But The Word Of God Continued To Spread (Acts 12:19-13:3)

Intro

This isn’t going to come as a surprise to any of you, but our world is in upheaval. At the United Nations General Assembly recently, the Secretary-General said that “we are gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction…our world is in peril- and paralyzed.” He cited things like the pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, soaring costs of living and economic inflation, food shortages, disinformation, and so on. The next day, the chief of the International Monetary Fund warned that if steps weren’t taken soon in light of all these crises, there would be global unrest with people on the streets in protest. It feels like all around us, the world as we knew it has been coming apart at the seams for a few years now. I think I read somewhere that 2019, the year before the pandemic, might have been the last great year of the globalist dream. It was also the year that the Toronto Raptors won the NBA championship, so it really was pretty peak. Regardless, we seem to be entering a new era of world history and most aren’t feel terribly rosy about it. It’s about the only thing that people on the left and on the right of the political spectrum can agree on these days: things aren’t as they should be. However, one of the challenges of this is that all of us regular people are hyper-aware of what’s going on in the world due to our connectivity. We become consumed by issues that we really have no control over. We grow anxious. We become distracted. Many of us have fallen into this over the last few years.

I want to remind you of something else that’s true. Here’s what’s unchanging. God is still on the throne, and our mission is still the same. Again: regardless of world events, regardless of the rise and fall of empires, regardless of the general outlook of the future, God is still on the throne and our mission is still the same. Let’s explore that more through two stories from the book of Acts.

Then Herod went from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there. ²⁰ He had been quarreling with the people of Tyre and Sidon; they now joined together and sought an audience with him. After securing the support of Blastus, a trusted personal servant of the king, they asked for peace, because they depended on the king’s country for their food supply. ²¹ On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. ²² They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” ²³ Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

Acts 12:19-23

1. God’s on the throne: Herod’s death

Let’s give this a little bit of context. If you were here last week or listened in online, you’ll remember that this Herod was a local ruler particularly passionate about stamping out the church. He had James, one of the inner circle of Jesus’ disciples, martyred. He arrested other followers of Jesus. And then he had Peter (the main leader of the church in Jerusalem at the time) arrested, intending to bring him to trial and in all likelihood have him executed as well. The beginning of Acts 12 paints a fairly dire picture of the security of Jerusalem Christians. In terms of human threats to the well-being of the church in the first decade or two after the resurrection of Jesus, Herod Agrippa was near the top of the list. He was doing what he could to quash the growth of the church.

However, we talked last week about how God often subverts the intentions of worldly rulers. He takes what they mean to do to suppress the church and uses it to actually grow the church, making a mockery of worldly powers. Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, was determined to stamp out Christians in his country through persecution. His wife even boasted that Christianity in China was dead and buried. Except it wasn’t. Like, not at all. Instead, the growth of the church in China over the last 50 years or so might be the greatest revival in history. Here’s how one writer puts it:

“God used an evil Communist dictator to take the foreign crutches off Chinese Christianity so that it could become an indigenous faith. With its ‘training wheels’ removed, Christianity in China exploded in ways not seen since the church of the first century. In the flames of persecution, the dross of denominationalism brought by Westerners also burned away, and the Chinese church became unified in suffering.”

Eugene Bach, The Underground Church, 49

Mao had one intention, God did the opposite. Take that, Mao! Similarly, in Acts 12, God uses the unjust imprisonment of Peter and he miraculously breaks him out. In the process, God demonstrates His character as a God who sets people free, and ultimately makes the power of Jesus more widely known.

However, what we see in this passage is that not only does God subvert the intentions of bent worldly powers, but that He also has power to remove the obstacles those authorities represent. Think about another one of the primary adversaries to the church in those early years, Saul of Tarsus. A zealous Jew who was convinced that Jesus followers were heretics who needed to die, rampaging from one city to the next with the backing of the Sanhedrin, trying to round up leading disciples. In many ways, Saul was a major obstacle. Famously, though, Jesus appears to him on the road to Damascus, revealing to Saul that He is the resurrected Lord. Saul shifts from being the chief persecutor of the church to the chief proponent of Jesus in the Mediterranean world. Similarly, God removes the obstacle of Herod, only in this instance He does it by striking Herod down because of Herod’s pridefulness.

