CHAPTER I

THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

THE book entitled The Acts of the Apostles is something more than a record of apostolic activity. In its deepest sense it is the record of the acts of the risen Christ performed by the apostles, in the power of the Holy Spirit; and not of their acts only, but also of the acts of the entire church, as constituting the body of Christ; for the humblest followers of Christ looked upon themselves as the agents of a higher Power, by which they were controlled and whose behests they were to carry out. With that higher Power they kept in unbroken connection through prayer.

The early church was a praying church as well as a working church; and it was a working church because it was a praying church. As soon as it was born it began to pray; and it grew in strength and efficiency as its prayer-life developed. Through all its subsequent history, down to the present day, it has abounded in service for the Master when it abounded in prayer, and it has declined in the service of the Master when it has declined in prayer. Its prayer-spirit has been a thermometer indicating its spiritual temperature, revealing unerringly the degree of its zeal for the things of the kingdom

and the measure of its power in fulfilling the redemptive mission to which it has specially been called. But prayer is more, much more, than an operating force lying behind the variant forms of service, inspiring and directing them; it is in itself as much a part of the work of the church as any form of outward activity.

1. The Pentecostal Prayer Meeting.

"These all with one accord, continued steadfastly in prayer" (Acts 1. 14). "The first meeting of the ecclesia" was a meeting for prayer. A group of enrolled disciples-one hundred and twenty in number-met in a large upper room and there tarried in prayer, dividing their time between that place of assembly and the temple. They had been charged by their risen Lord, who "showed himself alive after his passion," "not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, said he, ye heard from me" (Acts 1. 3, 4). They were not specifically told how to spend the time of waiting; they were simply told to wait until the time of divine fulfillment; but without needing to be instructed on the point, the attitude in which they waited was that of prayer. For ten days they kept looking heavenward, waiting and watching for the Spirit's advent. Not that they were engaged in the formal exercise of prayer during the entire time of waiting, but that they continued in the spirit of prayer, the pent-up fires bursting frequently forth in fervent supplication.

The contention has sometimes been made that the Holy Spirit was not poured out in answer to prayer, but came in fulfillment to promise as a direct, unmerited gift of God. That it came according to promise as God's unmerited gift goes without the saying, but that it came in connection with prayer, if not in direct answer to it, is equally certain. The words "they continued instantly in prayer" without doubt point out the way in which they were occupied when the blessing came. "The tree of promise dropped its fruit when shaken by the hand of prayer." And thus, as Matthew Henry rightly infers, the promise of the Father, upon which their faith was based, did not supersede prayer but quickened and encouraged it.

The manner of their prayer is distinctly set forth:

(1) They prayed in unison, "with one accord”with an utter absence of discord and division. If not in mental agreement in all things, they were one in desire, one in faith, one in hope. Their spirits and their prayers melted into one like kindred drops.

(2) They prayed with perseverance. "They continued steadfastly in prayer," allowing nothing to divide their attention or their interest, or to break the chain of their petition. They held on to the promise of the Father with a confidence that never wavered.

It was in this attitude that the day of Pentecost found them. "When the day of Pentecost was

now come, they were all together in one place" (Acts 2. 1). In all probability they had spent the preceding night in prayer, and as that eventful day dawned they were still upon their knees; and while in that posture they received the Holy Spirit baptism.

The day selected for the Spirit's advent was the day of Pentecost, "the feast of harvest, the feast of the first fruits." It was the day of fulfillment, an "epoch-making day." As the disciples turned their empty hearts receptively toward heaven the promised and expected blessing came suddenly, as God's blessings often do. It came with outward signs of wind and fire, symbols of divine energy. These outward signs were tokens of an inward spiritual grace; the fire which sat upon each brow typifying the holy fire which burned within each heart. Their inward being was filled with that divine power, without which they had been forbidden to take up the work. Henceforth they were to be allied with the Infinite. Their hearts were to be the Spirit's dwelling place; by him all their activities were to be directed; clothed by him with prophetic power, they were, each in his own place and way to be his "witnesses in both Jerusalem, and in all Judæa and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."

Upon this same power the church has always had to depend in the work of saving men. And if, since the Spirit's advent, prayer is no longer needed to bring this power down from above, it is still