this is this is a section of the Bible where the invisible world kind of supersedes or comes to the foreground, even in front of the visible world. So we're in for some, some interesting things we got angels we have the first profits that are mentioned in the book of Acts and the Herod family after a bit of a hiatus in the Bible, makes a comeback and Acts chapter 12 with a vengeance.

Caryn Rivadeneira  01:25

That's a that's not so friendly. The Herod family. Welcome back. Good to see ya. Alright, lead. Let's dive in. All right, we begin with Acts 11, verse 19. Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Steven was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews; some of them, however, men from Cyprus and sirene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus, the Lord's hand was with them. A great number of people believed in turn to the Lord.

Jeffrey Klein  02:02

News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad, and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. He was a good man full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.

Gregg DeMey  02:20

And then this good man, Barnabas, went to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year, Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people, and the disciples were called Christians first

Caryn Rivadeneira  02:35

at Antioch. During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, one of them name activists, stood up and, through the Spirit, predicted that a severe famine would spread through the entire Roman world. This happened during the reign of Claudius, the disciples, as each one was able decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in today. This they did sending their gift by the elders or gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.

Gregg DeMey  03:03

Alright, so this little section, the end of Acts 11, is kind of seems like a news update church status report from Luke on how things are going and can kind of feel the center of the church, the geographic center, kind of shifting from Jerusalem, to Antioch. So the city of Antioch, also in the Roman Empire, probably three or 400 miles north of Jerusalem, close to the Mediterranean coast. But what do we know about the city?

Jeffrey Klein  03:31

Well, we do know it's the third largest city in the Roman Empire at the time, 300,000 people living there northern Syria at the time now, it's actually a city in Turkey, called entik. Er, something I can't say it right. But it's in Turkey. It's only 40,000. Now, but back then it was, it was the like, it was one of the hubs of the Roman Empire. So a great place to launch the Christian faith room.

Gregg DeMey  03:55

And we hear echoes here of kind of the ongoing persecution that the church is scattering and kind of traveling in every direction out into the big islands in the Mediterranean Sea out into North Africa. I think sometimes we don't cover this in our history classes is middle schoolers and high schoolers that a big part of the Roman Empire was actually the northern part of Africa, right North Africa along the Mediterranean coast, sort of a whole string of large cities that were Roman, African and Roman. Right?

Caryn Rivadeneira  04:27

You do if you study English literature and Shakespeare cuz Anthony, Anthony and Cleopatra, it's an important plane you talk about that quite a bit.

Gregg DeMey  04:36

Yeah, but not just like the Egyptian part of Africa but all the way out to what would be like modern Morocco.

Jeffrey Klein  04:44

Yeah, indeed. Yeah. And I mean, Auntie I got his name probably from during the seleucid Empire, right, which is getting really deep history between the testaments nerding out the Antioch in Antioch is was the ruler there so yeah, so yeah. It really get we can get really nerdy on this. Yeah, but I love the fact that Luke repeats this phrase, those who have been scattered, which we saw in Acts chapter eight, right? This is scattering in the church. And now he's kind of picking up that theme again, like you just said, and the churches the gospel spreading because of the persecution that's going on.

Gregg DeMey  05:20

So one of the things I also mentioned is that there are profits in the early church and that some of these profits make their way it says down from Jerusalem even though Jerusalem is in the south, in the Jewish mind, everything is all roads lead up to Jerusalem so away from Jerusalem is down no matter what direction you go. I think so even though they're going north downtown,

Caryn Rivadeneira  05:41

even though you're right

Gregg DeMey  05:43

down to the Jewel right here in Elmhurst. So these profits make their way up. This is the first mention of the kind of New Testament, Christian prophets. And yeah, like in my mind, prophets have a multi-fold job description, for sure. Sometimes they preach. Sometimes they exhort. Sometimes they expose reality, sometimes they foretell things. And for sure, one other one of the roles happening here with this guy named Agabus, is to foretell a coming famine that's going to affect the entire Roman Empire. Interestingly, I think Agabus shows up in like Acts 22. Again, and foretells that Paul is going to go to prison. So the same character seems to have the particular prophetic gift of foretelling things.

Jeffrey Klein  06:35

Yeah, yeah. And prophets are often, you know, we don't really embrace them. No, they're very well; they're usually weird. We just go, oh, my goodness, can you have a prophetic gift? Don't you, Klein? I have a little bit of that. Yeah. So but I mean, you know, we don't embrace profits. Well, we don't like when they tell us stuff that I see this coming. I see this happening. I see. You know, it's like, What are you talking about? So

Caryn Rivadeneira  06:59

even if it's not, right, the foretelling kind of profit, I think we don't like people telling us like it is, you know, people. And I think that's true to this day that the prophets among us are not well received. They're the people causing problems that meetings and whatnot, we usually kick them

Jeffrey Klein  07:13

out. Because they annoy us, because they say things that maybe are true, super true. I mean, I think I was never a prophet is someone who speaks the Word of God, specifically writing to that scenario and situation that you find yourself in. So it's like, they have this timely Word of God for a, for such a time as this that just speaks into that. And then boom, in this case, this guy's talking about a famine. I, I couldn't figure out like, as I looked at this, you know, are Paul and Barnabas in Antioch when this famines actually occurring? Or are they taking an offering for a future famine that might occur? That's, you know, I don't know, I can't clear that

Caryn Rivadeneira  07:52

you thought you were going to know when the reign of Claudius was though.

Jeffrey Klein  07:54

Well, there there is, there is. If you look at this, you can figure out like this could be at 45, to be at 40. So there's all these different speculation.

Gregg DeMey  08:05

Yeah, so So we know that economically and in terms of needs, like the mother church in Jerusalem was hurting, like, very quickly. So the early Gentile churches, like Paul is making the rounds only a few years after this kind of taking up another offering for the Jerusalem church. So we could kind of speculate on like, why that is, I think I mentioned this in one of our first podcasts that like, it's beautiful to think of the early Christians in Jerusalem, kind of selling their property off. But perhaps they got in a place very quickly, where they were out of resources. Yeah. Right. So it's it became incumbent on other Christians to kind of help the Mother Church like just within a decade or two.

