April 4, 2025
#273 - Acts 12.20-25 - The Fall of a King and the Rise of the Word
In this episode of the AL Pastor Podcast, Pastor Brian and his son Noah finish Acts chapter 12 with a gripping look at King Herod Agrippa’s gruesome death—and what it reveals about pride, power, and God’s glory. From political tension with Tyre and Sidon to Herod’s silver robes and divine judgment, this conversation explores how God alone deserves the glory and how the gospel continues to advance no matter the opposition. This is a powerful reminder that kingdoms fall, but the Word of God never fails.
📖 Scripture Covered
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Acts 12:20–25 (NKJV)
Herod’s conflict with Tyre and Sidon, his blasphemous acceptance of worship, his horrific death, and the continued spread of the gospel.
🔑 Key Themes
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The political backdrop of Tyre and Sidon’s dependence on Herod
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The seductive power of flattery
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The judgment of Herod for pride and self-glorification
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A contrast between the fall of human kingdoms and the rise of God’s Word
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The gospel's unstoppable advance
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Transition to Paul’s missionary journey
💬 Conversation Highlights
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0:24 – Recap of Peter’s miraculous escape and Herod’s humiliation
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3:29 – Why the grain crisis mattered: Economic dependence and political maneuvering
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7:02 – Herod’s silver robe, public speech, and the spectacle of flattery
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9:49 – Contrast between Cornelius' humility and Herod's pride
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11:42 – Herod is struck by an angel and dies a slow, gruesome death
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13:14 – Teaching Noah practical ways to give glory to God
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16:07 – The Word of God keeps growing, despite Herod’s actions
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17:38 – Barnabas, Saul, and John Mark prepare for the next phase of gospel expansion
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21:49 – Final takeaways: Pride leads to ruin, but God’s Word remains
🧠 Questions for Reflection
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Where in my life might I be seeking praise instead of giving God glory?
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How do I respond to compliments—do I point people back to Christ?
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Do I trust that God’s mission continues even when leaders fail or fall?
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In what ways am I participating in the spread of the gospel today?
🎵 Worship Tie-In
Pastor Brian reflects on songs that exalt God, including the powerful refrain, “You deserve the glory, You deserve the honor.” This episode reminds us to live lives that sing that song in every word and deed.
🔔 Disclaimer: The podcast notes was created with assistance from ChatGPT based on the transcripts. Listening to this podcast is for spiritual edification and biblical education. It is not a replacement for your personal study of Scripture or participation in the local church. Always test what you hear with God’s Word and seek pastoral guidance for deeper questions.
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You're listening to Al Pastor, the show that helps you love God, love your neighbor and eat more
tacos.
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I'm your host, Pastor Brian.
Welcome to the show hey friends, I want to welcome you back to another episode today we are
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finishing out acts chapter 12.
Now, of course, in studio I have with me once again Noah.
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Noah, how you doing today?
I'm.
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Doing.
Good.
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All right.
Well, I think we had a pretty good episode yesterday.
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We we did something that's not normal.
We got through it fairly quickly and kind of smoothly, right. 24 minutes.
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All right, so we're going to try to do the same thing today.
Does that work for you?
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Yeah.
All right.
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Now my first question is, is have you have you done your reading and have you done a little bit of
study for today?
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I have.
All right, So I want to reinforce this not only for you, Noah, but for those that are listening at
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home.
Today's Friday.
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As we're recording this, our assignment for the week is to get through Chapter 12.
How would you evaluate your week?
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It was this a good week, a successful week?
What would you say?
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I would say it was a pretty good week.
OK, well, now that we're finishing out chapter 12, we still have tomorrow because the week's not
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over.
So what I'm going to encourage you to do, and I will remind you one of the things that I'm really
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happy about is I don't have to stay on top of you about the word as much in the past.
I still ask you if you read your word, I hope remind you, but you're doing it for the most part.
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That's the goal of discipleship, right?
Is that we're consistently in God's word.
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So with that being said, tomorrow you have an opportunity to dig a little bit deeper.
Now for you, you might be like, well, what do you mean dig a little bit deeper?
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Is there anything that you can tell me off the top of your head you might be able to explore
further?
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Herodian dynasty.
All right, well, that would be something for tomorrow.
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So what does that mean?
What does it look like practically means?
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You still get up, you still go back through Acts chapter 12.
You read through it again, you make any kind of notes, clean up your notes for the week, right?