Let’s look at the story. For reasons Luke doesn’t give us, Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon, two self-governing cities on the Mediterranean coast. These people, while not directly governed by Herod, were dependent on Herod for their food supply. They sought an audience with Herod to win his favor and ensure their own security and prosperity. That explains why they seem so eager to flatter him. If you want something from an egotistical ruler, flattery goes a long way.

Josephus, a first century historian who also tells this story, says that on this day Herod wore a silver robe that shone brilliantly in the sun and wowed the people. Luke doesn’t note this but says that it was the voice of Herod from his throne that especially impressed the people. In any case, whether they were being authentic or being self-interested posers, the people of Tyre and Sidon proclaim that they now see Herod as being more than a man. He must be a god! Obviously, this is itself not what killed Herod. The same kind of thing actually happens in Acts 14 with Paul and Barnabas, when the people of Lystra proclaim them to be gods. The issue is in the response to inappropriate praise. Paul and Barnabas reject it immediately and point people to the one true God. Herod doesn’t. And it’s not like he was about to get the words out of his mouth, but before he could, the angel struck him down. He couldn’t have said, “God, if you had given me one more second, I would have got there, just be patient!” No, his heart was twisted. He liked that the people said he was a god. His ego soaked it up. He embraced it. This was his downfall.

Herod soaks up divine praise for himself, and an angel of the Lord immediately strikes him down. We read that Herod was eaten by worms, which sounds like a particularly gross way to go. Apparently this was a relatively common way in the ancient world to describe the deaths of those who really seemed to deserve it and a number of proposals have been given for what modern ailment this describes. That’s not the point, though. The point is the end result of this, which is a total reversal of what we have at the beginning of Acts 12. John Stott puts it better than I could: “the chapter opens with James dead, Peter in prison, and Herod triumphing; it closes with Herod dead, Peter free, and the word of God triumphing”. This kind of reversal is what God does- so take hope!

That’s one big thing we could take from that- hope when things look bleak! But there are a few other points I want to reflect on before we move on.

1. First off, notice again that pride is what leads to Herod’s downfall. This is ultimately the downfall of every ruler, every empire, every human venture that dethrones God and enthrones itself in His place. Think about the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11: it’s the same thing. People essentially said, let’s be gods. Let’s achieve greatness for ourselves. Let’s make our name known in the world. And God says, sorry guys, but that’s just not going to fly. The project falls apart and the empire is scattered.

There’s a quote from a book called “Reappearing Church” that I’ve often thought about. Mark Sayers, the author, talks about how the West has turned to politics as a new religion, which just prompts disorder and exhaustion. He says this outcome is actually a reflection of God’s mercy, because we then see that nothing but His presence can truly sustain us. He says that God has “inserted a Babel-like kill switch inside of human endeavors without Him.” A Babel-like kill switch inside of human endeavors without Him. That’s memorable. Try to be God, try to take glory for yourself that belongs to Him, and that will be your downfall. That’s true whether you’re just an individual going about your every-day life or some great emperor or empress. It’s as if it’s been hard-wired into the working of the world. Pursue praise that only belongs to God and you engage the Babel kill switch. Proverbs 16 says, “the Lord detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: they will not go unpunished…pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (16:5, 18).

2. Second, notice that the downfall of Herod is not something the church does. The church doesn’t remove Herod. It’s not a goal they’re pursuing. This is a bit different from what we see sometimes these days, when some Christians perceive the government as being a significant obstacle to the well being of the church and make it their primary goal to get rid of that government. I’m not saying democracy isn’t a good thing or that you shouldn’t vote. And, hey, freedom of religion and conscience is going to figure pretty large in my voting, personally. However, it seems to me that in contrast with the early church, we see an unhealthy obsession with politics in some corners of the Western church. And I think this story from Acts 12 reminds us that God will take care of these things. We don’t need to obsess about the obstacles that worldly powers and authorities may put before us. He is watching and He is powerful to act. The church didn’t need to arrange for the assassination or removal of Herod, God took care of that. As Paul says in Romans 12,

“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘it is mine to avenge, I will repay,’ says the Lord.” 

