Dear congregation, when the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven, he told his disciples that they should return to Jerusalem until they were endowed with the Holy Spirit from on high. And that's why they immediately went back to the Holy City. Not that that was an easy thing for them to do, because They had just been witnessing Jesus entering the New Jerusalem with all its freedom. And they now had to go back to the Old Jerusalem with all its bonnage. A Jerusalem that had murdered their Savior, and hated Christians, and killed and stoned the prophets. A Jerusalem that was hostile. And yet they took up the cross and denied themselves and followed the Lord Jesus' command. But when they got to Jerusalem, they didn't just go to their homes and stay there, but they unitedly came together in an upper room where they prayed and supplicated and waited for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And in that upper room, there are many lessons, congregation, that you and I need to learn. Lessons for the church as a whole, but also lessons for ourselves individually. Lessons about waiting. Lessons about the Holy Spirit. And lessons about unity as well as diversity in the midst of the early New Testament church that apply to us today in the diversity as well as the unity in the church of Jesus Christ. Well, we want to look at some of those lessons with you this morning from the words of our text in Acts 1, 13 and 14. And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room where abode both Peter and James and John and Andrew Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. These all continue with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and marry the mother of Jesus and with his brethren. With God's help, our theme this morning, the disciples in the upper room. First, we will see them in their diversity. That means, boys and girls, how they were different from each other. Second, in their unity, what bound them together. And thirdly, in their activity, what they were doing in the upper room. The disciples in the upper room, in their diversity, their unity, and their activity. Luke provides us with a list of people in our text this morning. that were gathered in the upper room after the ascension of the Lord Jesus. And he gives us a list, first of all, of the leaders of the church, the eleven apostles. Of course, Judas is now missing from this list. In Matthew 10, Mark 3, and Luke 6, we have a similar list. But this list is different. It's a different order. The Holy Spirit obviously has a reason here, nothing is in vain, written in the Bible, for reshuffling, rearranging this order of names. In the Gospel, The same author, Luke, who wrote the book of Acts, places the names of Simon and Andrew beside each other. But here he puts Peter and James together, while he puts Andrew beside John. Now, that can't be an accident. It can't be coincidence. The Holy Spirit makes no mistakes. Well, what's going on here? Well, what's happening is that The Holy Spirit is regrouping in Acts the names of the apostles, now not according to blood ties in the Gospels. You see, the lists of names are written in accord with their blood ties. The brothers are all put together. But now the Holy Spirit is arranging these names according to spiritual ties. And there's something beautiful about that. Those who are bosom friends with each other are brought together, you see. And that explains already something of the incredible unity in the upper room. And that is still true today, isn't it? In the Church of Jesus Christ, when people meet each other, well, you feel the strength of blood ties, first of all. But as you get to know, if you're a believer, as you get to know another believer, And the spiritual ties become stronger. You see, the spiritual qualities and personality traits that bind you together in the Lord become even stronger than blood ties. And sometimes Such people can be opposites in character. You find that with these disciples. Some of them were bound together as close friends, even though they had very opposite character traits, but they found each other in the Lord. And what a blessing it is, friends. when God's people, from a variety of classes, from a diversity of backgrounds, diversity of education level, diversity of outlook on life, a diversity of upbringing, when they may find each other in the Lord and be bound with ties even closer than blood ties. The Bible speaks of David and Jonathan, that their love for one another surpassed the love of a husband and wife because they were bound to the Lord together. Well, among these disciples, it's remarkable what a tremendous variety in character and personality there really is. Peter and James are hot-tempered, yet practical men. John is more mystical, a theologian among them, a thinker. Andrew is a man of action and decision. Philip has a simple, childlike faith. always ready to introduce sinners to Christ. Thomas is a skeptic, demanding proof before he believes. Bartholomew, or Nathanael, the same man, was an honest man, a guileless spirit. Matthew is known for his sincere, wholehearted devotion to Christ. And the last three, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon Zelotes and Judas