[Darris McNeely] Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon, everyone. And to all of you that are online. Hope you're having a good Sabbath and are well wherever you may be tuning in. Very much appreciated the special music. It's hard to follow such a well-done a cappella piece like that. It's very, very nice, very good. 

When I was a young boy, I devoured all the "Superman" comic books. This was before...all you had was a black and white "Superman" television program at that time. And the comic books were in color and much better and allowed your imagination to roam free with that. But of all the powers and everything that surrounded Superman, what stuck with me more than anything. was his occasional retreat to what was called a fortress of solitude. If any of you have seen the movies and know that, that was quite stunning to me. When I watched the first of the new ones, the movies that came out years ago with Christopher Reeve as Superman, I was anxious to see how they would portray that. They didn't let me down in that fortress of solitude there. That stuck with me even more so than Gene Hackman's portrayal of Lex Luthor in that movie. 

But as I have grown older, I, like Paul, have put away childish things, in a sense, but some things still stay with me because today, and has been for years, and like so many of you, we all have a fortress of solitude that is a bit more real, spiritual, God. It should be. It is. Psalm 62 is one that comes to mind because it's one of the songs that we sing. If you will turn there and just note a few of the concepts here about God being our refuge. The 62nd Psalm.

Psalm 62:1-2 "Truly my soul silently waits for God," David writes. "From him comes my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be greatly removed."

That is where we reside. That's where we go when we need. You know, when I was reading those comic books and would kind of get into my imagination phase and I would find little places that I could...in my neighborhood and my home or other places that became my imagined fortress of solitude where I would kind of retreat and go, and think, and get away from everybody and everything. And then it was my little secret hiding place. But as, again, we grow older, we learn to retreat into ourselves in that through relationship with God, we rely on Him.

Psalm 62:6-11 "He is my defense. I shall not be greatly moved." In verse 6, "He is my rock and my salvation, the rock of my strength. My refuge is in God." Again in verse 8, "God is a refuge for us." And verse 11, "Power belongs to God."

This psalm, as many others do, but because it's one we regularly sing, we remember quite well. It speaks to the transcending power of God and the transcending of this physical to the spiritual. Where we live our lives, we have our trials, we have our needs, and we want to move to a spiritual place that is a fortress, that is a place where God is and He is our rock and our refuge and we draw strength from that. We bridge to that divine realm where God sets enthroned and Christ is at His right hand. Above and beyond all the earthly powers of men and the culture and the politics and the workings of this age that surround us. God's aware of all of that, but when we put our mind upon the throne of God as Revelation 4 and 5 and the opening chapters of Ezekiel or Isaiah 6 project us into the visions that those men had that God granted of His very throne. And the workings in that throne, we get a whole other dimension of the grandeur, the power, the work of God, and how much bigger it is than anything that goes on around us in this world as God is aware of this world and very much in tune with it, but He's above it all with his eternal purpose, and we see that purpose in motion through all that God tells us about in those particular visions and so much more in Scripture as God is relentlessly moving to a time of the restoration of all things. 

And so how do we cultivate that today? How should we refine that fortress, this concept of God as our rock in our life today? This divine presence to be able to, when we need to, and regularly we do need to, transcend whatever is our life, what is going on around us, what consumes us, and spend time with God and, in a sense, move into that divine presence and be inspired by it, be led by it, be moved by it as God's spirit works within us. How do we exactly do that? I'd like for us to turn over to the book of Acts. I'd like to take us through a story there this afternoon that can give us a basis for some answers, maybe an answer. There are many answers to what I posed of how to cultivate that, but Acts 12 gives us an example. tha I think moves it into something very relevant to what we need and where we are today in this current age with all this moving around us. 

In Acts 12, let's skim through the verses here in this story. The setting is just before the gospel of the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ goes into the Roman world, the Gentile nations at the hands of Paul and Barnabas in this first journey that begins in Chapter 13. There's been a groundwork that has been laid by the church in Jerusalem, the expansion to the Gentiles, and Peter going to the home of Cornelius. Chapter 12 contains a story that, in a sense, sets up much of the rest of the book of Acts. And Luke begins it this way in verse 1.