Jeffrey Klein  08:48

And these cities in Asia Minor were super-wealthy man had been emphasise the ruins of emphasis and super wealthy, right? These all are super wealthy. No, seriously, they were super-wealthy. I know Ray Vanderlaan said that the Roman stock market was up into the right for like, 80 years, like the golden era, like it was going bananas. So we were, you know, Americans would have loved to live in this time, right? It's like, Whoa, right. Americans would be very comfortable and emphasis or corner they were those were cities that were just full and they had they had running water, sewer systems, toilets, health spas. I mean, all these ruins are there you can see them all.

Caryn Rivadeneira  09:23

So I did spend some time though reading took a class on FSS recently and learning about So again, the wealthy people their bathrooms were terrific everybody else and they did have bathrooms, these public toilets that they would all sit right next to each other men and women children, snakes, rats. They had a sponge, a communal sponge that sounded great. Sounds like Wrigley Field in the old days. It kind of day. It's my dad. Anyway, but we say that really quickly how sweet it is that Barnabas is called Man in this every time I read that I'm like that is so precious

Gregg DeMey  10:04

Barnabas universally acclaimed as the greatest guy among the early Christians. And they send him after Saul who probably already had the reputation of maybe being a little thorny for sure. And he's back in his hometown of Tarsus, which is which is

Jeffrey Klein  10:19

where he was sent when he was led over the wall while sort of effect Yeah, evac from because in Jerusalem, they were gonna they were gonna kill him, right. So the Grecian Jews, it says, send him to Tarsus. So they get out of here and get Go Go home, get away, you're gonna get killed. Yeah. And then so Barnabas goes to find them.

Gregg DeMey  10:35

Yeah. So we can kind of feel the Holy Spirit kind of strategically moving pieces around the chessboard. So Barnabas, the universally acclaimed, awesome guy and saw super brainy, probably strong leader, but a little thorny, these two guys unite powers and end up in the new strategic center of the church in Antioch, from which they're about to be sort of deployed on a new mission out into the world.

Jeffrey Klein  10:59

Right, right. Right. I also love in the beginning of this, that it talks about those who've been scattered, but their names aren't mentioned. So I love the fact that that whoever is scattered These aren't the famous apostles are the deacons. Now, these are like other people that have caught this, you know, mission as gospel and they're out there out just doing it. Yeah. So now the gospel has spread beyond the apostles and the deacons into regular ordinary people who now are being scattered also. And they're just spreading the news about

Gregg DeMey  11:29

Jesus. Now, that's such an important point. I mean, history and even the Bible and its historical threads. I mean, you got sort of this highlight film of superstars, right, extraordinarily gifted people. But what's more crucial than Paul and Barnabas being superstars is exactly what you mentioned. I mean, history history is the secret silent Ministry of the Holy Spirit, empowering all of us who will not be remembered.

Jeffrey Klein  11:57

Yeah, I mean, every 10 generations, much less one generation, every person been mobilized, because every one of us and that's really true today, right? You can come to church, and whatever the preachers are preaching, but when you leave church, you're running into people that none of us will ever meet. So you get the chance to now be the spreader of this gospel message this Jesus that you've come to know, you get to tell other people about it. That's amazing. So

Caryn Rivadeneira  12:19

yeah, that's where it makes it believable to those the regular people going back to their regular lives or being scattered or whatever. And in talking about that, how they've been transformed and changed, and right people seeing the difference, or whatever, you write more than just the

Jeffrey Klein  12:31

message of the gospel, not just spreading because Paul's running around, right? These are regular people that are just spreading the good news wherever they go. Yeah.

Gregg DeMey  12:39

So there's one other very interesting detail in verse 26, that Antioch was the place where folks were first called Christians. And we bear this name around the world all these years later. There's a little bit of speculation that it was probably a an ironic or maybe even slightly derogatory term at the beginning, because like people were talking about Jesus so much Christians meaning literally like a little Christ. So it's these people who just like Jesus annoying.

Jeffrey Klein  13:12

I read that the the Gentiles probably coined the phrase because they wrote about Jesus right? So when the Jews when they call in this because that would be acknowledging that correct. Christ was the Messiah, because Christ means Messiah. So it was probably the Gentiles. So these are the Christ people. They just talk about Christ all the time. There's Bad Bad, bad, bad, bad Christ.

Gregg DeMey  13:30

Yeah, exactly. And Antioch being not a Jewish city, but a cosmopolitan, Roman Empire hub Gentile city.

Jeffrey Klein  13:37

Right. Exactly. Yeah. And I know I'm not sure that term anymore holds the same. high honor in our country. Like I think a Christian has become super mixed bag. Right?

Gregg DeMey  13:53

Yeah. For tons of people in North America. Now Christian comes with a whole lot of baggage of politics. zag right to say, just say you're a Christian means a whole bunch of planks in a political platform.

Caryn Rivadeneira  14:06

I still think less so than evangelical, which I know our church I've, I've always kind of resisted, where the Christian Reformed Church is not a fully evangelical church. I mean, we kind of talk like we are, but I know you're smiling. I know. Do you agree? I mean, I think we're sort of this weird mainline evangelical mix, but that's just me. Well, again, depends how you define evangelical. Right? No, right. If it's lowercase evangelical, but just the movement, but to me, the the term evangelical is still the more loaded I feel like then Christian, because this is I said, my welcome last week. So right.

Jeffrey Klein  14:37

This is an interesting conversation, because when you say the word Christian, what are we talking about? Is it right Presbyterians down the road who believe this Langa was it as CRCers who believe so when I met with his you know, met this woman in Villa Park, she's like, What in the world is a Christian Reformed? Well, I started with Okay, well, I'm Christians, a follower of Jesus, right, we're, we're just following Jesus. But that's a so I like to use when I talk to people Is it what do you do is I've, what what religion you've launched? Well, I'm a follower of Jesus. Really? What's that mean?

Gregg DeMey  15:06

Yeah. So it was maybe more than 20 years ago, I first ran into a guy from Washington, DC. And he was like, yeah, we don't call ourselves Christians anymore in DC, just because it's connected with too many other things and people roll your eyeballs. So just became, we follow Jesus.

Jeffrey Klein  15:23

Yeah, that's it. That's true. That's what we're trying to do. Right?

