Prayer meetings are vital for the church's spiritual health and effectiveness, as demonstrated by the early Christians in Acts 4. When faced with opposition, they did not rely on human methods but turned to prayer, seeking God's power and guidance. The sermon emphasizes that true Christian unity is divinely created, not man-made, and that believers are drawn together by the Holy Spirit. It calls for acknowledging Christ's lordship and headship, expecting God to act, claiming His promises through scripture, and praying for boldness to speak His word, rather than for an easy life. Ultimately, the sermon concludes that a prayerful, Spirit-filled, and unified community, focused on God's kingdom, will experience His power and grace.
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Last night we had a good start to our conference, I thought, from the fourth chapter of the Acts. And Brother Morgan got up to speak on it. I was sitting there debating whether I ought to get up and read the fourth chapter of the Acts. And I had almost done it. I'm glad now I didn't. I think the things that he gave us were better suited for last night. But I'm not going to let that discourage me from reading the same passage. So we're going to turn to Acts chapter four again this morning and begin to read with the twenty-third verse.
My recommendation for every young man is that he spoke his soul in the Acts of the Apostles. It'll save you a lot of trouble. When you learn how God's people did things in the beginning, you won't be so apt to be misled by all of the modern methods of our day. A couple of years ago, I shared a conference with my good friend, Ernie Wilson, T. Ernest Wilson from Africa, and he said, I am appalled at what I see in the United States. And my soul is grieved to find that so many of our brethren in the United States seem to believe that you can cure anything with man, machinery, and money.
And it's simply not so. That's not the answer to our problems. And we've got problems. Brother, we've got problems. I don't know very many assemblies, but are not faced with genuine problems today, and we're trying to solve them with men, money, and machinery. What we ought to do is to get on our faces, as they did in the early days, every time a difficulty arose, every time there was an emergency, an exigency of any kind, the people of God got on their faces before the Lord.
They expected God to do things through them, and God did things through them, and He'll still do things through us. He's looking for that kind of people. He says His strength is made perfect in weakness. Oh, I'd like for us to get into the Word of God, and especially into the Acts of the Apostles, and find out how simply how totally without organization, how totally without the modern means of communication, how totally without all of the things that we think are so essential, they carried on a gospel work that covered the whole known world in the first century.
Acts chapter four, verse twenty-three, they had just been arrested. They had preached the word. When they couldn't do anything to them, they had let them go. Being let go, they went to their own company. This was kind of a principle, I think. Water seeks its own level. Christians seek their own company. I grew up on a farm in Iowa. And I learned a long time ago, if you see a cow out by herself out in the pasture, you better ride out and find out what's the matter.
If you see one of the Lord's people and he doesn't want to be with other Christians, you better find out why. Being let go, they went to their own company. This is the most normal thing that you could think of among Christians. We want to be with other Christians. I guess it would be nearly fifty years ago now, that my uncle, just a newly saved Christian, probably shouldn't have been taking any part in the conference at all, got up in a conference and said, O Lord, we read in thy holy word that birds of a feather flock together. Then he realized what he said, and he sat down right quick.
Well, now he didn't have the right scripture, but he did have the right idea, didn't he? If he just hadn't said it was in the Bible, he wouldn't have been too far off, because birds of a feather do flock together. You want to be with God's people. Being let go, they went for their own company. Now, the Holy Spirit produced this unity. Brother Arthur Rogers, of happy memory for many of us, took me with him in He was very patient with me. And I remember one time I got a wonderful sermon on endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace from the fourth chapter of Ephesians.
And I just had it all nicely outlined and I was sure it would cure all the problems because I'd heard that there were some problems in that area. So I got up and I unrealed my sermon. And I said to the folks, what we've got to do is to make unity among the Lord's people. And I hammered away at making unity. So when we got home, back to where we were staying, Brother Rogers said to me, how do you read that verse in Ephesians? I said, what do you mean? How do I read it? Well, he said, I thought maybe you had a different version or something.
And I opened my Bible and I read, Endeavouring to keep the unity of the... Endeavouring to what? Endeavouring to keep the unity of the... Endeavouring to do what of the unity? Oh, I see. You don't make it at all. You keep it. You can't make unity. All you can do is make union. That's all you can do. The Spirit of God made a unity between us. Now, I don't suppose you'd be very much impressed by the Walden family, but we are. We like each other's company.
