Read Acts 12:1-17
One day James and John asked Jesus that they might be given exalted positions in the Master’s Kingdom. Mark 10:37. They knew not what they asked. It was only a few years later that Herod killed James with the sword. So James got, sooner than he expected and in a way far different from his thought, to his place at the right hand of Jesus. Verily we do not know what we are asking for when we pray for nearness to Christ, or for high places in His Kingdom. Yet James has never regretted the path by which he ascended. His work was soon done, but death was no calamity to him, as it only exalted him to his home in glory. There were two doors to that prison. One opened out into the city — the way Peter was delivered; the other opened upward into heaven — the way James was taken. We pray for our friends in sickness, that God would restore them to health. Again, there are two ways in which the prayer may be answered. God may heal our friends with bodily healing, and restore them to us in this world; or He may take them up into heaven, into eternal health and blessedness. A man who had been an invalid all his years was near death. A friend asked him how he was, and his answer was, “I am almost well.”
When Herod saw that his action in taking the life of James pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. He was one of those rulers who was swayed by public feeling. Nor have we to go among the rulers to find the same spirit. There are plenty of people everywhere who have no settled principles of their won, who do not stop to ask what is right, but who do wait to know what their neighbours will say or think. Even young children very soon begin to be governed by the fashion. We had better get the lesson here, that the true thing is always, not what will please the world and win the approval of our fellow men, but what God would have us do. Men who follow public opinion are like ships, which are propelled by sails — going whichever way the wind blows. Those who are governed by principle are like the vessels with fire and water at their heart, which do not depend on the winds.
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