WWUTT 2633 Herod is Eaten by Worms (Acts 12:20-25)

The Phoenicians gave glory to Herod, and the Lord struck him because he did not give glory to God. But the word of God continued to be spread through the church, and the people glorified their Savior, when we understand the text.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Reading Acts 12:20-25 and the Contrast Between Herod and the Apostles

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Acts, we're finishing up chapter 12 today with the death of Herod. Let me begin by reading verses 20 -25. Hear the word of the Lord. Now Herod was very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and with one accord they came to him, and having won over Blastus the king's chamberlain, they were asking for peace, because their country was fed by the king's country.

And on an appointed day, Herod, having put on his royal apparel and sitting on the judgment seat, began delivering an address to them. And the assembly kept crying out, The voice of a god, and not of a man.

And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give glory to God, and he was eaten by worms, and breathed his last. But the word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied.

And Barnabas and Saul returned to Jerusalem, fulfilling their ministry, taking along with them John, who was also called Mark. So as we wrap up the narrative here in Acts chapter 12, we have set in contrast the word of Herod with the word of the apostles going out and sharing the gospel.

The word of Herod stirs the people to praise him as a God. The word of the apostles stirs the people to praise the true God. Herod's word leads to his own death, whereas the word of the apostles continues to grow and to be multiplied, and leads to everlasting life to all those who believe in Jesus and put their faith and trust in him.

Herod's Anger Toward Tyre and Sidon

Let's come back up to verse 20, where we read that Herod was very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon. And with one accord they came to him, and having won over Blastus the king's chamberlain, they were asking for peace, because their country was fed by the king's country.

That's one verse right there. And that word there for angry, where it says that Herod was very angry, the Greek word there only appears in this verse. It doesn't appear anywhere else in the New Testament.

So it's not the usual word for anger. It actually means to plot war. So Herod was wanting to war with Tyre and Sidon, and likely the reason is because he just wanted to expand his empire and assume those cities.

Tyre and Sidon were Phoenician cities, but they were important port cities. So Herod is thinking, if we can make those cities part of Judea, then what capital we're going to gain from that? We would be able to own the coastlands there right on the Mediterranean Sea.

So Herod is plotting to war with Tyre and Sidon. That's the statement of him being very angry with him. It wasn't because they were complaining or they weren't paying their taxes or they were rebelling against Herod in some way.

It's probably that he just wanted those cities. But Tyre and Sidon, realizing that this would be a loss for them, they would not be able to muster up the army to be able to fight back against Herod with one accord.

So they team up, they come to Herod, and they won over Blastus, the king's chamberlain, and they're asking for peace. So now they have an inside to the royal court. And since there's somebody, a representative on their behalf, who's able to come before Herod and try to encourage peace, then Herod is going to listen and talk with their officials.

And let's see if we can make terms with one another here. So Herod is still going to feel like one way or the other, he's going to feel like that he comes out a winner in this. Even if Tyre and Sidon don't be, if they cannot be assumed into Judea, I won't have to worry about losing the men and the resources to go to war with them if they're going to draw up terms, and I would still be able to gain money from all of the trade that is coming into these particular Phoenician cities.

So that's probably what Herod has going on in his mind. Now because Tyre and Sidon are right there on the coast, they don't have land of their own. Like they just had this small strip of land that was right there on the coast.

So in order to have food grown from crops and from flocks and things like that, from the animals that graze, they would rely upon the mainland and they didn't have much of that mainland. So it was the people of Judea, it was by Herod's provision that they would be fed.

Otherwise they would have to rely upon the trade that came into those cities. Not a lot of food came in with the things that they received into their port, not enough to be able to sustain them anyway.

So they were fed by the king's country. They're wanting to make peace with the king's country. Let's not go to war with one another. Let's see if we can come to some kind of decision. And they're willing to fall all over themselves to please Herod.

And that's what we have in the next couple of verses. So in 21, on an appointed day, Herod, having put on his royal apparel and sitting on the judgment seat, began delivering an address to them. Now, once again, this Herod, I mentioned this yesterday, the Herod that we're reading about here, same Herod who had imprisoned Peter and wanted to put him to death.

Peter escaped. He was set free by an angel. Herod put the soldiers to death who didn't know what happened to Peter. And so here we have more of his murderous heart laid out for us and that, okay, I want to start a war with Tyre and Sidon.

So he's willing to kill a bunch of people just so he can assume these major cities. This is Herod Agrippa I. And we're going to read about one more Herod in the book of Acts. And that's later on in chapters 25 and 26 when Paul's defense is made before Agrippa and Bernice.

