Please turn in your Bibles this morning to Acts chapter 12 as we look at prayer, fervent prayer. As you are turning there, listen to this true story of the prayer and faith of a child as compared to what we are going to read in our text this morning. The story goes like this:
Dr. Helen Roseveare, missionary to Zaire, told the following story. “A mother at our mission station died after giving birth to a premature baby. We tried to improvise an incubator to keep the infant alive, but the only hot water bottle we had was beyond repair. So we asked the children to pray for the baby and for her sister. One of the girls responded, “Dear God, please send a hot water bottle today. Tomorrow will be too late because by then the baby will be dead. And dear Lord, send a doll for the sister so she won’t feel so lonely.”
That afternoon a large package arrived from England. The children watched eagerly as we opened it. Much to their surprise, under some clothing was a hot water bottle! Immediately the girl who had prayed so earnestly started to dig deeper, exclaiming, “If God sent that, I’m sure He also sent a doll!” And she was right! The heavenly Father knew in advance of that child’s sincere requests, and 5 months earlier He had led a ladies’ group to include both of those specific articles.
- Source Unknown
In this story we see the simple faith of a child to believe that God could answer her prayer. Why do we doubt God as we get older? Some would argue “It is because we are now older and wiser!” I would have to disagree, we may be older but not necessarily wiser if that is how we feel. Think of it like this, if God could and did create the heavens and the earth, then He surely can answer my prayer! You see, it is a lack of faith, doubting God to answer our prayer because we can’t figure out how He is going to do it!
In our study this morning, Herod Agrippa I is persecuting Christians because the Jews liked him for doing that. He was more popular with them as he persecuted Christians. Thus, James, the brother of John, one of the 12 Apostles is put to death for his faith in Christ. Since the Jews liked that so much, Herod Agrippa I has Peter arrested, but, since it was Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, he was going to wait till after these feasts were over before he put Peter to death.
So Peter, arrested, was placed in prison, he is chained between two guards while two other guards are watching the door, making sure this prisoner, Peter, did not escape like he did before. In fact, they had twice the number of soldiers they normally had to guard prisoners. These four soldiers would rotate their shifts every 6 hours so a total of 16 soldiers were guarding Peter during a 24 hour period of time. We don’t know how long Peter was in prison but it was at least a few days and that is where we will pick up our study this morning in Acts chapter 12 beginning in verse 5 and let’s see what the Lord has for us this morning.
You have to love how God just tells it like it is, He does not hold back, which encourages me knowing these great men and women of faith at times wavered or doubted that God would answer their prayer. And please understand this was not just a “Lord free Peter, I hope you can!” type prayer. It says that “. . . constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church.”
That word, “constant” comes from a Greek word that was a medical term that spoke of a muscle that was stretched to its limits. We see this word used in Luke 22:44 as Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before His crucifixion. We read, “And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
Thus, what Luke is telling us is that the church poured their hearts and souls into these prayers for Peter’s release. They were stretched as far as they could go in these prayers for Peter. They saw what happened to James the brother of John and now the same fate may happen to Peter. So they fervently, earnestly, whole-heartedly were praying for the release of Peter.
God hears these prayers and Peter is miraculously released from prison, his chains fell off, the soldiers don’t see him passing by, the prison doors are open, and before he knows it, he is out on the streets and then he realizes that this is not a dream, it is real, he is free! Peter realized that this was not a good idea to be out on the streets when he was supposed to be in prison, so he heads to the house of Mary where the church gathered often and where this awesome prayer meeting for Peter was taking place.
As Peter comes to the door and knocks, Rhoda, whose name means rose, a servant, comes to the door and she recognizes Peter’s voice. She is so excited that Peter is free that she forgets to open the door and she goes running to tell the others that Peter is free! Can you just hear Peter, “Rose! Rose! Open the door Rose, it is me, Peter! Rose, where in the world did you go? Come on, let me in!”
