Acts 12: The Church and Prayer

Hello everyone, I'm Dr.

Steve Holt.

I want to welcome you to the Road Church Podcast.

Each week we go into God's Word.

We teach chapter by chapter and verse by verse.

And we are here to build the Kingdom of God revolution through empowering people to change the world.

So we pray this will minister to you at your heart level and change your life.

We're in Acts chapter 12.

Acts 12 · chapter mention

We're working through the book of Acts.

And this particular chapter really nailed me this week.

It really nailed me.

I've been working on it for a couple weeks, but it really kind of hammered my heart earlier this week because it speaks to the journey that Liz and I have been on and the journey of this church.

So you're gonna say, well, what are you talking about?

Peter in prison and Herod's gonna kill him the next day and all that.

But there's so much here about constant prayer and the need for earnest, expectant, hopeful, constant prayer.

And I would not be here right now if it wasn't for your constant prayers for Liz and me in the past year and a half.

Hardest time in our life.

And as I'm reading this, I'm going, whoa, this is the principles that lie within Acts 12 are so true of what God has done in our lives and as a church.

And as we've seen people come and go, and we do, and you will always see people come and go in the church.

You will see people come and go in your family.

You'll see people come and go in your work.

You'll change jobs.

Very rarely does anybody stay in the same job anymore.

You young people here in the room, you that are listening online, you're gonna go through a lot of jobs.

It's just the way it is now.

And I tell my kids, my seven kids, who are all, you know, pretty entrepreneurial, who knows what you're gonna be doing when you hit 40?

Because we can get upset, right?

Oh man, this is not going my way.

And in the 20s and the 30s, man, those are the times to experiment.

Those are the times to take risk.

You don't have a big family yet and stuff.

But but the reality is you're gonna get betrayed, you're gonna get blown out of the water, you're gonna go through times where it just seems like you've given everything you can give and it didn't work out.

Don't give up.

Quitting is highly overrated.

And there's a lot of people out there that are gonna speak into your ears things that are ungodly and unrighteous.

And you've got to pick your friends carefully.

And the reason we're gonna see in Peter's life why he's gonna get released from prison through an angel showing up is because the church is praying.

They're focused in prayer.

This is a powerful, powerful passage.

And this church, if you remember, you that are still here that were part of the early days of this church, we went into 40 nights of prayer.

When I started Mountain Springs back in the day in '94, it was 10 days of fasting in prayer.

Prayer is the key to power in your life.

And if you're going through it in your marriage, or you're going through it at your job, or you're struggling with personal demons.

And we all do at times.

Nothing exceptional about that.

That's the world we live in where Satan controls the narrative.

And that's why God uses kingdom people to uncontrol his narrative.

And it's a praying church.

We're gonna be looking at a praying church this morning.

And I'm reminded that Jesus says to Peter, remember, he makes that great confession.

He makes that great confession in Matthew 16.

And Jesus says, On this rock, I'll build my church.

On that statement, that rock solid doctrinal statement that you are the Christ, the new covenant.

I will what?

I will build my church.

And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

And a lot of times we end right there.

And yet what he says next is really instrumental with what we're gonna look at in Acts 12, because he then goes on to say, and I will give you the keys of the kingdom.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

What is that?

That's a mandate from God.

And I see three core themes.

Write these down.

I see three core themes in the book of Acts that just keep repeating themselves, keep repeating this almost chapter by chapter, these three themes.

And it's under that rubric of Jesus is building his church.

And here's the first one.

The first one is God is building a family.

God is building a family called the church.

Made up, number one, of all kinds of people.

Just look around at all the kinds of people that are in this room.

I mean, we've got some weird people in this room.

You know?

And if and if you don't think so, then look in the mirror.

You're weird, man.

And yet God created each one of you for a purpose.

Male and female.

Free, slave, Jew, Gentile.

We see this theme running through Acts that God's for everybody.

And the struggle that's happened in Acts around 9, 10, 11, it's gonna even be in 13, is this this Jewishness of the early church that's now being confronted, that God gave literally a promise to Abraham in Genesis 12 that he will bless you, meaning Abraham, the foundation of Judaism.

And Islam claims him as the foundation of Islam, but the claim that had been raised up a chosen people that will be a blessing to all peoples of the earth.

So they didn't understand that yet.

And so that's starting to that's starting to happen now as we see that when the command was given at the beginning, Acts 1.8, you shall receive power, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, remotest parts of the earth.