I don't know if they actually say Herod there in Acts 25 and 26. I don't recall if the name Herod is used there. I want to say that it's not, but just Agrippa is mentioned. And that's Agrippa II. That's the son of Herod Agrippa I.

So Agrippa II, who becomes the last Herod then at that point. Agrippa I is the great-grandson or sorry, the grandson rather of Herod the Great. Agrippa II is the great-grandson. So Agrippa I is the grandson of Herod the Great.

Herod the Great is the king who tried to put Jesus to death that we read about in Matthew chapter 2. That's Herod the Great. Agrippa I is his grandson. But the way that Agrippa I dies is the same way that Herod the Great died, which we'll get to here in just a moment.

In between Agrippa and Herod the Great was Herod Antipas, who was the son of Herod the Great. And he was the one who put John the Baptist to death. And Jesus was brought before at his trial when he was brought before Pilate and then taken before Herod and then returned to Pilate.

That was Herod Antipas. He died around 8039. Agrippa I reigned from about 41 to 44. So all of this is happening right at about 44 AD. All the stuff that we're reading there in Acts chapter 12 was at the end of the reign of Agrippa I.

So Herod has put on his royal apparel, he is sitting in the judgment seat, and he begins delivering an address to them. So this is the king over Judea who is delivering an address to those Phoenicians who occupy Tyre and Sidon.

Now it says that he went to Caesarea. That was what we had in verse 19. So it could be that he's there and Tyre and Sidon have come to meet with him there. So then in verse 22 we read the crowd's response to Herod's address.

They kept crying out, the voice of a god and not of a man. Now this was definitely not the attitude of the Jews. This was not at all the way that the Jews would have thought of Herod. In fact, the Jews, for the most part, hated the Herods.

They might have sworn some sort of loyalty to them just to keep the peace, but the Jews would rather have not had the Herods sitting on the throne because the Herods, as I've mentioned to you before, they were Edomites.

They were descendants of Esau. They were not descendants of Jacob and certainly not descendants of the Jews. And of course the Jews are looking for one from the line of David who would have been a Jew to sit on the throne of David who would be their Messiah and he would reign.

So the Herods definitely didn't fit the bill and they did not want the Herods sitting on that throne they believed belonged to a descendant of David. So the Jews may have, you know, tried to please Herod so that we can keep the peace with one another since Herod was such a tyrant as we're reading about here.

But they didn't care for the Herods at all, did not want them to be there. I believe when we were back in Matthew chapter two and we read of Herod the Great, I probably did say to you, as I've taught on this before from Matthew two, that when Herod the Great died, there was much rejoicing from the people.

Josephus wrote about this in his history of the Jews. Herod had locked a bunch of people. This was Herod the Great now at the time that Jesus with Mary and Joseph fled from Bethlehem into Egypt, into the Alexandrian area of Egypt, to the Jewish settlement that was there.

And shortly after they fled from the wrath of Herod, Herod ended up dying from a great disease. And like I said, it's the same disease that Agrippa the Second or Agrippa the First. Now, yeah, now I'm doing it again.

Agrippa the First. It's the same disease that Agrippa dies from being eaten by worms. He was in a very miserable state. And the illness that he had was also causing him to go more mad than he already was.

And he had taken some of the most important people in Judah and locked them up in the Hippodrome at Jericho. And he had given the order that when he died, all of those officials were to be killed. All those important people that were locked up there in the Hippodrome would be slaughtered so that there would be a great outcry and mourning in Judah and no one would be rejoicing because Herod had died.

But once Herod died, all those people locked up in the Hippodrome were let go. So his wish, his order was never actually carried out. Now the Herods were all wicked. All of them were. Antipas assumes the throne after him.

He doesn't do any better. Again, he executed John the Baptist. This is Agrippa I. And we've already seen that he put James, the brother of John, to death. He had locked up Peter in prison. And he was even trying to make war on Tyre and Sidon.

And so here is Herod addressing the people who are calling him a god and not a man. Or at least they're saying the voice, whatever it is that he says, is of the gods. It is not from man. Either way, you would interpret that.

This is, again, not the way the Jews ever would have regarded Herod. But this is the way these pagan people from Phoenicia, Tyre and Sidon, are regarding this man. We're going to say whatever we need to say about him so that we can eat.

And it was common among pagans to look at their rulers and think, this ruler is the one giving me all this provision. So he must be either blessed by the gods or a god himself. This was exactly how emperor worship came about in the Roman Empire, because they would look at who was the emperor.

And it's through him that we receive all this blessing. So it must be because he is a god. And you would have the imperial cults where temples would be built in some of these Roman cities, giving worship and homage to the emperor and worshiping him as God.

