The Believers' Prayer

Acts 4:23-4:31The story in Acts 4:23-31 continues the story of the healed beggar that we have been discussing the last two weeks. Recall that Peter and John met with a beggar who was crippled from birth and who sat every day at the temple gate. Peter commanded him to walk and helped him up, and he was instantly healed. The beggar greatly enjoyed his new abilities, walking, jumping, and praising God. A crowd assembled at the temple, and Peter gave a speech explaining the gospel – “repent and turn to God!” – and explained that the Jesus they killed was raised from the dead. Peter and John explained that they were actual witnesses of this.

Amidst massive numbers of conversions to Christ, the priests (mostly Pharisees) and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John and arrested them. They held them in jail overnight. The next day, Peter and John were made to appear before Annas and Caiaphas, the leaders. These two people had been opposed to Jesus’ ministry for a really long time and were the very ones who had overseen Jesus’ death.


Peter and John were asked in whose name they were doing this. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, gave a bold response – he said it was in Jesus’ name, the name of the very one they had rejected, and the only name by which anyone could be saved. After conferring together, the leaders commanded them not to speak or teach “at all” in the name of Jesus. Peter and John responded by saying, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” They threatened Peter and John some more, and then let them go.

This brings us to Acts 4:23.

On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. – Acts 4:23-24a

I encouraged people to really imagine themselves in this situation. You have just heard what Peter and John have gone through. You have heard what the leaders have said. You have heard their command not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. Do you understand the stakes? Do you understand the risks? Beatings. Perhaps even crucifixion. If married, would you be willing to leave your wife unable to care for herself? Would you be willing to see something bad happen to her? If you have children, would you be willing to leave them uncared for? Could you stand to see something happen to them? These were the very real risks these people faced.

Countless Christians face these same risks today. According to the Voice of the Martyrs, the following is a list of countries where Christians are frequently persecuted:

Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Chechnya, Chiapas, China, Colombia, Comoro Islands, Cuba, Cyprus, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Laos, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Nigeria, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Tibet (China), Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yemen.

It is a big list! I am pretty certain that, in terms of population, this is more than half the world. We are blessed that we don’t face this. But in a way, we are cursed by it as well, because we are not driven to pray. Christians in these countries are driven to pray. The Christians in Acts 4 were driven to pray.

It says they raised their voices together in prayer to God. Any guesses what the Greek word is for together? Yes, it’s homothumadon, the radical, almost scary, unity of purpose and fire for the Lord. Just as in Acts 1:14, when they selected a replacement for Judas. Just as in Acts 2:1, as they prayed and waited for something to happen on Pentecost. Just as in Acts 2:46, where they were meeting daily, with gladness and singleness of heart.

Continuing on with their prayer:

"Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: "'Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One. – Acts 4:24b-26

The prayer starts with a reminder of who God is. Who was the reminder for? Not for God – He knows Who He is! Prayer is partly for us, and partly for God. This reminder was for them. It quieted their fears. It reminded them of who God is (the Creator of all) and what He is capable of (anything at all).

Then it moves into a quote from David. The scripture quoted is from Psalm 2. Here is the entire Psalm, given from the Amplified version of the Bible.

Why do the nations assemble with commotion [uproar and confusion of voices], and why do the people imagine (meditate upon and devise) an empty scheme? The kings of the earth take their places; the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and His Anointed One (the Messiah, the Christ). They say, Let us break Their bands [of restraint] asunder and cast Their cords [of control] from us. He Who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision [and in supreme contempt He mocks them]. He speaks to them in His deep anger and troubles (terrifies and confounds) them in His displeasure and fury, saying, Yet have I anointed (installed and placed) My King [firmly] on My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, You are My Son; this day [I declare] I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations as Your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth as Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them in pieces like potters' ware. Now therefore, O you kings, act wisely; be instructed and warned, O you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with reverent awe and worshipful fear; rejoice and be in high spirits with trembling [lest you displease Him]. Kiss the Son [pay homage to Him in purity], lest He be angry and you perish in the way, for soon shall His wrath be kindled. O blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied) are all those who seek refuge and put their trust in Him! – Psalm 2 (Amplified Bible)

Why did they start with this quote? Because they saw it being fulfilled in their current situation. Let’s continue:

Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. – Acts 4:27-28

Herod and Pilate did conspire together to kill Jesus. But the assembly was in vain. Jesus rose from the dead! Jesus is God’s Son! Their current commands not to speak or teach at all in Jesus’ name was a continuation of their rebellion against God. Psalm 2 lays all this out, even though it was written over a thousand years before this came to pass. God had arranged this beforehand. In their prayer, they showed that they understood this.

