Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

archangel shout, and the Prince of Glory saint, living and dead, will hear and respond, yet a wicked
world and fallen church will sleep so soundly as not to be awakened by the trumpet blast nor the
resurrection earthquake. The morning dawns; a mother is missing from the home, and the alarm is
raised, and a member of the family runs out on the streets, meets another exclaiming, “Oh, the
daughter is missing from our home! her apparel all on hand.” And another runs out on the street and
shouts, “The old colored cook is missing from our home! and she has the key to the dining-room and
kitchen, and we broke open the door and couldn’t find her.” And another exclaims, “Old Uncle Tom,
who kept the barn and the horses and carriages, is missing, and we can not find him.” By this time
the whole city is in commotion, clamorous about the absent ones. Such is the commotion that
church-bells are rung and all the people crowd in. A number of the sainted occupants of the amen
corners are missing; some of the preachers can not be found, and some of the members are missing
out of all the churches; the excitement is intense, and the suspicion settles down like a nightmare on
all the people: “The Lord has come at midnight and taken away His Bride, and we have missed the
grandest opportunity of our existence.” Preachers are blamed for not giving them due warning. They
apologize and beg pardon.
9-11. Peter thinks he is in a trance and sees a vision. Now they pass by the first and second guard
and come to the great iron gate that leads out into the city. Peter is soliloquizing: “Though I have
escaped from the prison and passed the guards, what shall I do? It takes twenty men to open the great
iron gate leading out of the prison-yard into the city. It is locked; I have no key and could not open
it if I had; so, after all, my escape must prove a failure.” But now he has reached the gate. Behold,
it opens of its own accord, and he has nothing to do but walk out. Such is all Christian experience.
We see difficulties like mountains impassable. Be courageous, go right on, as if nothing was in the
way; rest assured God will take it out; the Pike’s Peak you saw will prove but a fog-bank and
evanesce before the Sun of Righteousness. I know a preacher whose terrible conflict in getting
sanctified was the thought of meeting his anti-holiness presiding elder. Behold, when he entered the
experience and met the elder, he found him awfully convicted and crying to God to sanctify him; so
he swept right over Jordan and helped the preacher shout down the walls of Jericho.
12-15. Now they have passed the gate and come to the first street. The angel disappears. Peter
diagnoses his environments and locates himself, and goes at once to the house of Mary, where the
saints are all praying through the long night for his release, and now utterly incredulous at the report
of the enraptured damsel, Rhoda, responsive to Peter’s knocking at the door, and certifying that truly
their prayer is answered and their beloved preacher is out of prison and standing at the gate. How
frequently are we surprised overwhelmingly at the answer of our own prayers! The incredulous saints
respond to the damsel: “Thou art crazy; it is his angel.” The human spirit is not an angel, neither
is it ever so called. Hence the conclusion that they thought Peter was dead, and his spirit had
appeared, is untenable. We have the simple solution of the problem in the well-known fact that the
Jews all believed in guardian angels, and so do I. I do believe they accompany me in my
peregrinations over the earth, fortifying me against evil, and even saving my life in the good
providence of God. “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth
them.” They were present at creation’s birth, and answered the anthem of the stars which sang
together when all the sons of God shouted for joy. The angel of the Lord slew a hundred and eightyfive
thousand Assyrian soldiers encamped at Lachish when Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem, thus
delivering the city responsive to the prayers of Isaiah and the tears of Hezekiah. The Jews believed