One God

Acts 12:20-25

Introduction

I’m going to give you a little bit of insight on how I go about picking passages to preach on. I enjoy preaching a series, preferably on a book of the Bible. I like this because it forces me to get outside my own area of interests and to be challenged by the text. The text says what the texts says, whether any of us like that or not. Having said that, I don’t feel obligated to preach on every single passage in that book. I may just pick one passage per chapter or I might go through and preach on the major passages and leave a few behind. The truth is, despite all of the Bible being inspired, there are certain passages that are more inspiring to us than others.

The passage that was just read for us is one of those strange passages. I will confess that when I first was picking what passages to preach on, this one was not originally making the cut. It is really weird. First of all, it is a bit disgusting. Secondly, it doesn’t mention Jesus, or even any of the apostles, despite being in the Acts of the Apostles.

But just as I was skipping to the next passage, I began thinking. What if? What if this passage, as strange as it is, has something useful to say to us? I took it as a challenge and we will see together if I was right.

Herod and the Worms

As we saw last week, this Herod was the grand son of Herod the Great. Herod the Great may have been great but he was not good. He was actually very bad, despite some impressive accomplishments. When it came to his sons and grandsons, some of them didn’t fall far from the tree. This Herod was one of those rotten apples.

We saw last week that Herod had one of the apostles, James son of Zebedee, killed by the sword all as an attempt to win over a certain segment of the people. When he saw that it pleased them, he decided to provide an encore by arresting Peter. Unfortunately for Herod, an angel of the Lord came and rescued Peter from jail. Herod was so angry that he had the guards, who had been in charge of Peter, killed.

That brings to our point in the story. What is being described seems to have nothing to do with the church. It is not a trial of an apostle or a discussion of potential persecution. It was a purely political event, one that we wouldn’t normally be interested in. Herod got dressed up for the event and made a public presentation.

The people saw Herod in all his regalia and shouted “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” So God cursed Herod with worms and he died a painful death. The end.

So what do we get out of this? There are some strange things. It doesn’t say what Herod said after receiving this praise. Was it just a problem of pride? But plenty of people are proud and do not die from worms. Is it just telling us that God has a bad temper and could kill any of us at any time? We need to work through this.

Interestingly, we know this event was historical. It appears also in the writings of Jewish historian Josephus. He too thought it was a story that was worth preserving for future generations.

We need not fear that God is going to curse us with a disease if we slightly step out of line. That is not God’s method. We need to remember that this was a bad Herod from a line of bad Herods. He was a Herod who had killed James and wanted to kill Peter. He was an exceptionally bad person. This was also an important point in the history of the church.

It is not as simple as Herod did not deny that he was god-like. It is more likely that this was an ongoing issue for Herod. He was proud and saw himself as being pretty special, perhaps even divine. This is likely an area of weakness for Herod. There probably was some nonverbal communication as he accepted their praise. Herod, who was very close to the Roma emperors was familiar with the praise they received and perhaps wanted it for himself. He did get sick with worms and died and obviously Luke saw this connected with his actions or lack of action. The issue was not just that he had pride, it was that he longed for godlikeness.

We Are Not God

This has been an ongoing struggle for humanity right from the beginning. What promise did the serpent use to get Adam and Eve to eat the fruit? You shall be like God. Who wouldn’t want to be like a god? What makes someone a god? It is not just power? The Greek and Roman gods were not all powerful. What distinguished gods from non-gods was worship. The Romans had a procedure for voting people, mostly Emperors, to the status of gods. This only meant that even in death, they would receive worship from others.

How does this fit with us? Is there any way that we could fall into Herod’s trap? I’m not suggested that we will be cursed by worms but there may be some way that we could be like Herod. Is there any way that we seek to be god-like?

It is common for people, including people in the church, to overly seek praise. If you think I’m being too critical, then let me say that pastors can be the worst offenders. We want God to be praised but we will take a little of the leftovers. There is a whole culture of celebrity pastors. Where I really see an issue is when one of these pastors does something wrong and is disciplined by their church or organization, they usually do not submit to the organization. These pastors are far too important to be left on the sidelines for the stipulated times and so they start over again immediately, once again putting themselves at the centre.

But this is not something limited to celebrity pastors. There are many laypeople in many churches that want to be recognized for who they are and what they have done. I’m confident that if you visited enough churches, you would find someone who had left their previous church because they did not receive enough recognition.

So what is the answer? I will tell you what the answer isn’t. It is not to stop encouraging people or receiving encouragement from others. When I began in ministry, I thought the only way to avoid this trap is to reject any compliment that came my way. At the same time I recognized that the Bible tells us to use our words to build people up. So please encourage and receive encouragement. The other wrong response is to always speak ill of yourself. Many people will try and make themselves seem less than worthy or valued. But remember you are created in the image of God and God says you are good.

The real answer, and this is where Herod went astray, is that there is one God and we are not him. A clear vision of God in all of his glory is the antidote for our own god-like tendencies. When we really see how praiseworthy God is, we will not need to seek our own praise, nor will we have to put ourselves down. We will be able to see clearly how we fit into God’s picture.

Conclusion

Do we need to live in fear of God’s curse upon us? Probably not. God didn’t make a habit of killing every person who stepped out of line. Some people, people like Herod, did receive very harsh punishments. This was not make us live in fear but to get our attention. There is one God and we are not him. Herod was not God. Herod’s grandfather was not God. Peter and John and Saul and Barnabas were not God. We are most definitely not God.

There will be moments when we want the praise. Our ego will be hurt when we don’t receive the recognition that we think we deserve. It may be that the people around us are failing at being encouraging enough.

But the point is that it is the one God who deserves all the praise. If the work of God is being done and if we get to participate in that, then that is enough. We can be satisfied that we are part of the kingdom building without being exalted to a place of praise.