Wednesday, October 22nd

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Wednesday, October 22

Acts 4:23-31

When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, "Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, "'Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed'-- for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus." And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Last spring a friend of mine named Tom Randall, a career missionary to the Philippine Islands and now a pastor at my brother’s church in Ohio, was arrested while on a trip to visit ministry partners in the Philippines.

To make a very long and scary story short he was falsely accused of some horrific crimes and, due to how the law works in the Philippines, he was immediately thrown into prison and had to try to defend himself from there.

Prison conditions were both harsh and extremely dangerous. The temperature was over 100 degrees; prisoners were jammed together in tiny cells and violence was rampant. On several occasions Tom’s life was in real jeopardy.

But Tom saw things a bit differently. He didn’t want to be in prison; he knew the accusations were false; but he also trusted that God would work in and through even that terrible situation. So Tom started ministering to fellow prisoners. He started sharing the gospel with them and offering to pray for them. He even did so with the guards.

As word got out dozens of churches and thousands of people began to pray for Tom’s safety and for his release. Tom was able to communicate sporadically with my brother, Joe, when he was allowed to use his cell phone.

At one point my brother said Tom sent him a text saying, “Tell the people who are praying to pray that I won’t get out too soon - because a lot of people are getting saved in prison!”

Now, Tom wanted to get out of prison and return to his wife and his ministry; but Tom also trusted that God was sovereign and could use even that terrible circumstance for his eternal purposes.

We see the same trust in the prayer of the early believers:

And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

They don’t ask God to punish those who are threatening them. They don’t ask God to wipe out their enemies. They ask for more boldness.

That’s revolutionary prayer!

Most of us will never spend time in a Philippino prison! But most of us will, sooner or later, find ourselves in a situation that we would have never chosen for ourselves. Maybe it will be a time of unemployment; or a time of sickness and hospitalization; maybe even a time of loss.

What we can learn from these earliest followers of Jesus is the kind of faith that allows us to trust God’s sovereignty in all circumstances; the kind of faith that leads us to pray for boldness in those circumstances.


Pastor Brian Coffey