Praying For The Spirit To Come

the church was to gather together and pray.

Now if I had been ruthlessly killed, and Mel would have been thrown into prison, and you knew that on Tuesday they were coming after you because of your faith in Jesus, I would imagine you would pray too. There’s nothing like a good persecution to get us to come together to pray. But that’s the first thing they did. It’s all they knew to do. And it wasn’t just a small group. It was the church at large.

And they were so unified that it was as if one voice was going up to the Lord. They had unity. They were in one accord. They had what Paul was talking about in Philippians 2:2. They were “of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.”

The gauge that measures the unity of any church is determined by how they pray together. Yes, we are to have personal prayer time each day. But we are also called to pray together. There’s something about a church that unites itself in prayer that God just seems to bless.

One of my favorite testimonies of this is recorded in Billy Graham’s book, "Hope for the Troubled Heart." A missionary and his family were forced to camp outside on a hill. They were carrying money and they were fearful that thieves might rob them. After spending time in prayer, the finally fell asleep. Several months later, a man that had been injured was taken to the mission hospital. He asked the missionary if on that special night they had soldiers guarding them. The man said to him, “We intended to rob you, but we were afraid of the twenty-seven soldiers.”

When the missionary returned to his homeland, he shared this story with his church. One of the members responded, “We had a prayer meeting that night, and I took roll. There were just twenty-seven of us present.”

God does supernatural and incredible things when His people unite together in prayer. This is why we have prayer meeting on Wednesday nights. It is an awful thing to see more people at a business meeting than at a prayer meeting. It’s on Wednesday nights that we take part in the true business of the church. When God’s people join together to pray – that’s when the church sees people saved, Christians strengthened in their walk and sharing the gospel with boldness, and doors of opportunity opened for effective service.

III. The Person To Whom They Prayed

You may be saying, “Well, that’s easy. They were praying to God.” Yeah, but what was their view of God?

In this time of wartime crises they reflected upon the sovereignty of God. God’s sovereignty, in a sentence, is Him being in all, in charge of all, and in control of all.

Notice how they address God in verse 24. “O, Lord…” The Greek word used for Lord here is not the usual word for lord, which is kurios. The word used here is the word from which we get our English word, despot, and it is only used five times in the New Testament. If you have an NIV you’ll notice that it is translated “Sovereign Lord.” That is what the word means. It is used of masters and those that possess absolute power. It describes one you don’t challenge. It describes one that is much greater than you. That is who God is.

As they focus on God’s sovereignty, they look at it in two different aspects. The first is His sovereignty in creation. Notice what they go on to pray. “O, Lord, it is