Acts 12:1 "At about that time, Herod the king stretching out his hand to harass some from the church."

This is a man in history that we know as King Herod Agrippa I. He was the grandson of Herod the Great, who is in the openings of the Gospels. The great king that was appointed by Rome, who had rebuilt Jerusalem, sought to kill Jesus Christ when he was told about a Messiah. This is his grandson, Herod Agrippa I, who has, in a sense, kind of come and restored much of the grandeur and the power and the breadth of the Herodian family in Israel. And he has a relationship with the Jews and a very close one with Rome at that time. And what he does is he kills James, the brother of John, with the sword, verse 2. That's what he did when he stretched out his hand against the church. 

One of the original apostles, one of the 12, now martyred. The first of the apostles we have record of here, martyred by this king. And he saw that it pleased the Jews, verse 3 says. Now that is because he wanted to cultivate a relationship with the Jewish leaders to solidify his own place there. And so he proceeded further to seize Peter also, one of the leaders.

Acts 12:3-4 “And it was during the Days of Unleavened Bread. And so when he had arrested him, he put him in prison, delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him, intending to bring him before the people after Passover.”

Peter had been a major spokesperson for the church as the earlier chapters portrayed. And he, in a sense, was going to wait until after the festival period here for the sake of the Jewish conscience, I suppose, but then bring him before the people and probably make it a bigger spectacle, as he no doubt intended to then kill Peter, knowing that that would even itself probably ingratiate himself to the Jewish people. But that was not what God was going to allow to happen. Why not? Why he didn't say James and allow Peter, we don't know. We just have to speculate on that. But Peter was put into prison with four squads. You know the earlier stories, Peter had been in prison and they had been released miraculously. So this time. they were going to put four squads on him and make sure that he didn't get out. He was kept in prison, in verse 5.

Acts 12:5 But it says that “Constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church.”

I want you to mark that phrase, "constant prayer." We'll come back to that. Constant prayer was made for Peter at this time by the church. And so as the days went on and the story develops here, when Herod was about to bring him out.

Acts 12:6-7 “That night, Peter was sleeping and bound with two chains between two soldiers, and the guards before the door were keeping the prison. And an angel of the Lord stood before him, and a light shone in the prison, and he struck Peter on the side, raised him up, saying, ‘Arise quickly,’ and his chains fell off his hands.”

And so all of the very careful preparations that the Roman guards had been prepared to do to keep Peter enchained was not enough, didn't keep God from putting in his angel. The angel said to him in verse 6.

Acts 12:8-9 "’Gird yourself, tie on your sandals.’" And so he did. And he said to him, ‘Put on your garments and follow me.’ And so he went out and followed him, and he did not know, Peter, that what was done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision.”

Perhaps he thought he was sleepwalking. He was kind of a stupor of just half asleep, half awake, whatever, at that point.

Acts 12:10 “They were past the first and the second guard post, they came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened before them of its own accord, and they went out and down one street, and immediately the angel departed from him.”

So he got him to safety. And then, as an angel can do, just as Jesus had done when He came and went among His disciples after His resurrection, the angel just, in a sense, slipped into that other dimension, into that realm, that spiritual realm, just like that. And Peter was left in the street, free at this point. "And he came to himself," it says.

Acts 12:11 And he said, "Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent this angel and has delivered me from the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the Jewish people."

He was delivered from the hand of Rome. Herod was an agent of the Roman Empire. And they, at least the leaders of the Jewish people, were working in conjunction with this particular Herod, again, hoping that through this political alliance of convenience, the continuing prosperity of the Jewish leadership, the Sanhedrin, would continue. And they expected, because they were expecting at this time to do something to Peter and, probably in their mind, strike what they would have hoped would have been a fatal blow to the church at this particular time. 

Acts 12:12 "And so when he had considered this," in verse 12, "he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together pray."

