Delivered From Prison
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exterior, the Lord of life and glory, even though Christ’s power was
revealed before them in works that no mere man could do. But they
were ready to worship as a god the haughty king whose splendid
garments of silver and gold covered a corrupt, cruel heart.
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Herod knew that he deserved none of the praise and homage offered
him, yet he accepted the idolatry of the people as his due. His heart
bounded with triumph, and a glow of gratified pride overspread his
countenance as he heard the shout ascend, “It is the voice of a god,
and not of a man.”
But suddenly a terrible change came over him. His face became
pallid as death and distorted with agony. Great drops of sweat started
from his pores. He stood for a moment as if transfixed with pain and
terror; then turning his blanched and livid face to his horror-stricken
friends, he cried in hollow, despairing tones, He whom you have
exalted as a god is stricken with death.
Suffering the most excruciating anguish, he was borne from the
scene of revelry and display. A moment before he had been the proud
recipient of the praise and worship of that vast throng; now he realized
that he was in the hands of a Ruler mightier than himself. Remorse
seized him; he remembered his relentless persecution of the followers
of Christ; he remembered his cruel command to slay the innocent
James, and his design to put to death the apostle Peter; he remembered
how in his mortification and disappointed rage he had wreaked an
unreasoning vengeance upon the prison guards. He felt that God was
now dealing with him, the relentless persecutor. He found no relief
from pain of body or anguish of mind, and he expected none.
Herod was acquainted with the law of God, which says, “Thou
shalt have no other gods before Me” (
Exodus 20:3
); and he knew that
in accepting the worship of the people he had filled up the measure of
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his iniquity and brought upon himself the just wrath of Jehovah.
The same angel who had come from the royal courts to rescue
Peter, had been the messenger of wrath and judgment to Herod. The
angel smote Peter to arouse him from slumber; it was with a different
stroke that he smote the wicked king, laying low his pride and bringing
upon him the punishment of the Almighty. Herod died in great agony
of mind and body, under the retributive judgment of God.
This demonstration of divine justice had a powerful influence upon
the people. The tidings that the apostle of Christ had been miraculously