It's one of the wonders of seeing
the New Testament unfold before us as we read Acts. We do see
the fulfilment of all of those promises. Our great God is a
just God and a Saviour. In Acts 4.23 we actually have
been looking at these opening chapters of Acts under the sort
of general title of Foundations Laid. And here we have the Church. We know the Church had been praying.
It's said often that they had prayed. But here for the first
time we actually have the Blessed Holy Spirit recording the prayer
of the Church. And so last week we looked at
Psalm 2 which was embedded in this prayer. Today, Lord willing,
we can just look at the context and the supplications that are
in this prayer. Let's read from verse 23. But
being let go, they went to their own company and reported all
that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. And when
they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one
accord and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven and
earth and the sea and all that in them is. who by the mouth
of thy servant David hath said, Why did the heathen rage, and
the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood
up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and
against his Christ. for a truth against thy holy
child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed. Both Herod and Pontius Pilate,
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together
for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before
to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings,
and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak
thy word, by stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that
signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child
Jesus. 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. And the multitude of them that
believed were of one heart and of one soul. They are united
together, they are united together in this prayer. that was brought
about by the persecution, the first wave of persecution of
this early church. They lifted up their voice to
God. Prayer is a remarkable thing,
isn't it? It is a gift from God. It is
nurtured by God. God initiates prayer. He causes it to spring from our
lips. He draws us into His presence
and He reminds us, He reminds us yet again of who we are and
of whose we are. And if it's a trial that brings
the Church to prayer, as it is here, then isn't it good that
the trials that the Lord brings to us are trials that cause us
to go to a throne of grace. One of the things that's quite
remarkable, isn't it, is we just so, so often forget what's really
going on in this world and unbelief drives us to doubts and fears
and things. But what's happening in heaven
right now? We don't know what to pray. So often we don't know
what to pray. We hope for that which we see
not and we do with patience wait for it. Likewise the Spirit also
helpeth Our infirmities. See, true prayer comes out of
infirmities, doesn't it? It doesn't come out of our abilities
and the things that we've achieved. The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. For we know not what we should
pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself, Himself, maketh intercession
for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. See, the reality is we don't
need to talk much about getting God's people to pray. We don't
have to form people to pray. God's children pray. It is as simple as that. It is the delight of God's children
to pray. Verse 27 of Romans 8. And he
that searches the heart knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit,
because he maketh intercession for the saints, according to
the will of God. There are intercessions being
made right now for the saints according to the will of God. And where is our Saviour right
now? He's on the throne of this universe.
What's He doing right now? Right now, right now, what's
He doing? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. It
is God that declares that they have no sin in His presence,
as Norm just showed us out of Isaiah 42. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea,
rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand
of God. who also maketh intercession
for us." Right now, right now. He is both here with his people. He inhabits the praises of his
people and he brings our case before the throne of God all
the time. There is no charge, no charge. Why not come into His presence?
There is no charge, it's God that justifies. Who shall separate
us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or sword? As it is
written, for thy sake we are killed all day long, for we are
accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things, this
is the first persecution of the Church, they have had this brief
window of peace until the Lord Jesus returns. They will never
see it again. Nay, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded,
I trust you might be persuaded, brothers and sisters, that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor prince of heavenlies, nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor
depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." No
separation. There they are. this little band
lifting up their voice to God, and I love that phrase, we'll
look at it more next week if the Lord allows, with one accord. This is the church at prayer. Let's read their prayer, and
we trust that the Lord might make it our prayer, and that
he might hear our prayers, and he might encourage us to pray
with fervency. It is a foundational prayer of
the New Testament Church, isn't it? When they heard that, they
heard the persecution, they heard Peter's testimony before his
persecutors. Who shall we believe? For we
cannot. Who shall we obey? For we cannot
but speak the things which we have seen and heard." They're
calling for silence and Peter, before these people who had just
weeks before put the Lord Jesus to death, is there standing and
saying, we will speak. You can proclaim us to be silent
and we will speak. And they said, why? that Lord thou art God. He's sovereign, isn't he? Lord
thou art God. Untroubled. Untroubled. We read in Psalm 2 last week,
and He sits on the throne. He doesn't bother to get up from
His seat on the throne of the universe when they are all gathered
together against Him. See, prayer begins, doesn't it?