We read earlier that constant prayer was made by the church for Peter. And so Peter somehow knew to go to the home of Mary, and there he found a group of people praying. And so he knocked at the door, and to the gate comes this girl named Rhoda to answer in what is a rather humorous scene from Scripture here, one of the more humorous found in the Bible.

Acts 12:13-14 “She recognized Peter's voice. And because of her gladness, she did not open the gate.”

Ran back in. And it's probably being told a little bit in understanding how the Jewish homes would have been at the time. It was probably a gate...well, there was a gate there, and this wasn't your little normal small gate like we have in our backyards. This would have been probably a much taller, more formidable gate, part of the wall that would have opened likely into a small courtyard. And the home would have been probably a two-story home there. And fairly substantial, upper-middle-class type home that Mary had there. And there were gathered these members. 

Acts 12:14-16 "And she ran back in, announced that Peter stood before the gate, and they said to her, 'You're beside yourself.' Yet she kept insisting and saying yes. And they said, 'Well, it's his angel.' And Peter continued knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished."

And they believed her, but she couldn't have opened the door and let him in and brought Peter to prove. She was so excited about that. It tells you a little bit about probably the tension of the emotion building over the days. First James is killed. Now the church has set themselves into constant prayer. And a group of them are gathered here at the home of Mary. And I would imagine, as I think, as I try to recreate this scene in my mind, that this was in the middle of the night. Peter's asleep in the prison, so it's probably well into the night, you know, not yet dawn. And members are at this home gathered and they're awake and they're praying. Remember that. 

Acts 12:17 "Peter continued knocking," verse 17, "but motioning to them with his hand to keep silent. He declared to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison and he said, 'Go tell these things to James and to the brethren.' And he departed and he went to another place."

Peter was not going to stay. Perhaps he was thinking that this would be a place they would come to, the guards looking for him. And he went somewhere else, not wanting to tempt God, not wanting to...He realized he'd been delivered by God. And he was prudent enough to know to move to some other location, a previously undisclosed location, whatever, maybe all set up, by which he would have safety.

Acts 12:18-19 "And as soon as it was day, there was no small stir among the soldiers about what had become of Peter. Herod searched for him, found him not. He examined the guards. They had no answers. They had no explanation. There was nothing for them to stand on. And he commanded that they should be put to death. And he went straight down from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there."

Caesarea was a very nice place on the Mediterranean, and it was a favorite place for the Herods and others in Jerusalem, even the Roman governor Pilate to go, to get away from Jerusalem because Jerusalem was where all the Jews were. And where there were all that many Jews in that period of time, there was just a lot of contention and problems, and so it was a respite from all the intrigue and audiences and discussions and decisions that had to be done by the Roman governor at that particular point in time. 

Now, the last few verses of this story seem like a kind of just a little vignette or something, an aside thrown in by Luke, but it's not. There's a reason God moved Luke to put the ending of the story here. We should note it.

Acts 12:20-23 "Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon." Now, that's another side story we don't need to spend any time with, some type of local dust-up and intrigue. "They came to him with one accord, having made Blastus, the king's personal aide, their friend. They asked for peace because their country was supplied with food by the king's country. So on a set day, Herod arrayed in royal apparel, sat on his throne and gave an oration to them. And the people kept shouting, 'The voice of a god and not of a man.' And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give glory to God, and he was eaten by worms and died." 

Again, Luke just brings in, you know, just enough blood and guts, enough gore here to get our attention and then whet our appetite and tell us that, you know, suddenly this leader is no more as he was giving some type of an oration before, obviously, a crowd. And it ends the story and it moves into really the rest of the story of the book of Acts, and that's the journey of Paul. And as I said, the advance of the mission of the church to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God to the world and to the nations as Jesus told them in Acts 1.8, it really then takes off. 

But it begins at a point where we are told in the story about The death of James, the imprisonment of Peter, he was released by an angel. But most importantly for what I want to talk to us about today, the reaction of the church. That constant prayer was made by the church for Peter. And when he was released and he went to look for his friends, he found them in the middle of the night in a home praying, gathered there for him. It was during the Holy Days evidently, we would assume, because Herod was going to wait until after the Holy Days to do whatever, he's going to bring Peter before the people. And so it's a festive period, but it has ominous overtones hanging over the church at this point as they've lost James and now they think they're going to lose Peter. And they're probably thinking, who's next? What's next? What does this mean? 

