John Lee was an Englishman who was sentenced to death by hanging in 1885. He swore that he did not commit the crime, but the executioner had the marching order to carry on. On the day of the execution, something unusual happened. As Lee stood on the gallows, the executioner pulled the lever but the trapdoor refused to open. It was checked and tried again, yet the trapdoor refused to open. That process was done three times without success. It was then that the officials stopped the execution, and John had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment on the order of the Home Secretary. What made the whole issue curious was that the gallows was tested before and after the failed attempts, and everything worked perfectly. John earned the sobriquet of “the man they could not hang”, and after serving about 20 years of his sentence, he was released in 1907. He went on to live for about 80 more years doing whatever job came his way and retelling the  story of his miraculous escape from the gallows.

God’s intervention may not come months and weeks ahead but just at the nick of time. He will always cause the integrity of the righteous to work out a deliverance for them.

In Acts 12, Peter must have taught that he was having his last sleep the night before the day scheduled for his execution. However, the angel of the Lord came to him in prison and effected his release in a surgical and miraculous way. Acts 12:11 captured his experience: “And when Peter had come to himself, he said, “Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent His angel, and has delivered me from the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the Jewish people.” Acts 12:11 NKJV. God’s intervention may not come months and weeks ahead but just at the nick of time. He will always cause the integrity of the righteous to work out a deliverance for them.