October 2002

Worship and corporate prayer

Acts 4 contains one of the best descriptions of corporate prayer in the Bible. I say this partly because we are told how they prayed ('they raised their voices together in prayer to God') and also because, on this occasion, we are told in some detail what they prayed. I think it must be significant that, from the recorded version of the events, over half of their meeting was taken up in worship in that they proclaimed God as creator, greater than David and in control of all earthly kings and rulers.

Given the circumstances that they were in (facing the threat of immediate persecution) it brought a double benefit because:
a) 'the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever'
b) the effect of enthroning God with their praise was (to them) he became magnified whilst the secular and religious authorities were, relatively speaking, made to diminish.

It is hard to over-emphasise the importance of worship to corporate prayer and our practice is always to aim at an approximate 50/50 division in our meetings between worship and prayer. True worship is amazingly powerful in its own right and I cannot imagine that the powers of darkness enjoy it at all as God is glorified and the light increases.

Out of that context flowed a profoundly simple time of intercession during which they asked God to give them boldness and power (verses 29 and 30 are the record in this regard). Clearly their agenda was relevant (a useful test of any agenda at a corporate prayer meeting!) and it was also unambiguous in that it could be measured by results.

In the immediate context these results are described in verse 31 where we are told that, 'After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.' In other words, God gave them boldness and the miracles kept flowing as we read on in the book of Acts.

Their crisis was real but so is ours. We cannot live in a society where the disintegration of family life is so prevalent and expect 'peace on earth' on our streets. We cannot live in a society where there is so little fear of God in our national life (and at every other level of life as well) and expect God’s continuing blessing and protection regardless. In this sense surely, judgment is progressive and self-inflicted. We cannot worship the idols of greed and materialism and then object when the economy starts to show signs of chronic indigestion as a result.

If ever there were a time to learn from our forebears, surely it is now. Given the international situation that we face, this must be an urgent time for the people of God to 'return to the Lord' and to seek to magnify him in the way that the early Christians are described as having done in Acts 4 in the face of their crisis.

They devoted themselves to prayer (verse 42 – the sense is corporate) and the Lord showed his power in their midst. He did miracles, he delivered them, he blessed them, he was with them and together with him they transformed the world.

So my sense is that we now need to devote ourselves in a new way to prayer for revival and deliverance (ie we need rescuing) and my understanding is that God is ready, willing and able to respond as he has always done in the past when his people have come to their senses and called on his name.

Jeremy Jennings

This article is an edited version of one first published in Focus, October 2002. Reproduced here with permission.