the brother of James. We don't know enough of, do we, in the New Testament to really describe their character. But all eleven of these men mentioned in our text are men of different character. Sometimes they clashed with one another, and yet here we find them together, all present in the upper room, representing the leadership of the early church. But also in the upper room are some women, Mary, the mother of Jesus, is there, the one whom the angel called most blessed among women. She's there with them. She's one among them, you see. The blood tie between Jesus and her also is no longer dominant, but now she's one of the waiting ones, one of the God-fearers, one of the spiritual ones, one of the ones whose spiritual ties with Jesus. predominate even the blood ties she has with Him as the mother of her Lord. And what a blessing if you could say that today of your own children in a spiritual sense. Dear mother is in our midst. As you are honored today as the mother of your family, and you receive tokens and words of appreciation, What a blessing to be able to say, I have a tie with my children and my husband. It goes beyond the ties of relation, physical relation, blood relation. What a blessing to be able to say, I am bound to my child with spiritual ties. And then there are two brothers of Jesus who are present. That's how our text ends, doesn't it? It gives a list of the eleven. Then it says, they were there with women, other women beside Mary too, and with His brothers. His is of course Jesus. So the brothers of Jesus are there. The brothers who rejected Him, all His earthly ministry, and no doubt, after His resurrection, had first come to faith in Christ. They too are raised above fleshly ties, and they see him now as their spiritual elder brother. And they too are in this group that attends. They too are part of this diversity. And in all, we are told, there actually are 120 that gather in this upper room. In a city of 700,000, really that's not too many. They represent the fruits of Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem and in the immediate vicinity around the Holy City. Now, there were more converts in other places, of course. We read of 500 around the area of Galilee that were believers in Jesus and saw Him. in his resurrected state. But here in Jerusalem, apparently there were just 120, perhaps a few more that were ill or whatever, we don't know, but it was a very small congregation for such a large area. And what a lesson we learn from this too. Jesus had been teaching around Jerusalem, and we read time and time again the multitudes thronged him, but Their faith proved only temporary. Once they understood Jesus' mission, once they understood that he wasn't coming to deliver them from the Roman yoke, once they grasped that his was a spiritual kingdom, John 6 says that many of them left him. And even Jesus had to turn to his own disciples and say, will you also go away? So by human standards, Jesus had not been a great success. And yet that little band of believers would soon become a great multitude on the day of Pentecost. And what a lesson we have here. Not to become discouraged in our work, in our church work in particular. Even when we don't see many fruits, when we don't see many conversions, God is able to break through greatly, and God is sovereign in what He does. We do our work as unto Him, and we leave the fruits to Him. even Jesus experienced great rejection. That ought to be encouraging to us in our families, mothers, as you labor with the souls of your children. It ought to be encouraging as fathers, as heads of the household. It ought to be encouraging as office bearers that we continue to wait on God. We never know when He will break through, when He will grant revival. We must pray for it, but we must not panic when it does not come. Now notice, too, that this diversity was made up of women. We need to accent that just a moment, because you remember that women under the Old Testament economy were not allowed to partake in the religious services at the same level as the men. They didn't have the same privileges. Women were allowed to come to the temple, but they had to stay in a separate place in the outer court, represented somewhat more closely to the temple by their husbands who would bring the sacrifices. But now, already now, you see this difference made of which Paul says in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female. Women now sit with the men in the New Testament church. They receive the same privileges as men do as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, there is the exception, of course, that they cannot bear office. The New Testament makes that exception very clearly. But as believers, they receive all the same privileges. And that's why historians, even secular historians, have rightly pointed out that the gospel of Christianity has greatly raised the position of the woman and brought it to equality with the man in a spiritual sense. Well, all these people, then, 120 men and women, apostles and laymen, who are disciples of the Lord Jesus, are gathered here in this incredible diversity to unite together in prayer and supplication. Now, in a way, that's what happens every Sunday, isn't it? That's