By Kenneth O. Gangel
But, we ask, surely the church prayed for James as well? That’s exactly right. And we learn that the popular motto commonly found in Christian bookstores is wrong. I refer, of course, to “Prayer Changes Things.” If prayer changed things, James and Peter would both have come out of this experience alive. Prayer does not change things — God changes things. That is exactly what Jesus meant in the Garden when He said, “Your will be done.” Jesus had no doubt that His Father was in control.
II. An Awful King and an Awkward Church (vv. 6-19a)
Advertisement
The Release From Prison (vv. 6-11)
The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries 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!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists. 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. Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating” (Acts 12:6-11).
Peter knew all about visions since he had a horrendous one at Joppa recorded in chapter 10. He never wanted to see that cursed sheet with the pork chops again. But the record here tells us about a very different kind of vision, an impatient angel who “struck Peter on the side and woke him up” and said, in effect, “Grab your coat and grab your thongs, we’re getting out of here.” We have to love verse 9 when we think about ourselves and our relationships with a sovereign, omnipotent God: “Peter followed him out the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening.”
There is a wonderful phrase in verse 10 that we dare not miss. Luke tells us that the iron gate leading to the city “opened for them by itself.” Here we have the Greek word automatē from which we get our words automatic or automatically.