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And if you decide to go a little bit deeper in the Herodian dynasty, I encourage you to do so.
And I'm right here to help you if you need it as far as pointing you in the right direction.
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All right, so let's recap just quickly our previous episode.
We talked about how Peter was delivered miraculously from the prison, right?
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And this is an event that had some pretty clear implications.
And I think a big one is, is that God is not bound by chains.
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He is not intimidated by kings.
And so we saw how King Herod stretched out his hand to harass the church and he kills James, he
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imprisons Peter.
He's trying to, he's trying to stop and silence the gospel.
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But no matter what Herod did, God kept showing up and showing out in power.
And that's where we left off.
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And Peter is freed and Herod is humiliated.
He kind of puts tucks his tail between his legs and heads up to Caesarea.
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And so now the camera kind of shifts.
And today's passage gives us a really dramatic ending to the story of care of King Herod Agrippa the
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1st.
And it's also a powerful reminder that God alone should get the glory.
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I want you to know it.
Go ahead, let's kick us off.
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Let's read Acts chapter 12, verse 20.
Now Herod had been very angry with the people of Tyre, Tyree and Sidon, but they came to him with
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one accord, and having made black blast us, the King's personals aid aid their friend.
They asked for peace because their country was supplied with food by the King's country.
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All right, so right off the bat, I'm just going to give you a couple of 10 hints here.
We're not going to get into it, but when you come into this, here's one question I have for you.
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It's it's called Tyre and you if you want to see Tyree, that's fine.
Tyre in Sidon.
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Do you know where these where these were?
Phoenicia, and it will where?
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Phoenicia in the Mediterranean coast.
OK, good, very good.
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Now this is what I'm encourage you to make sure.
So maybe you can put this on your list for tomorrow.
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Make sure you you get a visual on a map of where these are so that you can have somewhat of some
knowledge.
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So how might you do that?
One of the good ways is, is let's say you look at the biblical map, say where's Caesarea?
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Let me find it.
And where's Tyre and where's Sidon?
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And then if you want to take it even further, you can go on Google Maps and you could say, all
right, hey, give me directions.
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How long would it take there to drive?
And then you put some flesh on it.
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Like for instance, if I were to say, hey, we're going to drive to Valencia towards Magic Mountain,
how long does that take?
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Around an hour.
Exactly.
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So what you'll do is you want to find out how far are these cities and puts put put flesh and bones
on it.
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Now, what do you think it means when it says that Herod was very angry with Tyre and Sidon?
Why?
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Why might that be a big deal for these cities?
I don't know.
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Well, Tyre and Sidon, they were coastal cities.
You've already brought that out.
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So they relied on the Palestinian territory, Israel, for food, especially grain.
This was a big deal.
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Now we don't know exactly what caused the fight, but most likely because Herod has consolidated his
power.
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It has been many, many years since this has happened.
It wasn't until his grandfather, Herod the Great that the region was as large or territory was as
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large it with one ruler and it's most likely that he had blocked the supply of grain or the exports
of grain or he was putting some huge taxes.
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We would call those tariffs today extremely relevant to what's happening today.
So there was a dispute.
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So the people of Tyre and Sidon, they came and when I say the people, this is high up officials,
they came to kind of confront and to request some actions.
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And so they work through a man, we're told his name here, his name is Blastus in verse #20 And this
is, this is what we would call a representative.
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The technical term in ancient Greece would be a Chamberlain.
That just simply means they're a a representative and they're coming to speak on behalf of these
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regions.
And so here's the thing that we learn from this.
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Sometimes people in power, just like what we're seeing here with Aaron, they can use their position
of power to intimidate and to control others.
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And this is exactly what Herod was doing.
He was flexing his authority.
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But power without humility becomes very, very dangerous.
Does that make sense?
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Yeah.
Do you have any thoughts or questions on this?
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On this verse?
Oh, no.
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OK, Go ahead and read verses 21 and 22.
So on a set day, Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat on his throne and gave an an orientation to
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them.
And the people kept shouting, the voice of a God and not of a man.
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All right, now can you picture what Herod might have looked like in his royal robes?
It would have been like him shining with his coat being made of having silver in it.
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So and the so some would have been like shining on.
Yeah.
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Now where did you get that from?
Horton and some and I think the ACT 1.
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Hey, I'm impressed again now.
He did.
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He came out in silver robes.
Now do you know where we get that from?
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Did they Josephus exactly.
Now I have the whole story from Josephus and it's fascinating.