Caryn Rivadeneira  15:26

I guess I still say Christian because of that, not just because I feel like I don't, I don't want it to lose it. And sometimes the follower of Jesus stuff like, I get that I have a lot of friends who did that, too, or do that. But sometimes I just feel like me personally, if I was hearing that they would make me roll my eyes more than me.

Gregg DeMey  15:46

Yeah. Well, I don't know. It's nothing against the term. Like I'm happy for the term. And one way of describing our discipleship is we're being formed into the image of Christ. So I don't want to lose that. It's just the temporary insanity that our culture is in that we can't rightly perceive. But that's what I mean, what's behind the term. So it will come back when our temporary insanity lapses and wanes, right? And

Caryn Rivadeneira  16:13

lest I sound like I'm being too like, I will never stop saying like, I would never call myself I shouldn't say never. I don't call myself an evangelical for that reason, because that to me, then gets lumped into like, okay, one of those, you know,

Gregg DeMey  16:26

same thing. They're like the difference between identifying as an evangelical and a person who is delighted to share the good news, right, that, you know,

Jeffrey Klein  16:35

it doesn't evangelize in Greek means a lover of the gospel, right. So I'm an evangelical, I love the gospel. So

Caryn Rivadeneira  16:42

I would say I am evangelical, I am not an A of so these other weird things, right? Yeah. So

Gregg DeMey  16:48

yeah, in Greek, literally, the word you Anglos means like a good message or good news, right? So that's it. It's good news, your personal person,

Jeffrey Klein  16:56

I am a lover of the gospel. There you go. I'll start identifying you're a follower of Jesus and a lover of the gospel and also a Christian. Now, this cool,

Gregg DeMey  17:09

all right. Christians, all of us here, proudly, let's launch into Acts chapter 12. kick us off Klein.

Jeffrey Klein  17:18

It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belong to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James the brother of john put to death with the sword. When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also, this happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.

Gregg DeMey  17:47

So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him. The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains and center, he stood guard at the entrance. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. Quick, get up, the angel said, and the chains fell off from Peters wrists.

Caryn Rivadeneira  18:12

Then the angel said to him, put on your clothes and sandals, and Peter did so wrap your cloak around you and follow me. The angel told him. Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening. He thought he was seeing a vision. They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him

Gregg DeMey  18:44

who, alright, so the angels are going to start appearing dramatically and fast and furious here next chapter 12. Also appearing are the Harrods. I'm always confused by this because there's like multiple generations of Harrods. And there's multiple rulers and kings around Israel in that part of the Roman Empire, who go by the name of Herod. So just maybe a tiny bit of background here, the great who started building the temple, the great temple in Jerusalem. I mean, died about the time that Jesus was born. Well, two years after Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, sorry. About the time Jesus was a toddler. Yeah, right. By the time we're here, like four decades later, we're two generations of Harrods down the road and the head mentioned here is one of the herot grippers. But one of the things if you're a regular reader of the Bible, whenever a haircut is mentioned, we generally the Harrods are always anti the things the agenda of God or anti christ in particular, I mean, slaughtering the innocence of Bethlehem when Jesus is born. Now all these years later, we're going to have another Another instance of a Herod taking the anti christ posture.

Jeffrey Klein  20:06

Yeah. And you know, right now we have a super good example of this going on in the world, right? I mean, there's the antichrist in Afghanistan running over the country, probably already ran it over. I saw a YouTube video this morning of an underground Afghan Christian, begging for us, brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for care for think of them, don't forget them. They continue, they want to continue on and keep the gospel message rolling. But he was literally weeping over his 20 years of hard work. And it's like, you know, yeah, there's antichrist. And it's weird to think, well, how does like God's trying to get this church going? Why is he allowing this here at guided to take out James? You know, why is he allowing the Taliban to run over Afghans? And these are the tough questions when you deal with these antichrist things going on in the world? Oh, yeah.

Gregg DeMey  21:05

It seems like some of the humanitarian and Christian organizations were further ahead of the curve. Like, I know, like the Peace Corps, like evacuated everybody, like nine months ago, a year ago from Afghanistan, and just with some close contacts and youth with a mission, like all of their, yeah, like North American and Western workers have already been evacuated out of the country, like prior to going down. I

Jeffrey Klein  21:31

mean, it's heartbreaking. This was an Afghan and Christian. Yeah. And his face was obviously whatever, pixelated out so that you couldn't see who he was, but and you know, his voice was changed. But he was, you know, he was, it was translated in the bottom, what he was saying was like, Whoa, you know, that's, it's, it's heart wrenching, really to think, yes, the Antichrist is loose in the world. And he's, you know, he's coming for Christians, so to speak, or coming for what stands for good for rights? For

Caryn Rivadeneira  22:00

sure. Yeah. What I was thinking about it years ago, I'm Carolyn custis. James, who's writer she's writing you've read several books to read, but I heard her speak. And she said something you know, about Jesus being good for women, wherever Jesus goes, women have been freed and liberated and all this. And I was thinking about this again, with the Taliban. And so it's interesting thinking about this as an antichrist movement, because even even in the Muslim population there, there's this sort of sense, whenever and I still believe that wherever there is freedom, wherever people are liberated. I just I know, maybe this is tricky, but it's still somehow a movement of God and the Holy Spirit and you know, working through whatever. And how just even that is probably a sign of now we got to take this down. And, oh, the Taliban is claiming that women will have rights. I don't know that anyone believes that that is going to happen. And so just even these other signs of kind of the general grace of God in the world of freedom and liberation, how people do want to evil wants to squash that.

Gregg DeMey  22:56

An awful. Yeah. So the roots of this are ancient. I mean, Herod the Great was the king of it. amea, ancient Kingdom of Eden, which traces all the way back to Jacob minis, Jacob and Esau, right, Jacob, I have loved Esau I have hated. So this struggle between peoples between brothers just playing out over generations and millennia. And I mean, significant in this at the beginning of chapter 12, is that Herod puts to death in one of Jesus's closest three disciples, one of the pillars of the Jerusalem church. So James, loses his head to a sword so hard to guesstimate how this would have impacted the right first Christians or the church in Jerusalem. Like, I mean, this is huge, that

Jeffrey Klein  23:48

it's massive. And and then, you know, it's always interesting to see the motivations behind these Herod's, like, their main goal is, you know, the peace of Rome was a big goal. Rome did not want conflict or chaos. They wanted peace. So if you're a ruler, Rome, you had to keep the peace. Right? So he's doing this and we're and he does it, and then he sees it pleases the Jewish leaders, which are always causing him problems and rankling and going bananas and causing all kinds of mayhem. And so he goes, Oh, okay, this is a way to get in there side. I'll just keep killing Christians. I'll take out these, this Christ movement.

