The importance of the prayer meeting

Turn please to Acts chapter 4 to follow along with some of what our brother Steers has brought before us just now. Acts chapter 4 and verse, we'll read at verse 23, before that you'll understand. I know Peter and John are being brought before the high priests, the rulers, the scribes for their preaching of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Having threatened them in verse 21, I want to look in at verse number 23, and being let go they went to their own company, I love that, and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. And we heard that they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Thou art God which hath made heaven and earth and the sea and all that are in them is, who by the mouth of thy servant David hath said, Why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things? And the kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and with the people of Israel were gathered together.

For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings and grant unto thy servants that with boldness they may speak thy word by stretching forth thine hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus. And when they had prayed the place was shaken, where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the word of God with boldness and a multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul.

Unity. I've been thinking of this portion for a while and I would like to consider today the oft-time forgotten meeting of God's assembly. The prayer meeting.

It has been said that the assembly that prays together stays together. Our brother has just been speaking of the absolute importance of the unity of God's assembly. And some of you here today that are much older than me, you have seen assemblies in North America that have ceased to exist because of severe splits in the assembly.

I would find it, and I'm sure you would too, if I am gathering with the people of God on the Wednesday night prayer meeting and gathering together to pray together, I think we would find it very hard to have a problem with the brother or sister that I am praying with. But I want to tell you we live in a day and age, and it's been this way for a while, that the prayer meeting during the week is severely being neglected. I was talking to a brother about a year ago and I said, you know, I haven't been there to the assembly to which you form a part for quite a while.

I said, how many are in fellowship? He said, come on Wednesday night and you'll find out. I thought that was telling. Come on Wednesday night and you'll find out how many are truly in fellowship in the assembly.

And I got to thinking about this, and I've given this ministry in Waukesha before, but I want to tell you, brethren and sisters, it is of utmost importance that we give the prayer meeting when we gather together collectively as an assembly to jointly pray to God of the utmost importance. Can I tell you, a few years ago under sad circumstances in Waukesha, when young Colin Anderson was diagnosed at a very young age with cancer, for a number of weeks assembly came together to pray. And it has been expressed on many occasion it was some of the happiest times we've had together.

When from the very youngest of brethren to the very oldest would gather to lay hold upon God, and you could feel the power in the gathering. I remember years ago as a young boy in the assembly that Robert was raised in in Waterloo, Iowa. We'd come on Wednesday evening to the prayer meeting, and there sat a lone sister with her eyes closed and her lips moving.

She was praying to God. I remember when that dear sister passed away, and I was about 15 years of age, and we were standing at the back of the hall just before the gospel meeting one evening, and I overheard some older brethren pray, or state. Brethren, I just don't feel the power since Gladys is gone.

There was a sister that could lay hold of God in prayer. But as I read here in Acts chapter 4, what would those saints have missed if they would have not been gathered together that night, or that evening, or that day, whenever it was, when those Christians were gathered together to pray, and the power of God was so made manifest that the place was shaken. Now, we don't expect the building to shake today, do we? But I want to tell you, brethren and sisters, every single one of us, have we not at some point in our lives experienced the powerful hand of God through prayer? I love what it is said here as John and Peter are released by these individuals who interrogated them, who threatened them, and they let them go not knowing what to do with them.

What does it say? They went on to their own company. Went on to their own company, laying hold upon God. And Peter and John went to the place where prayer was being laid hold upon the very God of heaven, likely on their account.

And so I ask each one of us today, is the Wednesday night, Thursday night, Tuesday night, whenever the assembly to which you gather have their prayer meeting, are you there? Are you there? I'll have to say there's many a times where I rush in the door following work, and it'd be very easy just to sit in the recliner and relax. But on those occasion when it's happened, and I've rushed in the home, and not even had an opportunity maybe eat a bite of dinner, but we had to head to the prayer meeting, it has been those nights when I have left the most encouraged as I've gathered with the people of God. You know we're just small in Waukesha, but when we come together to lay hold upon God together, do we realize that in doing so, we're coming into the very presence of the God, the God of eternity that has created all things.

The God who has made Himself manifest to us through the person of His Son and the death of the cross. I've heard the greatest of excuses as to why I can't be at the prayer meeting. Oh, I've got this going on, and I had that going on, and I just couldn't be there.

You know sometimes, brethren and sisters, it's a matter of priority, isn't it? It's a matter of priority. Are there things in this world that are perhaps more important to me, that I should be in, that I am involved with, though they may be absolutely legitimate things, is it more important for me to be doing those things than to going to the little gospel hall where there's a handful of people that have come together to pray together to God. I found in my life on many occasions those things that I thought I should have been maybe doing on a Wednesday evening, but went to the prayer meeting.

They all get done some other time. But what would I have missed had I not had gone and met with the people of God in prayer? What would these believers have missed when they came together and lifted up their voices? I like what it says in verse number 23 and 24. When they heard that, they lifted up their voices with one accord, and lifted up these men that had just been threatened, and laid hold upon God with fervent prayer.

I've often thought they brought before God things that God already knew about. Behold their threatenings. Didn't God just witness this? These men being threatened, but yet these believers, they come together and they raise the need up before God.

Grant thy servants with all boldness. Hadn't Peter and John just stood up and condemned these individuals? God saw it all, and stretched forth their hand to heal. Just prior to that, there was this man that was healed.

And so, brothers and sisters, as I sit down, let's bring back into our own hearts and our own desires the desire for the prayer meeting on Wednesday evening, or Tuesday evening, whatever it may be. I thank God that much of this perhaps hasn't entered into the Midwest yet, but it's coming. You only have to travel to certain parts of the country, and maybe there's an assembly, a large assembly, and there's only a handful at the Wednesday night prayer meeting.

I don't know, I guess we feel that God's not there, right? He is there. He has promised to be there. And for those that come there, exercise thereby.

We'll receive a blessing. Might we hold dear to our hearts the assembly coming together to pray.