Chapter number 12, if you can find a Bible there. I want to talk about incredible things, incredible things. The book of Acts is in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, chapter 12. About a month ago, maybe more, we talked about impossible things, and we've got a little booklet around here called My Impossible Things Prayer List. The only thing you should write in that booklet are things that are impossible, and then pray to God for them. He is the God of the impossible, and today we are going to see Him as the God of the incredible, the incredible. I want you to notice the persecuted church here in Acts chapter 12. Verses 1 through 4 we're going to try to get down through verse around 17 this morning It says now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church And he killed James the brother of John with the sword now Herod's the Roman leader in charge of that district but we call the Holy Land today and he was all the Herod's were just terrible people murderous people He killed James, the brother of John. Those were the two sons of Zebedee. If you remember your New Testament history, these were two of the first men that Jesus called when he was on earth to follow him. They were fishermen. They had a dad named Zebedee and they left their dad. They left the fishing business when Jesus said, come follow me. And they left all and followed the Lord. Well, these were the two of them, James and John. And so James is killed by the sword as a pretty young man. would go on to be the oldest of the apostles who would still be writing scripture in the year 95 A.D. and 100 A.D. He wrote those books way at the end of the New Testament called 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John and Revelation, the great book of Revelation, that amazing book, was written by John when he was a very old man out on the Isle of Patmos. He was a prisoner for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. In one family, one of their sons died very young, one lived to be very, very old, and both loved and served the Lord, and I guess we should just let God do what He wants with His own. Who knows what God has planned for us. Sometimes very, very good people die young, and sometimes they live to be very old, but either way, I hope we'll make every day count and serve the Lord. We never know what may happen to us. Sometimes very, very good people die very, very young. In this case, James. In the Old Testament, there was a married man with a bunch of kids named Enoch. It says, Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. That's all it says. God just took him. Very young for his age, and left the widow and a bunch of kids behind. But before his translation, it says he had this testimony that he pleased God, and I think God took Elijah and Enoch to heaven for some very special ministry yet to happen on earth. I'm not sure about that. Verse 3, and because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. Now this was some of the Jews. Some of the Jews were being saved. And all the apostles were Jews. Jesus was a Jew. The first church was pretty much mostly Jewish. But there were other Jews who opposed the gospel. They were very strongly opposed to it and they persecuted Christians and scattered them and even killed them. Now when Herod, the Roman Tetrarch here, saw that it really made some of the Jews happy that he killed James, he took Peter, but Peter is saved by a holiday. Verse 3, then were the days of unleavened bread as barbaric as the Roman Empire was. For some reason they respected people's religion and in this district they respected the religion of the Jews and allowed them somewhat to practice their religion and And so they didn't put Peter to death during the Days of Unleavened Bread, which of course followed the Passover. And the Passover was that holiday, of course, that represents to us Jesus Christ when He died on the cross for our sins, according to the Scriptures. Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us, 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 7. And then that was followed by a week called the Days of Unleavened Bread. And Peter was saved by this holiday from being put to death immediately. They said, you know, let's wait till the holiday's over and then we'll put him to death. It'd be like today, I'm sure there's still states in America that have capital punishment, but they probably, no matter what kind of state they are, they're probably not going to put anyone to death on Christmas. Does that make sense? They're probably going to wait till after New Year's or something just out of respect for the, what America still calls kind of a holy day. That's what happened here. And so we see the church persecuted in verses 1 through 4, the persecuted church. Now we see the praying church in verses 5 through 12, the praying church. In verse 5 it says, Peter therefore was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. And then at the end of verse number 12 it says these words, It says, where many were gathered together praying. Now this kind of praying is called corporate prayer or united prayer. There are several different kinds of prayer in the scriptures that I hope you participate in. First of all is individual prayer. God wants to hear from you. The psalmist said, O thou that hearers prayer unto thee shall all flesh come. Did you know it's God's will to hear from every single human being? God wants to hear your prayers. He