| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 5 |
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Earlier in the Acts we have the story of Herod’s attempt to destroy the apostles. To begin with, he killed James. He then had Peter also arrested and cast into prison, meaning to have him beheaded after the Passover. The record says: “Peter therefore was kept in the prison: but prayer was made earnestly of the church unto God for him.” Everything in Herod’s schedule seemed sure. The prison was strong, a double guard watched the prisoner inside the dungeon. Guards also stood before the door. Peter could not possibly escape, Herod supposed; but he had not thought about God.
Some time during the night an angel came, unheard and unseen, into the prison. Peter was sleeping between his two guards. The angel touched him, awoke him, and bade him arise. As he did so the chains fell off. “Follow me,” said the angel, and as he did so the doors and gates opened silently – the guards sleeping on – and soon Peter was outside and among his friends. He would have been killed in the morning had it not been for God. But when God had other plans for his servant, no prison wall, no chains, no double guard of soldiers could keep him, and no tyrant’s sword could touch his life.
We believe these Scripture narratives of deliverance. But somehow we get the impression that the times then were special, different from our times, and that the men who were thus delivered were God’s servants in a peculiar sense. We cannot quite realize that it is the same in these times that God is as active now in human affairs as he was then. But there are just as many miracles of protection and deliverance in your life as there were in the lives of Christ’s friends in those days. You do not know from what dangers you are sheltered every day. You do not know how often you would be harmed in some way if it were not for God.
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