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We have here the kingdom of Herod and Agrippa, as a type of all earthly kingdoms, brought into contrast and collision with the enduring kingdom of Christ the Lord. In many points of view — in similarity and in opposition — the parallel is most peculiarly striking. The rise of both was unobserved. Herod's had grown up from nothing. There had been a time when he was living as a mere hanger-on upon the court of Tiberius. He was gifted with those powers by which such men rise in such courts. As he ingratiated himself with Tiberius, the visions of greater things would begin to fill his earthly soul. He was the grandson of the great Herod; perhaps he might yet make himself a name greater than that of the prosperous founder of his house. But upon this early sunshine fell the blackness of a sudden frost, and nipped the opening bud of his greatness. He was accused of wishing the emperor dead, and so the rising Idumaean found himself in a dungeon, and not upon a throne. Then followed the tyrant's death, and again Herod rose to favour. He was made king of Batanea and Trachonitis by Caligula; and by Claudius of Samaria and Judaea also. He was one of the few who thoroughly succeed, as it is called, in life; and he governed his kingdom with great splendour and success. He affected popularity; wished to reign in the hearts of his subjects; was a man who would stretch a point that he might do so. But all suddenly at noonday his sun sank in outer darkness. Puffed up with the applause of his subjects, he took to himself, as the great founder of his own fortunes, the honour which belonged to God only. An angel hand strikes him; and, as self-exaltation had been his master sin, so the circumstances of his death are made humiliating in their accidents as well as sudden in their issue: he was eaten by worms. His kingdom passed away; the cunning web which had been woven so successfully, the fruit of youthful enterprise, of mature experience, of long labours, of late and, as it seemed, complete success: all was torn away by the first counterblast which the Almighty sent forth to scatter it. "But the Word of God grew and multiplied." Here is the contrast. Here is a kingdom which "fadeth not away." With this, Herod had just come into collision; but now he himself was gone; and that despised kingdom "grew and multiplied!" The blood which he had shed to quench it, made but its flame burn brighter and spread around in wider circles. And the cause of this power of growth is suggested in its very title: it was "the Word of God." It was not the mere creature of outside circumstance; it was not a kingdom formed by Caligula's passing favour, augmented by the goodwill of Claudius, and built up and widened by the policy of Herod; it had a life within, which was life for all men. Now from this contrast there flow one or two necessary consequences.

I. THAT THIS KINGDOM OF THE WORD OF GOD WILL AT LAST SUBDUE ALL OPPOSITION. That which we have seen in this chapter of the Acts has been going on ever since the day when the angel smote Herod. It is going on round about us now.

1. It is going on in the world of nations. Thrones have been built up since, higher than King Herod's; the nations of the earth have gone out to wonder at their greatness. Caesar and Charlemagne, Clovis and Solyman, and how many more, have heard in their day the flattering cry, "It is the voice of a god!" And they have passed away, with their dynasties and their institutions: the great world stream has flowed on, and, as its waves have swept by, they have overwhelmed what was once so great, until their very record has departed. And still the Word of God has "grown and multiplied." The outward forms of Christ's kingdom abide, as fresh as they were in their earliest morning. Still does baptism admit into this kingdom; still does the simple breaking of bread, and the pouring out of wine, endure amongst us. And, if possible, yet more marvellous still, its inward power over countless multitudes is just what it was of old; still they tremble under the Word spoken; still soul after soul melts in contrition, kindles in love, rejoices in exultation, waits in hope, when the words which are the words of that kingdom of the unseen Lord sound in their ears; still in their trouble men gather together, as they did in the house where Rhoda went to the door at Peter's knocking; and still deliverances are given in answer to those supplications, and angels from heaven bear to the saints of the King the succour they need. And now what does all this foreshadow? What but that this kingdom which alone has in it this principle of life shall endure forever? that it shall break in pieces all that are against it?

2. Ah! that which is thus plain in the worldwide history of nations is just as true in the detail of all private life. There, too, are the two kingdoms: the one full of show for vain men, the other full of strength for believing men. There are great promises of success, of rising in life, of acquiring a name, of a man's enjoying his pleasure; and there is an angel ever ready to strike at his noonday of seeming success every such worldly-minded man. There is a "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; and then whose shall this be which thou hast stored up for thyself?" And there are dungeons and chains on the other side, the following Christ in self-denial and self-sacrifice; and with these there is still, as of old, a portion in the Church's prayers, angels' visits, and a God and Father who sends them for our deliverance. Surely, then, it is plain which of these kingdoms will endure.

II. THE BLESSEDNESS OF BEING ENGAGED UPON THE SIDE OF THIS LIVING POWER. We look into God's Word, and we see the worthlessness of all outer things; the utter vanity of Herod's pompous worm-eaten enthronement; the blessedness and the glory of Peter's dungeon, of saints' prayers, of martyrdom, of being the care of angels, and the children of the Highest; and our hearts are a little stirred, perhaps, and we have half resolved that we will seek this portion for ourselves; and then we look into the great world, and we are fooled again by the sounds of empire and greatness. Ay! and we look into our own little world; and do we not find it hard to remember and to feel how blessed it is, when God so orders it, for us to be disappointed and calumniated, and despised, and brought low, and afflicted? Do we not every one of us know how thoughts of ease and of comfort, how ambitious longings to be a little greater than we are, a little richer, a little higher in the world's estimation — how this clings to us? Do we not every one of us know how the secret curse of the world's measure and the world's judgment creeps back upon us almost unawares? Do we not know how ready we are to forget in practice the blessedness of being of that little flock which shall yet possess the kingdom forever?

III. And then put these together. If there be this blessedness in being upon God's side, and if there be this glory in bearing it truly in mind — may we not gather this further inference, THAT IT IS OUR WISDOM TO SET OURSELVES DILIGENTLY TO ACT UPON THE TRUTH THAT WE CONFESS? For it is only by acting upon it that we can make head against the temptation to forget it. This was the wisdom of the apostles. remember how in their day, when the world threatened them, they went first unto their own, and "lifted up their voice, and said." They made their cry to Almighty God, and then having made their prayer they went forth again into that evil world, and began directly to act for Christ; and in that union of retiring for secret prayer, to draw His strength down upon them, and then simply going forth to act in that strength, as though He was present with them, they were enabled to keep their own hearts firm and their own heads clear, amidst the dizzying and amazing circumstances of their daily life. And we must do the same, each one of us, if we would make head. There must be with us this mixture of prayer to God and of work for God.

(Bp. S. Wilberforce.).

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KJV: But the word of God grew and multiplied.

WEB: But the word of God grew and multiplied.