So that's happening, number one.

Number two, another hallmark that we see, God is building a family to bring his kingdom.

God does not bring the kingdom through angels.

God does not bring his kingdom through the heavenly host.

We'll see their role even in our chapter here, but he uses people.

Angels not gonna show up and just start knocking people over.

Angels do the impossible so that we can do the possible.

And God's given us that mandate.

So, number one, God's building a family with all kinds of people.

Number two, God is building a family that brings the kingdom.

And then thirdly, God is bringing a family through prayer, through the power of prayer.

Almost every chapter in the book of Acts are those three things: that God's for everybody, He's coming to all kinds of people, doesn't matter your ethnic background, socioeconomic background, the color of your skin, he comes for all to bring the kingdom, and to bring the kingdom through a praying people.

That's what he does.

And so we turn to Acts 12.

So if you would, turn to Acts 12, and we're gonna pick up the narrative in Acts 12.

Remember, last week we were in Antioch.

We were talking about what was happening in Antioch, and now we're gonna go swinging back.

Luke decides to now take us back to Jerusalem.

And he really confuses us because he talks about a guy named Herod.

Look at verse 1.

Now, about that time Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church.

Now they understood at the writing which Herod he was talking about, but we're completely confused here in the 21st century because there's so many Herods.

There's a Herod like almost every page in the New Testament.

There's six major Herods, by the way, in the New Testament.

They're all part of the Herodian dynasty.

So think of Herod not as their first name.

Hey, Herod.

Hey, Herod, quit talking to your neighbor.

Herod was not the first name, it was a title like Caesar.

It was like Caesar.

And so there were Herods, and there was Herod the Great.

So Herod the Great was in the time of Jesus.

And there was nothing great about him except that he was a great builder.

He built monuments and he built extravagant buildings all over Jerusalem.

So he's called Herod the Great.

He was the son of Herod Antippus.

And Herod had been an Edommean, which is of the line of Esau, meaning that there was a Jewish side to his father, and he had a reverence for the Jews, even though he was not ethnically a Jew.

So what the Herods understood to be true, all the sons and the grandsons and the nephews, was that you needed to placate the Jews if you wanted peace.

And peace, the Pax Ramona, the peace of Rome was important.

So Romans were interesting culturally and socially, in that when they took over nations and they took over a people group, they let them keep their religion as long as they kept it in a peaceful way.

So Herod the Great understood that.

Herod the Great is the one who met with the Magi, the wise men, and then he was the one who killed all the children in the Jerusalem area and all through Bethlehem, trying to find this supposed king of the Jews that was to come, and so he killed all those three years and younger.

That's Herod the Great.

Now this is his grandson, and this is Herod Agrippa I.

Herod Agrippa I.

And he comes into power, and he is a friend of the Emperor Caligula because he was trained and educated in Rome.

So being trained and educated in Rome, Caligula, one of the most evil emperors of that time period, he's in relationship with him, and he realizes something here that he's got to put a lid.

He's got to put a lid on this Jewish sect that's rising up that's called the way.

And so it says here that now about that time Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church.

Then he killed James.

So James is one of the leaders in Jerusalem at the time, the brother of John with the sword.

Do you guys remember the prophecy?

Do you remember the prophecy that the mother of the sons of thunder, James and John, came to Jesus and can we sit on your right hand and your left hand on the throne?

Remember that part?

And then he says, Can you, can you take on the sacrifice that I will?

And she, oh yes, we can do that.

Well, here's the first, here's step one, because the other brother will also be martyred for his faith.

Every one of the twelve apostles, all the eleven that were left, and then the twelve with Matthias, who was added in Acts chapter one, all died martyrs' deaths except for John.

So he kills James with the sword.

We believe that was a beheading.

And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to seize Peter.

Now, it was during the days of unleavened bread, so during the Passover.

So when he had arrested him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four squads of soldiers, sixteen men.

Sixteen men are around Peter guarding him to keep him, intending to bring him before the people after the Passover.

Now here's what's interesting.

We're gonna see God do something really significant with Peter.

It's gonna be a supernatural deliverance for him.

Alright?

But but James is beheaded.

Remember Acts 6 and 7?

Stephen is stoned.

What's that?

Why is Stephen stoned a righteous man?

Why is James beheaded a righteous man, but Peter is gonna walk out of the prison?