Again, consider the threats against them. Would you be willing to risk all? Or wouldn’t it be easier to just keep quiet? You’ve got a good thing going here. Let’s just have “church” together, in safety, and quit trying to reach out to unbelievers. We can continue to pray for the unsaved, but we won’t do anything that would risk things. Would this thought have tempted you? It would have tempted me.

Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable Your servants to speak Your word with great boldness. Stretch out Your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of Your holy servant Jesus." – Acts 4:29-30

In this part of the prayer they are (finally) making their requests. (Note how, in terms of length, this is a relatively small part of their prayer! Do we pray like this?) They are asking God to do four things:

1. Consider their threats. Another way of saying this is as follows: Look upon their threats! They are threatening us. We can’t take this! Not in our own strength. We are going to fail. Do You see? If we fail, they will win. Their conspiring won’t be in vain; it will succeed! The name of Your Son, Jesus, will not receive the nations as His inheritance. Look!

2. Enable Your servants to speak Your word with great boldness. They mean themselves, not other people. Another way of saying this is as follows: Help us to speak about You! We need Your help! In our own strength we will cower and fail. But You can give us supernatural power to speak in boldness. Although we are afraid, we ask You to help us to do this.

3. Stretch out Your hand to heal. Continue to make testimonies of healing. (See the summary from last week.)

4. Perform miraculous signs and wonders. Your name is honored through these things. Do them so more and more people come to have a saving relationship with You. Signs and wonders and healings draw the crowds and are powerful secondary witnesses to the truth of the gospel.

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. – Acts 4:31

The parallels between what happen here and what happened in Acts 2 are fascinating to me. In both places they were praying. In both places there was a physical manifestation – there, the sound of wind; here, a shaking. In both places it says they were “filled with the Holy Spirit.” In both places there was bold speaking – there, praising God in other languages, and here, “speaking the word of God boldly.”

One conclusion I have from this is that we are mistaken to overemphasize the uniqueness of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit continues to fill people up, manifestations continue, and empowerment to speak continues.

Does God still answer prayers by filling people with the Holy Spirit? Yes. Are people enabled to share the gospel boldly? You bet. Are there still manifestations? Sometimes. But yes.

I think a key sign of the true thing is the result we see in Acts 4:31 – speaking the word of God boldly. There were manifestations in every great revival in the 18th and 19th centuries. Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, John Wesley, David Brainerd, and Charles Finney all experienced manifestations in their ministries.

I read the following portion of a powerful article by A. W. Tozer, author of “The Pursuit of God”:

God Advances His Work by Outpourings of His Spirit

By A.W. Tozer

"Break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness upon you" (Hosea 10:12).

"Here are two kinds of ground: fallow ground and ground that has been broken up by the plow. The fallow field is smug, contented, protected from the shock of the plow and the agitation of the harrow. Such a field, as it lies year after year, becomes a familiar landmark to the crow and the blue jay. Had it intelligence, it might take a lot of satisfaction in its reputation: it has stability; nature has adopted it; it can be counted upon to remain always the same while the fields around it change from brown to green and back to brown again. Safe and undisturbed it sprawls lazily in the sunshine, the picture of sleepy contentment.

"But it is paying a terrible price for its tranquility: never does it see the miracle of growth; never does it feel the motions of mounting life nor see the wonders of bursting seed or the beauty of ripening grain. Fruit it can never know because it is afraid of the plow and the harrow.

"In direct opposite to this, the cultivated field has yielded itself to the adventure of living. The protecting fence has opened to admit the plow, and the plow has come as plows always come, practical, cruel, business-like, and in a hurry. Peace has been shattered by the shouting farmer and the rattle of machinery. The field has felt the travail of change; it has been upset, turned over, bruised and broken.