This prayer begins with an acknowledgement that the Lord is God, the Lord
is Creator. This is His creation. He is sovereign,
we are His subjects, and all creation ultimately bows to the
will and purposes of its Creator. Thou art God. It's good to remember,
isn't it, that He is sovereign and He is in charge. Thou art
God, which hast made heaven and earth and the sea and all that
in them is." See, true prayer acknowledges God, but also acknowledges
the fact that He's the Creator. True prayer begins with humility,
doesn't it? We are humbled in His presence.
Delightfully humbled in His presence. Kissed the Son. God's children
have kissed the Son and been kissed at Him. He is the Creator. From Him, I love that verse at
the end of Romans 11, it's a remarkable verse. For of Him and through
Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Listen to it again. It's written
in such a way that you're meant to meditate on the phrases. For of Him, Everything comes
of Him. Don't ever think that the trials
of your suffering are outside of His sovereign hand in control. And through Him, they come through
Him, and to Him they all must come back to Him and be for His
glory. And true prayer acknowledges
the Scriptures, isn't it? So much of prayer is taking God's
promises back to Him. He says to us, doesn't He? He
says, put me in remembrance. Put me in remembrance. Tell me
what I've promised and live on what I've promised. Why did the
heathen rage? By the mouth of thy servant David
has said, why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain
things? See, we acknowledge, don't we,
in prayer we acknowledge that God speaks through His Scriptures. His Word is true. There is no
hope for us except that this Word that we have on our laps
is from God and it's perfectly true and perfectly faithful. in all of what is written. All
of what is written about God. All of what is written about
man. All of what is written about
man in opposition to God. All of what is written about
the history of this world. It's all written. He is faithful. He who calls
you is faithful. The scriptures not only prophesy
the future, but they must. It comes to pass exactly as it's
prophesied. David wrote that psalm a thousand
years before the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet it's fulfilled in such
perfect detail. Verse 27, for a truth. For a truth, it is just the truth
of what the Scriptures reveal, isn't it? This holy child, for
a truth, against thy holy child Jesus, against thy holy child
Jesus whom thou hast anointed. It's a remarkable description
of the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? Up until this point, in the
proclamations of the Gospel that we read and in Peter's defence
before the Sanhedrin, they talk about the Lord Jesus in His exalted
glory. They talk about Him crucified,
Him buried, Him raised by God the Father, Him made of God to
be both Lord and Christ, to be sovereign ruler of this universe.
And yet here when they come to pray, they speak of Him as Thy
Holy Child. Twice they do. It's a beautiful
picture, isn't it? A beautiful description of our
Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Holy Child. whom thou
hast anointed. He was the holy child. He is
that child of God. Unto us a child is given, isn't
it? Unto us a son is given. Jesus is called the child of
God because it is a reflection of the fact that He is. He is
both the Christ of God and He is to be the Christ of God. He
must be fully human. He was that holy child in His
conception, that holy thing, Mary was told, that was in her.
He was that holy child in His birth and the angels came and
proclaimed His deity and proclaimed His birth from heaven. He was
that holy child in his life as he grew from a boy into manhood. He was a holy child in all of
his conversations. He was a holy child. He never
sinned. He was born without the stain
of Adam's sin and he never knew sin. He was a holy child from
the beginning to the end. To be a sacrifice, he had to
be perfect. and spotless and blameless. And
that perfection and that spotlessness had to be from His conception
through all of His life. No sin, ever. Thy holy child. The holy child that's been anointed,
the holy child is the Messiah, isn't he? He's anointed with
the oil of gladness above his fellows. He's anointed by God
to be prophet, priest and king from eternity. And he was set
up. He was set up as the mediator
of people. And as Norm read to us out of
Psalm 42, he was made of God, wasn't he? He was made to be
the covenant for his people, the surety of that covenant. He was anointed at His Incarnation. He was anointed at His Baptism.
