Bible Guys Classics: Acts 12

Show Notes

When hope seems locked away, God still opens doors.

In this episode of The Bible Guys, Jeff and Chris walk through Acts 12, where Peter is miraculously freed from prison while the church prays.

Jeff and Chris talk about the power of prayer, God’s perfect timing, and trusting Him when the situation feels impossible. This passage reminds us that God is always at work—even when we can’t see it.

If you’re waiting on God to move, this episode will encourage you to keep praying and trusting His plan.

🎧 Listen now and be reminded that God is never limited by circumstances. #TheDailyBibleGuys #Acts12 #BibleStudyPodcast #Prayer #GodsPower #FaithInAction

What is The Bible Guys?

Whether you’ve been following Jesus for years or you’re just starting to ask questions, there’s a seat for you here.

Join Jeff and Chris for honest conversations about Scripture, faith, and the everyday stuff we all navigate. With humor, personal stories, and plenty of back-and-forth, The Bible Guys explore what the Bible says and how it connects to your life.

Subscribe, bring your questions, and get to know the Bible one conversation at a time. Head over to TheBibleGuys.com for more information!

So yesterday you may have heard us introduce the wrong passage, Yes, where Peter gets left out in the dark and James. Loses his head. That's what we're going to talk about for sure. Today. He's Chris, I'm Jeff. We're the Bible Guys. Well, hey, we're we're going to continue the stumped pastor yeah. Yeah. So so just again, as a reminder, three weeks ago or so, we asked people to send in questions at this email right here, which is info at the Bible Guys dot com. And so we want to make sure that if you are listening today and you won't have a question, send it in because we want to do this segment a few weeks more, maybe perhaps down the road. Yeah yeah, and these these have been really challenging questions. Yeah, very challenging, right. And today it might be one of the hardest. Yes, it is. And I'm really glad that you went into the office this morning and looked at verses because that really helps me because I didn't. Not just today, I didn't just look it up today, but I did write them down on my paper today. Okay, good, okay, Well, you know you always study, is that what you're going to say always. Actually, I'm just that guy, all. Right, So let me read stuff the pastor so Stephen W writes this. We Christians all know the Easter story of Jesus on the cross, died and was buried, then three days later he returned from the dead. My question is what are your thoughts were? More importantly, what does the Bible say, if anything, about what took place during those three days of being dead. Is Jesus in hell battling with the devil? Is he in heaven sipping tea with the Father? Or nothing? Well, one, how cool would it be if you was in hell battling with the devil? That makes for a cool movie. And you know what, and also Cameron Cameron could be yes. Cameron saving Hell. Yeah, no, it also be very cool if he was in heaven. Sipping tea with him cavizel, because you. Know, the British should be like, I knew he was British. That's right, that's right. But so this question comes is rooted in the what we would call the Apostles Creed. Right, So without the Apostles Creed, they're probably this question probably wouldn't cross most people's minds. Most people would just assume Jesus died and went to heaven or like. As a matter of fact, in Luke chapter twenty three, Jesus told the thief on the cross today, you'll be with me in paradise. So wherever paradise is, right, So that's a whole other conversation. But he he was wherever you go after you die. That's what we, most of us would think, except for the apostles Creed says that he descended into Hell and then that then people go. Way that comes pause and say, what is the apostles Creed and is that part of the Bible. Yeah, So the apostles Creed was a declaration of orthodox Christian beliefs right that identifies the Trinity, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, that they're equal. It identifies the work of Christ on the Cross and the resurrection, and identifies the core beliefs of Christianity. And Christians would quote, oftentimes would quote that it sprang up in the five hundreds, and sometime around five hundred eighty was the earliest that we really see this popping up, and then it became a standard in these seven hundreds where this became part of the liturgy of the church, where people would quote this almost every weekend or every time they gather. And the reason was, you know, now you're beginning within one thousand and eighty, you start to move into the dark ages, and people couldn't read, and so in order to really down as it was dark, well because they were illiterate, right it really you know that the great libraries of the world had been burned and looted, and education was