As she comes into the room these prayer warriors are still praying for Peter’s release, “Oh Lord, free Peter. Don’t let Herod put him to death as he did with James. Please release him, let him go!” And here comes Rose and she says to them, “Guys, Peter is free, he is at the door! I heard him with my own ears!” Then we see the response by these mighty prayer warriors, “Rose, you blooming idiot! You are crazy! Maybe it is his angel but it can’t be Peter, he is locked in prison and is going to be put to death very soon! Rose, are you a few pedals short today?”
But Rose couldn’t stop blooming with excitement and they finally go to the door, open it and there is Peter! The Bible says they were “astonished,” they were amazed; they couldn’t believe it was Peter! Think about it, who were they praying for? They were praying for Peter! What were they praying for? They were praying for the release of Peter! Now, when they see him they are amazed, astonished which tells me they may have been praying fervently, they may have been praying earnestly, but they had very little faith that God was going to answer their prayer!
Where are you at with your prayers this morning? Are you praying for your marriage and yet have little hope that it can be reconciled? Are you praying for a rebellious son or daughter and yet have little faith that God can bring them home again. Maybe it is your job or lack of job and yes, you pray but as you look at things, you have little hope that you will find a job or that the situation at work will be rectified. Maybe it is your finances or your lack thereof, and you don’t know how you are going to do it, but you pray, not truly believing that things will be taken care of.
That list can go on-and-on, but I think you get the idea and you can place in there whatever you are praying for that you doubt that God will answer, but you still pray. What is the problem here? You have lost the perspective of who God is and what He can do! Yes, God does answer prayer according to His will and there is also our own free will that plays into the picture. But I think far too often we just give up, we may continue to pray, “Lord heal my marriage!” or “Lord bring home my son or daughter!” or “Lord find me a job!” or “Lord help rectify my financial situations!” But we have little faith that God will answer our prayers. Let me give you an example how silly it can become, our lack of faith that God can answer our prayers. The story goes like this:
A tale is told about a small town that had historically been “dry,” but then a local businessman decided to build a tavern. A group of Christians from a local church were concerned and planned an all-night prayer meeting to ask God to intervene. It just so happened that shortly thereafter lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground. The owner of the bar sued the church, claiming that the prayers of the congregation were responsible, but the church hired a lawyer to argue in court that they were not responsible. The presiding judge, after his initial review of the case, stated that “No matter how this case comes out, one thing is clear. The tavern owner believes in prayer and the Christians do not.”
- J. K. Johnston, Why Christians Sin, p. 129
What were they praying for? That the bar would close down! What did God do? He closed the bar down and yet, the Christians who were praying for this didn’t believe this was of God but the tavern owner did! When you pray for something and God answers it, are you surprised? You shouldn’t be! Remember the story in Matthew, as Jesus, Peter, James and John were coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration and as they were coming down they had an encounter with a desperate man who was trying to find help for his demon possessed son who was trying to kill himself by throwing himself in the fire and in water and the father didn’t know how much longer he could protect him. The other 9 Apostles, who didn’t go up the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus couldn’t help this man or his son and Jesus rebukes them for their lack of faith, they were faithless in regards to this situation. It wasn’t that they had just a little faith, but they were faithless!
Why were they faithless? Maybe the obstacle before them was too great and in their minds it robbed them of their faith. And in Matthew 17:20 we are told, “So Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’”
We don’t know what these apostles did or didn’t do, but they were faithless regarding this situation, they refused to believe that God could answer their prayer and He didn’t! You don’t need great faith you just need faith that believes that the God who created the heavens and the earth can answer your prayers! You see, that is the perspective you need to have, that God is in control, He is still on the throne and no matter what, no matter how dark it may seem, no matter how hopeless it may look, He will see you through it all!