How do you pray? What is your habit for prayer? On your knees? Yes. Three times a day like Daniel? David talked in a psalm about morning, noon, and night he comes before God. We have two examples there. And if you are thinking about the example of Jesus, he certainly prayed. He Pray to God as He would lay hands upon people for their healing. He would pray as He would at times lift up his voice and as it's recorded, he would talk to God in the moment, it would seem. And then there were times that after preaching, teaching, and walking, no doubt, He was tired, He needed a spiritual rejuvenation and recharging, and his fortress of solitude was to go off by Himself. We see that occasionally in the Psalms as well, where he goes off to Himself and then they go and find Him. He even did that on the night that He died. It wasn't quite as remote there in the garden when He left some to go and do that. But we see Jesus giving us an example by His own actions on top of how He taught us to pray in that model prayer that He gives as well in the Sermon on the Mount.

So there's a great deal of instruction as well as example from Jesus. And other comments and examples, as I mentioned, Daniel and David, and we could go through the Bible in order to gain from these examples how to pray. But how do you pray? You know, when you look at this story here, constant prayer being offered by the church. That's something I've really never been a part of. We don't have that as a tradition, do we, in the church to gather in what would be a prayer vigil. I'm not saying we should, that's not where I'm going, so don't worry about that. And there may be a time when we would. I remember in my youth a collective prayer that the church made and the congregation I was in on our knees before God for someone where the whole church kneeled down. And, you know, from time to time as a minister, I would lead my congregation in a prayer for certain individuals that, you know, were sick, maybe an impending birth that there was a complication, and we would pray together. But it's obvious from this example that there was constant prayer made by the church, and it was going on when Peter was released. 

The Bible talks about other...Paul makes comments about being instant in prayer. Praying always without ceasing is another comment that Paul makes in one of his opening statements to the church, one of the churches. Always without ceasing. I've read those and thought, how do you pray? Always without ceasing. How would you be instant in prayer? From time to time, we would have an announcement of someone's illness in the congregation and we would pray, probably a silent prayer, right there for them. We would not always have a congregational prayer. I do think that there's a time and place for that, but...Pray silently. You've done that. I've done that in occasion. I've taken that prayer list that comes out and ones that are sent to us and gone on my knees in prayer to people. I've prayed for people when I maybe can't get to my knees at that moment. I'll say a prayer to God. I will talk to God. 

I've sat on deer stands, it's daybreak before I can see that deer coming through the field, and I've talked to God, even sometimes ask him to send me a buck. I live next to a big woods and it's nice to just go out and sit next to that woods sometimes and just look at nature, look at creation, talk to God. I can do that, you can do that by the sea. There's reasons we like to go to Jekyll Island and to the beach for a feast site, to walk the beach at sunset or sunup and talk to God. We can do that. And we should because that is the means by which we transcend the life we have and somehow seek to be a part of the divine, the spiritual realm where God is and where His son is at His right hand. And we talk to Them and we pour ourselves out. We beseech Him. We ask for healing, we ask for comfort, we ask for courage. That's what we do. That is what we should do. 

In this story that I just skimmed through rather quickly, we should understand that this is more than just a kind of a historical narrative. Oh, it did happen. It's written in God's Word and that Word is true. But there's a deeper level of understanding to this as there are, you know, all of the stories and teaching of Scripture. But for this one, for us, there's a deeper level as to what is happening that we can peel off at various layers and understand and should understand about transcending this life, this physical life. to the divine, to God, and being in touch with that, and being strengthened by that as He is our rock, our refuge, and we seek to be renewed, strengthened, and if you will, that fortress, that fortress of solitude. The only one that really is, and therefore the one that does count, and that is the throne of God, the very presence of God. 

