The
Importance of Prayer. Acts 4:25-37
We are studying this
tremendous prayer of the apostles following the arrest of Peter and John and
their interrogation by the Sanhedrin, and their release by the Sanhedrin, and
then we saw that they came back to the other disciples where they gave a report
of what had happened. Once they had told everything that had happened—which emphasizes
the importance of getting all the facts before we pray—they put together and
thought through a prayer.
We do not always
emphasize the importance of prayer as much as we should. Prayer is to
characterize everything in our lives. We have had commands like Colossians 4:2
that we are to devote ourselves to prayer, which means we are to make it a
priority that is consistent in its habit pattern. It is something that we need
to do to overcome a lot of distractions and a lot of things that come into our
lives to interfere with prayer; we have to make that a point. 1 Thessalonians
5:17 says that we are to pray continuously. We define
prayer this way for the believer in the church age: prayer is a grace provision
for every member of the royal family of God; it is part of our priesthood. We
all have that privilege to bring our petitions and requests to God at any moment
without going through an intermediate priesthood. The purpose of the
communication is:
Our prayer that we
are studying begins in verse 24 and extends through verse 30 is primarily
a petition prayer. It is a prayer of petition for God to strengthen them in
terms of the mission He has assigned them in light of the adversity and
opposition that they are experiencing. So there is not an expression of
thanksgiving here, not a confession of sin here. There is an expression of
orientation to God in terms of His character in the opening address, expressing
it in terms of the sovereign authority of God over everything in creation. That
is a passage that comes out of Psalm 146 and relating to one particular verse
that is tied to the character of God but specifically God as creator. Then the
next verse talks about the God who executes justice for the oppressed, which is
where they are. They are pulling out of a particular psalm that which deals
within the psalm with the problems that they are facing in terms of a government
authority that has run amuck.
Then we saw that in
vv. 25 and 26 they pull a quote from Psalm 2. The point of this is focusing on
the fact that their argument—laying a foundation—is an appeal to God to
intervene in their life in a certain way. The next plank in the development of
their thought is to say that God was the one who told us that we are in a
battle, and ultimately the battle will end but the character of the battle
throughout history is that the kings of the earth will gather against Him.
There will always be this battle between human authority that is independent of
Him seeking to control and dominate history. This focuses on hostility against
God and His Messiah but ultimately He will have victory, but what the disciples
were experiencing in Acts chapter four by application is part of that battle. They
know that that battle is never going to cease until the Messiah returns. They
are quoting the Psalm to emphasize to God that His revealed will is to put down
the attack of secular powers against the Messiah.
Notice that they are praying in terms of what God’s revealed
will is. A lot of times we don’t know what God’s revealed will is. We are to pray according to His will but we don’t know
what that is, so in many cases we can’t pray withy as much certainty as here
because here they are praying in terms of specific principles that God has laid
down: that His is revealed will is to defeat the secular powers that are
arrayed against Him. This reinforces for them in terms of their own sense of
confidence which is a major part of their petition: as they face opposition, as
they face hostility that they will have confidence and boldness to fulfil the
mission that God has given them. They state their petition in verse 26 (a quote
from Psalm 2:2)—in the original psalm it says that the rulers will gather together
against the Lord [Yahweh] and against the Anointed one [Messiah]—their application
is stated in verse 27: “For truly
in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom
You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the
peoples of Israel.” They are taking two or three concepts out of Psalm 2 and
specifically weaving that verbiage into their appeal to God. They are laying a
foundation, building a petition, for why God should answer their prayer. They
build a biblical case for His intervention based on His Word, based on
promises.
So when we
get into passages like 1 John 5, talking about “We know that if we ask anything
according to His will He hears us,” this is how we know His will: if we can
articulate our petition in terms of the promises and procedures that God has
laid down in His Word, so that we are basically coming to God and using these
passages from Scripture correctly within their contexts and applying them
correctly and creating this kind of an appeal, that God would be honored and
glorified.
Acts 28 NASB
“to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined
to occur.” The paradox of this verse: on the one hand there are these human rulers who are antagonistic
to God and are gathered together to oppose God, exercising their volition
freely to oppose God, and yet what it is that they are doing actually is God’s
plan. Throughout the Scriptures we often have the use of a metaphor for the
power of God. The Scriptures talk about the arm of God or the hand of God, and
it is with our arm or our hand that we do things. So the arm or hand of God is usually
a metaphor for God utilizing His power to intervene in human history. It is anthropomorphism,
which means that it us using an aspect of human anatomy to relate something
about God’s character or His attributes. To paraphrase this, it is “to do
whatever your power [or will] wishes to accomplish.” Then the second part of
this is “Your purpose predestined to occur.” Whenever we have the word “predestined”
something happens to people’s brains, they just have some sort of spiritual seizure
and either go off in one direction or another and
immediately there are all kinds of problems. Because the English word “predestined”
has come to communicate something more in the order of fatalism, that there is
a certain course of action that has been set forth that we cannot deviate from
in the plan of God. That really isn’t what the word indicates in Scripture or
in the original meaning of the English.
