Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3118
“Now as soon as it was day, there was no small stir among the soldiers about what had become of Peter.” Acts 12:18.
WE can very well understand that there would be great excitement. It was the most improbable thing in the world that Peter should escape from custody. In the innermost dungeon, securely chained, watched by a fourfold guard, with no powerful friends outside to attempt a rescue—it was marvelous that, in the morning, the bird had flown! The prison doors were closed and the guards in their places, but Peter, where was he? We marvel not that “there was no small stir among the soldiers about what had become of Peter.”
We will use this striking narrative as an illustration—what if we make it an allegory? The sinner fast bound in his sin is, by the mercy of God, set free and brought out from his spiritual prison into the streets of the New Jerusalem. And then there is no small stir among his old companions—what has become of him? Many questions are asked and many strange answers are given. They cannot understand it. The vain world esteems it strange—it admires much—but hates the change. The carnal mind cannot understand conversion. There is “no small stir about what has become of Peter.”
We shall, first of all, dwell a little upon the escape of Peter as illustrating the salvation of certain sinners. Then upon the consequent stir about it And then upon the quiet conduct of the man who is the object of all this stir—“What had become of Peter?”
I. First, then, THE IMPROBABLE EVENT.
Peter was in prison. It was a most unlikely thing that he should come forth from Herod’s jail, but it is a far more unlikely thing that sinners should be set free from the dungeons of sin! For the iron gate which opened into the city to turn upon its hinges of its own accord was amazing, but for a sinful heart to loathe its sin is stranger by far! Who can escape from the grasp of sin? No person is more terribly shut up than is the sinner in the prison of original depravity! It is not merely around us, but in us, compassing our path whether we lie down or rise up! Stronger than granite walls and bars of iron are the forces of evil. Evil has penetrated our souls. It has become part of ourselves. Where shall we fly from its presence, or how shall we escape from its power? Vain are the wings of the morning—they cannot enable us to fly from our own selves.
O marvelous thing, that the Ethiopian should escape from his blackness and the leopard from his spots! There are some men in whom evil is more than ordinarily conspicuous. They have done violence to conscience. They have quenched, as far as possible, the inner Light of God. They have defied the customs of society, they have resolved to sin at random and they do so. What a miracle it is that such as these should be emancipated from the slavery they choose so eagerly— that these whose feet are set fast in the stocks of vice, in the innermost dungeon of transgression, should ever be set at liberty! And yet how often this has happened! The foundations of the prison have been shaken and the prisoner’s bands have been loosed. The saints of God can, all of them, bless Him for setting them at liberty from sin. The snare is broken and they have escaped! Yes, and many of them can praise Him for deliverance from very great sins, black sins, iron sins, sins which had entered into their souls and held their spirits captive! No man can set another man free from iniquity, nor can any man burst down his own prison doors. No Samson is strong enough for that—but there is One—“mighty to save,” who has come to proclaim liberty to the captives of sin and the opening of the prison to them that are bound by iniquity! And He has so proclaimed it that many of us are now free through His Grace. O that many others, now shut up in the spiritual Bastille, may be set free!
But, besides being in prison, Peter was in the dark. All the lamps had been quenched for the night in his miserable place of confinement. Such is the estate, spiritually, of every unconverted sinner—he is in the dark—he does not know Christ, nor apprehend his own condition, nor comprehend eternal realities. What a shade of darkness is he in who has never heard the Gospel! But, alas, there are some who have heard it, often heard it, and yet their eyes are held so that they cannot see the light and they are as badly in the dark as those upon whom the lamp has never shone! Does it not seem impossible to convert such darkened ones? You have held up, as it were, the very sun in the heavens before their eyes, while you have preached salvation by Christ, and yet so blind are they that they have seen nothing! Can these blind eyes see? Can these prisoners of midnight escape from the prison through its long corridors and winding passages? The thousands in this city who never attend the House of prayer—is it possible to get at them? Can the Grace of God ever come to them? Yes, we bless God that as the angel came into Peter’s prison and brought a light with him, so the Spirit can come into the prison of man’s sin and bring heavenly illumination with Him and then he will see, in a moment, the Truth of God as it is in Jesus which he never knew before! Glory be to God, He can lead the blinded mind in today’s light and give it eyes to see and a heart to love the Divine Truth! We can testify of this, for so has God worked upon us—and why should He not thus work upon others? But it is a great marvel—and when it is performed, there is “no small stir.”