what happens every Sunday in our midst. People will say to me as a pastor, they'll say something like this, if they're thinking about visiting our church, they'll say, well, I'm not sure, you know, my background and my circumstance, I'm not sure I'd fit in in your church. I'm not sure I'd find friends in your church. And I say to them, well, if you can't find a friend in our church, then something is wrong with you, because we've got all kinds of people in our church. All kinds of classes, all kinds of educational levels, all kinds of backgrounds. If you open the bulletin this morning, you see that. Those who are going to make confession of faith. One in the 80s, 81, another one 18. And all in between. Some in the 60s, and some in the 50s, and some in the 40s, you see. Different age groups, different backgrounds, different upbringings. But called to be one. Called to unite in worshipping the Lord God. And you see, that's one of the greatest lessons between Ascension and Pentecost that we learn. We learn that the Church is in great diversity and great unity simultaneously. And that we are to love that diversity. We're not to frown on that diversity. We're not to say, oh, we don't want people that are a little different than us to worship with us. Different ethnic background, different other kinds of background. No! We are to welcome that diversity. Because that diversity is typical of the diversity of heaven, the eternal church, the church triumphant, in which Jesus says a multitude that no man shall number, from every language and every tribe and every people, shall bow their knee and glorify the Lamb. What a blessing when the church has great diversity in great unity of truth. Well, this little congregation was greatly united. They were together in sweet accord, even though there were great differences among them. They were one in faith. They were one in hope. They were one in love. The disciples of the Lord were one in the Lord. That's our second thought, this great unity in the midst of diversity. And the unity, you see, that held them together. was this wonderful promise that the Son would send another Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who would take the things of Jesus and reveal them to the congregation, to the church. And so they're united in waiting for this promise to be realized. Now, our forefathers called this Sunday, in the ecclesiastical calendar, Sunday, because it was during these ten days between Ascension and Pentecost, in which only one Sunday elapses, that the disciples were in a sense without Christ in the world, that is, without his physical presence. When he promised, I will not leave you comfortless, in the original Greek, the word is actually orphans. I will not leave you as orphans. I'll send the Spirit. Just a short while, you will be orphans. Just ten days. He didn't tell them the exact time, of course, but we know it's ten days. Just a little while, I'll leave you as orphans, but then I will send my Holy Spirit. And so they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, anticipating this fulfillment of promise, although, of course, you can believe that that great joy had its ups and downs in those ten days. They were missing Jesus. There was a sense of loneliness, too, a sense of missing Him whom their soul loved intensely. And so this, too, bound them together. You know, that's something wonderful about spiritual communion of saints. It's what the saints possess that bind them together in Jesus, but it's also what they unitedly miss, what they're unitedly longing for that bind them together. I don't know if you've ever thought about that, but in the world we say birds of a feather flock together. In spiritual life, those who have the same convictions, those who have the same longings, same aspirations, those who groan together that they aren't as sanctified as they ought to be, those who struggle together over the bosom sins in their heart, those who miss the Lord Jesus in the fullness of His revelation and long to know Him better, you see, they are bound together also by what they miss. And so they're waiting together. longing for the promise of His coming. So here they are, 120 people, poor people in themselves, poor in spirit, longing to be filled with the Spirit, longing to receive the promise of the Father, which they know will come to them as they abide in Jerusalem. Now, they have confidence it will come. The Lord said it. Why should they doubt His word? He was always faithful. And where the Lord indicts prayer, you see, the Lord will also come sooner or later at His time to fulfill prayer. So they're waiting with receptive hearts, with expectant hearts. There's a united expectancy also. And you see, it's this that binds the church together. This is what we need, even now, congregation. In the church of Jesus Christ, there's a tendency, of course, to take Christ and to take His truth for granted and to come to worship out of habit every Sunday, to come drowsy, to come lukewarm, to come half-interested. That doesn't bind a church together. But these 120, they came expectantly. They came prayerfully. They came united in what they longed for and in what they embraced. They were bound together ardently, yearning for