Gregg DeMey  24:21

Yep. so significant that Herod with his political savviness, though Herod's aligned with Rome, and they have their influence and power very much in the visible political world. This should somewhat be a cautionary tale for any future generation of Christians that the way to influence in Jesus name, the way to share the gospel is not the Harrod way of appeasing and aligning with the political forces of the day. But there's an invisible world, strongly represented by all the angels that are showing up in Acts chapter 12, where the agenda of God's kingdom is going on a totally different path. Right and it's not like the early Christians hated Rome are tried to undo the Roman Empire they existed freely and gracefully within their up. But there was not a push to seize the reins of power or, you know, grab as many city council seats as possible or schmooze with the politicians. There's like a whole different invisible world pathway that's going on. And that's where the Holy Spirit is most powerful and pleased to operate. I think it's

Jeffrey Klein  25:26

too bad. It's too bad. x didn't tell us the demon that prompted Herod to make this move. Right. I mean, behind all these anti christ movements is the actual antichrist, which is the dim, you know, again, an invisible world power that's at work prompting humans to do this crazy stuff. I mean, some of this stuff, just evil. It is. I dislike if you were living in this time, and you saw James get his head chopped off, you'd be like, this is just evil. This is what why,

Gregg DeMey  25:53

yeah. And just the grief over I would think the early Christians had the assumption of like, okay, Jesus has sent these disciples out, they might suffer a little bit, but he's coming back very soon. And then the realization of, oh my goodness, the people who are closest to the Lord, like can suffer and die before he comes back. Like if they're not spared from that fate and outcome, like what might happen to us?

Caryn Rivadeneira  26:20

Yeah, for sure. I do. Just getting back. Sorry, if I'm going to skip back, just because I love what you said about the angels and stuff. And I think just right now, especially in the midst of speaking of Christianity and stuff, well, you know, and the way we're perceived, but the idea of the Christian nationalists right now is such a terrifying movement to me. Because of this, because I think that there are so many, well, meaning probably people who are afraid of losing freedom or influence while this kind of stuff, but who are absolutely hanging on to political things, and governmental things and seeking power and influence in all the wrong places. So I think what you just said, is really enlightening. Like we are citizens, ultimately the kingdom of God. And so we need to be collaborating with the angel armies and the angel influencers in the Holy Spirit and less worried about you know, and not to say we become unengaged in what's going on because I don't believe that at all, but we don't need to be totally fretting. And

Jeffrey Klein  27:20

again, the kingdom advance the kingdom of Jesus advances not through power, right, but through picking up the towel and serving the world. Right, it advances through loving acts of kindness through humbling yourself. That's how they can emerge. Jesus Vance's that's like walking the way Jesus walked. Right. And so yeah, it doesn't advance by grabbing power and making political. Yeah. Right.

Gregg DeMey  27:47

I'm gonna play a little bit of devil's advocate, but know what a good country or good politics do is keep the portal of freedom open for everybody. Right. And I'm proud to live in a country that for 250 plus years has, like, kept the wit window of spiritual freedom open for our citizens citizenry, and a lot of the good that has come through the United States of America, or the potential good that's been realized. is because of that. So I do want to defend. Yeah, like, a body government that isn't cramming things down on people, but is keeping the window of freedom open in the big picture?

Caryn Rivadeneira  28:27

Yes, no, I mean, I'm fully supportive of freedom. And I think that's a want it's a huge gift. I know you are not anti freedom. I'm just saying we are clearly seeing in the past few years, especially a number of Christian people who seem to be more concerned about the the state of I don't know, they seem to have far more allegiance to the United States than to maybe the Holy Spirit I'm just saying that can get fuzzy can get really really

Gregg DeMey  28:56

huh so also thinking for the Christians in Jerusalem if they saw you know, James suffer and die at the hands of Herod. I mean, this is like a replay of john the baptist. And then immediately following this is Peter inherits prison at the time of Passover. And it's like an instant replay of what Jesus would have gone through not that long before so just the amount of terror of like seeing the cycle repeated

Jeffrey Klein  29:29

man as the story continues, it's pretty obvious that the Christians assumed Peter was done. He was gonna die right it was it was over. And we'll get to that in a little bit. But yeah, they just figure he's gonna follow the steps of Jesus and it's going to be right on same thing on Passover you know, pears, you know, wait till after Passover, in this case to to knock them off, but yeah, well didn't go so well, the first time Exactly. But I also love the hair has got four squads of soldiers for each guarding this one man with no weapons and So clearly the stories of what's happened or how, yeah, you know, Jesus rising from the dead and getting past these soldiers not taking

Gregg DeMey  30:07

any chances here. Yeah. So there's some wonderful details for squads of four that Peter is sleeping between two soldiers that their centuries at the guard at the guarding the door, like there's no possibility of escape here. And then the other detail I love is the physicality of the angel who like it's brought the breaking in of the invisible world where it's not just the invisible Angel doing some Hocus Pocus, but like, physically, he like nails Peter in the side, and wakes him up. That's fantastic.

Caryn Rivadeneira  30:37

It's funny to me, and I don't know why. But just the idea of like, we think of like the guardian angel or whatever. I mean, but this must be that like Garden of Eden angel or somebody that he just whacks them.

Jeffrey Klein  30:48

That it's awesome. I mean, God sends his angel, you know, to rescue him. And obviously, this is a pretty obvious Angel we always talked about, you know, entertaining angels unaware. Yeah, no, this is this is not unaware. Like there's an angel who's glowing in the cell and whacking him on the side. So

Caryn Rivadeneira  31:03

it's just again, like the storytelling You know, we've talked about that a lot. But it's just so great. Like, you can kind of see I just picture fog and all this and they're just walking in on this weird, dreamy thing. The gate creaking open alone is fantastic. It's such a good detail and the fall off. Boom, yeah, the soundtrack to this would be great.