In fact, Jesus said, “. . . if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’” Does that mean we can move physical mountains if we want? Nothing is impossible with God but I think even more importantly Jesus is speaking of overcoming those mountains in our lives, those obstacles that can get in our way, that try to prevent us from moving forward, from walking with the Lord. William Barclay put it this way:
A great teacher, who could really expound and interpret Scripture and who could explain and resolve difficulties, was regularly known as an uprooter or even a pulverizer of mountains. To tear up, to uproot, to pulverize mountains were all regular phrases for removing difficulties. Jesus never meant this to be taken physically and literally. After all, the ordinary man seldom finds any necessity to remove a mountain. What He meant was: “If you have faith enough, all difficulties can be solved, and even the hardest task can be accomplished. Faith in God is the instrument that allows men to remove the hills of difficulty which block their path.”
- William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, pp. 184-185
I agree in part to what Barclay has to say, but I also believe that God can move mountains, literal ones if He wants to. I remember hearing the story of a church that built a new sanctuary next to a small mountain and as they finished the building and were getting ready to move in, the building inspectors came and they told the pastor that the parking lot was too small for the size sanctuary they had and before the church could be occupied the parking lot needed to be expanded.
It doesn’t sound like too big of a problem but it was. You see, there was no place to expand the parking lot, the mountain was in the way and they had no other land. But how in the world could they move that small mountain so they could expand their parking lot? It would be too expensive to have someone move it and they didn’t have the people or equipment to do it. So the pastor had an emergency prayer meeting and a few people showed up to pray about this situation. They didn’t have much faith, but they had some and they prayed that this situation would be resolved somehow, someway so they could expand their parking lot and begin to use the building. They prayed for this mountain to be removed!
I believe it was the very next day that an oil company representative called the pastor and asked if they could have some of the soil and rocks from the mountain next to the church. You see, they had done some soil testing and found that this was perfect for their needs. They needed to fill a swamp area and they needed a lot of dirt and rocks. So the pastor agreed, the mountain was leveled by the oil company, they even paved the parking lot for them and then gave them a check for the soil and rocks they took from them! Does God still move mountains, literally and physically just as He moves the mountains in our lives? You bet He does!
Some have problems with faith and they wonder how their faith can grow? Our faith grows as we read and apply the Word of God to our lives. Paul said in Romans 10:17, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Thus, as I pray, as I walk with the Lord, as I see the Lord answer my prayer, as I read His Word, my faith will grow and I can rest in Him as I trust in Him. It is as Psalm 34:4 says, “I sought the LORD, and He heard me, And delivered me from all my fears.”
I don’t know where you are at this morning, if you are trusting God or not. Maybe you are overwhelmed; maybe it is just too much for you to handle, maybe you just can’t take it any longer, and you see no hope, no help, only darkness. David, the king of Israel, was there, he had times like that and thus, we can learn from his example of what to do by what he did.
In Psalm 61:1-8 we are told, “Hear my cry, O God; Attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth I will cry to You, When my heart is overwhelmed; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For You have been a shelter for me, A strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of Your wings. For You, O God, have heard my vows; You have given me the heritage of those who fear Your name. You will prolong the king's life, His years as many generations. He shall abide before God forever. Oh, prepare mercy and truth, which may preserve him! So I will sing praise to Your name forever, That I may daily perform my vows.”
The picture is beautiful. When David is overwhelmed, when life seems to be crashing down all around him, he cries out to his local therapist? NO! He cries to his favorite bottle of booze? NO! He goes to someone of the opposite sex to help relieve his tension? NO! He goes into isolation, depressed? NO! David cries out to the Lord, he looks to the Lord, He prays to the Lord because the Lord is his Rock, it is the Lord that brings stability to his life, He looks to God!
Thus, He is a shelter in times of violent storms. He is a tower of protection and security from those who may harm him. He is a comfort as he can take shelter under His wings, feel His warmth, His love, His protection. It is out of that, having a correct perspective of God and the situation that David could then be at peace and praise the Lord and I think that is true for us. Give it to the Lord in prayer, rest in Him, take shelter in Him, and receive His peace through the storms of life as you learn to trust in Him that He will answer your hearts cry!