I don't know.

I have no idea.

Except, this is the thing to remember.

And for you that are note takers, write down if you can spell it.

Sovereignty of God.

I don't understand.

It's a mystery to me, and by the way, it's S-O-V-E-R-E-I-G-N-T-Y.

Sovereignty.

One, you just use it all the time, right?

But the sovereignty of God means that God knows the future.

God knows the present.

God is actually working out his strategy and his plans.

He has veto rights.

He has veto rights over our prayers.

We we pray and we call out sometimes for God and we don't see what we were hoping to happen.

He's got veto power over that, but he calls us still to pray.

I don't understand that.

I don't understand why in our church some of the best people at the road have died early.

But I have to believe that God knows the present, God knows the past, and God knows the future, and he's working out his plan.

And so that's what's happening here.

God's somehow in the mystery of his sovereignty.

He's working out his strategy for us.

So here's the rest of the story.

So the rest of the story in this chapter is amazing because it's about constant prayer.

So if you're putting a title on this, but constant prayer in the church.

Constant prayer in the church.

So what does prayer do?

Well, Luke's gonna give us, Luke's gonna give us a glimpse.

Look at verse 5.

Peter was therefore kept in prison.

But constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church.

How many of you have been in situations where you're struggling with something?

It's a battle at work, or it's a struggle in your marriage, or it's a struggle in your singleness, and you come out of a background with some pretty heavy-duty addictions, and you're being tempted again, and then suddenly you have the wherewithal to say no to that sin.

Anybody experience that?

Somebody's praying for you.

Somebody out there is praying for you.

Never, ever doubt that when you're praying for your husband, you're praying for your wife, you're praying for your girlfriend, you're praying for your boss at work, you're praying for that guy that you used to get drunk with and do drugs with, and now you're just praying that he would come to church with you.

You've been inviting him to church, and he almost came last week.

And so you keep crying out to God, God's at work, you guys.

God is hearing that prayer.

It's a that's according to his will.

And the scriptures say if you pray according to his will, he hears us.

And if we know that he hears us, we know that we're gonna receive from him that which we're praying.

And so this is this is anecdotal today.

This is actually a story that really, really happened.

That the church was constant in prayer.

In the Greek, without ceasing or constant prayer, the word in Greek is as is where we get the word assidious.

It's the idea of not giving up, constantly praying, constantly focused.

Men and women, anyone can learn to pray.

Remember the legislation of no prayer in schools?

There's a lot of prayer in schools when exam time comes.

They can't outlaw that.

There's no atheist in a foxhole.

There's no atheist when you're going through the difficulties in your life where you feel like you don't know what to do.

The craziest people, the most sinful people pray.

I don't care what they say.

They do.

Because within us is the image of God.

We're created in the image of God and we long for a personal relationship with Him.

We're longing for that.

That's why when we share our faith, when we say, I'm praying for you to a waiter or a waitress that's that's been serving you at the restaurant, it touches something in their heart.

And sometimes you actually pray with them right there.

They pray with you.

And most of the time when Liz and I do that with waiters and waitresses, they tear up.

Nobody in their world is praying for them, but we as kingdom people say, We're gonna, I'm gonna pray for you.

I'm gonna pray for you right now.

That's why we have a ministry team.

There should not be ever anyone who comes to the road on any Sunday that can't get prayer.

That if you come and you've got a burden, you always know that you can come up front and there'll be people ready to pray for you.

And they're anointed prayers.

And some of the best people to pray for us are people we don't even know because they are they're just objective.

And they're just standing here, and you come up and they don't know your story, they don't know what you've gone through, and suddenly they start praying this prayer.

You're like, hello?

Where'd that come from, man?

You're like reading my mail.

It's because what Satan wants to do, men and women, is keep you vexed.

Keep me vexed, keep me confused, keep me upset.

Because man, he's got us there.

He's gotcha.

But then when you go over his head and you cry out to God instead of worrying about what the enemy's doing, you oversee a new work of the kingdom advance in your heart and those who you're praying for.

This is a church that's in constant prayer.

And I love what James, the half-brother of Jesus, different James.

He writes, the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man availth much.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.

Write down James 5, 16 through 18.

Write that down.

Look it up.

James 5, 16 through 18.

Don't look it up right now.

Take it home.

Look at it this week.

The effective, fervent, this is New King James, prayer of a righteous man or woman availeth much.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.