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Really, really fascinating.
It's a little hard to read because the the English is clunky.
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So now why do you think the people started shouting the voice of a God and not a man?
To it's like butter him up to like please him.
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Yeah, that could be it.
And I mean, imagine if the sun hit that those robes just were right.
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He might have been glowing as well.
And Herod was known also in the ancient world as a brilliant orator.
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That means he could speak and just impress people as well.
So this is no ordinary speech.
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This is what I want you to take away from this.
Now, according to history, yes, his robe was woven with silver.
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We do get that from Josephus.
And so as the sun started to shine on it, he began to shine like a star.
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And so they're trying to win his favor.
So they're flattering him.
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They're calling him divine, right?
But Herod did not stop them.
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He didn't say, no, I'm not God.
What did he do?
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He soaked in all the glory.
Now do you remember what happened when Peter went to Caesarea and he walked into Cornelius's house?
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What did Cornelius do?
Bow down.
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And what did Peter do in that immediate moment?
Said that he's a human also just.
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Like him?
Get up, man.
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I'm just, I'm a guy just like you.
So what Luke is doing is he is showing us two different pictures here.
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Now, flattery.
When people say good things, flattery can feel good.
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But it's a trap if we start to believe it.
And flattery is different from a compliment.
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OK, sometimes people will give you a compliment.
So for instance, let me give you an example.
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Paula had texted in and she said she really enjoys it when you're on the show.
Is that a compliment or is that flattery?
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Compliment.
It's a compliment.
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What's the difference?
What is flattery?
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I I couldn't give an an explanation honestly.
Flattery has an agenda behind it.
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It would be like, you know what, Noah?
You are man, you are so handsome, you're so big, you're so strong.
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But you know what?
It's because I know you have $20.00 in your pocket and I.
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Want you?
Exactly.
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Like you're trying to get something out of me.
That's flattery.
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It's when people have a hidden agenda, when they want something out of you.
And so it can feel good, but it's a trap, all right.
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And so Herod shows us what happens when we begin to live for the praise of people instead of the
glory of God.
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This is this is, this is big.
Let me say this again.
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If we live for the praise and acceptance of people instead of the glory of God, we can get into
trouble just like Herod.
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All right, verse 23.
Do you have any questions?
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I don't.
All right, verse 23.
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That that then immediately an Angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give glory to God,
and he was eaten by warmers and died all.
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Right.
That's a pretty intense verse, isn't it?
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Yeah.
Now, what stands out to you most about how God responded?
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Immediately.
Yeah, I mean God.
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God sends an an Angel not to rescue like he did with Peter.
Now, I want you to think about this.
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We just saw an angelic intervention with Peter.
Right now there's an Angel and he's coming, but he ain't.
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He's not coming to rescue, but he's coming to bring judgement.
And Herod was eating, eaten up by worms.
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Now, this is kind of like a gruesome, disturbing image.
And it's meant, OK, the intention here is to shock us.
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Pride is very, very serious.
And so Herod made himself to look like he was a God.
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But here's the thing.
God will not share his glory with anybody.
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And so this wasn't just about Herod, like, oops, sorry, I made a mistake.
It was I, I say this often, it was a process of time.
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Herod had developed this mindset throughout his political career.
And it is it is about stealing what belonged to God alone.
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Any thoughts or questions?
Oh no.
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All right, so when we face the temptation to take the credit Noah for something to make it about us,
God ultimately sees the heart.
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Pride, the Bible says, leads to destruction.
But when we are humble, when we give God glory, it leads to life.
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You see, I can't take credit for anything in my life if I start to think like this is all throughout
the Bible.
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Even when the children of Israel were wandering through the wilderness, God said, I'm going to bless
you.
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I'm going to bring you into a land that it flows with milk and honey.
You're going to plant, you're going to have vineyards that are not of your own strength.
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But he warned them that if there ever comes a time that says my strength produce this well, then
they would be in trouble.
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So we've got to give God glory in everything we do.
How?
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Tell me some practical ways in your own life as a 14 year old.
How could you give God glory more?
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Have you given thought to that?
No.
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If someone's like, you know what, Noah, you, you, if they give you a compliment, you say thank you,
I appreciate it.
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And then you could say something like this, praise the Lord, it's all God, because God's the one
that gives you all the abilities that you have.
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Yeah.
Let's say, OK, you're going to go to the gym later, right?
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Yeah.