We get together for family reunions. We talk about the same things we've talked about for the last hundred and fifty years, more or less. You wouldn't be the least bit interested. You'd wonder how we could spend a whole day in each other's company, but we enjoy it. We are each other's kind of people. And I suppose the world wonders that some of the things that we do together, they don't understand that God has made us one kind of people. He's put the same life in each believer.
And this draws us to each other as metals that are magnetized, attract each other. So Christians who are in dwelt by the Holy Spirit are drawn naturally to each other. Aren't you happy when you meet another Christian kind of unexpectedly, maybe traveling or in a store or something? Doesn't it make you feel glad? They say that old Donald Ross was preaching way up in northern Canada for a long time. It's been a way where he had no Christian fellowship. And he wrote to some friends, if the Lord opens the way, I'm going to go down to the Orillia Conference.
He said, I'm so lonesome for the Lord's people, I'd be glad to see a Christian's dog. So these people said, we want to get to where the rest of the believers are. And they did. And then they reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. That is, they shared with each other. Now, I think that persecution often strengthens fellowship. I think that difficulties drive people together. I've known of families where there were rifts and then death comes in or trouble comes in and it kind of drives them back together again. I think that's good. I think that's good among the Lord's people.
Sometimes difficulties among Christians will draw us together. And this persecution gave them a new kind of a common bond. Not the common bond of life, but the common bond of problems. And so they were drawn together and they talked together about the things they shared together, the problems that they had. And after all, if you can't do this with your brothers and sisters, who can you do it with? Sometimes I wonder at young Christians who don't enjoy the companionship of other Christians. And I even heard one young fellow say, a high school boy, he said, well, I don't like to go to the prayer meetings.
After all, I don't have anything in common with them. What he meant was they were mostly old people, and this is lamentable. It's true in many places. Most of the people at the conference, I mean at the prayer meeting, were old people, and he said, I don't have anything in common with them. Well, now we ought to find what we have in common, and let's don't get junior and senior churches in our assemblies. where all the old fellas get together and talk about what happened long time ago, and then the young fellas face up to what's now. But let's remember that we do have a common bond, and we do have many common subjects. And wherever the Lord's people are persecuted, I tell you they've got a common subject.
They got together and they talked about how difficult it was to go on for God. Maybe if you and I were living godly in Christ Jesus and suffering a little persecution... We'd have something to talk about when we get together. Now notice that their resource was in God. As soon as they had told to each other what was happening, it says, verse twenty-four, when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, thou art God, which has made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is. who by the mouth of thy servant David has said, Why did the heathen rage?
And the people imagined vain things. The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. First of all, they gave the Lord his right place. I don't think that prayer meetings are going to be much value if we don't give the Lord his right place. Unless you acknowledge the lordship of Christ in your personal life, And the headship of Christ in your assembly life. I don't think your prayer meetings are going to amount to a hill of these. Let me say that again. I want you to get this. Unless you acknowledge the lordship of Christ in your personal life.
And then the headship of Christ in the assembly life. Unless you do this. It isn't likely that you're going to get anywhere at all, and the Lord says. Is the Lord the Lord of your life? Is he the head of the company of believers where you meet? Remember this, that Christ is the head rules not through a town hall meeting when all the brethren get together and the man with a loudest voice gets his own way. The Lord leads in the assembly through elders. This is God's way of leading in the local assembly.
The responsibility lies with elders. That's why he says, let the prophet speak two or three and let the others judge. The others are the ones who listen. We who come in to speak the word of God ought to be subject, and I want to be subject to my elder brethren. For they are in a far better position than I as a judge of my ministry is going to be helpful, or if it has been helpful. Now let's acknowledge the Lord in giving him his right place. And when they did that, and the next thing that they did was to acknowledge his power. They said, Lord, you made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything, your greatness.
is enough to draw us to thee and to expect blessing from thee. I attended a prayer meeting. I won't tell you where, because you might have an aunt Fanny in that meeting, and then you'd write and tell her, and I'd be in Dutch. So I'm not going to tell you where it was, but I'll tell you this much. It was as dead as a go-go. All they needed to do was bulldoze a little dirt over and bury the whole thing. There wasn't anything going on. They told me that they hadn't seen anybody saved for so long they couldn't remember when. No young people there at all, and the work just gradually sinking into the ground.
And the opening hymn was, Revive Thy Work, O Lord. sung to the temple of the funeral dirge. And then different ones got up and repeated a few prayers, and then I couldn't stand it any longer, and I got up, and I said, what did you expect was going to happen here tonight? And eyes popped out, and they looked at me, and they looked at each other, and all the strange questions that I asked at a prayer meeting. And I just waited a little bit, thought maybe somebody might answer, and nobody did, and I asked it again, what did you expect to happen here tonight?