God spoke from Heaven. This is My Beloved Son. And He
was anointed that He was given the Spirit without measure. All the prophets had the Spirit
come on them for a time, but He was given the Spirit without
measure. Thy Holy Child. And we looked
at this last week, didn't we? Against thy holy child Jesus
whom thou had anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with
the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together.
There is just one place, as we saw last week, where all of humanity
will be gathered together in unity. You can take all of the
religions and all of the denominations in all of the world and you put
all of their leaders together in one room and they'll squabble
and fight until the Lord Jesus Christ in His deity, in His humanity
and in His perfect substitutionary birth is mentioned and then you'll
find them in unity. Pagans, atheists, so-called Christians,
they'll all be gathered together. Men will happily have any other
Jesus, won't they, and any other Gospel. We were given a graphic
testimony of that, weren't we, some years ago after having had
our discussions about the Gospel. What was the first activity of
those who had rejected the Gospel? Their very first public activity
was to proclaim this thing called Jesus All About Life. And they
joined hands together, the Catholics and the Seventh-day Adventists
and the United Church and the Anglicans, they all joined hands
together. And then they got an atheist
to put the program together because we've got to advertise this Jesus. We've got to make him known.
We've got to help proclaim him. And they joined hands together.
they joined hands together against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou
hast anointed. And yet, in this prayer, the
Church acknowledges what's going on. It acknowledges the reality.
It lays out before God the reality of the situation that's before
them. And then they want to go back to where they started. Thou
art God. Lord, thou art God. And what
does God do? What did they do? Verse 28, Acts
chapter 4. They make this declaration. This
was in their prayer. This is what they prayed. All
of this happened. All of what's come to pass has
happened. For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined
before to be done. If you recall those sermons,
Peter mentioned that to the people in his sermon in Acts chapter
2 and his sermon in Acts chapter 3. They made it abundantly clear
that everything that came to pass, everything that they did
to the Lord Jesus Christ, was done by the determinate counsel
and foreknowledge of God. No matter what the circumstances
are, no matter what the power and nature of the opposition,
no matter how many they are, no matter how fragile the church
seems to be, It will all come to pass exactly as God has determined. His eternal covenant, ordered
and sure in every detail, must be unfolded. That's the scroll
that the Lord Jesus Christ, by right of His death, by right
of His perfect righteousness, by right of His conquering all
of those things that stood against His people, entered into heaven
and He took that scroll. And He alone of all creation
was able to unloose the seals and unroll them. What's He unrolling,
brothers and sisters? He's unrolling the eternal covenant
of God. He's unrolling that book in which
the names of all of His people, His blood-bought church is written. He has that book. He unrolls
it, minute by minute by millisecond. That book is just being unrolled
and unrolled. Our God reigns. And he might have to take people
like Nedra Kineza and turn them into beasts of the field for
a season. And they'll learn. One day, one
day, everyone will learn. The heavens do rule. Write it down, brothers and sisters.
It should be the greatest comfort to us in the midst of all of
our circumstances. The apostles knew from the Word
of God that laying before them was death. The Lord Jesus had promised that
the time will come when these religious people will kill you
and think at the same time they are doing God's service. They were promised this persecution
and it will all come to pass exactly as God has determined. It's the great comfort of believers,
isn't it? Every situation is grounded in
this simple and extraordinary fact, that God's reality God's
plan, God's purpose must necessarily be unfolded. His word of promise reigns, and
His word made flesh sits on the throne of this universe, and
He's untroubled, He's untroubled in carrying out all of His design. The Lord's foundation remains
secure. The Lord knows those who are
His. It should warm our hearts, it
should be a comfort to us. And here the church in verse
29 comes and they make three simple requests of God. One of the things that is important
about these prayers is that they are simple. They are not complicated
theological dissertations. You simply lay out the reality
and the simplicity of your life before God. You remind Him of
His character. You look to Him as a sovereign
ruler. The Father knows what things
you have need of before you ask Him. He's not short of knowledge,
brothers and sisters. We don't go to prayer to teach
God something. We go to prayer for our benefit
and for His glory, for His glory. He delights in the prayers of
His people. They ask God, verse 29, they
ask God, now behold, they're threatened. He says, watch over
us. That's simply what they're asking,
isn't it? You see what's happening. You've ordained, we've just said. You've ordained what's happening.
