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Peter Delivered From Prison
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eloquence of language. They further declared that they had ever
respected him as a ruler, but from henceforth they should worship
him as a god.
Herod knew that he deserved none of this praise and homage;
yet he did not rebuke the idolatry of the people, but accepted it as
his due. The glow of gratified pride was on his countenance as he
heard the shout ascend: “It is the voice of a god, and not of a man.”
The same voices which now glorified a vile sinner had, but a few
years before, raised the frenzied cry of, Away with Jesus! Crucify
Him! crucify Him! Herod received this flattery and homage with
great pleasure, and his heart bounded with triumph; but suddenly a
swift and terrible change came over him. His countenance became
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pallid as death and distorted with agony; great drops of sweat started
from his pores. He stood 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 struck with death!
He was borne in a state of the most excruciating anguish from
the scene of wicked revelry, the mirth, and pomp, and display of
which he now loathed in his soul. A moment before, he had been
the proud recipient of the praise and worship of that vast throng—
now he felt himself in the hands of a Ruler mightier than himself.
Remorse seized him; he remembered his cruel command to slay the
innocent James; he remembered his relentless persecution of the
followers of Christ, and his design to put to death the apostle Peter,
whom God had delivered out of his hand; he remembered how, in his
mortification and disappointed rage, he had wreaked his unreasoning
revenge upon the keepers of the prisoner and executed them without
mercy. He felt that God, who had rescued the apostle from death,
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,” and he knew that in accepting the
worship of the people he had filled up the measure of his iniquity
and had brought upon himself the just wrath of God.
The same angel who had left the royal courts of heaven to rescue
Peter from the power of his persecutor, had been the messenger
of wrath and judgment to Herod. The angel smote Peter to arouse