Acts 12:20-24

God does not need people and their weapons to get His point across! We need to trust in Him...period! He is more than capable of protecting His own. The battles that we do fight are not physical but spiritual and our prayers and good works accomplish more than any gun would. 

The important point was that the cities did not want the angry king to set an economic embargo against them. Through the royal official Blastus, the people of Tyre and Sidon received an appointment to present their case to the king. 

The Jewish historian Josephus also provides an account of this display, informing us that in an attempted appeasement of the king the people confessed that he was “more than a mortal.” Herod, instead of rebuking the address of deity, enjoyed the adulation—until he discovered the consequence of such blasphemy.

Acts 12:20-24

²⁰ Now Herod had been very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon; but they came to him with one accord, and having made Blastus the king’s personal aide their friend, they asked for peace, because their country was supplied with food by the king’s country. 

²¹ So on a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat on his throne and gave an oration to them. ²² And the people kept shouting, “The voice of a god and not of a man!” 

²³ Then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give glory to God. And he was eaten by worms and died. 

²⁴ But the word of God grew and multiplied.