When you read through the book of Acts, you see how close they were to that spiritual world in many different ways. Luke, in his gospel account, he does the same thing, but especially in the book of Acts, he's led by God to bring in the narrative, the movement of God's spirit upon the people and upon Paul and these actions, these miracles, the healings and all. The spiritual world is brought nearer. And in this story here, we see that prayer is the main weapon that the church uses. It's the only weapon they did have. Herod had an army. Herod had soldiers with swords and he had the power of Rome behind him to where he could stretch out his hand against the church, as it says, take James and kill him merely because he was part of a movement contrary to the established order of both the Jews and, therefore, threatening the order of Rome. And that was what was paramount to be kept. 

And so the church didn't have any of that. No army. No swords, no armaments, no legions, no battalions. What did they do? Well, they were in constant prayer, is what it says in verse 5. Somehow they recognized this was their moment. It was a moment. And the only thing they could do was be in continual, constant prayer to God, reaching to the divine realm. They were up against Rome. They were up against Herod Agrippa. They had soldiers with swords and shields and lances to contend with. They were up against the most powerful machine of the day and of the time, Rome. The fourth beast of Daniel, the great and dreadful and terrible beast that Daniel saw in his vision in Chapter 7 of Daniel. The church was up against the politics of the time, the political factions of the Jewish leaders, and they're conniving with Rome. Therefore, they were up against false religion. That was a part of this hand of Herod that was stretched out against the church. They were also up against celebrity and spectacle, pageantry, status, and wealth. 

The little short story that ends Chapter 12 here that I mentioned where Herod gives this oration on a day and he struck dead and eaten with worms, Luke doesn't tell us the whole story. In this one, you have to go to Josephus, the 1st-century Jewish historian, to get the rest of the story. And Josephus tells us that this was a huge celebration, multi-day celebration that was taking place in Caesarea, and this particular moment would have been likely in this large amphitheater in Caesarea, filled with people, thousands of people. And Josephus says that Herod came out arrayed in a magnificent silver robe that caught all the rays of the sun and magnified himself and his position and the power that he represented, which is behind what is said here, as he talks to the people, and they say, "The voice of a God, not of a man." That's just a very one-sentence summation of, quite frankly, a large pageant and celebration taking place before thousands of people in this huge Roman amphitheater, the stadium of the day, you know, whatever, you know, the...I forgot what we call our stadium downtown here. Is it Paycor? Paycor now. And all the other names, AT&T, and Dallas and wherever we've got these huge stadiums.

Well, this is what they had, and this was what was going on. And Herod had stretched out his hand too far. And even Josephus records that he was struck down, died a few days later, according to Josephus' account, same result. He is struck by God and he dies. But it's in the middle of a celebration as only Rome could do a celebration. They would have had music and they would have had pageantry and parades and other things going on as Herod magnifies himself to the point where people looked upon him as a god. That's idolatry, obviously. We know that, but we need to think about that. Because this is what the church was up against, the status, the wealth, and all of the idolatry of that period and of that time arrayed before them, and God causes this to be recorded for us, and I think for us to get to a particular level for us today to think about and to understand as to what we are against, what is in front of us.

The church here had it's fortress, it's rock, it's refuge, and it was God. They were in constant prayer. Gathering in small groups offering a vigil. It's the only weapon they had. And they were praying for God to get them through, to give them the strength to even get to what they might have thought and were beginning to think in their own mind might be their own death and further scattering. We don't know. But we can well imagine what would have been going through there. The power of idolatry symbolized by this King Herod in Rome and even the idolatry that the Jewish leadership, the false leadership of the Jews, and all that they had done is they had set themselves against Christ and against the church. And in this, all of that was being forced into the way of life that the church was trying to live as they sought to serve God and to do his work.