I truly believe that the enemy wants us to stop praying and he will do whatever it takes for us to stop. Think about it, they could have stopped praying for Peter’s release, it did seem hopeless, James was already dead. But they didn’t, they just kept praying, even though they had just a little faith. God wants you to do the same because it is not the size of your faith but the size of your God who is the object of your faith!
How big is your God? I’m sure for these men and women who were praying for Peter’s release, upon his release, their God got a lot bigger! That is not entirely correct, God doesn’t change, but their perspective of God changed and that is as true with us as we see God answer our prayers! Their faith grew as our faith will grow!
Our faith grows as we exercise it, use it, put it into practice and then believe that God is more than able to answer our prayers! How do I know that? Because God’s Word says so and thus, I can rest in that, I can believe that. In I John 5:14-15 we are told, “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” And in Matthew 21:22 we are told, “And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” Thus, God is able to answer our prayers, may we have the faith to pray them and believe that God can and will answer them in His time according to His will!
I would like to begin to close this morning with this true story about faith, prayer and the resulting peace it will bring to a persons life. The story goes like this:
While crossing the Atlantic on an ocean liner, F. B. Meyer was asked to address the first class passengers. At the captain’s request he spoke on “Answered Prayer.” An agnostic who was present at the service was asked by his friends, “What did you think of Dr. Meyer’s sermon?” He answered, “I didn’t believe a word of it.” That afternoon Meyer went to speak to the steerage passengers. Many of the listeners at his morning address went along, including the agnostic, who claimed he just wanted to hear “what the babbler had to say.”
Before starting for the service, the agnostic put two oranges in his pocket. On his way he passed an elderly woman sitting in her deck chair fast asleep. Her hands were open. In the spirit of fun, the agnostic put the two oranges in her outstretched palms. After the meeting, he saw the old lady happily eating one of the pieces of fruit. “You seem to be enjoying that orange,” he remarked with a smile. “Yes, sir,” she replied, “My Father is very good to me.” “Your father? Surely your father can’t be still alive!” “Praise God,” she replied, “He is very much alive.” “What do you mean?” pressed the agnostic. She explained, “I’ll tell you, sir. I have been seasick for days. I was asking God somehow to send me an orange. I suppose I fell asleep while I was praying. When I awoke, I found He had not only sent me one orange but two!” The agnostic was speechless. Later he was converted to Christ. Yes, praying in God’s will brings an answer.
- Our Daily Bread
My prayer this morning, as we leave here, is that we would have that kind of faith in our lives, a faith that trusts God to answer our prayers, no matter how impossible they may seem, and then rest in Him, trusting in Him. Pray like the child who when she saw the hot water bottle she knew that the doll was in their also, she did not doubt but trusted in her heavenly Father!
Let me leave you with these words from King David to his son Solomon as he told him back in I Chronicles 28:20, words that I hope will encourage you, “And David said to his son Solomon, ‘Be strong and of good courage, and do it; do not fear nor be dismayed, for the LORD God -- my God -- will be with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you, until you have finished all the work for the service of the house of the LORD.’”
It is all about perspective folks. Solomon was not to fear but to trust in the lord that the work will be completed, this awesome temple will be completed, it will be beautiful, it will be wonderful, and it will be finished. The same is true with our temples, these bodies, and thus, don’t fear, God will complete the work that He has started in us, it will be finished! Thus, trust in Him, rest in Him, and believe in what you pray He is faithful and will bring it to pass in His time according to His will! Fervent prayer is important and faith is also important as we pray. As Paul said in regards to Abraham, “He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore ‘it was accounted to him for righteousness.’” Romans 4:20-22. May we not forget that, may we take these things with us as we leave this morning, trusting in God as we pray!