When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24 And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, 25 who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit,
“‘Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples plot in vain?
26 The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers were gathered together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed’—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, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. 29 And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, 30 while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” 31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
Acts 4:23-31
We are facing soft totalitarianism in American society today. We are not allowed to speak freely. If you say the wrong thing, you are “canceled.” We have a new American orthodoxy that has been created by a spirit that opposes the foundations of American society and Christianity in particular. I didn’t intend to plug a book in this article, but it seems right to do so now. Glen Sunshine, an appropriate authorial name for this book, has a brand-new-off-the-press book to shine a little sunshine on our situation. It is small and an easy read because it is well written—the title: Slaying Leviathan: Limited Government and Resistance in the Christian Tradition. I got mine from Amazon. The title may sound a little heady, but due to an able writer’s talent, a brief history of political theory from Augustine to John Locke is an easy read and stays on point. So, I encourage you to read it.
There are many subjects that Christians are supposed to keep quiet about abortion, human sexuality, and Black Lives Matter/Marxism/Critical Race Theory, any attempt to apply Biblical law to society in general, and the nature of things, that is, all is created by a single Creator to whom we are all accountable. And, of course, never speak of sin. That is a value judgment, and we shouldn’t be allowed to judge anyone’s conduct.
We Christians are supernaturalists, and we should be unashamedly so. We have the only solution to the myriad problems facing the earth today but have not been speaking loudly enough and convincingly enough in the marketplace to gain attention.
There is a solution that doesn’t include human efforts at arguing with our philosophical or political opponents. It is found in the text for today. The answer is a prayer meeting. Of course, not just a single prayer meeting, but a life of prayer that must be restored to the Lord’s church if we are to see the millions of lost souls in the United States (let alone the rest of the world) ushered into the Kingdom of God. And, the ushering of millions of souls into the Kingdom of God is the only real hope for a restored America. Not that our goal is a restored America. Our goal is the Kingdom of God on earth on every continent, in every state, and in every city and village on earth. It is really a goal to take over the world in Jesus’ name through prayer, preaching, loving, and watching the Holy Spirit redeem the enemies of God.
The final verse of this passage is the outcome we need to see. “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.”
So what do we see in this verse?
The first and obvious fact is they had prayed. My observations are that the church in America is mostly a prayerless church. Obviously, there are exceptions to this and even movements that don’t fit this observation, but on the whole, we are prayerless. Why? Largely because we are faithless. Many churches in America are practical atheists. Their life is conducted as if God were not alive, and what they do does not depend on God. They don’t take the Scriptures seriously. It isn’t really God’s very word, but just a good book that holds some good advice. So why pray?
This prayer in our text was not a liturgical Elder or Pastoral prayer for public consumption. Not that public prayer is wrong; it’s not. But this prayer was all-out warfare and worship. Their government was attempting to shut them down and shut them up. They were commanded to no longer speak in the name of Jesus. This was a strong group prayer, “when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God.” In some circles, this would be considered out of order. It wasn’t a prayer meeting that was conducted “decently and in order.” They were all praying and crying out to God at the same time, not listening to each other’s prayers but jointly bombarding heaven for a response from heaven.
There was a physical response from God, “the place in which they were gathered together was shaken.” I know this was an unusual manifestation of the presence of God, but certainly not unprecedented. When God spoke to Moses and Israel, Sinai shook along with lightning and thunder. Later in Acts, when Paul and Silas were in jail in Philippi. as they sang and praised God, the place was shaken, an earthquake that resulted in their release from jail and led to the salvation of the jailer and his household. When Isaiah saw the Lord, the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of God. When Jesus died on the cross, “the earth shook, and the rocks were split.” Is this to be expected all the time? I don’t think so, but it does happen, and it will happen again according to Scripture.
Secondly, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. I know this can be a controversial statement among some believers, but these folks in this prayer meeting already had the indwelling Spirit within them. They were born-again believers in Jesus. And it is stated plainly that they were “filled with the Holy Spirit.” We find this same phenomenon elsewhere in the book of Acts where believers, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, are said to be “filled with the Holy Spirit.” I conclude from this and other sources that there is a difference between being indwelt by the Spirit and being filled with the Spirit. This idea is propagated by none other than the famed reformed minister of Westminster Chapel in London, Pastor Dr. Martyn Loyd-Jones, in his book, Joy Unspeakable.
The kind of prayer meeting I am advocating will result in believers being filled with the Holy Spirit.
The third thing that happened to these believers is that, in answer to their request, they continued to speak the word of God with boldness. These folks, empowered by the Spirit, were not going to be quieted by their government authorities, whether Roman or Jewish. They had the experience of the salvation purchased by Jesus for them and, filled with his Spirit, they were not going to be quiet about it.
There is a dramatic need in the American church for a prayer meeting, maybe like the 100 hundred year prayer meeting spawned by the Moravians that resulted in missionaries being sent worldwide. Or, maybe we need a prayer meeting like that which produced simultaneous revivals in Great Britain and the Colonies known as the Great Awakening. Our spiritual enemies are calling for a “reset,” and we must be calling for a “revival.” And, by revival, I don’t mean a series of meetings advertised as our annual revival, but a move of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers that will cause us all to speak the word of God boldly and not be shut up by the government or any of the other forces of the soft totalitarianism that has raised its ugly head in America.
What should you do about this? I suggest that if the Holy Spirit speaks to you that you need to do something in response to this word, you should call a few of your believing friends together in your living room and begin to pray together. Do it regularly, do it often. Encourage others to join in with you. Once you begin to see the power of God at work in response to your prayers, you will find it easy to draw others into the meetings. God’s people love to be where God’s presence is experienced, where prayers are answered, where love grows deeper, where Jesus’ presence is obvious. Don’t wait for your church leaders to call a prayer meeting. Too many of them are the practical atheists I referenced earlier. Please understand me on this. I don’t mean to ignore leadership or foster a rebellion. I simply mean that many of them are not hungry for a move of God, and so don’t expect them to lead the congregation into a Holy Spirit inspired revival. They need a revival themselves. Put them on the prayer list. Please don’t wait for them to call the meeting.
Pray, pray that God will indeed shake the ground under us. Pray that God will change our hearts, so we fall freshly in love with Jesus so that nothing else matters. Pray that hundreds of thousands of people in your county will come to know Jesus. Speak the name boldly in the power of the Holy Spirit. Exalt his name so people can be drawn to it.