"But its rewards come hard upon its labors. The seed shoots up into the daylight its miracle of life, curious, exploring the new world above it. All over the field the hand of God is at work in the age-old and ever renewed service of creation. New things are born, to grow, mature, and consummate the grand prophecy latent in the seed when it entered the ground. Nature's wonders follow the plow.

"There are two kinds of lives also: the fallow and the plowed. For example of the fallow life we need not go far. They are all too plentiful among us. The man of fallow life is contented with himself and the fruit he once bore. He does not want to be disturbed. He smiles in tolerant superiority at revivals, fastings, self-searching, and all the travail of fruit bearing and the anguish of advance. The spirit of adventure is dead within him. He is steady, "faithful," always in his accustomed place (like the old field), conservative, and something of a landmark in the little church. But he is fruitless.

"The curse of such a life is that it is fixed, both in size and in content. To be has taken the place of to become. The worst that can be said of such a man is that he is what he will be. He has fenced himself in, and by the same act he has fenced out God and the miracle.

"The plowed life is the life that has, in the act of repentance, thrown down the protecting fences and sent the plow of confession into the soul. The urge of the Spirit, the pressure of circumstances and the distress of fruitless living have combined thoroughly to humble the heart. Such a life has put away defense, and has forsaken the safety of death for the peril of life.

"Discontent, yearning, contrition, courageous obedience to the will of God: these have bruised and broken the soil till it is ready again for the seed. And as always, fruit follows the plow. Life and growth begin as God "rains down righteousness." Such a one can testify, "And the hand of the Lord was upon me there" (Ezek. 3:22).

"Corresponding to these two kinds of life, religious history shows two phases, the dynamic and the static. The dynamic periods were those heroic times when God's people stirred themselves to do the Lord's bidding and went out fearlessly to carry His witness to the world. They exchanged the safety of inaction for the hazards of God-inspired progress. Invariably the power of God followed such action. The miracle of God went when and where His people went. It stayed when His people stopped.

"The static periods were those times when the people of God tired of the struggle and sought a life of peace and security. They busied themselves trying to conserve the gains made in those more daring times when the power of God moved among them. Bible history is replete with examples. Abraham "went out" on his great adventure of faith, and God went with him. Revelations, theophanies, the gift of Palestine, covenants and promises of rich blessings to come were the result . Then Israel went down into Egypt, and the wonders ceased for four hundred years. At the end of that time Moses heard the call of God and stepped forth to challenge the oppressor. A whirlwind of power accompanied that challenge, and Israel soon began to march. As long as she dared to march, God sent our His miracles to clear the way for her. Whenever she lay down like a fallow field He turned off His blessing and waited for her to rise again and command His power.

"This is a brief but fair outline of the history of Israel and of the Church as well. As long as they "went forth and preached every where," the Lord worked "with them... confirming the word with signs following" (Mark 16:20). But when they retreated to monasteries or played at building pretty cathedrals, the help of God was withdrawn till a Luther or a Wesley arose to challenge hell again. Then invariably God poured out His power as before.

"In every denomination, missionary society, local church or individual Christian, this law operates. God works as long as His people live daringly: He ceases when they no longer need His aid. As soon as we seek protection out of God, we find it to our own undoing. Let us build a safety-wall of endowments, by-laws, prestige, multiplied agencies for the delegation of our duties, and creeping paralysis sets in at once, a paralysis which can only end in death.

"The power of God comes only where it is called out by the plow. It is released into the Church only when she is doing something that demands it. By the word "doing" I do not mean mere activity. The Church has plenty of "hustle" as it is, but in all her activities she is very careful to leave her fallow ground mostly untouched. She is careful to confine her hustling within the fear-marked boundaries of complete safely. That is why she is fruitless; she is safe, but fallow.

"Look around today and see where the miracles of power are taking place. Never in the seminary where each thought is prepared for the student, to be received painlessly and at second hand; never in the religious institution where tradition and habit have long ago made faith unnecessary; never in the old church where memorial tablets plastered over the furniture bear silent testimony to a glory that once was. Invariably where daring faith is struggling to advance against hopeless odds, there is God sending "help from the sanctuary."

"In the missionary society with which I have for many years been associated I have noticed that the power of God has always hovered over our frontiers. Miracles have accompanied our advances and have ceased when and where we allowed ourselves to become satisfied and ceased to advance. The creed of power can not save a movement from barrenness. There must be also the work of power.