And you could see the amazed look on the faces of all the people there. Nobody expected anything to happen. In fact, if anything had happened, they would have been surprised out of about ten years at Rose. Who expects anything to happen at a prayer meeting? We only came because it's Wednesday night. Don't you understand? We always come here on Wednesday night. and we go through this rigmarole and then we go home and we feel like we've maintained a testimony. So I read this passage. I said things started to happen when God's people prayed in the first century. The reason they started to happen was because they expected God to be able to make things happen.
God could say the word and He made the universe happen. God can say the word and He can make things happen. happening your life and in your assembly. They expected of God. Then the next thing that they did was to start to quote scripture to God. Now we need to be careful that we don't make our prayer meetings practice sessions for our memorization program. I hate to see somebody get up and see how many verses he can quote. On the other hand, I like to see somebody get up in a prayer meeting and say, Thou hast promised this.
I knew one godly man who always prayed with his Bible open. Before he prayed, he found something that he felt that he could claim. He laid that Bible down on the bed and he kneeled down beside it and he put his finger right on the verse. Right on the verse. And then he shot his eyes and said, Lord, you know that man got answers to his prayers. Would you expect the Lord to turn down a fellow like that? If we put his finger right on the verse, He says, Lord, you promised this. And so they said to him, Lord, thou hast spoken. So not only is God's honor at stake, but God's word is at stake. You could expect answers to your prayers if you went to God in that way.
And then the next thing that they did was to go over the ways of God. They said, now, Lord, of a truth against thy holy child Jesus the word child here and in verse thirty is the word servant in the revised version against thy holy servant Jesus whom thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined for to be done and now Lord Behold, they're threatened. Lord, they put your son to death, and now they're after us.
That's what they said. That's a very free translation. That's exactly what they said. Lord, they put your son to death, and now listen to them. They're after us. Now, what would you expect would be the next thing? Lord, don't let them do it. Isn't that the way you'd pray? Isn't that the way you'd pray? Lord, stop them from putting us to death. Well, they never prayed that way. When Paul was in jail, he sent words to the Ephesians to pray for him. Remember what he asked for? Pray that the Lord will get me out of this stinking place.
The Mamertine prison was an awful place to spend the winter. He wrote to Timothy and said, Bring that extra coat for me. I'm going to need it this winter. Is that what he said when he wrote to the Ephesians, pray that the Lord will get me out of this place in the forewinter? He never even mentioned. He said, you ask the Lord to give me boldness so that I'll speak what I ought to speak to these people. I'm chained to a soldier, one on each side. I'd like to win both of these soldiers to Christ. And they're bringing other prisoners in. And I'd like to win these other prisoners to Christ. He got some of them, too. Onesimus was one of them. That's what he asked for.
And that's what they asked for. They said, Now, Lord, behold, there are threatenings, and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy words. Don't give us an easy life. Truman said you never had it so good, and that became the slogan of his day. Roosevelt said it's a new deal, and that became the slogan of his day. All of the slogans that we've had in the United States for the last thirty years have had to do with the easy life. This is the route of the politician. Vote for me and I'll see that you have two Cadillacs in every garage and two chickens in every pot and you'll just have a wonderful time.
Everything will go smoothly. And nothing could be worse for a Christian spirituality. I'm convinced of that. We ought never to pray for each other that you'll have a lovely, smooth sailing, smooth time all through the days ahead. Now, Paul did take at least one journey on boats in which he describes that they came without event. They sailed very smoothly from here over to there, and not one single thing happened. But then he describes another journey. Another boat trip, and brother, things happened right and left on that boat trip.
Now, which was the best one? Which one of those boat trips brought the most glory to God? Which one of those boat trips brought the most people to know God, to understand about God? Which one of those boat trips gave the most opportunity to be of use to God? Answer it yourself. What did you ever learn in a good day? what you call a good day. What did you ever learn when things went smoothly? Maybe you're different from me, but I don't learn anything when things are like that. I just sit down and enjoy it. They said, what we want, Lord, is boldness to speak thy word.