What if someone comes up to you and they find out that you're 14 and they see you?
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I don't know.
Let's say you're, I don't know what exercise you're going to do.
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Let's say you're benching.
And they come over there like, man, how did you get so strong?
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Now you can say, well, 'cause my dad's strong, right?
You, you could say that, right?
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Like my dad could bench, like I could bench press that whole gym, You know what I mean?
No, you say, hey, thank you.
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May God get the glory right in everything you do.
That's this is the idea.
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So you you're going to grow and you're going to learn and you will certainly have opportunities to
give God the glory.
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Doesn't mean we're perfect.
We're not always going to do it the right way, but we need to always point people to Jesus, right?
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Sometimes if I preach, somebody might come up and and I appreciate it.
People would genuinely say, Hey, man, that was you know what, pastor, that was a good word or hey, I
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appreciate that or the way you said that.
And it's always glory to God.
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Always we have to point back to God.
We do our part.
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God does his all right, last verse, verse.
Actually, no, it's not second of the last.
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I'm thrown off.
This chapter is really clunky on the way it ends, right?
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Yeah.
All right.
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Read verse 24.
Oh, but the Word of God grew and multiplied.
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OK, here's a question.
What what a way to end this right?
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Why do you think Luke includes this right after Herod's death?
Probably could.
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Probably could people saw what happened and they and they just like woke up and just like realized
that like it's it was a time from God.
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Yeah, here's the contrast.
Think about this.
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Herod falls, but the gospel rises up.
Herod dies in pride, but the Word of God multiplies in power.
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This is the theme of the book of Acts.
Here's the thing, Noah, nobody can stop the word of God.
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Kings and politicians come and go.
Governments, empires rise and fall, but God's word remains forever.
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It is beautiful.
And this is still true today, and governments are still trying to silence the gospel, and culture
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will even try to mock the gospel.
But God's Word will keep growing, it'll keep multiplying.
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It'll still change lives.
And so that needs to be our reminder that we are part of something eternal.
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Any thoughts?
Oh no.
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All right, verse 25, go ahead and read that.
And Barnabas and Saul returned from from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their ministry.
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They also took with them John, whose her name was Mark.
Interesting.
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Whose house were they at earlier praying?
Mary's.
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So they came back.
How long was Paul and Barnabas in Antioch, do you remember?
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I know.
They were there for a year teaching those Gentiles.
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So now they're back.
And now this, this verse might feel like it's a small little detail, but do you have any ideas,
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Noah?
Why, why, why is Luke mentioning Barnabas?
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Saul, A Mark right here.
I don't know.
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Well, it's because it's a transition verse.
OK, Luke, Luke.
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And now I know that you are.
You're not at the age and some people aren't, they don't care about this kind of stuff, but there's
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a literary design to to the book of Acts.
And so Luke is using this.
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This is he's employing a transition verse.
Think about this while Herod is building his Kingdom, because remember what I told you, the Kingdom
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of the Jews of, of because he's a king had not been that large since Herod the Great.
Because when Herod the Great died, his Kingdom was divided up into four parts.
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And here comes King Agrippa.
And he through plotting and scheming, consolidated and his Kingdom grew.
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And so I want you to think about this.
While Herod was building his Kingdom, guess what God was doing?
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Building his Kingdom.
Oh man, won't that preach right there?
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Come on, I get the hanky out right there, get a organ and say, right, So Barnabas and Saul think
about this.
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They had just delivered.
What did they do?
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You know what they're coming with, what they're showing up with.
Their ministry.
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Well, they had, they had collected an offering.
It wasn't just a one time offering.
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They're up in Antioch and can I tell you, Antioch's got some money.
There's money up there.
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They're coming with money to do what?
Build the Kingdom of God.
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Yes, and to help the believers out, there's a famine.
There was a famine and shortage of food.
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Now.
Now, remember Tyre and Sidon?
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There's an indication here that Herod was hoarding the food.
In fact, we have documentation that remember.
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Where did I tell you that King Agrippa grew up at?
I don't remember.
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He grew up in Rome with the Empress.
Do you remember that now?
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Now the time, at this time there had been an emperor and his name is Claudius.
He knew Herod well, they would they went way, way back and the emperor's mom herself brought with a
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caravan of food.
They brought it from Rome and delivered it to King Herod.
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Now, do you think King Herod, if he just, if he just killed James, locked Peter up, do you think he
would have shared any food with the, the Christians in Jerusalem?