Gregg DeMey  31:23

So a bit of a theological question. I mean, it's a bit rhetorically, but why did Peter get rescued by an angel? And Jesus didn't? Like sometimes we pray Psalm 91. Around here, just for angelic protection. And again, this is what Satan on the temple peak of Jerusalem temps Jesus with Psalm 91. Like, won't he send, you know, he has changgil charge of angels to uphold? You?

Jeffrey Klein  31:51

Want me my answer? That would be that Jesus death had a much larger, obviously, eternal salvation. purpose, you know, then Peter, at this point, not that Peter is insignificant, but Peter is not going his death, not going to lead to the salvation of conquer death and conquer death and sin. So Jesus, you know, and that his death was preordained by God to conquer death and sin, Peter's death would just be the killing off of one of the other messengers of God, one of the other disciples. Not, that's not a big deal. It's just different, different deal.

Caryn Rivadeneira  32:26

manuals, were there. I mean, they weren't the two. So they had a birth they were But yeah, I mean, but that's a question. I think we still ask why does you know why did someone survive a horrific car accident and say, my guardian angel was there and other people? Don't? I know, this is what I'm driving at. Yeah, I wish we had. I don't know, maybe it's good. We don't have answers to them. Because maybe it would be troubling. But probably it's just, I don't know. Yeah.

Jeffrey Klein  32:53

But I think this is where trusting God's purposes is super difficult. But that's an it's easy to say when nothing's going wrong. But you know, like, why is my brother still in a wheelchair, he's 40, some years old, you know, I'm 48 years old, I don't know, God must have something going on that it's beyond what I understand. So just being able to trust that and say I can, I can trust that I can lean into that trust that God's in charge, he's got this, again, super easy to say, much more difficult to accept that and go with it. You know, for my brother, Chris, it was much more difficult for him to get to that place of saying, This is how I'll be the rest of my life on planet Earth. You know, that's a tough place to get to when you're in a wheelchair, you can't trust yourself, feed yourself, take yourself to the bathroom, it's like, really, this is your purpose in my life.

Gregg DeMey  33:41

So it would be true to say that it's not our spiritual maturity, or the depth of our need or suffering that merits an angel, invisible breakthrough into our visible world. That's true, right. But it's the mystery of God accomplishing what God desires to accomplish. Yeah. And quite frankly, the experiences that I've had that I would chalk up, maybe we'll get there a little later and gel to like an angel doing something. We're not big deals, or were not like life or death circumstances in my life. There's a whole bunch of other situations that if I could have called forth an angel to do something, I could probably think of 100 situations.

Jeffrey Klein  34:25

Now, I don't want to jump ahead too much. But like, if you think about the story of Daniel, Daniel chapter 10, right, he's praying. And he's asking God for help. And you know, he he fast for all these days waiting for God to answer and he's eventually his angel shows up. This is Daniel chapter 10. And the angel says, and while I was immediately hindered by a dark spirit that had a fight, and battle with before I can get to you so you're the Lord heard your prayers three weeks ago, when you started praying? I loved immediately then, but there's dark spirit got in the way and I couldn't get there. So here I am. Now. I've come after battling my way to get to you, here I am. So you look at this situation you we know the church, we find out later in this passage the church is praying. Are they praying for angels out or no, but just wonder how prayer and angels showing up or prayer and God's deliverance showing up? Is there any correlation? Again, it's dangerous to go there. Because it's like, well, that means everything we pray God's gonna just send an angel and rescue us. No, it's not when

Caryn Rivadeneira  35:25

we pray the market, right that can fight that. But

Jeffrey Klein  35:27

it's interesting, again, the battle going on in the invisible world that we typically ignore. We always see everything is like, Well, this was happening our surgeon is right now. Well, what if there's something going on? That, you know, I saw a great play at Wheaton College years ago, it was George McDonald's war in heaven. And they had some actors on trapezes above the stage, dark and light. And they had people on the bottom of stage and they wrote to no play. And so these angels and demons would come down and get involved in life, then they go back in their tread piece and watch. And so you saw this whole dynamic going on between, you know, it's this present darkness book, it's those kinds of things. But I think it's an interesting thing for us to be aware of like, do our prayers actually have maybe some impact in the invisible world?

Gregg DeMey  36:13

Yeah, I think it's pretty clear they do. Right. But it's tough to, to know when to measure oftentimes, right? Yeah. Yeah. Link the direct outcomes. Yeah. Well, I'm

Caryn Rivadeneira  36:24

just thinking when my kids were babies in their crib every night, I would pray that the Lord would send an angel and I would kind of move my hand around to every corner of their crib to rush to their comfort night, when I was very nervous about, you know, SIDS, and especially as a new mom. And so it's sort of funny now thinking about that. Like, I feel like God did that every day. I don't know is that why they whatever would wake up in the morning or whatever, and but yet, we don't even send it to credit bad. I guess I've just, it sounds like right, they're fine.

Jeffrey Klein  36:52

We go, okay, they made it. It was Aussie made. And we're lucky we're fortunate. But what if God actually did send money? What if that

Gregg DeMey  36:58

x Wachovia could can just to play devil's advocate? Don't you think like every Christian mom, 200 years ago, when child mortality was 40%? of court, right, prayed the same prayers.

Caryn Rivadeneira  37:10

Of course. That's what and that's the thing like I that's what I probably why it's hard even to credit it because part of me is like, it's just good fortune or whatever. That's, you know, because right. I can't say that my kids didn't die in infancy because of because I prayed. I don't think that's

Jeffrey Klein  37:27

where was the angel in the delivery room for my brother. Tell it well, and he was he doing he must been sleeping on the job. You can easily go

Gregg DeMey  37:36

to sleep. Or if the angel wasn't there, what would have been the outcome? Right? Right. Maybe he would be not even alive. Right? Yeah. I think we usually think of like angelic presences, doing something analogous to this, like very personal and direct. I mean, sometimes I wonder if again, just the way like is it? Is modern medicine somehow impacted by the Ministry of angels? Think of all the children that are alive in 2020. That wouldn't have been alive 100 years ago. So I love to credit, like God's healing ministry for any positive health outcome or life. So just like globally, I mean, it's a different, different world at this point. So I'm happy to credit the angels for that too. Right. Yeah.