communion with God. And that's what binds a church together. When I was young, my father used to often say to us, you don't need to beg for money very often in the church, like many churches do. You don't need to beg for it, he said, because if the heart goes open and there's a hungry people, the wallet will go open as well. See, that's true, isn't it? The main thing the church needs is not money. The main thing the church needs is unity in purpose. Unity in hunger. Unity in possession. Unity in expectancy. And so I ask you this morning, I ask myself this morning, what are you expecting when you come to church? What are you longing for? Are you hungry? Are you part of that body of Christ that is really alive? Is your heart, spiritual heart beating when you come to church? Are you filled with expectation? Is this the highlight of your week? To come to the house of God. Do you come to worship with His people? Do you sense, do you feel the unity of the church of Jesus Christ? So you see what the church needs today is not, first of all, learned theologians, or impressive speakers, or great preachers, or large numbers. But what the church needs most of all is poor, needy sinners, living out of the Lord Jesus Christ, longing to know Him better. Sinners who can't find anything in themselves but misery. who can't find any ground for hope and comfort in what they are, but who raise their eyes and their hearts unto the heavens, where Jesus is at their right hand, the ascended mediator, and who desire to live out of Him and to receive His blessings from heaven. That's what the church needs. Christological believers who live out of Christ, who rest on His promises, and who speak together about these things, and who love one another in this mutual zeal and this mutual longing for blessings from His sanctuary. So these 120 are really an example for us. They're like-minded in the midst of their diversity. They have one heart. You don't read of any of the 120 criticizing one another. Now, wrongly, there is a place for right criticism, of course, loving admonition. But they want to be together because they're led by the same Spirit. And you see, that's the bonding unity of the Church. John Calvin said, it's the Holy Spirit who is the bond of the Church, and that bond, He works by the bond of faith. And so Calvin said, there's a double bond in the church of Jesus Christ that binds believers together. The spirit and faith. And both of those lead to one person, don't they? To the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, our text says, these all continued with one accord in prayer and in supplication. Now together, you see, they are illustrating what Christ said. Christ said, if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. That's a remarkable statement. Now, there are restrictions. Of course there are. We have to ask in accord with God's will. You read that in 1 John 5, 14 and 15. This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him. So prayer must be according to His will. But these 120 weren't praying according to His will. They knew His will was to send His Spirit, right? The 120 knew the promise. So they were praying according to God's will, and therefore it was inevitable that this promise would be fulfilled. Not only from God's side, because He had promised it, but also from their side, because God had promised whatever two or three or more pray for something according to God's will, He will grant it. Well, what does God promise upon prayer? God promises new hearts. He promises, I will write my law upon your hearts. He promises salvation. He promises that He will hear the cry of the needy. Therefore, how important it is, you see, for believers to get together to pray. Permanence. Run all throughout the book of Acts. They're so important in the Book of Acts. It's amazing. Charles Spurgeon has a whole sermon just on the apostolical history of meetings for prayer. And he begins with this account, you see. This is the first New Testament church prayer meeting, he argues. And God unites them in prayer, you see. He gives comfort. Corporate prayer meetings bind the church together because they give comfort to believers. But then he goes on, Spurgeon goes on in chapter 2 and shows that the prayer meeting is also one of a reception of divine power. While they are praying, the Holy Spirit does come on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit blesses prayer meetings. And you see it again in Acts 4, don't you? The prayer meeting, that the prayer meeting is the resource of a persecuted church. Peter and John have been shut up in prison, and the church unites together in the upper room and prays. And God delivers them in the midst of persecution. Then again in Acts 12, the prayer meeting is made a means of individual deliverance. Peter's in prison, and they go to prayer, and an angel comes and delivers him. Then in Acts 13, you see again a prayer meeting being held, who they should send, how they should send, how they should expand the church, and the Holy Spirit speaks, separating Barnabas and Paul for the work whereunto I have called them. Then again in Acts 16, the first Christian service held in the continent of Europe was a prayer meeting. by a riverside. Lydia