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I mean, think about that.
Now in the Antioch, there had been a prophet that arised.
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He stood up and he said there's a famine coming.
Now the idea is, is this not going to happen immediately, but it's coming.
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Well, guess what, the famine hit.
They were already prepared in advance.
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Paul and Barnabas are now bringing in bringing in this offering.
So this is incredible.
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So when when every chapter ends, another one begins.
And God is, is using everyday people, people like Barnabas, even John Mark.
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And they are going to carry out God's mission.
And what we're seeing here in this transition is Paul Barnabas and John Mark, they're they're going
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to hit the road.
Remember I told you in that yesterday, they're going to go out like on an adventure and John Marks
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young.
So what do we take from this all?
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OK, here's our take away.
Herod tried to exalt himself and he was brought very, very low.
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His life ended.
But the the word of God is which is humble and unstoppable, kept on rising.
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Pride will always K always end in ruin.
But God's purposes will always, always prevail.
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And so we need to remind ourselves to choose humility and we need to remember to always give God
glory.
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And so I'm thinking about this.
You know what what some of my favorite songs are.
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Old people.
Songs No, not it's, it's not about old people songs.
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There's trust me, you want to hear some old people songs?
I'll, I'll, I'll play you some old people songs.
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I like songs that give God glory.
There's this old one that says you deserve the glory, you deserve the honor.
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I, I, I love that song.
If I could sing, I would sing it for you.
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But maybe after we in the podcast, I'll sing it for you.
No, I'll, I'll, I'll just leave right out.
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Here.
Hey, so the any closing thoughts, Noah, any questions out of this text?
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Do you want to talk about the worms?
We didn't talk about the worms much.
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With the worms I found the because although it was, he was struck with it immediately in the
commentary of saying how it lasted about like 5 days.
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Yeah, yeah.
Now what that means is, is the moment that he was up receiving praise, the Angel struck him, It
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would be as if he, he, you know, he implemented that judgment and within four to four to five days
he was dead.
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This is well documented outside of the Bible by the readings of Josephus and crazy story.
And I was reading, I was in fact this morning over breakfast.
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What a wonderful time to talk about worms, right?
I was telling your mom about all the different theories.
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There's some commentators.
Yeah, I was doing my school work while you're just over there talking about worms.
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Up to 30 feet long, some of these tapeworms and it was not uncommon in the in the ancient world.
Well, I guess it still isn't.
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It's still not uncommon, but anyways, very, very well documented writings of Josephus.
And you know what I might do know?
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I know that not everybody has access to the writings of Josephus.
I may go ahead and copy and paste those into APDF and post those almighty in case anybody wants to
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read about it.
And there's also really good comparative chart from the to die.
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I'm I'm not diving deep, but believe me, I can, you know, I'm holding back right now.
Right?
24:53
1% Yeah.
Yeah.
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So there's a beautiful comparative chart because sometimes critics of the Bible, they'll say, well,
you know what?
25:00
Luke was using Josephus as his source material.
No, in fact, Luke has some information that is unique.
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Other side note, before we close, did you know your mom and I got to stand right where I did?
Yeah, we were right there in Caesarea.
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We were right there, probably where he stood up in his shiny little robe, silver robe, sequin gown,
whatever you want to call it.
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So anyway, anything else closing or anything else about the worms you want to talk about?
I think that we should that we should translate that song into English.
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You know what I'm talking.
About I do you're for those of you wondering, Marcia told me about a hymn that used to sing in
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Brazil, and it's a funny hymn.
I I don't know if I would get copyrighted or not, but it it kind of goes like if you don't give God
25:53
glory, you'll get eaten by worms.
And like, all these kids are crazy.
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Then they, they go and not only if you don't give God glory, like if you start to gossip, you'll get
eaten.
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Like it's a, it's a catchy tune we'd have to play.
Maybe I'll do that on Wednesday.
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OK, Yeah, I, I will because, ah, we didn't get to have I, we had prayer.
I was thinking about, I'm like, why didn't we talk about the worms in Bible study?
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It's because we had prayer.
So I'll, I'll do that.
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That means listen, for those of you listening to home, that means you got to be in Bible study if
you want to hear this song because it's a good one.
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It'll get you dancing.
You might say glory, Gloria, right.
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So all right, well, that's it for today from Noah and me.
May the grace of the Lord and peace be with you.
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We'll see you next time.
Thank you for listening to Al Pastor with Brian Overturf.
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