Now watch over us. Watch over us, Lord. Behold their
threatenings. And then they have this other
request, don't they? And grant unto your servants
that with all boldness they may speak thy word. So there's one thing that the
servants want to speak, don't they? The servant just wants
to speak the word of God. I'm not here interested in giving
you my opinion. I'm not here interested in telling
you funny stories or serious stories. I'm here, and that's
what we are gathered for, aren't we? Just to hear what God says. God's people love to hear what
God says. Grant your servants boldness
to preach your gospel, to keep preaching the Lord Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. And then they ask, 30 By stretching forth thine hand
to heal, that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy
holy Child Jesus. It seems interesting, isn't it?
They've just come back from persecution. They are told by the Lord Jesus
that more persecution awaits them around the corner. And what
do they ask for? They ask for the very circumstances
that had just put them in jail. We want more of the same, Lord. It was directly related, wasn't
it? Their persecution was directly related to the healing of that
lame man And that healing in the proclamation of the Gospel
had brought upon them the wrath of the Sanhedrin. And they want
more. They want more. The one thing
that thrills the hearts of God's people, and it's something I
trust the Lord would lay on our hearts to pray, is that He would
actually create opportunities, and He would bring opportunities
before us where we have an opportunity to speak about the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is the joy, it is the comfort
of God's people. It is what we are here for, isn't
it? Just to proclaim His name. And I know, I know how discouraging
it is. I know how often in the most
extraordinary circumstances repeated so, so many times that you will
begin a conversation and it will have spiritual beginnings and
then circumstances will come along and the seed will be snatched
away by the birds of the air almost as we get started. I've
had people come and physically take up their seat and stand
between me and someone who was listening. We've had all sorts
of things happen. But I want to encourage you,
don't be discouraged. Pray for more opportunity. That's
what these disciples pray for, isn't it? In all of the discouraging
circumstances, in all of the dark clouds that were gathering
around this little church, They just ask the boldness, let us
just speak your word. May we have opportunity just
to have another chance with some eternity bound sinner to speak
the word of God. People are saved through the
proclamation of the gospel. No wonder the enemies of the
Gospel want it silenced. No wonder they have contrived
throughout history and they have contrived in the history of our
Church to try and make it as difficult as possible for people
to come and hear the Gospel. But we shouldn't be discouraged,
brothers and sisters. Our God reigns. Our God reigns. The church is a church in its
infancy here, isn't it? And in its infancy it needed
these signs and wonders. And the signs and wonders which
have made such a noise of over this last 2,000 years and it's
become a cacophony amongst a whole bunch of religious groups in
our day, they were signs and wonders which were given that
these men might preach preach the name of thy holy child Jesus. They might preach the gospel.
But they might have these signs confirming the words that they
were said, which is why when the last pen is lifted from the
pages of Scripture, there is absolutely no need for signs
and wonders ever again. We have now the completed Word
of God. Hebrews 2 very clearly states,
very clearly states that these signs and wonders were there,
God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and
with diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit according
to His own will. They were there for a season. The Church is young and in its
infancy and these signs reveal the character of the Lord Jesus
Christ. They are repeating the miracles
of the Lord Jesus Christ again and again and again. But they
are always They are always accompanied in the scriptures with a declaration
of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. So any signs and miracles
that happen today are needed to be treated with the greatest
of suspicion because none of the ones that I have ever witnessed,
none of the ones that I have ever heard about have anything
to do whatsoever with the proclamation of the Name of God. according
to the sermons that we've just read and according to the scriptures.