not core values. So there were educated people, which was usually theologians and business people, but the rest weren't in government leaders, and so they would teach the people a creed that established the core of their belief system. So that's where that came from. The nice scene Creed, which was from three eighty eight, does not include this phrase he descended into Hell, but the Apostles creed does, and so it seems to be attached to I looked this up. It seems to be attached to First Peter chapter three eighteen and twenty and Ephesians four eight Those seemed to be the two that kind of reference something along these lines. So the one First Peter three eighteen Peter says that after Jesus died, he preached to the spirits in prison and then he ascends to heaven. Right, So what does that mean? What are the spirits and what is he doing? He's preaching the word preach. There is not the same word in Greek that we use for preaching the gospel. So this is it's clearly a declaration, but it's not a declaration of the good news. So this may have been that Jesus went to the those demons that are trapped in hell and declared his victory. That's that could have been what it was. Sure, I don't know there's room for it, but that certainly seems like a legit thing that hey, you thought you defeated me and instead here's the victory. Right. Well yeah, Ephesians four eight. It uses the phrases. It just says that Jesus took captivity captive And that's a confusing phrase too. It could have meant that Jesus cleared out paradise and took them to heaven. So do you remember when Jesus tells the story of the rich Man of Lazarus. Yep, And there's there's Abraham's boosom seems to be paradise and then there's hell. Right, those seem to be the whole place of the souls of humanity. So then the people who were in Paradise prior to Christ, maybe he took them from there to Heaven. That could have been what that's talking about. The problem is both of those are incidental statements. They're not the point of either of those passages, and so it's just like a casual statement and move on. The Bible is not super clear on that. So it does look like perhaps he went and declared his victory to the evil ones. It wouldn't have been a battle, it was just a declaration because it just says he preached and then he maybe clears out Paradise and takes all of them to Heaven. Yeah. Yeah. And the other piece that we talked about before was, you know, when when Mary sees Jesus at the garden tomb, he says, don't touch me, Mary, for I've not yet ascended to my father, right, So, and so you know, he had been already dead for you know, on the third day. And by the way, he wasn't in the tomb for seventy two hours. He was in the tomb just before Saturday, late Friday rose early Sunday. So he was actually in the tomb for. Like on three days. Yeah, on the third day is, but it wasn't fully seventy two hours anyway. So he gets he gets out, and it raises from the dead, and then he says, don't touch me because I've not yet a sin in my father. But then later on he appears in the disciples room in the middle of the room and says, Thomas touched my hands, touch my feet. Yeah, So so we know that something had happened between you know, the resurrection and then. And yet before then he had said to Mary, I've not yet a sin to my father, right, which means he wasn't in heaven sipping tea. Right. That's what we know, right. So there's there's this the physical side that we totally get death, burial, resurrection, Thomas touched my hands, touched my side, But there's also a spiritual battle happening here, and so there's Jesus is interacting now on both the spiritual realm and the physical realm. That's why the apostles were, you know, the disciples were amazed when Jesus just walked through the through the door, right, right. And then the other time he just appears with them, but at the same time he eats fish and he says touch me. So he Jesus is interacting both on the spiritual plane and the physical plane at the same time, which is pretty cool concept. Yeah, So it seems like maybe those are the two things that the apostles Creed is referencing, but beyond that, we can't really know for sure what Jesus did. Right, So so the answer, of course to almost all the questions and stuff the pastor is probably going to end with we don't know, right, Yeah, maybe, but it's maybe, yeah, maybe, But there's there's a there's a take on uh, there's a take on it, yea. And so your take is you're just unsure it was. So there's plausible uh, explanations that perhaps first Peter is talking about he declares a victory to the evil spirits, and that in Ephesians he perhaps is clearing out paradise. Those are plausible. Yeah, Neither one of those are central theological things with regard to salvation. So, you know, the Bible is very clear about Jesus as the virgin born son of God. He lived a sinless life, he paid the price for