and others were there in prayer, and Paul comes and meets with them, and God blesses his word. You see? And so it goes from the Book of Acts all the way through the history of the church. Wherever there's been, with very few exceptions, maybe our Dutch background is one exception, there weren't a lot of prayer meetings in some of the Dutch churches, but you take the English, the Scottish, the German, wherever there's been the fear of God, wherever there's been Reformed experiential religion, there's always been a great number of prayer meetings springing up in the congregation, but also congregationally in church history. This wonderful, united, corporate prayer And wherever that has been, God has had a tendency to give great blessing upon the Church. Where the Church is united in prayer, God is inclined to bless. What a great calling that should be to us. There are many of us that don't bother to come to the prayer meeting every month. That is one of the greatest mysteries to me, as a pastor, and disappointments in the congregation. We should have it as our number one priority of all the meetings this church has. That should be number one. I can't go to every church activity, but I won't miss the prayer meeting. That should be our attitude. Because that's the greatest need of the church, to bind together in prayer. Now, you need to pray separately, individually in your home. Of course, this is all true. To have done and not to have left the other undone is the whole message of the book of Acts and the message of our text this morning. But there are even Lord's Supper communicants who aren't coming to the prayer meeting. How can that be, my friends? It's a puzzle. What is going on in your mind? What's more important than praying together? This chapel should be far overflowing. We should have to meet in the sanctuary on prayer meeting nights. So we stormed the mercy seat together. Oh, in the heavens, O God, and come down and visit by vine. After September 11, that's what we had to do. We had to open up the whole sanctuary. The sanctuary was full, and everyone was here for the prayer meeting. The newness of it wore off, and we went back down to the chapel. I just ask you this question. Why? Is God unworthy of prayer? God says throughout church history, as one divine put it so beautifully, I love to answer petitions signed with more than one signature. Please think about it. Please consider the next pyramid that you come, not just to be there, but that you come to pray. Take an hour out in your busy week to pray together. These were in one accord in prayer and supplication. And God's blessing came. That's our need. That's our great need today. You know, when a minister traveled some distance to Charles Spurgeon, I wanted to interview Spurgeon, to ask him why his church was so greatly blessed. When Spurgeon heard the question, he did not say a single word to the man, but just motioned to him to follow him. And a prayer meeting was about ready to start. And Spurgeon took him from his office around into the sanctuary, opened the door of the sanctuary, and he just went like that. He showed the man the congregation, filling the pews, bending their knees, and didn't say a word. And the man didn't need any words. That was the secret of the blessing of Charles Spurgeon's ministry. And Spurgeon writes of a time when there were more people in the prayer meeting that could come even to church on the Sabbath. The prayer meeting was so blessed that people even came from other churches to join in the prayer meeting. They stormed the mercy seat together, all for a day of prayer. The great problem among unconverted people is willingness and unbelief, but the great problem among God's own people is prayerlessness. May God help us. And may the New Testament Church teach us the dire need for prayer, not just private prayer, that too, but the dire need for corporate prayer, running through the whole book of Acts. May God teach us. May He bind it upon our consciences. And may we come to love it, that we seek the face of God together as a people. That gives unity in the midst of diversity. Let us pray one with another. Our text concludes that they continued in prayer and in supplication. That word continued is so important. If we want to understand their activity, not only their diversity and unity, but their activity in these ten days was a continued activity. And that's the difference, of course, between the 120 and so many of us. We pray, but then we stop praying. They prayed, and they continued to pray. Now, that doesn't mean, of course, that they did nothing during those ten days but pray. I'm sure that they also read the Bible while they were meeting together and praying, and they studied the Scriptures. You can be sure of that, of course. It doesn't mean that when they continued in prayer and supplication that they didn't mix that with the other means of grace. They had just had the key to the Scriptures open to them, the Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah. They had newly learned how to interpret. They had the hermeneutic key, the key of interpretation to the Old Testament Scriptures. And so, you can almost imagine that they went to pray, and then they read Scripture, and