"But I am more concerned with the effect of this truth upon the local church and the individual. Look at that church where plentiful fruit was once the regular and expected thing, but now there is little or no fruit, and the power of God seems to be in abeyance. What is the trouble? God has not changed, nor had His purpose for that church changed in the slightest measure. No, the church itself has changed.

"A little self-examination will reveal that it and its members have become fallow. It has lived through its early travails and has now come to accept an easier way of life. It is content to carry on its painless program with enough money to pay its bills and a membership large enough to assure its future.

"Its members now look to it for security rather than for guidance in the battle between good and evil. It has become a school instead of a barracks. Its members are students, not soldiers. They study the experiences of others instead of seeking new experiences of their own.

"The only way to power for such a church is to come out of hiding and once more take the danger-encircled path of obedience. Its security is its deadliest foe. The church that fears the plow writes its own epitaph. The church that uses the plow walks in the way of revival.

"If we are to advance we must have power. Since "power" is a word of many uses and misuses, let me explain what I mean by it. I mean that effective energy which God has, both in Biblical and in post-Biblical times, released into the Church and into the circumstances surrounding her, which made her fruitful in labor and invincible before her foes. Miracles? Yes. Answers to prayer? Special providence? All of these - and more.

"It is summed up in the words of the Gospel of Mark: "And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following" (Mark 16:20). The whole book of Acts and the noblest chapters of Church history since New Testament times are but an extension of that verse.

"By power I mean that divine afflatus which moves the heart and persuades the hearer to repent and believe in Christ. It is not eloquence. It is not logic. It is not argument. It is not any of these things, though it may accompany any or all of them. It is more penetrating than thought, more disconcerting than conscience, more convincing than reason. It is the subtle wonder that follows anointed preaching, a mysterious operation of spirit on spirit.

"Such words as those in the second chapter of Hebrews stand as a rebuke to the unbelieving Christians of our day: "God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to His own will" (Hebrews 2:4).

"A disinterested observer, reading without the handicap of doctrinal prejudice, would surely gather from the Scriptures that God desires to advance His work among men by frequent outpourings of the Spirit upon His people, as they need them, and are prepared to receive them.

"We make this statement with the full knowledge that it will be hotly challenged by some teachers. "It is not scriptural," they say, "to pray for or expect an outpouring of the Spirit today. The Spirit was poured out once for all at Pentecost and has not left the Church since that time. To pray for the Holy Spirit now is to ignore the historical fact of Pentecost."

"That is the argument used to discourage expectation, and it has been successful in damping down the fervor of many congregations, and silencing their prayers. There is a specious logic about this objection, even an air of superior orthodoxy; but for all that, it is contrary to the Word of God and out of harmony with the operations of God in Church history.

"The Bible does not sponsor this chilling doctrine of once-for-all blessing. Rather, it encourages us to expect "showers of blessing" and "floods upon the dry ground" (Isa. 44:3). The Spirit must fill not only that first company of "about an hundred and twenty," but others as well, or the blessings of that experience would cease with the death of the last member of the original band.

"All this seems reasonable enough, but we have a more sure word of Scripture: come time after Pentecost a company of believers met to pray for strength and power to meet the emergency then facing them, and to enlist the help of God on their behalf.

"And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spoke the Word of God with boldness" (Acts 4:31).

"Some of these were of the original number filled at Pentecost. It is hardly conceivable that God acted contrary to His own will in filling them again after Pentecost. Still other outpourings are recorded in Acts 8, 10, and 19. All these occurred some years after the original act. […]"

Tozer has a way of turning you into a puddle on the floor. But he is right. I realize this was an uncomfortable passage to hear. But if we are fearful about sharing the gospel when there is so little risk to our lives or the lives of our families, I have to think there is a problem. It’s not a problem unique to us – more than 99.9% of the church in America shares this problem. But the solution is not found in our own strength any more than it was found in the lives of those living through Acts 4. The solution comes through power from the Holy Spirit. We need to pray as they prayed.

I discussed three applications:

1. Pray for the plow so that we would have the “want to.”

2. Pray for upcoming opportunities specific to our church.

3. Pray for those in the rest of the world facing real persecution.

We then gathered together in a large circle and prayed together. Praise God for how He is faithful to answer the prayers of His followers!