our sin on the Cross, That justification of our sin is through repentance and believing by faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross, right, the resurrection is the central element of Christianity. All those things are super clear. Every once in a while you get one of these free fringe things, and the Bible just mentions it. Incidentally, God knows, and we're kind of left to kind of put those extra pieces together. But it doesn't affect one way that it doesn't affect salvation, which is the central message of the Gospel. And that's very important to be reminded of. And so that's great. That's probably a great segue. Cool. So now we're going to get back into the passage that we said we were going to talk about yesterday. We were building anticipation, getting people excited. So in Acts chapter twelve, we're reading from the New Living Translation. We're just going to read the first twenty five verses, so I'm going to get through it quickly. About that time, King Herod Agrippa began to persecute some believers in the Church, and he had the apostle James John's brother killed with a sword. When Harod saw how much this pleased the Jewish people, he also arrested Peter. This took place during the Passover celebration. Then he imprisoned him, placing him under the guard of the four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring Peter out for public trial after the passover, but while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him. The night before Peter was to be placed on trial, he was asleep, fastened with two chains between two soldiers. Others stood guard at the prison gate. Suddenly there was a bright light in the sellon and the Angel of the Lord stood before Peter. The angel struck him on the side to awaken him and said quick, get up, and the chains fell off his wrists. And then the angel told him get dressed and put on your sandals, and he did. Now put on your coat and follow me, the angel ordered. So Peter left the cell following the angel. But all the time he thought it was a vision. He didn't realize it was actually happening. And they passed the first and second guard posts and came to the iron gate leading to the city, and this opened for them all by itself, so they passed through and started walking down the street and then the angel suddenly left him. Peter finally came to his senses. It's really true, he said. The Lord has sent his angel and saved me from Herod and from what the Jewish leaders had planned to do to me. When he realized this, he went to the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many were gathered for prayer. He knocked at the door in the gate, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to open it. When she recognized Peter's voice, she was so overjoyed that instead of opening the door, she ran back inside and told everyone. Peter standing at the door, you're out of your mind, they said. When she insisted, they decided it must be his angel. Meanwhile, Peter continued knocking. When they finally opened the door and saw him, they were amazed, and he motioned for them to quiet down, and he told them how the Lord had led him out of prison. Tell James and the other brothers what happened, he said, and then he went to another place. At dawn, there was a great commotion among the soldiers about what happened to Peter. Herod and Grippa ordered a thorough search for him, and when he couldn't find him, interrogated the guards and sentenced them to death. Afterward, Herod left Jude to stay in cesarea for a while. Now, Herod was very angry with the people, Attire and Sidon, so they sent a delegation to make peace with him, because their cities were dependent upon Arod's country for food. The elegants won the support of Blastis, Herod's personal assistant, and an appointment with Herod was granted. When the day arrived, Herod put on his royal robes, sat on his throne, made a speech to them. The people gave him a great ovation, shouting it's the voice of a God, not of a man, and instantly an angel of the Lord struck Herod with a sickness because he accepted the people's worship instead of giving the glory to God. So he was consumed with worms and died. Meanwhile, the word of God continued to spread and there were many new believers. When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission to Jerusalem, they returned, taking John Mark with them. Boy, we covered some ground on now one. Let's say this is three podcasts. Yeah, this is so cool? Is it really is? Yeah? So we're gonna, but we're gonna tackle it anymore. So obviously, the big highlighting part of that passage is Peter escaping from prison. Right, But let's not before we get to that. Let's let's at least spend a little bit of time on the fact that James is killed. Right. So James, John's brother was killed. This is James and John, the sons of Zebede, that's right, right, And so then later on who writes the Book of