Queen's Road Cell

1. What part did the believers in Jerusalem have in Peter’s escape from Herod (see 12:5)?  " but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church". Would Peter have been saved without prayer?   2. God saved Peter from being executed by Herod (see 12:6-11), but He allowed James to die (see 12:2). What conclusions about persecution, prayer, and deliverance can we draw from these facts? God sometimes saves from persecution; sometimes not. God sometimes answers prayer as we wish, sometimes not. God sometimes delivers physically and sometimes not .(cf. Lk 21:18 " But not a hair of your head will perish ").   Angels often act urgently At dawn, angels urged Lot, saying, "Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.” (Gen 19:15) Elijah, weary and despondent, was touched by an angel who said, "Arise and eat." Later, the angel returned, saying, "Arise and eat, because the journey is too ...

 12 a. What do you learn from chapter 22 about Satan's plan for... Jesus (22:3-6) His b etrayal (cf. Jn 13:2, 27) But contrast Satan's actions at the Temptation  (4:1-13). There has been a change of strategy: if the Son of God can be persuaded to avoid the Cross and submit to him, He should be made to do so. Now, when it is clear that Jesus will not submit and is destroying his work (10:18, 11:18, 13:16), Satan determnines to destroy His ministry.    Did Satan know what would happen at the Cross? Through Peter Satan tried to dissuade Jesus from suffering, dying and being raised again (Mt 16:22). Satan may have grasped the fact that God had a plan at the Cross, but he would not have known the full consequences of Christ's work there in completely destroying his work ( ...by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triump...

Mr 2: 1-8, 16-18. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Mag ] from the east came to Jerusalem 2  and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 3  When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4  When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5  “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: 6  “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,      are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler      who will shepherd my people Israel.’” 7  Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8  He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child...

I said that today's study is deceptively simple. There are issues there that need some subtlety  - and more to the point - a great deal of faith. If Jesus is sovereign Lord, then what does it mean when the preamble to the study says that "He has given each of us free will to live out our lives the way we like"? Do we conclude that God chooses to limit His sovereignty in favour of human 'free will'? If "the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers" (2 Co 4:4), how can humans even be free, or held accountable? Is Christ Lord when bad things happen to us? Of is it the case that God will always keep His children safe and well and our suffering is a reflection of our lack of faith or a temporary triumph of Satan. Jesus was very clear in Luke 13 that both natural disasters and the evil of men are what every one of us deserves and are not outside of God's sovereign control. We are spared what we deserve only because of grace.And our ideas...