they prayed again, and maybe they went over passages like Joel 2, and Isaiah 44, and Ezekiel 36, all of which speak of the coming of the Spirit, and the image of water poured out upon those that are thirsty. They would read those Scriptures, no doubt, and then encourage one another to pray for the promises contained in those Scriptures as they waited for the Spirit. And so they would cry out for God to run the heavens and to pour out that Spirit. They were like the unfortunate widow, praying, reading, praying, urgently, unitedly, taking the heaven of kingdom, the kingdom of heaven by force. They prayed down the Holy Spirit, just as Elijah had prayed down the rain from the sky. You remember, boys and girls, how Elijah prayed for rain. He prayed in his prayer, the Bible says. And the rain came down on the parched soil of Israel. Well, so after ten days, ten days of similar, fervent, effectual prayer, heaven opens its floodgates, the clouds burst asunder, and streams of living water come down upon this little congregation. Pentecost. takes place. But God has not changed congregation. He will still pour out His Spirit today upon those who unitedly ask Him for it. Now, it is true, circumstances have changed. We are not to pray for the coming of the Spirit today as if He had not been poured out, as if He had not come into His church. But we have to pray for fresh manifestations of that Spirit who has come, for greater measures, for revival, for a deeper conviction of sin and freedom in Christ and heartfelt gratitude. You see, we have to pray also when we don't feel the Spirit's presence as we ought. The Spirit isn't always felt with the same intensity in the church. You know that as an individual believer. If you're a believer, there are many times the Spirit seems to withdraw from you. Isn't that so? And you scarcely feel His presence at all anymore. You feel rather coldness and barrenness and fruitlessness. Sometimes perhaps you even feel that the Spirit has never been there with His quickening and comforting influences, that you've only been deceiving yourself because you're so cold, you're so lukewarm. And sometimes that judgment, for that's what it is, a judgment, can extend itself over a whole congregation. It can be a barren spell in a congregation. Jesus said of the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3, that she was lukewarm. There were no cries of newborn babes. No fresh experiences among the children of God in terms of exercises of faith. God's people saw it with seared lips in Laodicea. The fragrance, the beauty was gone. Everything was flat and dull, stale. The presence of Christ and His Spirit not felt hardly at all. Well, what should be done in such a case? We must ask the Lord to send His Spirit with renewed manifestations, that He may break through the hardness of our heart, through the worldly spirit that pervades the church, through the spirit of gossip and criticism, so that once again we may see the evidences of His work, and that for a time there may come up again a fir tree and for a briar a myrtle tree. for revival. We pray that the church may become a watered garden once more. We major in the majors and we minor in the minors. We let the small things slide that are non-essentials. And we focus on this, O blessed Spirit, come down. Bless thy church. You see here in our text and at Pentecost and all throughout the book of Acts, an intimate connection between this united, persevering spirit of prayer and the indwelling plenitude of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the Church. Spiritual life flourishes as a rule when there is much prayer in the congregation. Praying individuals and a praying congregation is a Spirit-blessed Church. So we don't just need prayer meetings corporately. We indeed desperately need people in their own homes, in their own bedrooms, in their own inner closets, crying to God Almighty for revival in this particular church, in your particular family, and in your own soul. Friends, how healthy is our prayer life? How often are we praying for the Holy Spirit? and for His irresistible saving operations? For the flames of faith and hope and love to be kindled? And how concerned are we when things become ominously quiet in our soul? I say ominously because if it continues that way for weeks and months and years, We may well fear that we not only have grieved the Spirit, but that we have quenched the Spirit. There is such a thing as quenching the Spirit. And a continued barrenness in our part, a continued lukewarmness and dryness, may be the beginning of God's great judgment upon us. I think back sometimes to those early years of ministry in your midst when we introduced many books among you and how people were reading those books regularly. I'd often see them on coffee tables. Come as a pastor, you'd be talking about the books. I don't hear it quite as much in recent years. Is that a sign that we're growing lukewarm? You see, where a congregation is alive, we're living on the growing edge, we're reading, we're searching, we're praying, we're using the means, not just to have activity. But this was real spiritual activity. That's all we need. Not just activity, but real activity. And when real activity begins