A Would be god and the Word of God

Acts 12:21-24

On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. And the people were shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!” Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last. But the word of God increased and multiplied.

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part One)

The official king of the Jews plays at being a pagan [god], and comes to a bad end; meanwhile, the word of God grows and multiplies. You couldn’t say it much clearer than that. . . .

The chief priests have been left spluttering angrily into their beards in Jerusalem; Saul of Tarsus, the most prominent and violent of the Pharisaic persecutors, has been converted; and now Herod Agrippa, having had an unsuccessful attempt at killing off the church’s main leadership, is himself suddenly cut down with a swift and fatal disease. . . .

There may be [in the life of the church] real reverses, tragedies and disasters. And yet the God who has revealed himself in and through Jesus remains sovereign, and his purpose is going ahead whatever the authorities from without, or various controversies from within, may do to try and stop it (190).