And yet the scriptures warn us, again and again, you can read
it in 2 Thessalonians, you can read it in Revelation 13, 14,
and throughout the scriptures there is a promise that Satan
will be a worker of miracles, counterfeit miracles abound.
The test of course, the real test is the gospel. Will they
proclaim this Jesus or will they be offended by him? God's children
don't need signs and wonders. We have the written word of God
and we need no more. And to look for something other
than what he has written is to ask to be deceived. I want you
to be secure in what he has written They might be done in the name
of Thy holy child Jesus. Let's just look at this for a
little while in closing, this amazing phrase that the apostles
are led in prayer to use twice. See, the Lord Jesus Christ lived
a life which is a reflection of the life of believers and
it's a reflection of the life of the church, isn't it? That
at the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ there was opposition to
Him. There were those who treated
his mother and father as if they were fornicators. There was the
trial that Joseph had to go through. At his conception and at his
birth Herod stood in opposition to him. Man will not have this
king to rule over them. Herod was happy to have Caesar
rule over him as long as Caesar made him a puppet. But he wouldn't
have this baby to be a king in Israel. It seems, doesn't it, it seemed
like a little child The Lord Jesus Christ came into this world
as someone who was extraordinarily vulnerable, it seemed. What is
more fragile than a little baby? Fragile, it seemed. And how fragile
must the Church have seemed? to this world. How fragile must
it have seemed when compared to all the mighty power of that
enormous Roman Empire. How fragile it must have seemed
when compared to the might and the magnificence and the pomp
and the ceremony and the history and all of the religious activity
of that Jewish world. And how many, how fragile it
must have seemed when all these enemies were now gathered as
one against this little church. And such as it is with believers,
brothers and sisters, isn't it? How fragile, how fragile it seems
from a human perspective. Each and every believer must
seem in all in the face of all the forces arrayed against us. Satan is going about as a roaring lion
seeking those whom he may devour with his myriad of demons to
assist him. We live in this world which entices
and tempts us, and we live in this world, in this Adam flesh,
which can do nothing but sin all the time. How fragile believers
are, how childlike they are in so many ways. We come into God's
presence like little children. And the Church, like the Lord
Jesus Christ, and like every believer, will triumph, won't
it? The Lord Jesus Christ triumphed
in that life when all seemed lost and the enemies triumphed. The Lord Jesus Christ, as with
every believer and with every gospel church, in the midst of
all its seeming fragility and all of its vulnerabilities, the
church is triumphant because our God reigns, our God rules. It's interesting, isn't it, to
note that we look around this religious world and we look around
our brothers and sisters in their churches throughout the world
that are in fellowship with us, not because we belong to a denomination,
not because we follow some strong man, but simply because we believe
what this book says about the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We simply believe what it says
about the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But you look at them.
and none of them have a pedigree. None of them can look back at
this long history and this collection of themes. of powerful figures. Clay's church, just a little
fragile child of a church up there in Princeton, New Jersey,
has just been going for 10 years. Greg's church in Orlando, Florida
has just been going for 20 years. Todd's church Started with nothing
and it's been going for about 30 years. Don's church is a little
bit older. The oldest one I can think of
in my knowledge of America is the one where Marvin Stornick
is pastor and it's probably been going for 50 years. None of them
have a history. None of them have anything built
up. They are, and they come into this world as a creation of God
and a habitation of God by His Spirit. And they are like children,
aren't they? They are fragile, seemingly vulnerable. seemingly like the Lord Jesus
and like this early church, surrounded by forces which are so much bigger
and more powerful all around them. And yet there is just one
issue, there is just one issue that matters, isn't it, for a
church? There's only one issue, isn't
it? Is God here? Is God bearing witness
to Himself by the proclamation of the Gospel in those places? Nothing else matters, brothers
and sisters. If you come to a place where the Lord Jesus Christ is
proclaimed by His Gospel according to these scriptures, you come
to a place where you meet with Him. You meet with Him and He
meets with you. and he inhabits the praises of
his people and his church is the habitation of God by his
Spirit. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't
matter what it looks like and it doesn't matter what this world
says, brothers and sisters. We just simply believe God. That's what we started with,
didn't we? We just simply believed God. We believed what God said
about His Son. We believed what God said about
Thy holy child Jesus. We believed about His holiness. We believed about His humanity.