Caryn Rivadeneira  38:24

It's weird. I mean, Angel and demon conversations are about my favorite but they're, I think, mostly because we don't talk about it very much. And it's it's, it gets really weird and

Jeffrey Klein  38:34

isn't Matthew, it's in Matthew, somewhere is one little verse. It says every child has an angel. I scribbled this down there is it's in Matthew, Matthew 1810.

Gregg DeMey  38:45

There we go. See to it that you don't despise any of these little ones. Jesus said, For I tell you that they're angels in heaven. always see the face of my father.

Jeffrey Klein  38:56

So that's interesting verse. What does that mean? I've pondered that verse for years. So these are the little ones and they each have this angel and their Angel see the face of the Father in heaven. Whoa. So God's watching over his little ones with an angel. Whoa, everyone, your kids being followed around

Caryn Rivadeneira  39:15

I was praying for for angels. Now those

Jeffrey Klein  39:17

angels are under the direction of the sovereignty of God, right. So they don't get to just act on their own. They're being directed right as the what they're going to do and what they're not going to do to watch over these little ones.

Gregg DeMey  39:29

Yeah. Yeah. In Christian theology. There's one other verse in Hebrews, I think, Hebrews Yeah, that says something like are not all angels ministering spirits who are sent to serve those who will inherit salvation. Hebrews 114. Yeah, that's it. So again, just like the description of angels is there, there. Yeah. Mo is to surround and serve those who are in the family of God.

Jeffrey Klein  39:55

Yeah. I got to do one sermon of angels back in the day, just one day. It's super exciting.

Caryn Rivadeneira  40:01

I would like an angel to creak open doors right now that's what I'm gonna do. I want to get

Gregg DeMey  40:05

like an angel to wake me up in the night wrestle me and then damage my elbow. It's true. Now Jacob,

Caryn Rivadeneira  40:11

do some damage right and wake you up by cocking you on the heads and get dressed.

Gregg DeMey  40:16

Alright, shall we press on here with x chapter 12. We're gonna pick it up at verse 11. Then Peter came to himself and said, Now without a doubt. Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent an angel and has rescued me from Herod's clutches and from everything that Jewish people were hoping would happen.

Caryn Rivadeneira  40:36

When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of john also called mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. Peter knocked on the outer entrance and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. When she recognized Peters voice, she was so overjoyed that she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, Peter is at the door,

Gregg DeMey  40:54

you are out of your mind. They told her, and when she kept insisting that it was so they said, well, it must be his angel.

Jeffrey Klein  41:01

But Peter kept on knocking. And when they open the door and saw him, they were astonished. Peter motion with his hand for them to be quiet and describe how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. Tell James and the other brothers and sisters about this, he said, and then he left for another place. In the morning, there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter. After Hara did a thorough search made for him, did not find him. He cross examined the guards and ordered them that they be executed. Oh,

Gregg DeMey  41:32

quite a dramatic Yes, close of scene here. So Peter thought he was having a vision, which that's extraordinary to me. Like maybe he was maybe visions were so normative and Peter's life. I mean, they had been in previous chapters here, that he just kind of assumed that was what was happening. And it wasn't until he had got up, shaken off his chains, walk paths. Guards exit to the prison, got out in the cold night air heard the creaking of the gate, that it suddenly dawns on him, like, what? This actually happened.

Jeffrey Klein  42:07

Right? And he wakes up like, Whoa, yeah, I love. He goes to the house of Mary, the mother of john mark, which is the first time I think john Mark maybe gets mentioned here in the book of Acts, right. And this little serving girl comes to the door. She runs Intel. Hey, pieces are crazy, but he's not. But But again, I love this line. They were many people were gathered, and they were praying. So what were they praying for? I don't know. Were they praying for Peter? Were they praying for the skit the gospel that I mean, this persecution was ongoing since chapter eight Sep chapter seven, right. When Paul is standing there giving approval to the death of Steven, this persecution is broken out now against the Christian faith. So yeah,

Caryn Rivadeneira  42:58

I'm just thinking about Peter and his run ins with sermon girls, because it was when he didn't, right. It was a girl who asked it like there's a lot of things to hear. It's kind of interesting, but I do love this story. And I love that she's, she's the one who believes. And again, it's that interesting thing of how the gospel spreads and not to be super, I mean, I am pro women. But I love when these things happen to it's like, You're crazy, you're stupid, and yet she's the one who's like, No, he's been released and

Gregg DeMey  43:23

she gets to deliver that. That is a great contrast. Probably the pillars of the church are in there still praying like no, he could just pray this out. Go away. It's probably good for church staff people to laugh at that. No doubt we are not the top prayers, or spiritually plugged in people despite some of our responsibilities, so how would you like to be an employee of King Herod all things being equal?

Jeffrey Klein  43:52

Yeah. Well, again, this is consistent with what we've seen how soldiers are treated right prisoners escaped and you get killed you get executed because you didn't do your job. So you know those first soldiers at the tomb of Jesus I don't know if they got I don't remember them began executed. I think they just arrived. They got bribes over manage their mouth shut their mouth shut, right. These guys get executed. I think there's other stories where the soldiers get chopped, because people have escaped from prison. So yeah, that would be that would be a bad job to have. There's a 16 is a 16 soldiers 16 dads 16 whatever. They get cut up inherit scheme and now get executed because God delivers Peter, with this angel.

Caryn Rivadeneira  44:33

Yeah, until Obama had the job of being chained to Peter sitting in some awful right pit with presumably naked Peter since he had to put his clothes on. I mean, that's just that's a wall zap. And they didn't even wake up. When Peter got poked at him wake up. They didn't even wake up.

Jeffrey Klein  44:48

They just sound asleep. So they had no idea. Can you imagine wake up in the morning? You're a garden and this prisoner now where's your prisoner? What happened to him? Where do you go? Like, how could he possibly get out of here? We were all sitting here.

Gregg DeMey  44:58

The Harrods probably could have hired To better PR person because you think of like, if you kill six, like adult men who are probably, you know, competent and skilled and probably have families, just how many people, you know how many families are affected how many relatives how many friends, like you kill 16, responsible, competent people, and just like the ripple effect of that throughout the city of Jerusalem, and just the whatever the bad rap of a tyrant doing that.

