Hard times demand hard Prayer (Acts 4:23)
Why don’t people believe in prayer and take it seriously?
- Only 63% of Christians say that Prayer is essential.
James 4:3 People don’t believe in prayer because they have not received what they asked for.
- Because they asked for the wrong things and asked with wrong motives.
Acts 4: 23 The Apostles Peter and John have been going about the work and mission of God, making Jesus known.
- And for their efforts they get arrested.
- It was the Jewish Priests, the captain of the Temple and the Sadducees.
- So, this was religious persecution.
Verse 23 By going back to where all the others were, this puts them all in danger.
- The officials that just released them, could find them all and arrest them all now.
Verse 24 It says that they raised their voices to God in prayer. Their first response was prayer, not protest.
- There is also this sense in the original language that it was a rather loud unified prayer.
- There are two senses going on here in the Greek.
- One is unity, all in one accord. (Not just one person praying their will)
- And the sense of heavy lifting. The one word is often used to refer to lifting a body.
- Then they acknowledge God as creator: “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.” In acknowledging God as creator, they are saying that he is greater than the forces that just held them captive.
- Lesson one: Acknowledge the sovereignty of God.
Verse 25 In prayer they acknowledge that what is happening was a prophecy from God through David.
- They understand that what is happening is God’s plan.
Verses 26-27 Verse 26 is a quote from Psalm 2:2 Lesson two: Be sure scripture informs your prayer.
Verse 28 Because they understand the sovereignty of God, they realize that everything that has happened has happened because God wanted it to happen.
- They realize that the people who killed Jesus and who are persecuting them are doing what God had decided before hand should happen.
- That way they don’t make those people their enemy.
- We need to be able to stop and ask God what He is doing in any particular situation, so we can pray with what God is doing. Not against it.
- This is the third lesson Being able to see what God is doing. Pray with what God is doing not against it.
Verse 29 Lesson four: Pray for more kingdom trouble.
Verse 30 Lesson Five: Don’t pray for comfort. Pray for miracles in hard places.
- Lesson six: pray for opportunities among the people who are far from God.
Verse 31 God basically gives His yes, by shaking the room. Lesson seven: Our prayers should shake our environments and atmospheres.