We believed about His deity. We believed about what He said
happened on the cross. We believed. We believed about
what he said about him being the surety of that eternal covenant
and him loving his people from the foundation of the world.
We simply believed those things. Why? Why did we believe them? Faith comes from God, brothers
and sisters. It doesn't come because we're
more intelligent, more knowledgeable, cleverer than other people. It
is the gift of God. It's the faith that's in Him,
the faith that's by Him. So the Church speaks of the Lord
Jesus Christ as being thy holy child, Jesus. in a way to reflect
its vulnerability, also to reflect the fact of the glorious humanity
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Which is why the pastors of God's
churches look over their flock and they bring them before God
and they want to, like Paul did, to care for them He says in 1
Thessalonians, a remarkable thing, he says, but we were gentle,
1 Thessalonians 7, but we were gentle among you. Even as a nurse,
a nursing mother cherishes her children. See, the Church is
vulnerable like a little child, being so affectionately desirous
of you or for you, that we were willing to have imparted unto
you not only the Gospel of God, but our own souls, because you
were dear to us. Ye are witnesses, and God also,
of how wholly and justly and unblameably we behaved among
you that believed. And you know how we exhorted
and comforted you, and charged every one of you as a father
doth his children." See, God's pastors. are like parents, aren't
they? They care for their flock like
parents. They have the extraordinary privilege
of bringing the names of every one of them. and their children
and others before the throne of God, day by day by day, entrusting
your soul's eternal destiny into the hands of someone who's big
enough, who's big enough and powerful enough to take his people
home to him. This holy child Jesus now rules
on the throne of this universe. This holy child Jesus He came
into this world as a holy child and the world oppresses its church
but the church grows and the church continues to grow in its
wind and the Lord Jesus becomes that one that we grow on and
grow into. This holy child Jesus is the
King of the Jews and is King of Zion. That's why we are encouraged,
aren't we, in Psalm 2, to kiss the sun. Because God has set
my King on Zion. I love what my friend Greg showed
in his sermon on this psalm about the way that phrase can be rendered. It says, I have set my King upon
Zion. I have set my King upon Zion.
I have set my King upon the church, the hill of my holiness. I have
set my King upon Zion, the hill of my holiness. So he's placed
his holiness there in this holy child. He's caused his son, this
holy child, to be loved in this church, hasn't he? And he's enabled
this son to be preached in his glory there. And He's given His
people the remarkable gift of faith, simple, childlike reliance
and trust on Him. And that's why when He says,
kiss the Son, we do. God's children delightfully kiss
the Son in prayer. They kiss the Son for His salvation. They kiss Him because they love
Him. We love Him. God's children love
Him. Why do we love Him? Because He
first loved us. It's a kiss of affection. This King, this King is a holy
child. He went through all of what humanity
goes through in every way. He was weary. He sorrowed. He hungered and thirst. He had
nowhere to lay his head. See this holy child Jesus is
really a man and all of the trials that the church and all of the
trials that you as members of the church go through are trials
that he has been through. That's why I love John 12, 26. He says, if any man served me,
oh dear, won't He cause us to want to serve Him, to be just
willing servants, to have His cords and His bands and His yoke
upon us to serve Him? If any man serve me, let him
follow me. Let him follow me. The Lord Jesus
Christ caused these disciples to go into that place where He
met with the greatest opposition to Him and His cause and His
Father's glory. And he led them back into that
very place. And now they want to go back
to the very same place. If any man serve me, let him
follow me, and where I am, there shall my servant be. And where I am, there shall my
servant be. shall my servant, shall also
my servant be." You see, you cannot move, brothers and sisters
in Christ, you cannot move in this world outside of His presence. I'll never ever leave you nor
forsake you. He's with His people all the
time. He knows intimately our fears
and anxieties. He knows intimately all of the