If we just
break down the word predestined there is the prefix “pre,” which means
beforehand, and the word “destined,” which has to do with a destiny or goal or
objective. The basic meaning of the word “predestined” is merely to establish or
to set forth a goal or an objective ahead of time. We do that every morning
when we make a to-do list for the day. That really captures the idea of the
Greek word proorizo [proorizw] which is translated into English as “predestined.”
proorizo means to decide upon a
course of action ahead of time, or prior appointment, to appoint something to a
position beforehand. It is a verb, a rare Greek word. It is used six times the
New Testament: once in Acts, and five other times by Paul. Where there are only
five instances of a word it is really difficult to nail down the specifics of the
meaning. This word is only used one time in classical Greek literature that we
know of prior to the New Testament and that was in the fourth century BC. The root idea seems to have the idea of appointing someone to do
something ahead of time.
When we
look at this word we find no use of it in the Old Testament; it is not used in
the LXX at all. It is used one time by Demosthenes in the 4th
century BC, and he writes in the context of a court case in
which he was trying to recover in court a house that he had inherited but had
been fraudulently taken from him by a man named Onitor
[sp?]who was attempting to steal this house from him. So
in court Demosthenes wrote: “To prove that these statements of mine are true,
that he [Onitor] even now declares that the land is
mortgaged for a talent, but that he’d laid claim [proorizo] to 2000 drachma more on the house.” The question
we ought to ask is what does laying claim on something have
to do with predestination? When we look at such a well-known passage as Romans
8:29: “For those whom He foreknew, He also LAID CLAIM{to become} conformed to the image of His Son…” That gives a whole
different focus on that passage now. Hypocrites [sp?] also used it in about the
3rd century AD used it to describe the early diagnosis of
a disease, like a prognosis which is from the Greek word proginosko [proginwskw] meaning to know before hand—so a
prediction about what the course of the disease will be. It was once used in
the 3rd century in
A related
word, horizo [o(rizw] means to limit or to set a limit, or to
fix or to appoint something, to establish it. proorizo
would mean to establish it ahead of time. It is used tat way in Luke 22:22 NASB
“For indeed, the Son of Man is going as it has been determined [planned ahead
of time]; but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!” Acts 2:23 uses it in the
same sense: NASB “this {Man,} delivered over by the predetermined
plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless
men and put {Him} to death.” We could say, “by the
previously appointed plan and foreknowledge of God.” So God had a plan. Nobody
has a problem with saying God has a plan. When God created the heavens and the
earth and the sea and all that is in them He certainly had a plan. Acts
The Greek
word aphorizein [a)forizein] is used ten times in the New Testament with the idea of to separate—Romans
1:1; Galatians 1:15; Acts 13:2, to indicate that God is setting apart or separating
something for a particular reason. Kittel’s Theological
Dictionary of the New Testament (which always has to be evaluated on a somewhat
cautious basis) says the core meaning of the word is God marking something off
for His purpose or for His service. That is the main idea; it is not
predestination, it is God in His plan defining and determining something within
a specific role.
If we
translate something along the lines of “previously appointed” it is the best idea
there in Acts 4:28: that they were to do “whatever your power previously appointed
to occur.” God’s plan was for the Messiah to be crucified and as much as they
went against God nevertheless God used it to bring about His purpose in the
crucifixion. God did not violate their volition; they freely chose to rebel
against God and to crucify the Messiah.
We know that God is the sovereign of the universe and has a plan for His
creation that is consistent with His omniscience because His omniscience is
always the same; it never increases or decreases. He always know simultaneously
and intuitively everything that that is ever going to happen in all of
eternity. So when He establishes a plan for creation His plans take into
account everything that He knows could possibly take place. So it ends up being
a perfect plan. Isaiah 14:24, 27 talk about this plan. NASB “The LORD of hosts has sworn
saying, ‘Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have
planned so it will stand’ …. For the LORD of hosts has planned, and who can frustrate {it?}
And as for His stretched-out hand, who can turn it back?” God has a plan and a
purpose in history. That doesn’t mean there is no volition but it means that
God has constructed history and so oversees history so as to bring about His
purpose. Isaiah 46:9-11 NASB “Remember
the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; {I am} God,
and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from
ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be
established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’; Calling a bird of
prey from the east, The man of My purpose from a far country. Truly I have
spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned {it, surely} I will do it.”
Romans
God’s plan includes appointing specific people for a
specific task, and we could add two specific goals. Above all this involves
appointing the Lord Jesus Christ to the task of carrying out and fulfilling our
salvation.