Caryn Rivadeneira  45:30

Well, and you wonder about their testimony too, because they must have been, they obviously all knew something extraordinary happened. I mean, I would think unless they were suspicious of each other could have been the thing too, but you sort of enjoy imagining that they would have been shouting out. I mean, maybe they saw maybe they saw the angel and Peter up ahead or something I don't know but that they would have known I guess something.

Jeffrey Klein  45:51

otherworldly happened. Can't believe they were all sleeping. Like these are guards they wouldn't be sleeping in the prison they'd be awake so

Gregg DeMey  45:59

especially the centuries at the gate, right? Right. know if the angel through invisibility cloak over Peter, something

Caryn Rivadeneira  46:06

fantastic.

Jeffrey Klein  46:06

It's like the Lord of the Rings. When Frodo gets that cloak, he puts over himself

Caryn Rivadeneira  46:12

the Elven cloak. And you only know the invisibility or Harry Potter

Jeffrey Klein  46:16

was he? Is he? He has an elven cloak he puts over himself and then he disappears and you can't see them. They can't he blends in. So it's interesting that Tolkien may have taken that is interesting that this is happening here is somehow Peter gets out of the prison and the guards who are awake, don't even see him

Caryn Rivadeneira  46:33

frozen, or

Jeffrey Klein  46:34

they like what yet what when he thinks he's in a trance, he thinks he's in a dream or having a vision instead of actually. And then when he when he wakes up outside. He's like, oh, my goodness, I'm actually out of prison like this is real. I've been released, I've been delivered, right? He thought he's gonna die. Now I'm delivered. And he goes in that tells the believers where they're praying. So he knows this place of prayer. He must know this is a place of prayer. This is a place where they pray regularly at Mary john marks mother's house. I also love that that he knows where to go totally. Right. Like, well, we know where to go today where people are praying for us. I'm not sure we would know that. I'm not sure we would know where to go. Especially if you're talking about after midnight,

Caryn Rivadeneira  47:11

right after midnight after a jailbreak. Yeah, that's a that's a really great point. I also like very much just getting back to the angel things that when rota keeps insisting it was Peter, they said it must be his angel. I find that so curious, because is there an understanding that your angel sounds or looks like you like is that it's just

Gregg DeMey  47:31

yeah, I believe this was part of Jewish angelic theology that your guardian angel perhaps for a physical resemblance to you in their ministry and service.

Caryn Rivadeneira  47:44

Yeah, it's just that that's that was easier for them to believe, than that he would have gotten out. Yeah, that was that was higher on the we can expand this. Right. And that feels right. That's interesting, because that seems less explainable and yet that's what I think what we still do today, we look for the easiest explanation which fair enough.

Gregg DeMey  48:04

Alright, shall we take this home we get a little more insight into the Herod anti God agenda in these last verses.

Caryn Rivadeneira  48:13

All right, Then Herod went from Judea to ciceri and stayed there. He had been quarreling with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and now sorry, they now joined together and sought an audience with him. After securing support of Blastoise, a trusted personal servant of the king. They asked for peace, because they depended on the Kings country for their food supply.

Jeffrey Klein  48:34

On the appointed day, Herod wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted. This is the voice of a God, not of a man. Immediately because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down. He was eaten by worms and died.

Gregg DeMey  48:54

But the Word of God continued to spread and flourish. So I think it's true that in no corner of the world do parents name their little boys Herod any longer.

Caryn Rivadeneira  49:09

My dad's name is Harold. But you know, yeah, your brother. Maybe the Herald's are secretly the Harrods.

Gregg DeMey  49:17

I think a different point of origin. It's historical and geographically. It's funny to joke with Harold though. That's funny, Harold. You might want you to call him king Harold. Yeah, but nobody here it's because I think you know, symbolically the way of the Harrods is a total dead end. It's not going anywhere. It's not aligned with God's purposes and agenda and therefore, like all things that are purely human in origin. Yeah, comes to an end.

Jeffrey Klein  49:56

Yeah, it's an interesting story says Rhea. was put together by Herod the Great. It's an amazing city again, amazing ruins in seaside. It seaside. It's got amazing port, it actually has an aqueduct you can still walk on today that ran for 1000s of miles bringing water to this place that here the great bell. It's a spectacular, like aqueduct it's amazing to see it's like whoa, this is like from, you know, whatever for BC and somebody put this together and had water running from the mountains down to this place. The fresh water pretty amazing engineering thing. But, you know, there's all this political stuff of Tyre inside him which is near there, needing the support because they need the food. And here it of course now is pride. Pride is like, you know, gives us amazing speech takes all the credit and Gods like, Oh, no, you're done.

Gregg DeMey  50:46

Yeah, I'm gonna read a couple verses from Eugene Peterson's message translation. Yeah, it's such a hilarious way of putting this. So after Herod like takes this credit, and the praise without bouncing any of it back up to God, it says, Now this was the last straw God had had enough of Harrods and arrogance and sent an angel to strike him down. Here it had given god no credit for anything. So down he went rotten to the core a maggoty. Old man, if ever there was one, he died. maggoty old man,

Caryn Rivadeneira  51:21

old man, if ever there was one.

Jeffrey Klein  51:24

Yeah, but that is interesting that you know, this symbol, the worms eat him and he dies. It's like, Whoa, his whole life is just leads to worms and

Gregg DeMey  51:32

death. You might have money for a while. You might have some power for a while. You might have the awesomest job for a while. Yeah, but then this is where it's gone.

Caryn Rivadeneira  51:41

Well, and we, I mean, the hope, I guess is that one would die first, and then the worms would happen. But the idea that the maggots come first and then death. I mean, that is horrifying. Yeah. The freeze order is very curious here. Yeah, I mean, that just sounds like you've got a wound and the

Jeffrey Klein  52:00

Yeah, so. And I love the last one wine, the Word of God, continue to spread and flourish. So even though there's persecution, even though there's dark stuff happening, the Word of God spreads and flourishes, which gives me hope, even Afghanistan, because if you read about the history of China, other places where the gospel has been persecuted, it grew more rapidly in the persecution underground than it ever grew up on the surface as the kind of anointed free religion of the Empire, which is, you know, interesting, even think about our situation. We live in a country that's free, we can totally do this. And we Christianity in the West kind of limps along sometimes. It seems like we have a hard time giving our lives to this, because we have so many other things that we can give our lives to.