really does. He wants to hear from you. Don't be afraid to talk to the Lord in prayer. God wants all flesh to come to Him in not just seconds before we're going to have a car wreck or something. You know how that is. Everyone prays right about then. But God wants us to have a prayer time End of prayer life. Jesus taught that if you have a closet or something, you should go into that closet, shut the door, and pray to your God in secret. And this is amazing, he said, and your God which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. It is a rewarding practice to pray to God in secret. But then when you get out of the closet and you go on with your day and you're washing dishes or you're driving to work or you're going to school or whatever, then we should have a prayer life and that is where we remain in an attitude of prayer all day long. Praying for people or things or ourselves, whatever the Holy Ghost prompts us to pray for, we should pray. You can pray while you're washing dishes. You can pray while you're driving down the road. You can pray at work as long as you're You know, mine's not going to take you away from, you know, if you have a dangerous job or you're doing heart surgery or something, you want to certainly pay attention to your heart surgery, maybe pray later. But if you can pray, pray all day long and have a prayer time. One psalmist said in Psalm 55, evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice. So we can pray. as individuals, but this is corporate prayer. God also wants us to be so humble that we can pray united as a church. And that's where God does incredible things. We're gonna see some incredible things through prayer here. In fact, they pray in verse five and they pray in verse 12, but between from six to 11, you just see incredible miracle taking place that they weren't even aware of that their prayers had triggered. And so there's sometimes we can't see God answering our prayer, but he is. You can literally pray for someone around the world, and God will answer prayer. I've read testimonies where people prayed and prayed and prayed about something or someone, and then they died and never saw the answer to prayer, but after they died, the prayer was answered. And so I want to encourage you to be humble enough to be involved in corporate prayer, that is, church prayer meetings. It takes humility to corporately pray together with other believers, but amazing things happen. In fact, Jesus once said, if two of you, and he said this in respect to the local church, he said, if two of you on earth shall agree as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done unto them. And where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst. And so, we should pray as individuals, but we should also be so humble as to pray corporately. Now, on Sunday mornings, I know at 9.30, there's a men's prayer meeting here, there's a ladies' prayer meeting here, it's before Sunday school. I would encourage your attendance at that or pray with us on Wednesday nights when we have our prayer time and praise time, which is 6.30, by the way. We move the time up to 6.30 instead of 7. If you come at 7, then we have Bible study and kids clubs. And we're out now about a half hour earlier than we used to be because so many people go to work early, and even kids have to get up for school early. So we moved it up a little to accommodate that, and I hope you'll come. I just want to give you an invitation. Now, at our prayer meetings, we don't make anyone pray out loud. We don't want to make people feel uncomfortable. But I'm telling you, God will hear your prayers, even if you pray quietly. The Bible says Hannah prayed quietly. Her lips were moving, but no words were coming out, but God saw her heart. God answered her prayer and gave her a son named Samuel. who became one of the greatest leaders that Israel ever had because she prayed for a son and she said, God, if you'll give me a son, I'll give him back to you. And so there's a lot about prayer. You don't have to pray out loud, but at our prayer meetings, you can pray silently, pray out loud if you feel comfortable with that. But you know, I learned prayer as a boy on Wednesday nights. That's where I learned to pray. Our church had a Wednesday night service And they would literally just stop, and ladies would go into this room over there, and men would go into this room over there, and we all kneeled around in a circle, and if we didn't feel like praying as they went around, we just said, pass. And the person next to you would know that you didn't want to pray publicly, and then the next person would pray and pray and pray, and they'd go around and pray for about five minutes each, and pretty soon we prayed for a long time. And boy, God used to answer those prayers. There were some wonderful things that were done through prayer. And you can, prayer can be taught in church, but it can be caught in a prayer meeting. And you can learn how to pray by listening to others. And God wants to answer your prayers, and God wants to do some absolutely incredible things for you, and for others that you're praying for, and impossible things like what happens here. Now they weren't aware of this while they're praying, But in verse 5 it says, And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains, and the keepers before the door kept the prison. Now I'm glad God describes in verse 6 and verse 4 the circumstances of this miracle. because