MARTYRDOM OF JAMES 1, 2. This Herod Antipas was the grandson of the King Herod reigning when our Savior was born, and notorious for slaying the infants of Bethlehem, and even himself, while the innocents were bleeding, and Jesus safe in Egypt, summoned to stand before God and account for his diaboli... [ Continue Reading ]
PETER'S MIRACULOUS DELIVERANCE 3, 4. When Herod beheaded James, the Jews took great courage, congratulating themselves that their good king will soon exterminate that vexatious heresy in blood. Herod is more than willing to purchase popular favor by killing off the apostles; consequently he arrests... [ Continue Reading ]
Peter is sound asleep, flat on his back, chained to a soldier on either side, the stilly hours of dulcet slumber treading slowly on, anticipating the day of his bloody martyrdom. He must have had perfect rest in Jesus, or he could not have slept. The soldier on either side of him, and the other four... [ Continue Reading ]
Peter thinks he is in a trance and sees a vision. Now they pass by the first and second guard and come to the great iron gate that leads out into the city. Peter is soliloquizing: “Though I have escaped from the prison and passed the guards, what shall I do? It takes twenty men to open the great ir... [ Continue Reading ]
Now they have passed the gate and come to the first street. The angel disappears. Peter diagnoses his environments and locates himself, and goes at once to the house of Mary, where the saints are all praying through the long night for his release, and now utterly incredulous at the report of the enr... [ Continue Reading ]
When Peter is admitted, he at once takes command of the uproarious crowd, beckoning silence with his hand. He has no time to waste. He must run away and hide from Herod and the soldiers before daylight, or he will be killed. Therefore, commanding silence, he briefly relates his wonderful deliverance... [ Continue Reading ]
At day-dawn the soldiers missed Peter, to their infinite consternation, and submit to their awful fate-the merciless penalty of the cruel tyrant-for letting their prisoner escape. Herod has them all hung.... [ Continue Reading ]
DOOM OF THE TYRANT 20-23. For reasons not here specified, the king was exceedingly mad at the people of Tyre and Sidon, those great mercantile cities on the Mediterranean coasts. He was not allowed to make war on them, because they were all under the Roman Empire. Immediately after the escape of Pet... [ Continue Reading ]
_“Immediately the angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give the glory to God, and, being eaten with worms, he gave up the ghost.”_ Here you see the soul-sleeping heresy, _i. e_., that you have no soul separate from the body, is unanswerably refuted, as you see the soul of Herod left his... [ Continue Reading ]
By this time Barnabas and Saul have completed their tour to Jerusalem, bearing benefactions to the poor saints, and returned to Antioch, having brought with them John Mark, the subsequent amanuensis of Mark's gospel. He was the nephew of Barnabas, (Colossians 4:10), who was very anxious to make him... [ Continue Reading ]