That's why I love this verse.

In other words, Elijah, the great prophet, was no different in his spirit and in his, in the context of just being human nature like ours, but he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.

And he prayed again, and then heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

So here's a guy just like us who believed God.

He prayed it wouldn't rain, it didn't rain.

God heard a normal person.

Not really normal.

His nature was normal.

He wasn't normal.

Don't you want to be abbe?

Philip's translation is this.

Philip's translation is this tremendous power is made available through a good Man's earnest prayer.

That's how he translates that.

Be a good man, be a good woman.

Listen to God.

Pray what he's calling you to pray.

He listens to your prayer and he acts on your behalf.

I was thinking about that today.

I was thinking about it last night too, that you know, it said it didn't rain and then it did rain.

It didn't rain and then it did rain for three years.

Some of you have been praying for rain for 30 years.

And what I mean by that is blessing on your life, blessing on your finances, blessing on a situation.

And yet God seemingly keeps saying, wait, wait, wait, don't give up.

Church, don't give up.

The church here is in focused, constant prayer.

Why did he put that there?

It's because of what is about to happen next.

Look what's gonna happen next.

Check this out.

Okay, read read verse 6 with me.

So and when Herod was about to bring him out that night, Peter was sleeping.

Peter is like sound asleep.

By the way, Peter doesn't have too much trouble sleeping.

That's not a problem for him.

He sleeps, he sleeps in a boat with a storm.

He sleeps at Gethsemane when his Lord is about to be crucified.

He's a sleeper, okay?

But this is a different kind of sleep.

This is a different kind of sleep.

Bound with two chains between two soldiers, a total here, the guards before the door were keeping the prison.

Commentary says 16 soldiers are all around him, and he's fast asleep.

What is that about?

I think it's I think it's the it's rest.

I think constant prayer, don't miss this, provides rest, listen, through the presence of God.

When the presence of God comes, through people who are praying for you, it brings rest to your soul.

So think about Isaiah 26, 3.

You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.

And it was Jay Oswald Sanders who said, peace is not the absence of trouble, but the presence of God.

Peace is not the absence of trouble, but the presence of God.

Imagine the presence of God in a time of trouble.

And you know what I believe is happening here?

I believe that Peter is resting in the promise of God.

Do you remember John 21?

In John 21, with the resurrected Jesus, Peter's been out fishing again.

They're having this conversation, and Peter's really vexed about what's gonna happen to John.

I mean, of all the things to worry about, who cares?

But anyway, he cares about John.

How's John gonna die and all this?

And then he speaks to Peter and he says, When you are old.

So I believe what Peter is up to in his heart is he's trusting in the promises of God.

It's not, he knows he's not gonna die.

He's already escaped once through the power of God.

And that's why I believe Herod, Herod Agrippa I, has 16 soldiers around him because his reputation is.

This guy, kind of a Houdini.

And you and we're gonna bring him out at the Passover.

Because listen, folks, it was illegal to kill someone on the Passover.

It was illegal to kill someone on the Passover.

So you might be thinking, then, wasn't Jesus killed during the Passover?

Yes, it was illegal.

It was illegal what the Jews did, but listen, it was legal from the perspective of God because the Passover lamb, the Passover lamb that takes away the sins of the world had to be crucified at the Passover.

So the Jews didn't even know what they were doing, but God was superseding that with his sovereignty.

There's that word again.

The sovereignty of God was working through.

So he's following this because he's wanting to placate, he wants to kiss up to the Jews.

And yet here's Peter fast asleep.

Verse 7.

Now behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him.

I want you to, so an angel.

All right, think about what I'm saying.

There's an angel of the Lord standing next to him.

A light is shining in the prison.

Everybody look at me.

He's still asleep.

He has to strike Peter.

It says he struck Peter on the side and raised him up.

So light shines in.

How many of you wake up when there's light in the room?

Like if there was suddenly light.

I mean, angels usually bring a lot of light with them.

So there's a lot of light.

Angel shows up, probably the light is the angel.

And he's just sagged out.

The dude is like, really had a long day.

He knows he's going to be killed possibly the next day.

And he's just fast asleep.

This will not be the only time that an angel of the Lord comes and strikes someone.

It's going to be interesting here in the same chapter.

He struck Peter on the side and he raised him up and he said, Arise quickly.

And his chains fell off.

All right, write this down.

It's important.