it was absolutely impossible for Peter to get out of this situation. In verse four, we see that Herod assigned four quaternions of soldiers to guard Peter. Now what that meant was a quaternion of soldiers was four, and two of them would remain chained to the prisoner at all times, and two of them would keep the door of the prison. Now keep in mind Roman guards, the Roman Empire, it's just a fact of history that if a guard allowed his prisoner to escape, the guard was put to death for allowing that prisoner to escape. So I'm sure if you or I were guards in the Roman Empire, we would take very seriously the keeping of our prisoner. So that's why one guard was chained to his right arm and one guard was chained to his left arm because their life was at stake. They said, we're not letting this guy go. And then every three hours, they would change a quaternion of soldiers. They had a three-hour shift that night. Of course, 6 to 9, 9 to 12, and that's how the Jews kept time. It's called watches of the night. Midnight till 3 in the morning, 3 till 6 in the morning. And so humanly speaking, as you looked at this circumstance, you would say it's absolutely impossible for Peter to get out of this. And so God describes it for us so we would get that picture. But, and that's the biggest word in the whole story is verse 5, but prayer was made. Prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. 1 Thessalonians 5.17 simply says this, without ceasing. So we should always be in a spirit of prayer. Luke 18.1, Jesus said, Jesus spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not to faint. Don't ever give up on your prayer life, especially if you don't see things happening right away. It doesn't mean God isn't working. Prayers are answered sometimes. Brother Buddy Blunklaw was with us last week. He said, yes, no, or wait. Sometimes we're no because we're asking to miss, it would be a bad thing. If I said, Lord, help me to hit the lottery, that'd probably ruin me. Money ruins a lot of people, you know. And he'd maybe say no to that, for sure. He says yes. Then other things, he just says, wait. He says, just wait, I'm gonna do something better for you than what you're asking, and it's gonna help your faith, as he does something incredible here. Verse 7, And behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison. And he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals. And so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me. And he went out and followed him, and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel, but thought he saw a vision. He didn't even believe it. When they were past the first and the second ward, they came unto the iron gate that leadeth into the city, which opened to them of his own accord. And they went out and passed on through one street, and forthwith the angel departed from him. And when Peter was come to himself, he said, Now I know of a surety that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from the expectation of the people of the Jews. It says there, when Peter came to himself, verse 11. You know what that means? Did you ever wake up in a fog? You don't know where you are, or what your name is, or what direction you're facing, or anything? It just takes you a while to figure out where you're at. That's what Peter did here. God sent an angel. This is absolutely incredible. And not only did he send an angel, verse 5, but he sent a light into the prison. It's dark. They didn't have electric. Now there's light. The angel punches Peter in the side, raises him up, Tells him, get up quickly. The chains fell off his hands. The prisoners must have just been passed out or asleep or something. Maybe some of you remember in the military, I remember in the military when you're walking guard at nighttime, you tried to find somewhere you could sleep where you wouldn't get caught. Man alive, but if you got caught, man, were you in trouble. Wow. But boy, those were long nights. Those were long nights watching guard all night long when we were in the army. And the angel said, gird thyself and get dressed. Put your sandals on. Put your garment about you. And he went out and followed him. And now all of a sudden, bang, one door, the first ward opens. Bang, two doors, the second ward opens. Bang, third, the iron gate opens. We have that all the time now when we go into Walmart or a store. But this was like the first time it happened in history. Remember, what was his name? Maxwell Smart. Remember him? Bang, bang, bang, all the doors just opening for him as he's walking down the hall. This actually happened. And so he was, and he's just in a fog. He's thinking he's seeing a vision. Maybe he's thinking, man, what a dream. This is a nice, pleasant dream I'm having here. But pretty soon the angel takes him out into the first street, and then the second street, and then the angel just says, see you later. You're on your own now. Just walks away. This is absolutely an incredible, incredible miracle. Keep your place here and turn to Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 20 and then we're going to come right back. This is an illustration of this verse. In Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 20, it says this about God, now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly, notice this, above all we ask, that's prayer, or think, that's imagination. Did you know most of us attach imagination to our prayers? When you pray for something, if