In short, what we have in this picture here is the power of Satan through his human agencies of the time, which was working and it was pervasive. It seeped into every corner of life in Jerusalem throughout Judea. And the only refuge that the church had was prayer. That was the only power to connect to God, to move beyond this world. And prayer did shield the church against the power of Rome because Chapter 13 opens out into the great journeys of Paul through the Roman world as he went himself out into literally the belly of the beast, as he advanced with the gospel into the regions, and ultimately by the time you get to the end of the book of Acts, he comes to Rome itself. But all the great stories that are there teach us a great deal about God. This story is inserted as a bridge to that story and the expansion of the gospel into the heart of the Roman Empire. And prayer is at the heart of that story, God's presence, God's power, the convicting power of the Word and the Spirit. Look at the end of verse 12. I didn't read that, but I want to read it right now. Luke ends with this. Again, it's just one of those simple statements inserted, but it is volumes.

Acts 13:12 "But the word of God grew and multiplied."

It didn't stop. It wasn't the end of the church. Yes, a beloved leader had been killed, another one threatened. The church back on his heels for a moment. But as all of this played out over a season, several weeks possibly, and Herod's ultimate death, the Word of God grew and multiplied. Prayer, God's presence, God's power, the convicting power of the Word and the Spirit. These three things are shown here. Prayer, the Word of God, the Spirit of God symbolized by the very presence of an angel going in to deliver Peter out of prison filled the church and the disciples with an all-consuming zeal to do the work and the will of the Father, and advancing His mission into the world. 

And so, with that as an understanding, let me bring this into a little bit of relevance as to where we are possibly today. And I appreciated Mr. Porter's sermonette and his message. I'll take it a little step further than he dared to do. By drawing our attention to something we should understand at a different level than we would probably normally think about it. Okay? I found it intriguing this week to follow one of these little pop-up news stories that begins to get all kinds of attention out on the internet involving the presidential candidate Donald Trump and the pop star Taylor Swift. I know, cheap shot, attention getting. I've already made my comment on Ms. Swift in an earlier sermon. But you can't watch NFL football these days without all of this going on. And in a quirky, kind of weird news cycle that I think tells us something deeper than most people know, this past week saw the followers of former President Trump on the web with tweets and everything go after Taylor Swift because of her political views, her status, her celebrity, her relationship with a football player, his endorsement of a vaccine, and the drama and the spectacle that surrounds that for any of us that have watched the progression of the football playoffs and are doomed to see more scenes here in a few more days. 

But, of course, the political season is ramping up, and we haven't heard the last of the two candidates who were in the last political cycle. And this is not a political, both these individuals are a symptom that we should understand. They're not the answer. They're flawed people. This is something for us to understand. Their talents really have tapped into something even bigger. Mr. Trump didn't create his following. The following was already there. Doesn't matter what we think of him. What we do need to understand is what is happening, what happened. He walked out onto a balcony and the plaza was already filled with people wanting something, and he tapped into it. He did, six, seven years ago, whenever he came on the scene, and he's still tapping into it. Those are some real problems. I'm not saying his answers are the solution or he has the answers. I don't think so. That's not the point. It's what is happening. 

You go around the world, you go anywhere in the world, and I read a lot of stuff, newspapers in parts of the world these days to try to understand things connected to the international role that I've been asked to help with and you don't get on any major newspaper anywhere in the world without finding an article about the American political situation and Mr. Trump. It's there, everybody's interested in all over the world. They're interested in American politics. They told me in the Philippines they're more interested in American politics than Filipino politics because there's just so boring and ours is entertaining. Well, I don't look at it as entertaining. I look at it as tragic. And Ms. Swift, well, she's the biggest popular pop icon of the day. We all, anybody, unless you were living in a cave, we know that. And the following over which she has, she's very influential. But she's not the problem, she has just tapped into what has always been there for, let's say, youth and adolescents, was in my day with different icons and popular cultural figures and everything else. 

But step back from the people, the personalities, what are we dealing with? We're dealing with power, political power. We're dealing with celebrity, politics, money, fame, status. All the other elements that are in the story are in the story we just read from Acts 12. Power, politics, money, celebrity, idolatry. It's just got different names, different faces. It's a little bit more glitzy and glamorous. And we watch it, we see it, we're immersed in it, it's a part of this age, and we see it, we work to understand it, we perhaps indulge in it to one degree or the other. We're all influenced by this age. Let's just put everything else aside and be honest with us. But what we're dealing with are the elements of what is at the heart of modern idolatry, pure and simple, and we should discern and understand our time and what is happening and what it means. Not to figure out who's going to be the next star or the next president so much. This will come and go.