Constant prayer activates the divine counsel.

Constant prayer activates the divine counsel.

What is the divine counsel?

Write down Psalm 82.1.

Psalm 82.1 we read: God stands in the congregation of the mighty.

He judges among the Elohim.

In your English Bibles, it says God, small g, it's actually Elohim.

So the gods of heaven, that the Elohim of heaven, under the banner and under the supreme control of the capital E Elohim, God has a counsel.

We sometimes call them angels, but I think a better translation would be a divine counsel that when we pray, God sends out.

God sends out his divine counsel when the church prays.

When you as a Christian pray.

In Acts chapter 4, they're praying, the place is shaken.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

Remember that?

Place is shaken.

What's that?

Could be it was the divine counsel.

Remember Daniel chapter 10.

Daniel 10 · chapter mention

Daniel goes in 21 days of prayer.

He's crying out to God.

He's on a Daniel fast.

He's crying out to the Lord for the mysteries, the revelation, the mysteries that he's had.

This is under Cyrus.

And the archangel Michael comes in and he says, Ever since you started to pray for 21 days, I was locked in a conflict with the prince of Persia.

What's that?

That's the divine counsel.

There are princes over nations.

There's probably a demonic prince over Colorado Springs.

There's demonic spirits in your neighborhood.

Now, do you focus on them?

No.

But I'm telling you, when you go past them and you direct your prayers to Christ and to the King, he comes and does battle for you.

That's why the statistics of those that are into alcoholism and drug addiction and porn and all those different addictions that we have today and have had for thousands of years, nothing new under the sun, that when you get them in a rehab or you get them in a Christian house or some kind of a halfway house or something, and the ones that are some of the most effective are the ones that have scripture playing on the loudspeakers all the time, except for when they sleep, that when they come to Christ and they learn to get filled with the Holy Spirit, that's when change occurs.

Because now you're superseding the strategies of the enemy and the schemes of the enemy going over Satan's head.

And now God sends his power.

And a lot of times he uses the divine counsel to do that.

And so in Daniel, Acts 4, Daniel 10, Revelation 12, the dragon after Mary, the mother of Jesus.

And on September 15th, out at our house, we call Hebron Woods, God called me out of the house, and I went out to the fire pit and I lit this fire, and God said to me, I'm gonna light this fire in you.

Wait on me, cry out to me.

And so for the next three hours, I prayed to the Lord, and I saw these eight specters on my property.

Almost like pawns.

If you can imagine a pawn on a chessboard that's about this high, they were lined up on the north side of my property.

And I've only shared this a few times.

I'm gonna share it today.

And as I prayed, I saw them disappear, disappear, disappear, disappear.

And there were spirits of pride, and there were spirits of witchcraft and there were spirits of sorcery over this church.

Over listen me.

And as senior pastor of this church, I had allowed it to happen.

And God broke something.

I could see into the spirit world and I could see these barriers, I could see these demonic spirits there.

And something completely broke on September 15th.

And God began to come with his fire.

And it's one of those things I don't like to talk about.

Only a few guys, some of my blood-stained allies, are the only ones who know about it.

Liz saw a spirit that night.

I didn't even know this until later, but a spirit came to her and she cast it out.

So you guys, when we pray, Luke understands this as he writes that the heavenly counsel's released, and here the heavenly divine counsel comes, and look what he does.

Then the angel said to him, Gird yourself and tie on your sandal.

I love this part.

This is like so funny to me.

The angel said, gird yourself and tie on your sandals, and so he did, and he said to him, Put on your garment and follow me.

So here's an angel, shows up, and but listen, everybody, angel shows up.

This divine counsel spirit shows up, this Elohim shows up, and Peter still has to put on his clothes.

I mean, it seems like if he's that supernatural, it's like, whoop, all the clothes come on.

So listen, this is important.

God does the impossible so that you can do the possible.

It does not in any way inhibit what God wants to do through you with responsibility.

So if you feel like God's told you he's gonna provide a job, you still gotta get your resume out.

You still gotta do interviews.

Okay, God requires you to be responsible with what you know so that he can do the supernatural, because it's when you're faithful in a little that he's faithful in much.

And he blesses us.

So he has to put on his clothes.

He still doesn't get it.

Peter's like really been asleep, I guess.

Because you're gonna find out he's not even half, he's half awake.

Verse 9.

So he went out and he followed him, and he did not know what was done by the angel.