you're like me, you usually start thinking on how God's going to do it. We usually attach imagination to our prayers. Lord, you know I need this and this is how much I make and so if I save so much for this and that, you know, and we got this thing all figured out. But the Bible says God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think. According to the power, it says that work is in us. So I want to encourage everyone here today to explore the potential of your own personal prayer life. Even if you're not a praying person, start today. Just see what happens. It is incredible the stories you will have in your life where you said, I prayed for this, but boy, God did it this way. I never expected that. So I want to show you, going back to our story number three, the puzzle church. We've seen in verses 1-4 the persecuted church and verses 5-12 the praying church and the incredible miracle that takes place. No human explanation whatsoever. Now the puzzled church in verse 11, I'm sorry, verse 13. And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, now this is where he finally goes Verse 12, I didn't read. And when he had considered the thing, here's Peter standing out in the middle of the street by himself, thinking, what just happened? He came to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying. Now before we go any further on an aside, this young man mentioned here named Mark, whose real name was John, would later become the second writer of the Gospels, the Gospel of Mark. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans. Mark, now his real name was John, but his surname was Mark. And we use his surname because that would be strange saying Matthew, John, Luke, John. You'd say what book would turn to John? Which one? The second one in. Well, we call it Mark. But in the next chapter, this guy Mark, a young man, very young man, goes off on a missions trip with Paul and Barnabas and quits and runs home to mommy. But praise the Lord for good godly mothers because here she is hosting in verse 12 a prayer meeting in her house. We do that every month. There's ladies that host a prayer meeting in their house. I want to encourage you to go to that. She's hosting a prayer meeting in her house. He has a good mother. And by the end of the New Testament, you'll see this guy who failed once gets back up, named Mark, and becomes a tremendous success for the Lord. There's a proverb that says, the just man falleth seven times, but rises up again. So if you have ever fallen, or if you have ever failed in something you have attempted for the Lord, don't give up. Get back at it again. God will give you a second chance and a third chance and a fifth chance and a tenth chance and pretty soon God is going to use you to be a success and be prosperous in doing something for the Lord. Don't be afraid of failure. Success is always just on the other side of failure, but it's only for those who do not give up. No matter what you attempt in life, there's always times of failure, but man, don't... Anyways, that's an aside there. Let's get back to the story. Many were there praying, and then Peter shows up, verse 13, and we see the puzzled church, and as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, named Rhoda. Praise the Lord for little girls at prayer meeting, amen? We ought to take little girls to prayer meeting. They'll see some amazing things. They'll hear some amazing things. And they won't have to wait to an adult lady who's got all these complexities in her mind or adult man to figure out whether prayer works. They'll just know with a child-like simple faith, prayer works. Because they hung around prayer meetings when they were little girls and boys. And when she knew Peter's voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in and told how Peter stood before the gate. And they said unto her, thou art mad. But she constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, it is his angel. But Peter continued knocking, and when they had opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. So notice the puzzle, church. You know, sometimes God is just gonna astonish us with what he does. Now let me get into a little area of opinion here. I believe everybody at that prayer meeting was praying for Peter's deliverance. He was the pastor of their church at Jerusalem. James was one of their pastors. He was just killed with the sword. And I don't know what people were praying, but sometimes I do add a little imagination to the scriptures. And I think they were probably praying like this, Dear Lord, help Peter. He's our leader. He's our pastor. We need him. Lord, when they take him to court, when he stands before the magistrate, when he stands before the judge, when he stands before Herod, please, Lord, give him favor with Herod, and please, Lord, deliver him, and Lord, please, help their decision be to let him go. I'm sure they were praying for his deliverance, probably something like that. But I don't think there was one in that prayer meeting who was saying, Dear Lord, send an angel to take the chains off of his arms, keep the prisoners asleep, open the gate to the first ward, open the gate to the second ward, open the gate to the iron gate, help them to walk right past the prisoners, that were on the outside of the prison without them seeing him, help him to get to the first street and then the second street and then Lord you can let the angel go and then send him to our house. I don't think one person was praying like that at that prayer meeting. But I believe they were praying for his deliverance. And this is an illustration of the verse we read earlier. