The Iron Gate:

When God Opens the Impossible

Peter is in prison. Again. Oops!

Herod, driven by power and paranoia, has seized him. James, the brother of John, has already been executed. Peter is next. He’s chained between two guards, locked deep inside the prison, with more guards stationed at every possible escape point. There’s no way out, no options.

In the darkness of that cell, under the weight of that impossible situation in Jerusalem, the church is praying. Desperate, pleading prayers—the kind of prayers you pray when you’re not even sure if you believe they’ll be answered.

And then—or as we often wrote in our stories as children—suddenly...

Light. Movement. An angel. Chains fall. Very dramatic. Peter, half-awake, half-believing, follows this angelic figure who had just struck him to wake him up, past the first guard, then the second. No alarms. No dogs or prison search lights. No sudden pursuit…

So far, so good—but Peter's about to face his biggest obstacle: the iron gate leading into the city.

This isn’t just a gate. It’s the gate—the last, immovable obstacle. Heavy. Bolted. Unyielding. Designed to keep people in—and people out. And Peter? He’s standing in front of it, probably thinking, Well, this was nice while it lasted. It's all happening so fast. Should he turn and quietly tiptoe back into the prison before he’s noticed or someone shouts out?

But then—

The gate, the big, heavy, normally in-need-of-some-WD40 gate, opens silently.

Not with a massive shove. Not with a testosteronal struggle. Luke writes, “It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out” (Acts 12:10, ESV).

No effort. No explanation. It just… opens.

And no one stirs. No guards yell. No crowd gathers. It’s as if God is making a point, as if He’s saying, You thought this was impossible? Watch this. Peter had walked on water—actually walked on water—and now here’s another shock-and-awe moment!

And that’s how God moves sometimes… In the quiet. In the unexpected. When we’re just barely following, still waking up to His presence, still shaking off the disbelief that this is actually happening.

Stay with the moment—because it’s easy to rush past it, to move on to the next miracle, the next moment.

Peter didn’t escape on his own using some kind of A-Team strategy or rusty nails he found in the cell. He didn’t strategise his way out. He didn’t flex fisherman muscle through it. He simply followed. And God did the opening. He didn't contribute anything to his escape—it was God's initiative, in response to the prayers of the saints. Never underestimate the power of corporate prayer.

We all probably have iron gates of some description? Those things in our lives that feel immovable—the job that isn’t working out, the relationship that’s fractured beyond repair, the addiction that keeps pulling us back, the lack of opportunity or the sense of being simply ‘overlooked’ or the fears that whisper, this is just how it’s going to be, forever.

And we stand in front of them, convinced they’re locked. Convinced they’re final.

But what if they’re not? What if, right now, God is already moving? Already opening doors we thought would never budge? What if the miracle isn’t in the pushing but in the following? That's radical!

When the gate opened, Peter walked through. And then? He knocks on the door of the house where the church is praying, and they can’t even believe it’s him.

Think about that. It's mind-numbing. The people praying for a miracle are the last to believe it when it happens.

Could that be us?

We pray, we hope, we trust—but when God actually moves, we hesitate. As if we’d forgotten who He is—the God who breaks chains, opens doors, and calls us forward into freedom—not through our effort, but through His grace.

But freedom is never just for us. Peter’s release wasn’t just about him escaping death—it was about emboldening the church, proving that the gospel cannot be chained. When God moves in our lives, it’s never just for us. It’s always bigger, always about more.

So here’s the real in-your-face question—what iron gate are you standing in front of? What if it’s already opening?

Because that’s the gospel.

It means no chains, no guards. Just grace, freedom, and the impossible made possible.

Maybe today is a special day for you. Maybe it’s time to stop staring at the gate, and just maybe, it’s time to walk through.