to decline, Then there's a spiritual decline that we must tremble for. There's nothing so that we must be on our guard for, that we must watch and pray against, a spiritual decline. Those who spiritually decline are scarcely distinguishable as backsliders from hypocrites. And the life of the church is then sapped away. Deadness and barrenness and lack of desire and no enjoyment in the things of God, you see. It may be a sign of backsliding, but it can also be a sign that someone has never been regenerate in the first place. And has only had a temporary religion. So we need to admonish one another, don't we? If the things of the world hold our interests more than the things of God, we're already sliding down a slippery, dangerous path, my dear friend, at very best. And there's only one remedy, that the Spirit would come. We have to plead for the grace of God, my friends. Grace can turn our curses into blessings. Only the Spirit of God can change your wilderness into a watered garden. Let me close this morning with three or four lessons we can learn from this touching history. The first is, God is pleased to answer prayer, even if it is only a prayer for a prayer. I hope you know what that means. I hope you know times in your life where you feel your dryness and your lifelessness and you cry, you pray for our prayer. You pour out your heart that you may pray. You beg the Lord for a spirit of grace and supplication so that your prayers may ascend to the heavens and be acceptable to God through the merits of His Son. Such prayers will be heard. They will be heard. The catechism says so beautifully that God will only give his grace and spirit to those who unceasingly beg them of him and thank him for them. So the way to further blessing and further answered prayer is to ever be praying that we may pray, and then to pray. God says, I will be inquired of, yet of thee, O house of Israel, for all these things. The second lesson that we learn from the 120 is that when we face a difficult task, an important decision, or a baffling dilemma, we should turn first of all to prayer. They came back from Jerusalem and the first thing they did was go to prayer. You see, our problem is that we often immediately plunge into work to try to solve our dilemma and somehow hope that everything will turn out acceptably. And then when we run completely stuck, we finally say, oh no, that's right, I didn't pray. Why didn't I pray? But we need graciousness to go to prayer first. Children, when you have a test at school, the first thing you should do is not study. The first thing you should do is pray. And you young people, when you are contemplating dating or courting someone, or contemplating your future work or career, or what college to go to, the first thing isn't to send away for catalogs for the colleges, or to submit applications to different places. The very first thing is to pray, and then write for the catalogs, then fill out the applications. And you parents, all the demands you have, of working and parenting. Do you begin every day with prayer? You mothers who have so many, many responsibilities put upon you. We men are lost without you in our homes. We don't know how to handle it. You do all kinds of things. Surely you need to begin with prayer. And you fathers, how many of us, so many of you are in the midst of temptation every day, in negative sinful atmospheres, surely you need to begin with prayer. And seniors, with all your infirmities and weaknesses and needs, surely you too need to learn, let me begin with prayer. And the third lesson is that a waiting time is a profitable time spiritually for believers. There's so many lessons to learn while we wait on God as believers. We often learn more in waiting and weaning times than in possessing and embracing times. We learn self-abhorrence. We learn our dependency upon God. We learn to die to self, to sin, to the world, and to our own righteousness. We learn to become hell-worthy sinners before God. We learn that obedience is better than sacrifice. And we learn our radical dependency upon the Holy Spirit to turn our waiting into fruition. We learn above all to walk by faith and not by sight. And finally, our fourth lesson. For all who spend this Sabbath like the 120, Pentecost is sure to come. The blessing will come. If we're truly thirsty for the things of God, if we're truly longing for the fullness of Jesus Christ, and we're crying to God for deliverance, day by day, God will come. The bride said, Awake, O north wind, and come thou south. Blow upon my garden, that the spices may flow out. You see, that's what we need. The north wind of conviction, the cold wind that blasts away all our righteousness, that self-righteousness that hinders our spiritual growth, that takes it all away, makes way for the south wind, the refreshing gospel wind, that sweet and mild wind of the love of God should have broadened our hearts through Jesus Christ. so that the sweet spices may flow out of our garden. And the very next verse then says this, then the beloved himself, precious Immanuel, God with us, will come into the garden and will eat his pleasant fruit. May God help us in all our diversity to unitedly be of one accord in prayer and supplication. Amen.