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think. This is an illustration of how God can listen to one of your prayers and then answer it in an incredible way that you never prayed about nor even thought he would do it that way. That's what God can do. That's what this story's about. And there are times where God is going to make us astonished at what he does. And poor Rhoda, they said, you're mad. You're insane. You lost your mind, little girl. It's his angel. That was another explanation. It must be his angel. I guess they believed in guardian angels, right? Amen. The angel of the Lord encampeth around about them that fear him. Peter was a God-fearing man, so there's angels here. They couldn't believe it. They were astonished. And I'm saying to you today, just pray to God the best you can about his situation, but you leave it to God the way he answers your prayer or the way he works it out. and you'll have some testimonies the rest of your life that you'll say you wouldn't believe. You wouldn't believe what God did. Remember George Mueller, the guy over there in England who had the orphanages? Him and his wife ran and then just put thousands of children who were orphans through, they housed them, they clothed them, they fed them, they educated them. They led him to the Lord and all that, and they never one time asked a human being for a penny. It's one of the greatest miracles of all times. When he died, his journal was found with him and his wife. And inside of his journal were 20,000 prayer requests that he and his wife wrote to God. And then after it, the date that God answered the prayer. One time they sat down to eat with the orphans, they had no food. And a farmer was driving by with all kinds of food on his cart pulled by horses, and the wheels of the cart fell off in front of his orphanage. And he came out to see what was going on. The farmer said, I don't know what's going on. The wheels just fell off my cart. We got to unload this cart. Would you have any use for this food? And so he took the food in and fed all the kids. and story after story after story. Just incredible things that God has done for him and God has done for us. Just incredible stories. But when you pray, pray the best you can. Pray in the will of God, but leave, leave it to God. Don't tell God how he's going to do it. Just leave it to God. And you'll see incredible things. And the last thing is the peaceful church, verse 17, but he, beckoning unto them with the hand to hold their peace, declared unto them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, go, show these things unto James, now that's the other James, that's the brother of Jesus, who would later write the epistle of James, and to the brethren, and he departed. and he went into another place. And so peace comes. It's pretty neat what God can do through prayer. You ought to try it more. And I want to encourage you to pray and to remember that God can do incredible things with absolutely no human explanation when you'll pray. A.B. Simpson was a great man of God. Under this portion of scripture in his notes, he said this, but prayer is the link that connects us with God. This is the bridge that spans every gulf and bears us over every abyss of danger or of need. How significant the picture of the apostolic church, Peter in prison, the Jews triumphant, Herod supreme, the arena of martyrdom awaiting the dawning of the morning to drink up the Apostle's blood, everything else against it. But prayer was made unto God without ceasing of the church. And what is the sequel? The prison opens. The Apostle is free. The Jews are buffed. The wicked king eaten of worms. a spectacle of hideous retribution and the Word of God rolling on into greater victory. Do we know the power of our supernatural weapon? Do we dare to use it with authority of a faith that commands as well as asks? God baptized us with holy audacity and divine confidence. He is not wanting great men, but he is wanting men that dare to prove the greatness of their God through prayer. But God, but prayer. Verse number five, but prayer. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for your word this morning. We thank you for you not only being the God of the impossible, but the God of the incredible. And Lord, You have even said in Your Word in Acts 26 and verse 8, Why think ye of a thing incredible, that God should raise the dead? And Lord, You do want to do incredible things for us. Now, we may seem like the most insignificant person here. We may seem like the most obscure person. We may even wonder if You know our name. But You do. And even the hairs of our head are numbered. And you care about us. And the sum of your thoughts towards us cannot be numbered. You think about us all the time. And you're just waiting to do things incredible for a church that will pray in a united way. God, give us the humility to get over ourselves. And Lord, in a day of a prosperous economy, It is so easy for us to forget about you and to rely on earthly things. But ever so may we with simplicity even pray the prayer of the Lord Jesus who said, give us this day our daily bread and just see what you will do. God, help us, we ask. Lord, revive our prayer life, we pray, and we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.