He didn't know it was real, but thought he was seeing a vision.

So he's kind of half awake.

When they were past the first and the second guard post, they came to the iron gate that leads to the city, which opened up to them.

He still doesn't know what's going on, on his own accord.

So there were automatic locks and automatic doors even in the first century.

Isn't that amazing?

And they went out and went down the street, and immediately the angel departed from him.

Constant prayer opens prison doors.

Some of us in this room are in prison right now with something.

And God's calling us today that constant prayer can open those doors.

As a matter of fact, sometimes we don't even pray until we're in prison.

And I don't know.

We've got some pretty good analysis here from Luke about the church.

So were they praying before this?

I don't know.

But we know they're praying now because they're really worried.

James has been killed.

Several, like a decade ago, ten years ago, Stephen was killed.

Now they're gonna kill Peter.

And so constant prayer is being lifted up.

I heard it said one time, Satan trembles when he sees the weakest Christian on his knees.

Satan hates it when we pray.

And when Peter had come to himself, he said, Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent his angel and has delivered me from the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the Jewish people.

So he has to go through all these locked gates, he has to be roused by an angel, there's a light in there.

I assume that the light is still there, kind of guiding him through these dark streets, and now he realizes, oh, an angel came.

So if some of you are kind of on the spectrum of not figuring things out very quickly, like me, hey, you're in line with Peter.

Okay, constant prayer brings breakthrough.

And the second great awakening in America, 1857 to 1859, was ignited in a prayer meeting in the North Dutch church on the corner of Fulton Street and Ann Street in New York City.

In 1857, a quiet businessman named Jeremiah Lamphear was appointed as a city missionary in downtown New York.

He had been converted at the Broadway Tabernacle built by Charles Finney in 1842.

He started a noonday prayer meeting once a week on Wednesdays and commenced on September 23rd, 1857.

And he took a handbill.

He took a handbill inviting people to prayer to the old, to the old church.

It's called the old church at Fulton Street, the Fulton Street Church.

And he comes in, he says it's going to be at noon on a Wednesday, September 27th, 1856.

And he comes in, and 15 minutes pass and nobody's there.

And 20 minutes pass and no one's there.

And 30 minutes pass and a couple people come.

And when the hour is done, six people showed up.

And then the next week, 20 people showed up.

And then the next week, 40 people showed up.

And over the next two years, thousands of prayer meetings.

It was like a prayer awakening before the Great Awakening.

This prayer awakening happened.

It then jumped over to Wales and Scotland and England.

And it's now classically called the Second Great Awakening.

In a matter of two and a half years, two million people were saved.

And then the Civil War came.

And so it was a call to prayer by a guy named Jeremiah Lampfear, a businessman, who called the people to prayer.

So I want to call us to prayer, church.

Noonday prayer has been happening for over seven years at the road.

Let me read what's written here.

Noonday fire prayer at the road.

This gathering is for anyone who will take one hour of their weekday to seek God, ask for miracles, and believe God for a kingdom revolution in our own lives, church, and city.

What might God do in answer to our prayers?

Join us every Monday and Wednesday from 12 noon to one o'clock.

So it's just one hour.

You could take a break from lunch just to come in and to seek God.

Take time to pray with us in the chapel.

Turn over to the other side.

Isaiah 56, 7.

For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.

Why do we pray?

Prayer is communion with God.

And when we commune with God, he communes with us.

When he hears our voice, he speaks to us.

When we pray and listen, we hear his voice and he expresses his heart to us.

You see the correlation?

That as we call out to him, he hears our voice and he has our attention.

So then he speaks to us about what to pray.

Prayer is asking great things from God.

He comes down and shows up in power for those who pray in faith.

No miracle happens without someone asking God for a miracle.

God answers the earnest, fervent prayer of anyone who will believe and constantly pray.

How often should we pray?

As often as the language and passion for prayer is in your heart, as often as you see the need for help and guidance, as often as you feel the power of temptation, as often as you feel helpless, anxious, or depressed, as often as you long for the fire, love, and vision of God for your life.

Verse 13, and as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a girl named Rhoda came to answer.

And when she recognized Peter's voice, because of her gladness, she did not open the gate.

It was easier, it was easier to get prison doors open than for Peter to get into a prayer meeting.

But ran in and announced that Peter stood before the gate.

But they said to her, You're beside yourself.

