Turn to Acts chapter 12. Acts chapter 12. Now, as I've
said to you often before, go home and read this chapter, because
I won't touch every verse, it'd just take too long. But the title of this lesson
is Purpose, Prayer, and Providence. How they all work together. God's
purpose, and prayer, and providence. Now in this chapter, the church is now going to suffer
at the hands of the state, the government, the Roman government.
The church suffered at the hands of the Jewish leaders and now
at the hand of the Roman government. If you'll see there in those
first three verses, it says, Now about that time Herod the
king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church,
and he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because
he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter
also. Then were the days of unleavened bread. He saw that it pleased
the Jews, and being the politician that he was, He went after Peter,
Peter being, at that time, apparently, the chief spokesman of the apostles
at that time. And so, Herod, he goes after
Peter. He killed James and pleased the Jews, and he thinks,
well, I'm gonna really get some points here. I'm gonna go ahead
and get Peter. And the lesson here is usually
the more God uses a man, the more that man suffers. That's
just pretty much a general rule. The more he uses a man, the more
that man suffers. The more Satan goes after that
man, the more he'll go after that man. You know, Paul was
given a thorn in the flesh because of the abundance of revelations
that were given to him. It was given to him to keep him
down. You know, when you read the Word of God, the prophets
of God never lived in luxury. You won't find one prophet that
lived in luxury. Not like these televangelists
do. They lived like common people live. But Herod here, now, Herod
put Peter in prison. He put him in there, he's going
to execute him. But we must remember this. God's in control of this
whole matter. God's in control of it. It was
James' time to die. It was his time to die. It was
his time to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ in his death. And
the time of his death and the instrument of his death was fixed
by God. Before creation, this was fixed.
This time to die and the way to die was fixed by God. But
it's not Peter's time. It's not Peter's time to die
yet. And until our time comes to die, nothing, nothing can
take us out. Nothing can harm us, not until
it's our time. And when it's our time, why,
the whole host of heaven couldn't keep us alive. It was God's will
for us to go, to leave this life. But notice this, and let's remember
scriptures like this. In Psalm 76, 10, it says this,
The wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remainder thou
shalt restrain. Herod didn't realize that what
he did to James really praised God, and it furthered the church. It strengthened the church over
time. It strengthened the church. Man purposes in his heart But
God directs His steps. You know, there are things that
I've purposed to do, like when I had a business, there was things
I purposed to do, but God directed my steps to North Carolina. I didn't see that coming. God
directs steps of every man. But how does this work in providence
in reference to the believer? How does God's providence work
in reference to us? And we should remember this.
Every day's event in our life is the unfolding of God's purpose
for us that He purposed in Christ before the world began. I was thinking of this when I
wrote this down. Let us not forget that God is
in the little things as well as the big things. You know,
we look at the big things that are happening and we talk about
the providence of God, but I tell you, the very minute and smallest
thing that you and I don't take notice of, God's in it. God purposed
that as well as he did the big things in your life. God purposed
it. It says in Romans 8.28, Everything
works together for good. In reference to the believer,
everything in your life, particularly, and in the world as a whole,
in the universe as a whole, is working for your good. It is. It's working for your good. You
know, history is nothing but the telling out of God's purpose
for me and you in Christ. That's what history is. If we
miss that, we missed history. We got it wrong. We miss it.
Now, in reference to the church, it did this. It set the church
to pray, to seeking God fervently. Anything
that makes you seek God fervently is for your good, isn't it? Anything
that makes you go to Him. is good. It's good if it makes
you go to Him. That's how it works in reference
to the church as a whole. When Zion is at ease, so is her
seeking after God. You know that individually, don't
you? When you and I are at ease, when things are going well, I
mean things are going great, we really seek the Lord less.
We seek Him less fervently, I know that. But I tell you what, when
trouble comes, hard times come, if someone's sick, a loved one's
sick, you watch us fall on our face before God and pray and
seek Him. And that's what they're doing
here. The church has gathered together and they're praying
to the Lord for Peter. They're praying for his release. He was so important to them.