James. That's the brother of Jesus, right, And and that's the James that is mentioned when Peter says, go tell James and the other apostles. He's talking about James, the brother of Jesus. Hey, let me say this. This king Herod Agrippa is the grandson of Herod the Great, the one that wanted to kill Jesus when he was born. Right, Yeah, So same same family rulers. Yeah, isn't that cool? Yeah? And so he is a he is a Roman appointed king of. The Jews, that's correct. So he's he calls himself King of the Jews. But his job is just to keep the Jewish people on line, which which, by the way, yet here we have you know, you know, years and years later, decades later, after Herod's big deal, and and yet still they're just really playing to the crowd because he says he killed James and then he loved the fact that the that the people who are anti Christians liked it. So that's his motivation for a technical politician. What the Poles say. The Poles say, keep killing creations. Right, right, so they grab Peter right, So that's that's interesting. I love the fact that Peter's in prison, going to trial tomorrow. I think he's going to die and he's totally zonked out. The total peace, right, Hey, what's going to have is going to happen? I say this sometimes, you know, we've been in some dangerous situations around the world doing you know, different work that we knew that God was having us to do. And you will not die. You will not show up and haven one minute before you're supposed to. So if this is your time, you can't prevent it. Right. If it's not your time, it can't happen. Right, So you're invincible, And until you're not, you're invincible until the minute. Got sides, He's going to bring you to heaven when it comes to serving him. I'm not saying just you know, don't don't take up Evil Canebel's job jumping motorcycles, you know, over the fountain. But I mean, yeah, right, uh, but when it comes to serving God, then I really do believe that. And so Peter, here's Peter totally sleeping, so much so that the that the angel has to it's bright light, doesn't wake him up. He has to. It doesn't say that he just shook him. He had to hit him in the side side right. By the way, That makes this interaction in my mind so human. Right, So in other words, you know, like if we were if Hollywood were to depict this, it'd be like Peter, a glowing echoey sort of like uh, you know, effect on a microphone. But uh, but you know, the bright light shines and then all of a sudden it appears to be this this you know, he probably looked like a man. You know, he punches him in the side. Peter get up, and all of a sudden, these magical things start happening, you know, the chains fall off, the gates miraculously open, and then this person just disappears. And by the way, let's not breeze over the fact that Peter has seen so many visions miraculously from God, and he's like, oh, another visions, even though his senses tell him. You know, he's physically getting up, he's physically walking and putting on his jacket and touching things and smelling things. Well, how worried was was King Herod that he had Peter chained between two soldiers. And then Roman guards posted outdoors. That's right, that's right. How dangerous is Peter? Right? And he's just sharing the gospel. Well, the last time they put a couple of guards there to guard a tomb that didn't work out, Jesus disappeared. So the same kind of thing here, And then, you know, I think it's I love this. This is typical Christians, and this is what I love about. It's one of my favorite stories in the Book of Acts. The people are praying, Oh God, deliver Peter. God, don't let Peter die. He's so important us, we need him for the work. Peter is such a good leader. Oh God, rescue Peter. Rescue Peter. And Peter and iun door rode open to her. Oh my goodness. She slams the door and run and goes. You never gonna leave. It was Peter's outside. They're like, you're nuts, right right, They're like, they're like, we don't believe it. We're praying, we've been we've been praying, but surely God didn't answer the prayer. Yeah, yeah, yeah right, Rhoda, you're crazy. Be quiet. We need to get people. We're praying for Peter. We're praying to God to deliver Peter. Well, he's standing this outside the door, and the Bible says, while they're telling her that she's crazy, you're out of your mind, she insisted, and so they go, oh, well, it must be maybe his angel is coming to tell us something. Meanwhile, Peter's knocking out. Okay, he just keeps knocking. And that's the best detail. So all this is happening and the inside in the meanwhile, Peter's still knocking, right. Hello, Yeah, there's people looking for me. Right right. I don't want to be out of here too. Long that I love the story. This is just one of my favorite things. It's so like us. It's so human, right that we're totally dependent on God enough to pray, but not enough to believe that he's at kind