things and the trials that we go through. He is a man, this
holy child Jesus. He's touched with the feeling
of our infirmity. He is that child born. He is
unto us a son that is given. And he's a brother. He is bone
of our bone, flesh of our flesh. And he, in that marriage union
before the foundation of the world, he left the glory of his
father's house to become one in flesh with his people. That he might suffer the things
that they suffer, that he might ache and suffer, be broken and
bruised, that he might die. die a death under the law and
the judgment of God that His people will never die, ever. He is, He is completely human. See it's in this glorious name,
Thy Holy Child, that the Church is drawn by the Holy Spirit to
pray. As I said earlier, it's had this small season of peace
and now for the rest of this time, These days it must go through
manifold trials and temptations. Satan's house has been robbed
and he's bound, that strong man is bound, bound by God and his
house is being plundered. And as we saw in Revelation 12
last week, he is enraged, he's enraged against the Church. And
yet they survive and they triumph, they overcome Him because of
the word of their testimony and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is a man, He is a perfect
man. He is the perfect man who is
our substitute and He can make attainment for us. He is the
perfect man who is our righteousness before God. That perfect righteousness
under the law of God, that spotless perfect righteousness, but also
the very righteousness of God. How suitable He is to all of
our weakness. But the best of all is that in
becoming a man, he became and was able to become one with us,
in union with us. He in us and us in him, in a
union that we delight to think about. A union that we can never
understand, but a union we can fall in love with by simply trusting
that it's true because He said it and He's done it. It's the
sweetest doctrine in Revelation, the union of the Lord Jesus Christ
with His Church. that union that sees us now seated
together with Him on the throne of this universe. As He is, so
are we in this world. We are made and going to be made
to be like Him. and we're going to be made to
be like Him through sufferings and trials of this world. But
turn us to Him and turn us to prayer. Turn us back to our God. See, any trial that causes us
to come and bow at the throne of grace is a trial that must
bless us. We can bear witness to it the
number of times that we have been through the most extraordinary
type trials in our church's history. And we've got to the stage now
where God has taught us that when we go through really difficult
trials, we look over the horizon for the blessing of God. Because
they can only come for the spiritual good of his people. They must. This worked. This persecution
caused these people to find yet again their comfort and the security
and the wonder of their safety in Him and their acceptance. We are accepted. in the Beloved. No wonder they say, James says
in 5.16, the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth
much. The supplication, the pleadings
of a righteous man availeth much in its working. What an encouragement
to pray. What an encouragement to pray.
The reality is that so often, so often the comforts of this
world cause us not to pray. It's the trials and the tribulations
and the temptations and the reality of our utter weakness that send
us independence to Him. Just briefly, in verse 41, there
is an answer, an immediate answer, isn't it? 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. Believers are left in no doubt
that their prayers were heard. That shaking that had come on
the day of Pentecost had come and returned to them again. There
was this shaking. Our God divides this world into
two things, doesn't he? This universe into two things.
Things that can be shaken and things that cannot be shaken.
God shakes this universe, brothers and sisters. He shakes this earth. The Bhagavata says, I will shake
the heavens and the earth. But in that shaking, in Haggai
2.23, he says to Zerubbabel, he says, I'll take thee, O Zerubbabel,
my servant, and I will make thee as a signet. You'll make him
as a signet ring on his finger, for I have chosen thee. We haven't come to that Mount
Sinai that can be shaken. We've come to something much
more significant and important. We've come to the Church of the
Firstborn. To be filled with the Holy Ghost
is to speak the Word of God with boldness. It is to come before
God in prayer, trusting His character, His name, and His promises, and
looking to Him to fulfil it. Let's pray.