And this is in God's purpose. The Word of God is so rich. You and I get to watch the stories
unfold. We get to watch the church working
on this end and God working on this end. We get to read the
whole story and put it together. Well, the same thing's going
on. God hasn't changed. God hasn't changed at all. What
if your life was written and put in here? You would see all
things working together for your good. That's what you would see
and I would see. And then, listen, it strengthens
faith when prayer is answered. It works together for the church,
the church comes together to pray, and then it strengthens
faith when it's answered. The next time you need help,
The next time the church as a body needs help, we will remember
His help in times past, won't we? And be more encouraged to
pray. You know, I am more encouraged to pray now than when I was 40
years ago. Because I can look back at this
time and this time and this time when the Lord answered prayer
and the Lord delivered. I mean made it evident it was
Him, not me or anyone else. Now what about providence in
reference to prayer? We saw it in how providence works
in the believer's life, something of the purpose of God. What about
providence in reference to prayer? It is God moving you to pray
for what He has purposed to give to you and do for you. Providence
and the things that He brings us into, puts us through, moves
us to pray for those things He has already purposed for us. He says this in Isaiah, I said
not unto the seed of Jacob, seek ye me in vain. There is a divine
purpose behind all true prayer. There's a divine purpose behind
every prayer that God has moved you to pray, that God has laid
on your heart. Has God laid someone on your heart? Someone's on your
mind and on your heart and you pray for them. God put it there.
God put that person there. Pray for them. Pray for them.
God's purpose to do something. Listen, verse 5, it says there,
"...Prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for Peter." God's purpose was to release
Peter, but He moved His people to pray for it. That when it
happens, their faith would be strengthened. And I came across this Scripture,
and as I was reading through this, It says in Psalm 103.19, His
kingdom ruleth over all. His kingdom ruleth over all.
How is that so? Well, we know it's so by our
Lord who rules over all, but also by His people who pray.
You remember Joshua? They're in a battle. I mean,
they're in a battle. And he prays, and you know what
he asked God for? The sun to stand still. And it
did. And guess who won the battle?
They did. Israel won the battle. That sun
stood still, and it was daylight until the battle was over, and
Israel won. His kingdom ruleth over all. Purpose, prayer, and providence
are all tied together by His divine decree. They are not separated. They are tied together like a
three-fold rope, which the Scripture says a three-fold cord is not
quickly broken. They're wound together. Now let's
take a little look at prayer. There's no little look at anything
in God's Word. Prayer is a part of a believer's
spiritual armor. You know that? It's over in Ephesians
6, verse 18. You go over and read that sometimes. It's a part of our spiritual
armor. Our greatest weapon against all
enemies is this one thing. Our greatest weapon in this life
is this one thing. Prayer. Behold, he prayeth. O thou that hearest prayer. He
hears prayer. James said this in James 5.16,
the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Don't ever think little of prayer. Say a little prayer for me. I
don't think so. Don't think so. There's nothing
little about calling upon God. I believe it was Mary, Queen
of Scots. who feared the prayer of John Knox more than all the
army of England. She feared his prayer more than
all of them. Prayer is addressing God by faith
in the name of Christ, our Mediator. It's not addressing Mary. It's
not addressing some departed saint. It's praying unto God
through Jesus Christ. And listen, it is a blood-bought
rite. You know, our sins make us feel
as if we're not worthy to be before the throne of grace. That's
one of the things that makes us hesitant. Which it should,
and it should run us there faster than anything. But you feel the
weight of your sins. But brethren, listen. Prayer
before the throne of grace is a blood-bought right that we
have through the Lord Jesus Christ. I have a blood-bought right to
be here before God, before His throne, before His throne of
grace. And listen, it's not only a privilege, but it's a command
to pray. In Jeremiah 33, 3, "...call unto
Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things
which thou knowest not." I thought of this when I read this again
this morning. I thought, I don't know much.