Romans 12:18-19

I read a story by a missionary along these lines. There was a city in Argentina where people were devoted to something called “San La Muerte”, or “Saint Death”. There were shrines to “Saint Death” all over the city, and Gospel-proclaiming churches had struggled for a long time there. However, a number of Christian leaders mobilized the churches of that city to pray in a focused way for a break-through, culminating in an 11 day evangelistic campaign. This, of course, met with massive opposition, especially from the high priestess of the San La Muerte cult. A week before the campaign was going to start, the high priestess had been smoking in her bed when flames erupted. The fire consumed her, the mattress, and an idol of San La Muerte that was 10 feet away- nothing else was touched. I know, that’s a crazy story. Take it for what it’s worth as something like a fourth-hand story at this point. But I think it illustrates this point that God will take care of removing the obstacles of worldly powers. We don’t need to carry that burden.

3. The third thing I want to point out is more general and it’s what I mentioned at the beginning: this story reminds us that God is still on the throne. Herod doesn’t have ultimate authority. Neither does Caesar. Neither does Justin Trudeau or Joe Biden or Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin. The Babylonian Empire fell, so did the Greek Empire, so did the Roman Empire, so did the British Empire. It appears that what we could call the American Empire may be falling before our eyes. All have their moment, grow prideful, and are struck down. In the days of the Babylonian Empire, the prophet Daniel interpreted a dream that the Babylonian king had received. A statue, representing all the various kingdoms and empires of history, was crushed by a tumbling rock that became a mountain that filled the earth (Daniel 2). That rock is the Kingdom of God. It endures forever, every human kingdom will eventually fail. So do not grow anxious when you bear witness to the tumult of world history and the rise and fall of governing authorities, as benevolent or malevolent as they seem. God is on the throne. He is king. History has a direction and a purpose, and it all leads to Him and His kingdom. Do not fear.

God is still on the throne. What the next story shows us is that our mission is still the same.

2. Our mission is still the same (12:25-13:3)

²⁵ When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, they returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called Mark. 13 ¹ Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. ² While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” ³ So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

Acts 12:25-13:3

This passage picks up where the end of Acts 11 left off. In Acts 11, we read about the church in Antioch, one of the major metropolitan centers of the Roman Empire, located in modern day Turkey. This was a church made up of many Gentiles, but when they had heard that Jewish Christians in Jerusalem were struggling through a famine, they sent a financial gift to Jerusalem with Saul and Barnabas, two of the leaders of the church. Acts 13 tells us that Saul and Barnabas have now returned to Antioch and have brought John Mark, whose mother hosted the midnight prayer meeting in Acts 12:5.

I said we’d talk about how this text illustrates that in a world of tumult, our mission is still the same. However, to get there I want to spend some time reflecting on the humility of these believers. What a contrast, right? The self-destructive pride of Herod followed up by the Kingdom-oriented humility of these followers of Jesus in Antioch. We see that humility in a bunch of ways.

1. We see it in an apparent diversity of leadership that required a laying down of ethnocentrism.  Barnabas and Saul were Hellenistic Jews, meaning that they had been born and raised in other areas of the Roman Empire than in Jerusalem and Judea. Simeon’s other name was Niger, which in Latin, as I understand it, was a word that meant black. It is likely that Simeon was from Africa and had dark skin. Lucius is definitely from Africa, as Cyrene was a city in what is modern day Libya. Manaen has a Greek name and was “brought up” with Herod, which in this case is not the Herod from chapter 12, but the Herod who had John the Baptist’s head brought to him on a platter. He seems to have been a close childhood friend of that Herod. Apparently, their lives had diverged just a bit at some point! This list in verse 1 is a list of those leading the church in Antioch, those who have been given gifts by God to teach and to communicate His word. All of these people were immigrants to Antioch. They came from different places and different cultures, and yet they had been bonded together by the Holy Spirit in Christ, given a common mission in His name. 

