1. Herod the Great 37-4 BC – Luke1:5

2. Herod Antipas 4 BC-AD 39 – Luke 3; 9; 13; 23

3. Herod Agrippa AD 37-44 – Acts 12:1-23

4. Herod Agrippa II AD 44-100 – Acts 25:13-26:32

- Sovereignty

- Prayer

- Rest

- Pride

- Unstoppable

1. Sovereignty

We need to look at pain and even death from God’s eternal perspective, not from our temporal perspective.

“Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into your rest!”

"We multiply whenever we are mown down by you; the blood of Christians is the seed of the church."

- Tertullian

"The church of Christ has been founded by shedding its own blood, not that of others; by enduring outrage, not by inflicting it. Persecutions have made it grow; martyrdoms have crowned it"

- Jerome

1. Sovereignty

2. Prayer

“to stretch” or “to strain”

Acts 1: They pray in the Upper Room for 10 straight days; the Holy Spirit comes, Peter preaches, and 3000 are saved.

Acts 4-9: They pray, and God fills them with such boldness that they turn the city of Jerusalem upside down. The church in Jerusalem grows to over 10,000 people and some of the harshest critics (like the Jewish priests, and eventually Paul himself), are getting saved.

Acts 12: They pray, and God orchestrates a prison break.

Acts 13: They pray, and God raises up Paul to be a missionary, the greatest missionary the world has ever known.

“The one concern of the devil is to keep the saints from prayer. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray…Prayer turns ordinary mortals into men and women of power…It brings fire. It brings rain. It brings life. It brings God. There is no power like that of prevailing prayer.”

- Samuel Chadwick

1. Sovereignty

2. Prayer

3. Rest

1. Sovereignty

2. Prayer

3. Rest

4. Pride

“It is insane to commit treason against the Creator of the universe. You can't win.”

-John Piper

1. Sovereignty

2. Prayer

3. Rest

4. Pride

5. Unstoppable