Maybe it's because I don't call much. You reckon? He said, call unto Me. and I'll
answer you, and I'll show you. I'll show you great and mighty
things which you never knew. I'll show it to you. Have you
really taken the Word of God, and when you sat down to read
it, and you have said, Lord, open the Scriptures to my understanding. Open Your Word to my understanding. Let me see you in the Scriptures. Don't just sit down and read
it. We need the Spirit of God. In reading the Word of God, we
need the Spirit of God to open it up to us. You know, I do this
because I stand here and I preach every week. I need God to open
this up. I need God to show me the message. I pray every week, every time
I'm going to stand before you, I ask God, show me the message,
make it clear to me the message that I am to give to the people.
I'm not up here, I don't want to be a commentary up here. Well,
the last thing I want to do is sound like a commentary standing
here. I want to be a messenger, give you the message, shut up
and sit down. That's what I want. And I pray God enable me to do
that. Christ, our Lord, was the greatest
example in praying. He prayed always. He prayed without
ceasing, whether He was Whether he was alone by himself praying
all night, or whether he was walking with his disciples, he
was in an attitude. First, prayer is an attitude.
We can live in an attitude of prayer. And I've learned this, attitude
is everything. It'll change your whole day. If you're in a situation
you don't like, If God changes your attitude,
it'll be all right. It'll be a good day. Attitude's
everything. And then prayer is an act of
faith. It says in Hebrews 11, 6, He that cometh to God must
believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him. You must believe that he is.
and that He's a rewarder. He's going to give you what you
ask. Not necessarily that particular, but He's going to give you what
He's willed to give you, and He's going to bring you around.
See, prayer doesn't change God at all. It doesn't change God,
it changes us. It brings us around to His will. Faith, true God-given faith comes
to the Lord, believing that He will give us what we ask. Now, I'm not asking that. We're
not talking about, give me a bigger house and a bigger car. Now,
if you need a better car, if you're in a situation where you
need something that you need it, yeah, He'll give it to you.
It gives us our needs. He's provided us all our needs
in Jesus Christ. So He will do that. But I do
know this, even in prayer we don't know what we should pray
for, do we? As we ought to. Not as we ought
to. But we do pray this, Thy will
be done. Thy will be done. You know, we
pray for things that everybody here, believer, everybody you
hear, you'll pray for things at times that you really have
some hesitancy about. You know, but here's what we
do. Thy will be done. I don't know how to pray for
this situation. Somebody may be sick. Somebody
may be sick. It may be the Lord's will that
you continue in that sickness. I pray, Lord, heal. Heal them
of this sickness. Make things better for them.
It may be that He makes things worse for you. You say, I don't
want to hear that. It's so. It's so. You know Job, when Satan first
came to God over Job, and Job lost his ten children, he lost
his servants, he lost all of his wealth, he lost all that
stuff. And it seems to me, if you read the book of Job, some
time went by, then he came back again, later. You think, wasn't
that enough? Evidently not. The second time
around, he lost his health. He lost his health. And he lost,
I mean, he was scraping boils with a pipe cleaner. It got worse. Can it get worse? Yeah, it can
get worse. If need be, it will. If need
be, it will. We don't know what to pray for,
but we do know when we do pray to say, Thy will be done. Now
that, if you end it with that, then we don't need to hesitate
about what we pray for. Because at the end of it, we
say, Lord, your will be done. You know best here. I don't.
This is just what's on my heart. This is what's on my heart. And then true prayer, listen,
true prayer is inspired by the Spirit of God. It's inspired by the Spirit of
God. He puts it on our hearts. And then prayer shows our dependence
on our Father. Cast all your cares on Him, for
He careth for you. Cast all of it. You say, I got
a headache today, but should I pray about the headache? I
mean, it just kind of goes with living in this body. Yes. Yes. Cast all your cares. If you have
a care, cast it on Him. Lord, help me. Help me. Keep me believing. Keep me coming
to You. Keep me." I've seen people go through some
really hard trials, and the best thing I could pray for them,
Lord, keep them. Because this is a tough one.