By stretching forth I am to heal and the signs and wonders which were in keeping with that particular day, not our day. may be done by the name of thy holy child or servant, Jesus. And then when they had prayed, then things started to happen. Our brother Mr. Morgan mentioned this last night, but at the risk of repeating, I'm going to tell you a little bit about what I see ought to happen in prayer meetings. First of all, I think there ought to be a shaker. God is the great shaker. God shakes things. You go back to the book of Haggai and see what he says.
He said, I'm going to shake things one of these days. And the writer of the Hebrews in the twelfth chapter says, the Lord said he was going to shake things one of these days for the last time. Now God's always been shaking things. What a shaking there was when the flood came. Didn't leave much that time, did he? It wouldn't shake. And what a shaking there was in the days of the judges. And what a shaking there was, oftentimes in the days of the kings. And what shakings are described in the Psalms. And then in the days when they were taken down into exile, how many times God shook the people of God, shook them loose from their own way.
And then you come into the New Testament and Don't you see God shaking things or take your own history? You say, don't ask me to pray for this. I don't like to be shaken. I don't like anything shaky. I know you don't. But you and I have got a lot of things we need to be shaken loose by. There are a lot of things in our lives that need to be shaken. Our assemblies need a good shaking. It's not my job to do it. I didn't come to Omaha to do any shaking. God forbid that I should try to shake anybody.
But I'd like to put myself, along with yourselves, in the hands of God and say, Lord, one of these days you're going to shake everything until the things that cannot be shaken will be the only thing left. And since this is true, it might be a good idea to get some of these other things trip loose now in that twelve chapter Hebrews read it when you have time he says yet once more will I shake all things and yet once more he says means that the things which cannot be shaken will still remain I'll shake everything loose that can be shaken now what will remain well he goes on to say We receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved.
All you're going to have left, brother and sister, when God gets through shaking things is the kingdom. That's all you'll have left. Anything you have invested in the kingdom, that'll last. Anything you invested in the first national bank, it's going to be shaken. Lot put all his and solace. Abraham put all his outside of Sodom. Somebody said you couldn't have sold Abraham the first national bank corner in Sodom at half price, because God had already told him what he was going to do with the whole stinking mess. And if you and I really believe that God is soon going to shake all the things in this whole world, as he says in the twenty first of Ezekiel, overturn, overturn, overturn.
until he comes whose right it is to reign. If you really believe that, you wouldn't get your roots down so deep. I think we need a lot of things shaken out of our lives, shaken out of our minds, and maybe shaken out of our pockets. Then the second thing that happened is that they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. To hear most Christians tell about it, you would assume that being filled with the Holy Ghost is one of the most unusual things and only reserved for a select few. I believe that it's the norm. I believe that this is the way every Christian ought to live every day of his life. The filling of the Spirit of God.
Don't confuse this with the baptism of the Holy Spirit or the sealing of the Holy Spirit or the earnest of the Holy Spirit or any of these other words. Every Christian... When he believes in the Lord Jesus immediately is baptized, rather it took place at Pentecost, but it becomes ours then in reality, we are put into the one body. We are joined to the Lord. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We never need to carry or pray for the Holy Spirit. But let me tell you something. Unless you clean out some of the junk and trash and all that there is in your heart and life, you're not going to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
There isn't room for the Holy Spirit to take charge. I've got my plans. How can the Spirit of God use his plans? I've got my interests. How is there any room for his interests? If you read the fifth chapter of Ephesians, And notice that he commands us. He commands us to be filled with the Spirit of God. He says, don't be drunk with wine. A man under the influence of wine, he talks different. He walks different. He acts different. He even thinks different than he did before.
And a person who is completely under the control and influence of the Holy Spirit, he walks different. He talks differently. He sees things differently. He lives a different way because he is filled with the Spirit of God. This is what God expected of all believers. You want this to happen to you? Are you right? Sure you do. It's going to spoil some of your plans. Some of your selfish ways are going to have to go. And then you see that They were bold in witnessing.
They had prayed for this. And the end of verse thirty-one says, They spake the word of God with boldness. Verse thirty-three says, With great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. They're not very good witnesses, are we? How long has it been since you had any part in leading the soul of Christ? I'm not talking about the gift of an evangelist now. I recognize that this is a gift. I'm talking about witnessing. Witnessing is not a gift. Witnessing is a responsibility laid upon every child of God.
In the eighth chapter of the Acts, all the Christians were scattered abroad, had to leave Jerusalem. All but the apostles. The apostles, I suppose, were in jail. Everybody else scattered here and there and everywhere. Then it says, they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. Who preached the word? Everybody but the preachers. That's exactly what happened in the early church. Everybody but the preachers preached the word. If this was going on in Omaha or wherever you live or where I live, what a tremendous difference this would make. How long has it been since you witnessed somebody about the Lord?