This is what’s unique about church. Where else do you see people of various generations and various ethnic backgrounds doing life together in this way? But it only works when we are willing to lay down some of our own cultural preferences and focus on what unites us: the Gospel. This is when genuine diversity comes. Genuine diversity isn’t forced or contrived, which it often is in our world. It comes instead when there is a genuine unity around something bigger than our ethnic identity markers. And while you may not think about it in this way, that requires humility. It requires a looking beyond ourselves. 

2. We also see humility in their devotion to worship. While rulers like Herod pursue and soak up divine praise, these leaders in Antioch are devoted to giving that praise to the Lord, their creator and savior and redeemer. This might seem hardly worth mentioning, given that they were part of a church and we think of churches as having worship services. However, I don’t need to tell you that Christian leaders are as vulnerable as anyone to pride. If you have been given gifts by God to serve Him, maybe especially speaking gifts, some people will heap up praise. They’ll put you on a pedestal. They’ll make you the center of attention. And for some leaders, that becomes addictive. That’s why worship is so important for everyone, but definitely important for those who are visibly gifted and are leaders. Your gifts and your empowerment are all from God. He is infinitely great, you are nothing apart from Him. You need to come back to that perspective again and again and again because otherwise you might begin to think this is about you. Your mission starts to become the extension of your name and your renown. You begin serving yourself instead of Jesus. We’ve already seen in Herod’s life where that leads. The leaders of the church in Antioch, one of the thriving, growing churches of the first century, had their eyes set firmly on the Lord and devoted themselves to serving Him and praising Him.

3. We see humility in their commitment to fasting. This is striking because in Western Christianity, biblical fasting is so seldom practiced. In fact, about the only time a lot of people do it is if they have a medical test or surgery the next day and are commanded to fast by their doctor. The other time people will do it is in an attempt to lose weight. “Intermittent fasting” is a term that has become a big fitness term in recent years. I don’t have an actual statistic to back me up on this, but let’s make one up: I would estimate that for 72.4% of Canadian believers in Jesus, their practice of fasting has been primarily “secular” rather than God-oriented. However, the leaders of the Antioch church are clearly not fasting because of a medical procedure or because they want to shred a few pounds, but instead their fasting is connected with worship.

So what is biblical fasting? It seems to me when I look at how fasting is described in the Bible that the main thing is exactly what we’re talking about here: an expression of humility. Just as baptism is a physical expression of what has happened to someone when Jesus saves them, fasting is a physical expression of our weakness and insufficiency apart from God’s power in us. Psalm 109 has the great King David crying out, “But you, Sovereign Lord, help me for your name’s sake…I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me…my knees give way from fasting; my body is thin and gaunt.” (109:21, 22, 24) In Daniel 9, the prophet and powerful government administrator thinks about the desolation of Jerusalem, and says “I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes” (9:3). Through the prophet Joel, in light of an impending plague of locusts, God implores the people of Israel: “‘even now’, declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.’” (Joel 2:12) 

You see the pattern? In a lot of those examples, there was some drastic need. Maybe it doesn’t feel like that’s the case in Acts 13. But really, when it comes to the church, there’s always a drastic need. That’s because the mission that has been given to us is far too great for us on our own. We are desperate for God’s power and His leading. We need His voice because we know that when we go on our own power, things go haywire. The early church understood that far better than many Western churches do, which rely on flashy preachers and loud music and clever marketing techniques. Fasting expresses that desperate need. It’s something I think we need to re-discover and begin practicing as well.