Yet she kept insisting that it was so.

So they said, It's his angel.

What does that mean?

I still don't know what that means.

It's his angel.

Now Peter continued knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.

Here's what's interesting here.

Here you have a group of people constantly in prayer, and they're not even believing that God's gonna answer their prayer.

So, you know, there's in the word faith movement, there's this teaching that's out there that you don't see anything happen because you don't believe God.

And because you don't believe God, can't God can't do the miracles.

Well, there's some truth to that because Jesus does talk about praying with faith.

Faith healed her.

But there's no faith here.

Rhoda, how would you like to be Rhoda?

For the rest of all time, Rhoda's story is now written in Scripture about one who wouldn't open the gate for Peter.

But still God answered.

How many times we have to say to the Lord, Lord, I pray by faith, but help my unbelief.

It's okay, church, to sometimes pray without faith.

Just the fact that we're praying is enough faith because it's mustard seed faith that moves mountains.

But motioning them, his hand to keep silent, verse 17, he declared to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison, and he said, Go tell these things to James, to the brethren, and he departed and went to another place.

So, so so prayer brings a testimony, a testimony to share with others.

Who likes to have a testimony?

Who likes to hear a testimony?

Everybody's a little bit, you look scared to raise your hand.

Because you know where I'm going, because you heard me do it many, so many times.

Test emony.

You don't have a testimony without a test and eyes in the middle.

It's you having a test from God that you get a testimony, and we like to hear them, and we like to say we have them.

Don't like to go through them.

And yet it's a testimony that comes through prayer.

When we pray, there's a testimony that God is building in your life by the faith of you having to battle in focus prayer.

Now I want to conclude a little bit here with Herod, because I think it's kind of interesting.

So let me, I'm gonna, as we move to the end here, let's look at Herod, verse 18.

Then as soon as it was day, those of no small stir among the soldiers about what had become of Peter.

But when Herod had searched for him and could not find him, he examined the guards and commanded that they should be put to death, and he went down from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there.

Now Herod had been very angry with the people of Tyra and Sedon, but they came to him with one accord, and having made Blastous the king's personal aid, their friend, they asked for peace, because their country was supplied with food by the king's country.

So on a set day Herod arrayed in royal apparel.

Let me just give you, I've been to Caesarea, I've led tours to Caesarea, I've been in this Colosseum in Caesarea, and what Josephus writes about that incident was they were celebrating, commemorating the Emperor Claudius and Herod, Agrippa I, Herod, put on this silvery garment made of real silver.

And when you're looking at, has anybody ever been to the Colosseum in Caesarea?

Anybody?

Okay, a few of you.

So it's facing, if you realize you and the crowd are facing the Mediterranean Sea, so you're facing west.

So here's what happened: the sun was rising, he's speaking, and the gleam of the silver garment was so bright.

Listen to the rest of the verse.

It says, arrayed in royal apparel, verse 21, sat on his throne and gave an oration to them, and the people kept shouting, the voice of a God and not of a man.

And then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give glory to God, and he was eaten by worms and died.

Okay, Luke's a physician, he wants you to know that.

History tells us it was tapeworms.

So he had a tapeworm, and this tapeworm probably had created a cyst, and the cyst burst.

And it says, I know that's too much information.

But they're seeing this thing gleam.

He's like a God, he gleams like a God, he doesn't give glory to God, and he's killed by God.

Now, I want you to find this interesting, and I'm gonna I'm gonna close soon.

It says in verse 23, the Lord struck him.

And remember, look back at verse 7, the angel comes and strikes Peter.

So how do you want to get struck?

Humility.

Stay humble.

Got some big mistakes in your life.

Stay humble.

Because God does the humbling when we don't.

And then it concludes with this.

Remember what I said at the beginning?

I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against the gates of hell.

So here is Herod.

He can't stop what God's doing.

Verse 24, the word of God grew and multiplied.

And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their ministry, and they also took with them John, whose surname was Mark.

So this is, they were in John Mark's home.

Listen to this is an interesting thing.

Is that in that John Mark's home where they're having the prayer meeting, many believe was the upper room.

Many believe that's where the upper room was in Acts chapter 2 at Pentecost.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And Mark will go with them, and he'll become the writer of the second gospel, Mark.

Thank you for listening to the Road Church Podcast.

We pray today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

For more information about the Road Church and to find more content like this, go to theroad.org.

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