The paradox on Acts chapter four is that on the one
hand these rulers of the earth representing a foreshadowing of those kings of
the earth in Psalm 2:2 are gathered together, but what they accomplish is
exactly what God had determined would be accomplished in terms of salvation,
the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then we come to the petition. They have set up the rationale now for
God to act a certain way and now they are going to call upon God to act in a specific
way. Acts 4:29 NASB “And now, Lord, take note [observe or pay
attention to] of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak
Your word with all confidence, [30] “while You extend Your hand to heal,
and signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus”—validate
what we are teaching by giving us power in terms of signs and wonders and
miracles that you promised would validate the ministry. The first thing that
they are asking is for God to observe the threats, to be aware of the fact that
they are facing opposition and to deal with that opposition and protect them
while they carry out the ministry that God had commanded them. Secondly, that
God would give them the ability to speak the Word with confidence, with
boldness. The Greek word here is parrhesia
[parrh(sia], to speak with boldness or confidence so
that they would do what God had said to do—Acts 1:8. The third thing is that
God would give them the power in terms of signs and wonders and miracles that
would go forth as their credentials. We know from 2 Corinthians 12 that signs
and wonders were the sign of the apostle; they weren’t something that every Christian
did, only the apostles because it validated their message that God was working
through them. So their prayer is specifically related to these promises from
the Old Testament and from the command that Jesus had given them just a few
weeks earlier.
Praying in the will of God. They knew exactly
what God’s will was: for them to stand up against the rulers and the kings of
the earth and to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. That is a great way
to pray: look at a problem, a situation in terms of how does God say I am to
act and deal with this kind of a situation; then pray that God will give the
wisdom, the ability, the skill, the insight to do what I am to do in that
circumstance, and at the same time that God is going to deal with whatever the
other forces of opposition might be: I do my mission while God accomplishes His
mission.
A lot of times we don’t have that kind of specificity.
We can think of examples where we know that God’s will is contrary to what we
are praying for. For example, in 2 Samuel 12 Bathsheba had become pregnant,
David had been involved in the conspiracy to get her husband Uriah killed, and going was going to discipline him. God
had already announced that part of that discipline would be that the child born
from Bathsheba was going to die. David knows that is God’s will but David continued
to petition God to let the child live. David wasn’t wrong in doing that. James
said we have not because we ask not. There are numerous examples in Scripture
where God has answered prayer and changed what appeared to be a specific course
of action due to petition.
In other cases we really don’t know what to pray for. Romans 8 says that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us. Romans
8:26, 27 NASB “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness [spiritual
infirmities]; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit
Himself intercedes for {us} with groanings too deep
for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is,
because He intercedes for the saints according to {the will of} God.” The “groanings” is inaudible from the Spirit to God. It can’t be
articulated, we don’t know what it is but what the passage is saying is that
when we don’t know what the specifics should be in terms of prayer the Holy
Spirit does, and He straightens out our muddied-up prayer requests on the way
to God.
Another example of the kind of general prayer that is
the best we can offer is in Luke 18:13 NASB “But the tax collector,
standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven,
but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’” He can’t
even go beyond that, all he wants is God’s mercy. Sometimes that is the bets we
can do in a prayer because we just don’t know we ought to pray. Paul has the
same kind of prayer in Romans 1:10 NASB “always in my prayers making
request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to
you.” He tried to go to
Here though, in Acts chapter four, they are praying
for something specific and it is in terms of what the Lord Jesus Christ
commanded them in Acts 1:8 and what God had promised in terms of Old Testament principles.
Now here is the answer. Acts 4:31 NASB “And when they had prayed,
the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled
with the Holy Spirit and {began} to speak the word of God with boldness.” Where
else did this shaking happen? In Acts 2 on the day of
Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came. This is the same kind of thing.
They are praying in terms of Acts 1:8, God give us boldness and confidence in
the midst of opposition. So God answers their prayer. The place is shaken just
like on the day of Pentecost and they are all filled with the Holy Spirit. This
is not the word for filling that we have in Ephesians 5:18—different Greek
word; different preposition; different grammatical construction. Here “they
were all full of the Holy Spirit.” It is a genitive of content. When this Greek
word pimplemi [pimplhmi] is used it is
almost always followed by some kind of speech event—with Zachariah the father
of John the Baptist, Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist, with Mary the
mother of Jesus, with Peter in Acts 2. This is not normative in any spiritual
life, either in the spiritual life under the dispensation of
See how this works itself out. Acts
The promised kingdom would not come until the Jewish
people have turned to Christ. That can’t be forced; it is going to happen on
God’s timetable. But these first century, first decade, first year believers were
so convinced that the times of refreshing were right around the corner that
they understood that when the kingdom came personal possessions and property
rights were going to be all redefined in terms of the Mosaic Law and in terms
of the redistribution of the property designations to the twelve tribes of
Israel. So property ownership to them was something that when (in their
thinking) a few years from now Jesus was going to come back, everything is
going to be different, and it didn’t matter what they owned or didn’t own.
Because of their sense of the imminency of Christ’s
return and the coming of the kingdom they recognized it was not about them and
their stuff, it is about the mission. Let’s make the mission happen. It was
something that was motivated internally by each individual. The church didn’t
say everybody needed to do this. This isn’t socialism. Socialism is when the
government taxes people to do things. In the Old Testament it is not the government’s
responsibility to take care of the poor, it is the people’s responsibility. The
issue is genuine individual motivation. If it isn’t coming from the individual,
to motivate them to help other people, the government is a sad, sad substitute for
the inner integrity and virtue of the citizenry.
Notice the answer to the prayer. Acts