WHEN THE CHURCH PRAYS

Religion

This sermon was preached at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Cherry Log, Georgia on Sunday, January 27, 2013 by Pastor Paul Mims.

Acts 12:1-18
A praying church is a force to be reckoned with. The number one request that is made of our congregation is for prayer. Often it is for sickness, spiritual victories and understanding, personal struggles, family relationships, bereavement, guidance, and provision. Every week, we are called to prayer for those who are suffering. The expectation is that God will hear the prayers of the congregation and act to bring deliverance to those in need. Today, we are going to study what really happens when the church prays. Before us in this passage of scripture is the thrilling story of how the church prayed when it was facing opposition and persecution from the Roman government and religious officials.

I. WHEN THE CHURCH PRAYS THE IMPOSSIBLE BECOMES POSSIBLE. (vv.1-5) “It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. When he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also…So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.”

Humanly speaking, this was an impossible situation. There seemed to be no answer for the way that the church was being treated. The king, backed up by military might, and the official religion who regulated the laws, were both against church in Jerusalem.

The king was Herod. This Herod was in a long line of rulers that we find in the pages of scripture. There was Herod the Great, who reigned when Jesus was born and was visited by the Wise Men in Matthew 2. He had all of the infant boys in Nazareth age two and under slaughtered for fear that one of them would be a king that would overthrow him. Then there was Herod Philip the First, that had John the Baptist beheaded in Matthew 14. Herod Antipas was the one before whom Jesus was tried in Luke 23. Herod Agrippa is the one in our present passage in Acts 12, that killed James and arrested Peter. His son, Herod Agrippa the Second, was the one that Paul would appear before in Acts 25.

The motivation for Herod to have James put to death and to arrest Peter was to gain favor with the religious rulers. The two brothers, James and John were both disciples, called and selected by Jesus. These were the ones who were designated ‘Sons of Thunder.” Their mother requested of Jesus that one be granted the privilege to sit on his right hand and the other on his left when he established his Kingdom (Matthew 20). There is a mystery about the Divine will that allows one to die early as James did and allow the other, John, to live to an old age. Also, we ponder why James was allowed to be executed and Peter to be delivered. We will have to wait until we get to heaven for these answers.

Herod was popular with the people and to please them he had a demonstration of his support by having Peter arrested when Jerusalem was filled with people celebrating the Feast of Passover which was followed by seven days of ceremony called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. During this time no trials could be held and no executions could be carried out. It is the last night of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and on the morrow Peter could be tried and executed. This is when the church was praying so earnestly for him. It is at these extreme times that the church is often called upon for prayer.
“…Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons — but they are helpless against our prayers.” (Sidlow Baxter)

“Pray as if everything depends on God, then work as if everything depends on you.” (Martin Luther)
While very ill, John Knox, the founder of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, called to his wife and said, “Read me that Scripture where I first cast my anchor.” After he listened to the beautiful prayer of Jesus recorded in John 17, he seemed to forget his weakness. He began to pray, interceding earnestly for his fellowmen. He prayed for the ungodly who had thus far rejected the gospel. He pleaded in behalf of people who had been recently converted. And he requested protection for the Lord’s servants, many of whom were facing persecution. As Knox prayed, his spirit went Home to be with the Lord. The man of whom Queen Mary had said, “I fear his prayers more than I do the armies of my enemies,” ministered through prayer until the moment of his death. (Our Daily Bread.)

Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who was originally sentenced to death in his native country for his Christian faith, was acquitted of apostasy charges and released from custody. Nadarkhani, 32, was imprisoned for three years and waiting execution for refusing to renounce his Christian faith. His charges were lowered to evangelizing to Muslims, which carried a three-year sentence. He was released with time served. Prayer for him had been earnestly made on the Internet by a Christian group that follows the Persecuted church today.

Saeed Abedini, an American pastor in prison in his native Iran on charges of compromising national security because of his Christian faith, will go before one of the country’s notoriously harsh judges next week.

Abbas Pir-Abassi is known as a “hanging judge” for his doling out of long prison terms and death sentences to political prisoners.

The charges against Abedini were filed after he started a house church movement, and his attorney told advocacy group American Center for Law and Justice that most of the charges against Abedini are indecipherable, except for one from the year 2000, when he converted from Islam to Christianity.

Abedini has been in prison since September, when he returned to Iran from the United States to visit his family. He told his wife, in a letter written a few days ago, that his captors are torturing him and giving him mixed signals about his fate.

“This is the process in my life today: one day I am told I will be freed and allowed to see my kids on Christmas (which was a lie) and the next day I am told I will hang for my faith in Jesus,” Abedini said in the letter. “One day there are intense pains after beatings in interrogations, the next day they are nice to you and offer you candy.”