And I know that He will. But I pray it anyway. He said
to. Pray for one another. And then
true prayer is an act of worship. The leper fell down, it says,
at His feet worshiping Him, saying, Lord, if You will, You can make
me clean. It's an act of worship. And then it's also this, it shows
submission to God's will. Thy will be done. Our Father
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,
thy will be done on earth. You know what that means? In my house, as well as in heaven. Well, it's one thing to pray,
thy will be done on earth, but what about when it comes to your
house? Well, for the believer, it is
well. Thy will be done in my house
as it is in heaven. Thy will be done in my life as
it is in heaven. I got this somewhere years ago,
and I wrote it down. I know I didn't come up with
it. It's too good. We will think as much of prayer as the God
we pray to. What we call prayer life, is
it very little? Is it just very little? It may be because the
God we pray to, in our estimation, is very little. That's a powerful
statement. We will think as much of prayer
as the God we pray to. Call upon me, I will answer thee. and I'll show you great and mighty
things which thou knowest not." And then prayer glorifies God.
It always recognizes Him for who He is. He's just, He's holy,
He's merciful, He's God. He's God. Our Father which art
where? In Rome? There ain't no devil
in Rome. Our Father in heaven. our Father
in heaven. And then prayer is communion
with God. It's really talking to God. It's not babbling. It's talking
to God. Selah. Pause and think about
that. It's talking to God. And then
prayer receives the blessing of God. Every blessing... I thought
about this. And I think it's so. Every blessing
that we have, has been prayed for. It's been prayed for. First by
our Lord who intercedes for us. And then secondly, by the church
or by an individual believer, God has moved someone to pray
for you. You who believe, I guarantee
you there's somebody who's been praying for you and praying for
your salvation. If your parents were saved, your
parents were praying for you. Lord, save my son, save my daughter. And prayed for you unceasingly. Pray for your children like that.
Just pray unceasingly. As long as they got a breath
in them, pray for them unceasingly. Somebody prayed for you. First
the Lord, and I guarantee you someone, a member of the body
of Christ prayed for you, if not the whole body. And then we have the results
of the church's prayer in a sad note. The results of the prayer
and a sad note. But we know the story here. The
church is praying, Peter is in prison, and God has sent an angel
to release Peter out of prison, and the church is praying. These
are going together. God's working it together. So
the angel of the Lord was sent to set Peter free. And I want
to make a few remarks on this, if I've got time. in our salvation. First of all, this shows God's
foreknowledge. We're not informing God of anything.
It's not like God is way over to the right and when there's
something going on over here to the left, we need to tell Him about
it. We don't inform God of anything.
But He works that together to increase our faith. and for His
glory. When prayer is answered, it's
for His glory. He's moved the church here to ask, while at
the same time, He's working. He's working. But here's something that I want
to point out. The Lord sent the angel to release
Peter out of prison, just as He sent the angel of the covenant
to set us free, to set us free from our change and our bondage.
Now when this angel came into the prison, what's the first
thing that happened? It says a light. You know, if
you're going to sneak in and try to get somebody out, if you're
going to try to break somebody out of jail, you're not going
to turn the light on, are you? God never does anything in darkness.
And when God's going to save, He's going to command light.
There's going to be light first. There's going to be light. Even
right now, if God's pleased to save someone here, He's going
to command light. Even while the person sitting
beside of you may be lost and still lost, they'll never see
the light. They'll be just like these guards. They're dead asleep. They never woke up. They were
in such a deep sleep. The Lord just left them. He left
them like they were. But that light was for Peter.
That light was for Peter. When Christ came into the world,
He said, I am coming light into the world. I am the light of
the world. And you are now, you who are
saved, you are now what? Children of light. You're not
children of darkness, you're children of light. When Saul
was on the road to Damascus, a light shone round about him.