So here is Tyre and Sidon doing that very thing with Herod. But as a result of this, because Herod does not direct them to give the glory to God instead of him, we have in verse 23, immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory.

And he was eaten by worms and breathed his last. Now the worms that eat Herod. I know that's a pretty gruesome descriptor here, but it's not quite as descriptive as what we read about in the Apocrypha in 2nd Maccabees 9 .5, Antiochus Epiphanes, who considered himself to be a god.

And he raised a statue to Zeus and he slaughtered a pig on the altar there in the temple that was in Jerusalem. Antiochus Epiphanes, because he was exalting himself, was likewise eaten by worms. This is what is recorded in 2nd Maccabees 9, which again, this is apocryphal.

It's not scripture, but we can consider it to be historical. And here's what said there, but the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, smote him with an invisible and incurable plague, for a pain in the bowels that was remedy-less came upon him and sore torments of the inner parts, so that worms rose up out of the body of this wicked man.

And it was likely this same disease that consumed both Herod the Great and Herod Agrippa. They both died from this being eaten from the inside out by worms. For Herod the Great, it would have been more slow.

But here, it appears that this happened much more rapidly, still would have been very unpleasant for Herod Agrippa. But this is what they would have recognized about him after he died. They would have seen it was worms that consumed this man from the inside out.

The angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last. It could have been right there on the spot. It could have been over a period of days.

But it's unlikely that Luke is writing this in any sort of metaphorical fashion. Metaphorical meaning, you know, he died and he was buried in the ground and his carcass was eaten by worms. That's not the reference Luke is making.

But that the same disease that consumed his grandfather, Herod the Great, the same thing that consumed Antiochus Epiphanes is the particular plague that the Lord uses to consume also Herod Agrippa. And so he has breathed his last and died.

And the scripture plainly tells us it's because he did not give God the glory. So you have the citizens of Tyre and Sidon who are exalting him as being like a god. They are praising him. They're giving him the praise.

But because he does not redirect that to God, the Lord strikes him down. We had previously in Acts 10 that when Peter came into the house of Cornelius, Cornelius fell down at his feet and worshiped him.

And Peter replied, Acts 10, 26, stand up. I, too, am just a man. What did we read at the start of Acts 12? Herod imprisoned Peter and intended to put him to death. Peter gave glory to the right place.

He directed glory to God, did not receive any glory for himself, whereas Herod received all the glory for himself and did not give any glory to God. And the Lord struck him because of it. A little bit later on in Acts, I think it's Acts 13.

I don't know because I closed the window now. Anyway, there's an occasion, too, where Paul and Barnabas are being worshipped by the people as gods and they rend their garments and they say, no, no, no, no, no.

Do not give us glory. All of that glory belongs to the Lord. But they think of Paul and Barnabas as being like the gods that have come down to them. So they are also directing the people to worship God.

Here is Herod receiving all the glory for himself, and he's killed because of it. And as I said in the beginning, this is set in contrast with the word that is being spoken by the apostles that leads to people glorifying God for the word of Christ, verse 24.

But the word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied. The word of Herod led to his death. The word of the Lord is multiplying the church and leading to everlasting life to all who believe in Jesus.

By faith in Jesus, their sins being forgiven, they are given everlasting life and they glorify God because of this. And verse 25, Barnabas and Saul returned to Jerusalem, fulfilling their ministry, taking along with them John, who was also called Mark.

And that is the conclusion of Acts chapter 12. But my friends, I hope that the application that is taken away from this is understanding that we need to give glory to the right place. You may not ever be in front of an assembly where they're all hailing you as God.

But when it comes to us giving glory, we must do so unto the Lord, not to men, not to those things that we think that we need and our life is not fulfilled unless I get those things. That would be idolatry as well.

Desiring things and or setting them in the place of God or above God is idol worship. And we must give all of ourselves unto the Lord, presenting our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God.

And this is our spiritual act of worship. As said in Romans 12, 1, we give all the glory to Christ, our King, who gave himself for us, was risen from the dead so that all who believe in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

And let us likewise continue to spread the word of the Lord that we may see the church grow and multiply. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read in this passage. And I pray that it does direct us to put our praise in the right place, that we would give praise to God, that as we listen to this, it's not just a matter of, okay, don't give praise to men or exalt the wrong kinds of things, but we would actively be after Christ and giving you praise and glory every day for how good you are to us.

Christ's death on the cross, his resurrection from the grave is why we have forgiveness of sins and everlasting life. So help us with our whole lives to give praise to God for your goodness to us. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray.

Amen.

Closing Announcements and Sign-Off

You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hubes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.