Gregg DeMey  52:46

Yeah, I mean, we all aspire to be herot in a way. That's like a slice of the American dream. Yeah, yeah. But the contrast could not be more clear. I mean, Herod's way ends up in rot and maggots, and Jesus way and the agenda, the spirit ends up in flourishing

Jeffrey Klein  53:10

and growth now and will continue. Nothing has stopped that. So sometimes people sit around and they bemoan our country's going here, but my mother was over right now. She's an amazing lady. But you know, she's 82, I think, ready, three. And so she'll pull up these Facebook posts, and she'll start bemoaning, oh, man, like, this world is going south. And like, Yeah, it is. That's not surprising. But hey, the gospel of Jesus is still, you know, so I try to tell her, why don't we look up some Jesus stories, there's gonna be some good Jesus stories going on the world where Jesus is flourishing, and the Kingdom of Gods being built in spite of this chaos going on around us. So it's kind of where you fix your eyes, on the waves, where you sink? Or do you fix your eyes on Jesus, and what he's doing in the world and kind of stay focused on that. And I think it's easy to get to lose your faith, and you lose your hope and to think, Oh, this is all for not we're just wasting our time. We're just you know, because here we are, we're working for this kingdom of Jesus, it seems everything's against us. But if we really believe that this is true, the gospel is going to flourish no matter what, then we have to just keep in faith going okay, God, we're gonna keep obeying you and doing what you're telling us to do. And then we're going to trust that you're going to come around and we don't know what the outcomes gonna look like. That's up to you. But we will be faithful and and full of faith and hope as we pursue this way of life, knowing this is the right way to go.

Caryn Rivadeneira  54:34

I think this is why I love I mean, this ends you know what the word but the Word of God continued. I think that's why I love the buts and the and yets in those moments in Scripture so much is because to me, that's always what it points to, you know, whether it's the laments or in the stories or whatever, it's like, things are awful bad things are happening, and yet God is still on the move. You know, the spirit is still work and I feel like that helped. Like you're saying, like, bring in the Jesus stories even among these horrible things. Don't necessarily I'm not wanting to think the world is worse now than it's ever been, you know, you read these stories and like this was pretty bad. This would have been pretty brutal to live in the Roman Empire. But I think those are there. Right? It's looking for the hope and seeing where God is at work, because there's always a but there's always an end yet

Jeffrey Klein  55:17

again, according to the historians, three of the most brutal Garrison's of soldiers were stationed in Judea, because the Jews were so psycho, that they couldn't keep them under control, literally. So if you didn't act hard headed people they were so they would say station is brutal, like fighting force in the middle of this place that was supposed to be like nothing to take care of, because they want to keep these people under control, which is super difficult.

Gregg DeMey  55:43

So I take great comfort in these last lines of this passage. I mean, we're recording this well. I mean, there's just an earthquake in Haiti, a storm coming in right on top of it, total chaos, Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. And while our compassion and sorrow are more than well deserved, we ought not to despair in the really big picture of things like tyrants will come horrible things will happen, but like the gospel is going to win. In the end. I don't know how God's going to weave all these things. Together, thinking back to one of the early, so 400 years after this, there's a Christian guy named Augustine, St. Augustine, was living in North Africa, in the Roman Empire, and by that by 400 years later, like the Roman Empire was majority Christian. And while a Gustin lived, he could see the Empire, cracking and falling. And while he lived, the city where he was a pastor, and a bishop, literally got taken over burned to the ground. And one of his writings that has survived to this day is on exactly this topic, of not losing hope, because his hope was not in the continuity of the Roman Empire, even though it had been, by and large christianized. But how his hope was in the kingdom of God. So in the big picture, it didn't matter if barbarians, like burn, burned his city, and desecrated his church. And if Christianity got wiped out in the city that he grew up in and loved. And like he had enough vision, to see that in the end, the Word of God was going to spread and flourish, even if a whole bunch of Herod's like had their day for a while.

Jeffrey Klein  57:29

Exactly. And I love this than in this passage alone, we can pick out a ton of examples of so how to ordinary people, ordinary followers of Jesus live in the midst of this. And that's a big deal. How we live in the midst of this is how the kingdom of Gods built. So we have, you know, people praying, we have Barnabas, looking for fellow people that bring them back to where they need to be like finding Paul and saying, Paul, your mission is over here. Let's go, let's do this. I'm with you. I'm alongside you. Right. And just as you go through the story, it's like, and then here's this group, you will pray in this house and ordinary Christians, ordinary people that are just living out this kingdom of God life in the world. And that's how the kingdom of God is built and spreads.

Caryn Rivadeneira  58:09

Yeah, and I think it gets back to a little bit before like, it isn't about necessarily who's the president doesn't mean, it's not about who the supreme court justices are. It isn't, you know, all these things that we spend so much time fighting about and worrying about. And, again, not that we don't it's not that we don't get involved. I believe in voting, I always vote it's, it's great to have your, you know, ideologies. And that's part of our God given gifts. And we do have a responsibility to show up and be present in the way that this country is governed or whatever, but just the idea that it's not. The gospel is not at risk ever. Like that's, it's it's in how we live our lives and how we show love and yeah, humble ourselves and all that stuff you'd said before, Jeff, that was good.

Gregg DeMey  58:51

Yeah. All right. Well, God make few of us like Herod who have to shoulder the responsibility of tremendous power and wealth and make more of us like Rhoda, who, despite being a simple servant had eyes to see exactly what you were doing in real time. All right, amen. Awesome chapter, the Sunday sermon will be a little bit of a different animal. Yeah. Very experiential, and take us kind of to a different place than what we covered today. So

Jeffrey Klein  59:21

maybe the same kind of place. Ordinary Christians mobilized to doing some amazing things in the world, the kingdom. Okay.

Gregg DeMey  59:29

Thanks to Billy Heschel for helping us along the way here and as always, to Sheri Van Spronsen Leppink who helps get the word out and knows all the tricks behind the scenes. Look forward to seeing many of you on Sunday. It is going to be an awesome worship experience. Yes, we'll see you then.