Give them tracks. Yes, I think every Christian ought to have a consecrated pocket. I think you ought to have tracks with you all the time. But do more than that. Use the track as a wedge to get in. Get in the conversation with people. You will find that there are people all around you who want to talk about these things. They're disturbed about what they see, and if you've got an answer... And if the Lord has given you peace and he's given you satisfaction, they'll listen to God. They're looking for the right thing. Don't go at them and start pounding on them about their churches.
Don't look for trouble. Don't look for something you can disagree about. Just witness to them about Christ. You do this with holy boldness. I believe you've been in this kind of a prayer meeting. Then notice the unity in verse thirty-two. The multitude of them that believe were of one heart and one soul. You know it's awfully hard to be mad at somebody after you pray with them. I think if you're unhappy with somebody, the best thing you could do is just get alone and pray with them. That's what my wife and I do. we began when before we were married we began praying together she said she couldn't she never prayed out loud before anybody i said well you might as well get used to it one time as another kid because that's what's going to be at our house and so we started in while we were keeping company with each other we started in having prayer together now this is one of the nicest things and uh We can kind of be nifted each other all day.
But when it comes time to pray together at night, you know, it just won't work anymore. I mean, how are you going to stay mad at anybody when you pray together? Are you not getting along with some Christian? Go go over and take him apart. Go over and pray with him. Just say, couldn't we get together and pray? First thing you know, you'll be telling the Lord what you find out about yourself that isn't right. And this will make him ashamed of the way he's doing it. And then he'll tell the Lord, well, really, it wasn't his fault. It's all of mine. First thing, you know, differences between Christians are removed because we've been in the presence of God.
Unity was the result. Then look at the unselfishness. Why nobody said he owned anything. You say, what are you preaching? Communism? No, I'm preaching Christianity. This was first century Christianity. Is it wrong to have a farm? Is it wrong to have money in the bank? Is it wrong to have a nice car? I hope not. I'm picking up a nearly new one on the way home. It was left by a friend of mine who died last spring, left in his car. No, that isn't the problem.
The problem isn't in possessing the things. The problem is in the things possessing us. These people never said that they owned anything. They said we're holding it for the Lord. It is. If the Lord says you keep that for another twenty years, you keep it. He says dispose of it tomorrow, then you dispose of it tomorrow. But remember that you are merely a steward and you do not possess anything. In fact, the rest of this chapter tells how that they sold their land and distributed it and sought of the needs of others. And verse thirty-three said that there was great power. Oh, you know the lack of power.
You know we're not seeing souls saved in our assemblies. You know how weak we are. You know how we just feel like, how can we carry on? There's so few of us. Our brother and sister, all we need to do is get plugged into the powerhouse. I tried to show the young people up at camp. We have a skill saw. Some of you may not know what this is. A saw for, we can saw two-inch lumber with it and just go roaring through it. And I took this thing down to the chapel to show the kids. And I said, now watch me when I took a hold of it and nothing happened. And one of the kids said, plug it in.
As much as you say, you stoop. Did you know enough to plug it in? And so I turned around and I plugged it in and I ripped right through that lumber. Power at my fingertips. Me? No. Electricity coming into this power saw. If you think you're going to go home and set the world on fire and you're going to do a lot of things in your assembly, you're in for disappointment. Especially if you think you're going to do it because you got a new building. How many Christians have been disappointed Just because they got a new chapel, they thought, well, stand in line to get in to see it. And they stayed away in droves.
No, no, that isn't how you're going to see blessing. You're going to see blessing when you get in the presence of God and begin to draw power from the risen Christ at the right hand of God. And then last, but certainly not least, the end of verse thirty-three, great grace was upon them all. I can tell if you've been in the presence of the Lord because you'll be a gracious person. There was never in the Scriptures a proud man who had been in the presence of God. Job said, I abhor myself. Solomon said, I'm just a little child. I don't know enough to go out doors and come back in again.
John said, I fell at his feet as one did. Every person who ever got into the presence of God thought little of himself, the grace of God kept him the kind of a person that could represent his Lord. Wonderful things happen with prayer meetings like this. Maybe we need more of them. Begin yourself. Then find someone you can pray with, maybe only one, and then watch the thing spread and see what will happen in your assembly when God's people get together and claim blessing from the Lord.