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Who’s to Blame for This Famine? – Acts 12:1-4

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

The Roman Empire was experiencing a famine (11:27-30), and pagans like Herod thought the gods caused famines, so he naturally blamed the God of the Jews, and took it out on them (12:1). The Jewish church seemed immune to the famine because of the relief Paul sent them (11:30), but charity like that was unheard of in Rome, so Herod thought they were immune to the famine because God was favoring them.

Of course, Satan was behind this persecution. He used to use unsaved Jews to persecute them, but he lost the leader of that persecution when God saved Saul. When religion stopped persecuting the saints, that gave the churches “rest” (9:31), so Satan sicced the government on them instead.

We know why he went after James first (12:2). He was one of the 12! But why is his death described in only one verse after Stephen’s death took 60 verses to describe, and he wasn’t even one of the 12? The answer is: when those unsaved Jews killed Stephen, that was their way of rejecting the kingdom God was offering them, so God put the kingdom program on hold. That’s when the focus of the Book of Acts began to move away from the 12 apostles and the kingdom program to the Apostle Paul and God’s new program of grace. So James’ death gets mentioned only in passing.

We see more proof God wasn’t continuing the kingdom pro-gram when the 12 didn’t replace James, as they replaced Judas. Sadly, pastors and Bible teachers today continue to focus on the 12 and their kingdom program, rather than following God’s lead and looking to Paul. And not knowing who your apostle is will make a mess of your spiritual life!

Satan wanted James dead first because he knew James was supposed to write a New Testament epistle. His name is the Greek translation of Jacob, or Israel (Gen.32:28), and God spoke through Israel when He used them to write the Old Testament (Rom.3:1,2). God was about to use James, the New Testament version of Jacob, to write some of the New Testament. The Lord named him and John “the sons of thunder” (Mark3:7-17), and thunder is associated with the voice of God (Ps.29:3-9). When James died, God used another Jew named James to express God’s voice in a Bible book.

Satan went after Peter next (Acts 12:3) because he too was about to write a New Testament epistle. But Herod wouldn’t kill him on the feast day of unleavened bread lest it cause an uproar (cf.Mt.26:5). Instead, he planned to “bring him forth” to the Jews (Acts 12:3) as Pilate brought the Lord forth (Jo. 19:1) to get them to condemn Peter, as they did Christ (Mt.27:15-22), so his blood would be on their hands, not his.

One quarternion of soldiers was four men (cf.Jo.19:23), but Peter was guarded by four quarternions (Acts 12:4) because Herod had heard of the jailbreak of Acts 5:17-19.

Christians criticize the KJV, saying “Easter” doesn’t belong in the Bible because it is a pagan celebration, so Acts 12:4 should read “passover” instead. But if they were in the days of unleavened bread, passover was past (Lev.23:4-8).

The reason Herod was eager to “please” those unsaved Jews (Acts 12:3) is that they were wealthy. They had a God-given ability to make money (Deut.8:18), and they’d had it for 1500 years. And they had gained more wealth recently when they heard that believing Jews had to sell their lands and houses to be saved (Lu.18:18,22 cf. Acts 4:34,35), and they bought their possessions on the cheap, vastly increasing their net worth. That explains why Herod and every other civic leader in Acts was so eager to please the Jews (24:27; 25:9).

Men with money can still influence civic leaders to persecute God’s people, so stay on their good side by doing what your apostle Paul says to do: obey rulers, pray for them, and pay your taxes, without railing on them, as many Christians do.

A video of this sermon is available on YouTube: “Who’s To Blame For This Famine?” Acts 12:1-4

Rightly Dividing the New Testament – II Timothy 2:15 – Part 2

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

Most Christians wrongly divide the word (IITim.2:15) by saying, “The Old Testament is for the Jews, the New Testament is for us.” But much of the New Testament is for the Jews too! Matthew 1:21 says the Lord would save “His people” in Israel (Lu.2:32) from “their” sins. Not until Paul do we read He’d save all sinners (ITim.1:15). So divide the Bible between Paul’s epistles and the rest of the Bible!

In Matthew, not even the Lord Himself said He’d die for all sinners (Mt.20:28), and that didn’t change at Pentecost (Acts 5:30,31). That shows that even in the fifth book of the New Testament nothing changed from the Old Testament (Isa.53: 8). Nothing changed until Paul (ITim.2:6). God always intended to save all men, but no one “testified” of that till Paul. That’s why he’s “the apostle of the Gentiles” (Rom.11:13).

The next verse in Matthew that shows it was written to Jews is Matthew 3:1,2. The “kingdom” John preached was the one Daniel predicted Christ would set up on earth after defeating the kingdoms of men (Dan.2:44). John said it was “at hand” 2,000 years ago, but it didn’t come because the Jews rejected their kingdom when they rejected their King. But that kingdom was for Israel anyway (Acts 1:6), not us.

Unless you realize that, you’re going to think like Jehovah’s Witnesses think, that that kingdom is where you’ll live eternally. Your apostle Paul says that instead, God will “change” your physical body so it can live in heaven (ICor.15:50-52). That change will come at the Rapture (Phil.3:20,21), when your body will be made like unto the Lord’s resurrection body, so it can do the things His body could do, like ascend to heaven on its own power (Eph.4:7-10)!

Matthew also teaches water baptism (Mt.3:5,6). We know this was a Jewish ordinance because the Pharisees didn’t ask John what he was doing, as if he were doing something new. They asked him why he was doing it (John 1:24). They knew what he was doing, for they baptized their priests (Ex.29:4). They asked him why he was baptizing if he wasn’t Christ because they knew their Messiah would someday come and baptize all Jews to make them “a kingdom of priests” in the kingdom of heaven (Ex.19:6). But you won’t be a priest in that kingdom, so you don’t need to be baptized with water.

The healing found in Matthew 6:23 was also for Jews, for priests couldn’t be lame or blind, etc. (Lev.21:17-21). No one today can heal “everyone” like Peter did (Acts 5:16), so we know God’s not giving men the gift of healing. You may want to be healed, but God wants you to know that His grace is sufficient for you in times of infirmity (IICor.12:8,9).

Matthew also says to pray “Thy kingdom come” (Mt.6:10), but we should pray “Thy church go in the Rapture!” Matthew says to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (v.11) but they were heading into the Tribulation that would have come if the dispensation of grace hadn’t interrupted God’s prophecies, and they’ll need daily bread when they can’t buy it (Rev.13:17). God will send them the daily bread of manna (Mic.7:14,15). That’s why Matthew records the Lord as saying to “take no thought” about your next meal (Mt.6:28); but you have to take a lot of thought about it (IIThes.3:10-12).

Matthew says you have to forgive others to be forgiven by God (Mt.6:12-15), despite the unforgivable things that will be done to believers by the beast in the Tribulation. They will have to forgive Antichrist’s government and submit to it because the beast will be a chastening tool in God’s hand, so to resist his government will be to resist the powers that be that are ordained of God. But forgiveness is a work, it is something you can “do” (Mark 11:26), and salvation today is “not by works” (Titus 3:5), it’s by “the washing of regeneration.” Our apostle says we should forgive others because we’ve already been forgiven by grace (Eph.4:32). That calls for “rightly dividing the word of truth!”