of answer, right, right, So you want to know how much faith it takes to get God to move enough faith to ask, right, so God doesn't always give us what we ask for, but he says the prayers of a righteous person avails much, it accomplishes much. And so when we go and we have the courage to ask, if it aligns with God's will, God will intervene and God will alter the course of otherwise what may have happened. Who knows Peter might have been, that he might have been up for the execution that day. And by the way, total sidebar here, but a lot of times when people have a tragedy in their life, like they have cancer or they have a surgery. So I read a post of my good friends in Texas who just posted today that her husband's getting surgery on some lymph nodes. Cancer has spread to the lymphodes. So she's like, I want everybody to pray. And then there are other people in this world who when they have some sort of a health problem, they're completely silent, they don't want anything to know, They're completely private, which prevents people from praying. And so I'm the type of person where I tell people, hey, this personally is going on in my life. We really need prayer, And then some people say, why do you share that? And sometimes even my family members would say like, well, I don't want that private, and I'd say, well, then you're not going to have the army of people praying for you, because if we truly believe that, you know, that prayer accomplishes much, then you know, fifty people praying is better than one person praying, because we believe it actually matters. So unless we believe prayer actually matters, then I guess there's really no point of sharing it. Yeah, right, I think if it's something that's deeply personal for you, sharing with the people that you trust is important. If it's deeply personal for somebody else and you, then I think you should maybe keep that group a. Little narrower, right, or get the consent. Yeah. So, sometimes you know, there are people who share way too much when they're sharing prairie quests. It would be okay to say, hey, you know, it might be you might know their name, the exact circumstances of things, and every little detail about how a marriage is falling apart. You don't need to tell any of that. You can say, would you pray for my friend? Initials are c z and marriage is coming apart right now. Yeah, yeah, and a marriage is really struggling right now, and they just need a miracle, right or whatever. For our listeners, that was an example. That's an example, not the truth story, right. I have no idea how Liz stays with you. It's just it's a miracle. Yes, it is a miracle every day. Yeah yeah, same thing with Bonnie. I have no idea. Every time I come home, I'm always surprised he's there, right, God blesses us. So, but we don't have to share every detail all the time. I think you have to be judicious with your details. But there's great value in going to the crowd of Christians and saying would you lift me up? Would you lift this person up? That I love? In prayer. That's why we use the prairie quests, you know, on the connection cards and things like that is so important. So then they Herod gets so mad that Peter's gone, he has these guards executed, and then later on it just has this incidental story here. It's just a few verses long. If Herod accepts the worship, you want to know what kind of horrible human this guy is? He accepts the worship of these people. This isn't the voice of a man, it's the voice of a God. And God sends an angel to kill him, but in a gruesome way. Yeah. I mean he's eaten alive by worms. Yeah, that would be you, that would be you. Well, let's be clear. Everybody eventually gets eaten by worms. Yeah. True, it just happened before he died here, right. Before he died. So yeah, that's actually pretty pretty crazy. And so this is King Agrippa, right, yes, yeah, King herod Agrippa. Yeah. So when I was in college, I worked at Baptist Baba College where I was attending Baptist Baba College, and I worked as a janitor. Uh huh. And I had this mop that had a grip and you would open up that's where I named it. It had teeth and then you would you would put it on top of a like a mophead, uh huh. And then then you'd lock it and it would grab it and and I would walk and every time I would mop, I'd be like King of Grip. Yeah, and it was this this man. This guy here. So then it ultimately ends with Meanwhile, the word of God continues to spread. There's many New Believers, and then Barnabas and Saul. They finished their mission, taking all that money and resources back to Jerusalem, and they pick up this guy named John Mark and they begin another journey. So uh, I think that the big takeaway from from today's thing is prayer really matters. God answers prayer, and even when persecution is happening, the gospel continues to spread. That's great. All right, Well, we'll see you next time on the Bible guys,