But what I am beginning to understand as I read the Bible and know that ahead of us is a larger episode of spiritual deception that will involve the same elements that are in this story in Acts. Rome, power, false religion, politics, the people of God contending with it, acting within it, coming to grips with it, transcending it, not being a part of it. That's the story ahead that the Bible talks about. And all of this is just in a sense a warm-up because all the elements that are swirling around the current scene that we see are going to be magnified as Satan pulls it all together in his final episode that the Bible talks about at the end of the age. And everything's swirling around us right now waiting for that very moment. When other figures will step into a role that will lead the world into a time of great trial, such as was never seen by any previous time, and it'll be combined with a cosmic mix of signs and wonders so powerful that Jesus Himself said that the very elect could be deceived.

And so I read Scripture and I read these stories and as I try to understand the times in which I live, which is what Jesus said to do, because I don't want to get caught in that. And as I teach students and as I teach you and as I try to in the work that we have to help warn the world come out of that, understand, because it's here now in formative ways. We should understand that. I'm not making any statement for or against anyone. I'm just trying to help us all understand the world that we live in and how we should react. How should we react? Like the church did here in Acts 12, constant, vigilant, approach to life and to prayer. Why? Because it will help...that constant vigilant prayer will help us overcome the culture of our age. It will help us discern the culture of this age. 

And I know that I need a lot of that myself. Sometimes I do a 10-point quiz with the ABC students every week in class, and I throw in a lot of popular cultural matters that, frankly, they don't know about because they weren't around when a lot of these things happened. So I try to teach them a little bit about the culture of my time, and we try to have a little fun with that and a little bit of instruction. But I do think that it's important that we understand popular culture to a degree as we seek to understand what the Bible says about it and how we must deal with it and react to it. So that as we live in this world, we are not a part of this world in that sense of being consumed by the culture to the point that it becomes an idol between us and God. 

No matter where we fall on the spectrum of culture today, brethren, we are all influenced by one degree or the other. Culture saturates everything, all of these things that we're talking about. We walk in this world. We make our living in this world. We're educated in this world, in our life, in a culture we're born into and that is created. Through the training, the education, the experience that we have, we're all conditioned by the elements of this age. And our continual role in the church is to be converted, to grow in grace and knowledge, and not let the culture that we might be a little closer to or feel more related to shape the way the church culture should be in our midst. 

In Ephesians 4, appreciate it again, Mr. Porter's reference to Ephesians 4, but I'll just look at the first few verses of Ephesians 4. Paul is instructing the disciples how they should be walking in the culture of their world.

Ephesians 4:1 He says, "I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with all longsuffering, bearing with one another in love."

In Chapter 2, he told them that they once walked according to the course of the prince of the power of the air, the children of disobedience. Now he's telling them, let's walk differently, let's live differently, let's think differently, even while you have to continue to live in the culture of Ephesus, which was as bad or worse than our culture today. 

Ephesians 4:2-3 He says, "With all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in a bond of peace."

That's the culture in the church that we are challenged to shape through prayer, constant, vigilant prayer. Transcending this world being strengthened by the power of the divine realm as we interact with God, as we draw close to him, and as we are convicted and moved by the Word of God, the power of God through his Spirit, and we recognize that that is the reality, ultimately. That's the true reality. These visions that Scripture gives us of God's presence, of God's throne, of God's angels, and of God's spirit within us, leading us, shaping us, correcting us, encouraging us, helping us. That's what we, through prayer, reach out to bridge toward as we seek to come out of this world and to shape even within the world a better walk and a better way of life according to the unity of the Spirit, the bond of peace. 

Ephesians 4:4 "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and in you all."