With the others there, they didn't see that. They didn't hear the
voice. Our Lord came to save a particular
people, even as that angel came to save a particular person in
that prison. There's one person in that prison,
I'm sure there were several others, but there was one he's gonna
save, and he's gonna take him out of that prison. He's going
to deliver him. He's going to deliver him. He's
going to deliver him from that prison. And those soldiers who
kept him there, someone said there was 16 soldiers. They'd
take a watch, four at a time. They'd take a watch. And they
were put to death. You look there in verse 18 and
19, Herod put them to death. He called them in, he said, what's
going on? And whenever they told him the story, he commanded that
they be put to death. But there was one that was not
put to death, that was supposed to be put to death. Peter, the
Lord's servant, the Lord's child. Our Lord came to set the captive
free and not put to death. And those chains, that were around
Peter, they had him chained, had two guards chained to him. Two guards watching the entrance,
and two guards chained to him. That's why they did it. And those
chains fell off. Only the Lord can set the captive
free. Only He can set us free. Only He can make the bondage
of sin and Satan and self fall off. Only he can do that. And you'll notice, here's something
else. These are the little things that
we pass over. These are the little things that we pass over and
we shouldn't. But you'll notice the angel of the Lord smoked
Peter on the side to wake him up. This is execution day here. He's gonna be executed here in
the morning. Would you sleep at night? Would you just go to sleep if
you're gonna be executed in the morning? I bet you everyone on death row
when their execution is imminent and it comes, I bet they don't
sleep that night. I bet they don't sleep. Peter did. He just
snoring away. He wasn't a bit afraid. He wasn't
afraid. The man, listen, the man who
said to a maid, I don't know the man. Three times he denied
Christ because he was afraid. It's amazing how fast we can
mature. And now here, he's asleep. He's
going to be executed. And he's like, I mean, it's like,
it doesn't matter. This shows how relaxed he was
about dying. Even, now listen, in verse 10,
the angel takes him out of the prison. The shackles drop off.
And listen, then they get outside the prison. Uh-oh. Oh, we got
a problem. There's a gate, a locked gate.
Well, that is a problem for me and you, but it's not a problem
for God. It's not a problem for Him. Even
the iron gate of the city opened at His will. Nothing can hold
a child, a child of God. Nothing can hold a child of God
captive. How many gates has God opened?
in our lifetime that we haven't even seen. How many gates have
we walked through, didn't even realize that they were locked,
but he just opened them up. Opened them up. And then verse
12, Peter went to where the church was gathered, and he knocks on
the door, and a damsel comes to the door, and she says, she
recognized Peter's voice. Now, you're going to get, don't
miss this. Don't miss this. Peter knocked
on the door there in verse 13, and a damsel came to hearken
named Rhoda. And when she knew Peter's voice,
she opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in and told how Peter
stood before the gate. And they said unto her, You're
mad. I mean, what's going on? They are praying
the Lord will deliver him. The Lord delivers him. And they
said, You've got to be kidding. That didn't happen. That didn't
happen. If we came here this morning
and we had a drought, and we came here this morning and prayed
for rain, we prayed for rain, and nobody brings an umbrella,
guess what? Nobody here believes it's going
to rain. It ain't going to rain. I'm going
to pray, but it ain't going to rain. They called her mad after
praying like that. Isn't God gracious to us? Providence
and prayer and God's purpose, He accomplishes and He moves.
Even while praying, they didn't believe what they were praying
for. That's amazing. And that's not only amazing, that's a lesson.
That's a lesson. Let's not be guilty of that. It's evident that God blesses
us for Christ's sake, isn't it? He blesses us for Christ's sake,
who always believed God, always did. And last of all, verse 21
through 23, Herod gets, he gets what's coming to him. God said,
vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. He killed James and saw
it pleased the Jews, he said, I'm gonna kill Peter. No, before
this happened, God's gonna kill you. You, you Herod, have served
God's purpose. And now He's going to remove
you. God raises up leaders, they serve His purpose, even though
they don't know Him, then He will remove them. He will remove
them. It says there, and upon a set
day, verse 21, upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel,
just, I mean, just popping, sat upon his throne and made an oration
unto them. And the people gave shout, saying,
It's the voice of a God and not of man. Well, but be careful
when people stroke your ego. They just saying this, this is
a voice of God, not a man, but he believed what the people were
saying. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him because
he gave not glory to God and he was eaten with worms and he
gave up the ghost, but the word of God grew and multiplied. You
can't stop it. The gates of hell, he said, shall
not prevail against the church or against the gospel. Barnabas
and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their
ministry and took with them John, whose surname was Mark. In all things, let us believe
God and give Him thanks, get thanks unto Him, and the glorious
do His name. I enjoyed that lesson. I hope
I got something across. I hope the Lord impressed you
with something. I do. All right.