Abendini, who is 32 years old, became a U.S. citizen just two years ago, when he and his wife, Naghmeh, an American, were married. Two years before that, he became an ordained minister.

However, the Iranian government doesn’t recognize his citizenship, but he was able to travel freely between both countries until last summer, when he was taken from a bus and put under house arrest. (American Center for Law and Justice).

When the Church of England was the state church in early America, our Baptist forefathers were imprisoned for preaching Christ. Prayer to God has been and is the source of the victory for the church to advance in the face of the gates of Hell.

II. WHEN THE CHURCH PRAYS ALL OF HEAVEN’S RESOURCES ARE AVAILABLE TO US. (vv.6-10) “The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. Suddenly, and angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell…”

Herod really wanted to make Peter a symbol of his disdain for the emerging Christian movement. He would try and execute him before the multitudes of religious pilgrims could leave Jerusalem from the Feasts. Time was running out. The church gathered to pray for his release. Peter was guarded by 16 soldiers. He was chained to a soldier by his left hand and one to his right. Facing trial and execution the next day, Peter went to sleep. He knew that James had been killed with a sword. The fact that he could sleep is a testimony to his faith – whether to live or die – he was the Lord’s. Suddenly, there appeared in the prison cell an angel that spoke to him and said, “Put on your clothes and sandals –wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” Immediately, the chains fell off and Peter got up and followed the angel past the first and second guards and came to the iron gate that led to the city. It opened of itself and they went through and walked the length of one street. Suddenly, the angel left him. It all happened so fast that Peter thought he was seeing a vision. But the guards did not see the angel.

There is a parallel story in 2 Kings 6:15-17 that tells of the unseen presence of protection. “When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. ‘Oh my Lord, what shall we do?’ the servant asked. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ the prophet answered. ‘Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ And Elisha prayed, ‘O Lord open his eyes so he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” There are ministering angels all around us that we do not see. We live in a time when faith is required so we do not live in this spiritual world by sight.

“The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer fetched the angel.” (Thomas Watson)
Peter then went to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where the prayer meeting was in progress. But he could not get in for the door was locked. God had opened the prison doors but he depended on the church to open the door for Peter. When Rhoda came to the door and saw Peter standing there knocking, she ran to tell the prayers that he was there. “You are out of your mind, they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, ‘It must be his angel.’ But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door they were astonished.” It was generally believed at the time that everyone had a guardian angel and that the angel often appeared immediately after the person’s death. Why was it easier to believe for them to believe that Peter had died and gone to heaven than to believe that their prayers had been answered?

Isn’t it a paradox that we can pray so earnestly for something and then doubt that God will do it? This is just our human weakness in that we naturally depend so much on ourselves even to accomplish God’s work.

Joe McKeever tells about his son Neil, who was on an outing with his three children. The day before, he had suggested they pray for good weather. On their way to the park, he asked 10-year-old Grant if he had prayed for this beautiful day.

“No,” he said. “I forgot.” He asked 7-year-old Abby, who said, “I forgot, too.” “Oh, good,” said her twin, Erin, from the back seat. “Then it was my miracle.” Peter was finally admitted to the prayer meeting and they were so excited that he had to calm them down so that he could tell them the miraculous story of how he was delivered. He then gave them instructions to tell James, the brother of our Lord, who became the pastor of the church in Jerusalem, that he was free. Then he went to another place to escape the pursuit of Agrippa’s soldiers. Agrippa had the soldiers who were guarding Peter put to death for letting him escape.

The story ends with Herod Agrippa wearing his royal robes sitting his throne addressing the people. They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, and not a man.” Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down and he was eaten by worms and died.” Another Herod gone! Eventually, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. All of those who oppose the Kingdom and do not turn to the Lord will be defeated.

What happens when the prays? Everything that won’t happen if we do not pray. Our current need is for God’s guidance as we consider a minister of music to work with us. I believe that he will show all of us in the church his perfect will.

Elizabeth Elliot, wife of one of the five missionaries slain by the Aukca Indians, tells of two adventurers who stopped by to see her, all loaded with equipment for the rain forest east of the Andes. They sought no advice, just a few phrases to converse with the Indians. She writes: “Sometimes we come to God as the two adventurers came to me — confident and, we think, well-informed and well equipped. But has it occurred to us that with all our accumulation of stuff, something is missing?

She suggests that we often ask God for too little. We know what we need–a yes or no answer, please, to a simple question. Or perhaps a road sign. Something quick and easy to point the way. What we really ought to have is the Guide himself. Maps, road signs, a few useful phrases are things, but infinitely better is someone who has been there before and knows the way. (Elizabeth Elliot t, A Slow and Certain Light.)
Praise Be To His Name!

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