grew and multiplied” (verse 24).
No wonder the golden-mouthed Chrysostom once said, “God can refuse nothing to a praying congregation!”
Where have we failed? It seems that not only have we been ailing and failing—we have fallen.
First, our vision of the church has declined. This is primary. In practical language, our members place a low priority on strong and faithful assembling, though this is what the Lord really has in mind for His plan. People can miss meetings without any twinge of conscience. The book of Hebrews flashes the danger signals, and this is one of them: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (10:25).
Today, we not only see the signs of His coming, we can actually “see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25). We should be assembling more faithfully, not less. God’s Word here is a very earnest word.
Second, with that decline in assembling, the prayer meeting has also suffered. Instead of the prayer meeting being a concern for the entire assembly, it has often dwindled to the care of the few. It is generally considered to be an adjunct to the otherwise busy ministry work. This prayerless condition has now become so general that it is dreadfully specific—totally unlike the Jerusalem congregation!
Third, the Great Commission has also suffered and been weakened in this decline. The result is that we are heavy on the “Go ye” of the gospel but we are failing in other facets of it— without even seeming to be aware of it. The Great Commission includes many commissions—not just one. It is a command with many commandments. We need to see it whole.
We must “repair the breaches.” God remedies spiritual ills by revival and renewal. Renewal comes at the point of the fall. God’s call to repentance always brings us back to beginnings.
The blueprint shows that the Great Commission with all its varied commissions, like so much building material, was meant for the church God was building in Jerusalem. They will all be “fitly framed together . . . for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” The church is the new abode of His glory, His new method for fulfilling His commissions—and the only creation having all the dimensions needed for worldwide evangelization. When we study the book of Acts, we see God’s methods for fulfilling the Great Commission.
EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON PRAYER
Why a prayer meeting first? Because there is nothing in His church that does not depend on prayer! Its new abundant life, love, unity, purity, power, constant renewal, warfare, world evangelization, leaders, unending advance without defeat—all depend on praying.
If God is going to do it, it has to be by prayer. There is no other way! John Wesley recognized this when he said, “All God’s works are done in believing prayer.”
How did Jesus build every member of the Jerusalem congregation into the prayer meeting? The blueprint ties this action in with His Great Commission. He at once made prayer a total assembly action. But though the blueprint (The Acts) makes things so plain, we appear not to have seen it. Or else we do not know how to read it. Or have ignored it. Today we have a double standard for our members. We have prayer meeting members and another kind.
The Jerusalem congregation was not like this. All of them turned full circle from the Mount of Olives and headed right back to Jerusalem to form the first New Testament church prayer meeting in that upper room. Why? The blueprint makes it very plain: because Jesus commanded it! (See Acts 1:2, 4, 12-14.) He “charged” them (a military term of command), and they went.
They obeyed because they loved Jesus. He had said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments [plural].” And this was one of His commandments, one of the commissions of the Great Commission. “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me,” Jesus said. Obedience quickens our pace to the prayer meeting. And it is the test of our love. I cannot say I love Jesus if I do not love His prayer meeting!
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