Those few verses set up a very good foundation upon which to base this fortress of solitude, this refuge, this relationship with God as our rock. You know, we had a mention in the announcements, we had this nice social last week, guess who's coming to dinner? Someone commented to me before church that that was a perfect social to strike fear into the heart of an introvert. Pretty good comment, right? All week I said to my wife, who's coming to dinner? Who's going to be that door when we open it? Because usually we always know when we've invited people over, don't you? And it turned out to be great. And I hope, and I think from everything I've heard, it turned out great for everybody else. 

What a wonderful idea to make connections with people we hadn't seen for a while, to meet people that we had never eaten a meal with perhaps, and to bring people from different parts of the church together to seek a unity of the Spirit in the love of God. I do hope we do it again whenever it's chosen and I hope more of us will be a part of that. What a great thing to bring us together and to help us encourage one another to make breakthroughs with new relationships. And so this constant vigilant prayer helps us to overcome the culture of this age and to develop the culture within the church.

The second thing that it does is it helps us overcome Satan and the constant barrage that he is working through his agencies in this age. Never forget Satan is the accuser of the brethren. We forget that, and we do so at our peril. We may not always like to think about that. But don't underestimate the powers that are working against us. We have to overcome that. That was what was behind the power that stretched out his hand against the church here. But the church had the one power to counter it, constant prayer being made. And at times, it might be together.

A third thing for us to take away and to learn is that constant prayer, brethren, can allow us to overcome our own beast. I know some of us don't like to think about the beast and prophecy and that. Again, we take that stance at our own peril as well. But I do know as well that all of us have our own beasts to overcome. We may not be able to clearly see and maybe not be fighting completely the prophesied beast to come, not just yet. But we each have our inner beasts to tame, sin to overcome, entrapments to avoid. Well, prayer is that bridge to God to help us with that as well. And that's where that constant vigilant prayer can bring us into that contact with God, our Father, and His merciful Son is our high priest who knows our infirmities, and spending more time there, maybe on our knees three times a day if that's what you can do and you would do. That is a scriptural example of how Daniel did it. 

But some of us may not be able to do it quite that way. But we should be instant in prayer. We should be praying always without ceasing, and learn how to do that and have that thought and that way. I mean, there's another episode we won't read, obviously, today where Paul is in prison in Philippi and he and Silas sing psalms and hymns in the night before there's an earthquake and they're let out miraculously. But they're singing psalms. I've been in some pretty stressful moments, and I'll start singing a psalm from our own hymn book. And it's encouraging because, you know, it's the psalms, it's the Word of God. Maybe while you're driving, you're not going to get on your knees while you're driving. When it comes to your mind what you should do and what you need to do, do it, and then certainly make the time to go to our knees and talk to God. And there's going to be the time that you're going to do that for quite a long period of time, longer than maybe normal, and lay it out.

There was a time my wife and I learned that we were facing something so big, beyond us. And so we said, we're going to be like Hezekiah. We're going to go in and lay out, as he did the letters from the Assyrians before God and he prayed, if you remember that story. Well, we've laid out our own, you know, writings or things before God and on our knees and you pour out your heart. Because that's all you can do. But it's all we should do in just about every case. More of that will draw us together in a unity of love and unity of the Spirit. Prayer allows us to overcome those matters within us and will help us to see the spiritual dimension that we really should be working within. 

We handle the truth of God. We teach the truth of God. We proclaim the truth of God. These are all divine truths from the unseen realm of God's presence and eternity. It's where God is working. And it's really where the only work that really matters is being done, as God then works through His church, through His disciples, through those who seek Him. And we have our part to play in that great work that God is doing. And God is doing a great work. I gave a sermon two or three weeks ago now in the a.m. congregation off of our trip to Asia and some of the examples and things that bring us to a realization, God's doing something. And it's not us. We've got to get aligned with what God is doing. And that's happening in many other places, and it's happening here. As we are aligned with God, we'll have a part in that. 

So let's take a lesson from Acts, when the church was in touch with their time, when they could discern their time and be in constant vigilant prayer, when they knew how to react. Let's take a lesson from the book of Acts and let's draw closer to God in the work that He has given us to do.