4. Fourth, we see their humility in their ability to hear the Lord’s voice. While they are fasting and worshiping, we read that the Holy Spirit told them to set aside Barnabas and Saul for the work the Spirit was calling them to. I think one of the big questions a lot of us will have is how the Holy Spirit spoke this. Maybe it was something audible to all of them. I think most likely it was a clear message given to one and confirmed by others, especially since we read that those gathered were “prophets”. As we talked about extensively in the spring in our series on spiritual gifts, prophecy is the gift that enables someone to hear God’s message in a particular situation, exactly like this. A prophetic word was given, maybe even to multiple people, and then discerned and confirmed by others. This only works, however, when people’s ears are tuned to the Lord. Again, if humility is taking our attention from ourselves and directing it towards God, it is absolutely critical for hearing God’s voice and receiving His direction for what we are to do.

5. Finally, we see humility in their Kingdom-oriented mindset. If we go ahead one verse, in verse 4, we read that Saul and Barnabas were sent on their way by the Holy Spirit. The Greek word for “send” there is active. It’s a sending that initiates and empowers. That’s what the Holy Spirit does. He is the driving force here. In verse 3 we read the same English word. “So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.” However, it’s a different Greek word for “send”. This word is more about releasing something that has inherent energy on its own. Here’s what I mean: the Holy Spirit sends, the church releases. The Holy Spirit initiates, the church gives the Spirit the space to do it. That’s what the laying on of hands is about in verse 3: the other believers are agreeing with the Holy Spirit that these men have been sent.

We can, in our twistedness, try to resist this, can’t we? We can become so focused on our church, our particular manifestation of the body of Christ, that we see other churches or other mission fields as competition for our own. We can fight against the idea that people from our church might be sent by the Spirit to assist somewhere else. It requires humility to say, “this isn’t about our church, our context, our community. It’s about the Kingdom of God. It’s about what He wants to do, and He has the right to send people to us and send people away from us for the sake of His mission.”

See, all of this comes back to mission. You get genuine diversity when you unite around a mission bigger than your ethnic identity markers. Worship reminds you of a mission bigger than your own renown. Fasting expresses your inability on your own to fulfill this mission. Listening to the Lord is critical to know which direction the mission is to take. Being kingdom-oriented gives God the space to send people in mission. Humility, real Christ-centered humility, is maybe the key when it comes to the mission God gives us. Success in the mission doesn’t depend on favorable political circumstances. It doesn’t depend on economic stability. It doesn’t depend on the things of the world. More than anything else, the mission God gives us is dependent on our own humility, our own desperate desire to see Him move through us.

3. Conclusion: the word spread (Acts 12:20-13:3)

And what is that mission? I haven’t really said what it is, have I? Here’s Acts 12:24, right in the middle of these two stories, a verse I skipped over. “But the word of God continued to spread and flourish”. The spreading of the word of God is the mission. In the New Testament, Jesus is called the word of God. The news that He has gone to the cross in our place, for our sins, to reconcile us to God, is also called the word of God. This is what the whole Bible points to: Jesus, and the good news of his salvation. The spreading of this good news through the world, transforming lives and families and communities, is the mission we’ve been given.

That hasn’t changed. For thousands of years, spanning empires and eras and cultures and countries, that hasn’t changed. That’s still the mission. That’s what the church is here to do: to testify to the word of God in Jesus. To tell people through our words and actions what He’s done. And when God’s people humble themselves and seek Him with all their heart, the Word of God continues to spread and flourish. Just like it did in the first century, when Herod tried to get rid of leading disciples and Saul raged from city to city and the church was a tiny minority originating in the backwaters of the Roman Empire, the word of God continues to spread. Just like it has in China, where Mao Zedong’s wife boasted that the church was dead and buried and even now the Communist government tries to exert its full influence and weaken the church, the word of God continues to spread. And if we at The Bridge Church, in North Vancouver, in Canada, humble ourselves and seek the Lord regardless of the circumstances of the world, we will see the word of God spread. We will see the good news of redemption and forgiveness and abundant life in Jesus spread. We will see it spread and flourish here, in this place and time. That’s the mission. Always has been. It’s still the same.

Here’s the bottom line: in a tumultuous world, God is still on the throne, and the mission is still the same. So in humility, look to him and devote yourself to that mission, and we will see the word of God spread and flourish.