James Nisbet's Church Pulpit Commentary
Acts 12:5
‘ANSWERED PRAYERS’
‘Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the Church unto God for him.’
‘But withal prepare me also a lodging: for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you.’
The two passages taken together, and considered in the light of subsequent events, cover the whole subject of Divine Answers to Prayer; prayer which takes the form of petition for some definite, outside good, which appears to the soul of the suppliant needful and desirable. The first passage supplies clear and visible evidence that God can and will answer such prayers. The second passage supplies inspired testimony, confirmed by historical fact, that God can and does answer such prayers, though His operations may be unseen.
I. The similarity in the two cases.—The circumstances are almost identical. The differences are only in names, and times, and places. In both cases we have a portion of the Church of Christ bowed in earnest prayer before her Divine Head, beseeching Him to rescue His faithful Apostle from the power of a blood-thirsty tyrant; and in both cases the prayer is answered, and the Apostle is freed.
(a) The region into which prayer may enter. The only sphere to which prayer properly belongs, men say, is that which is personal, and inward, and spiritual. To pass from ourselves to the outside world, to affairs of human government and human laws, to the natural universe, is foolish and vain. The examples here given are against such statements. In matters that concern the free action of our fellow-men, the arrangements of human life, and the laws of nature, prayer has a voice, prayer may be offered.
(b) Prayer has direct results therein. A good-humoured sceptic might say, ‘Pray for others as much as you like. Pray that they may be delivered from the destructive action of Nature’s laws, or from human evil and wrong. It may do you some good in the way of deepening your sympathies, but any outward results are impossible.’ This is to deny the facts and statements before us. Through the prayers of the Church, St. Peter and St. Paul are restored to liberty.
(c) Prayer does not always receive the answer desired. There came a time when St. Peter and St. Paul were again in prison, and their lives imperilled. Without doubt the Christian Church prayed for their release as earnestly then as now. But the petition was not granted, at least not in the way expected and desired. The apostles were released, but by death—released, not to earthly toil, but to heavenly rest. It is a mistake to suppose, and a misrepresentation to declare, that the Christian Church teaches that the good asked in prayer is always given. Christians pray, if they pray aright, not with a desire to impose their will upon God, and upon His universe. And where the answer is not given according to their desire, they are content to believe that it is in respect of things they themselves would not have desired, could they have known as God knows.
(d) Prayer is a mighty power in the affairs of men, a mighty weapon put into the hands of the Church. How unequal seem the forces arrayed against each other! Herod with his royal resources; Nero with his imperial power, walled prisons, and armed men: on the other side a few weak men and women bowed in prayer. Yet against those prayers, and against the will of Him to whom those prayers are addressed, king and emperor, prisons and guards, are ineffectual, and the Church rejoices in the restoration of St. Peter and St. Paul. The Church of Christ is resistless for the purposes of her great mission, when fully armed with the power of prayer.
II. The distinction between the two cases.—The same answer is given, but in very different ways. In the first case, there is a direct Divine interposition. No man who belives the Scriptures can doubt the Divine answer. God’s hand is seen, thrust out of the thick darkness in which He hides Himself, touching and conquering all obstacles, and lifting His servant into liberty and life. In the other case there is nothing strange and miraculous. St. Paul is summoned before the imperial tribunal, is allowed as a Roman citizen to plead his cause, and, as the result, he is set at liberty. Men might say, ‘There is no answer to prayer here. St. Paul regained his freedom through a tyrant’s whim, a passing gleam of good nature in the savage Nero, a momentary impression made upon him by St. Paul’s evident sincerity and earnestness, or through the circumstances of the time when the fury of persecution had for the moment glutted itself.’ But St. Paul himself testifies, ‘Through your prayers I shall be given to you.’
(a) The blessedness of the man who lives and moves in an atmosphere of prayer; around whom cluster thickly, as guardian forces, the ceaseless petitions of the people of God; upon whose head descends continually the anointing oil of a thousand benedictions.
(b) The exalted privilege of being identified with the Redeemer’s visible Church. Men might speak lightly of it, but is it a light thing to be remembered daily by thousands in their prayers, who pray that we may be strengthened amid our temptations, comforted in sickness and care and sorrow, delivered from threatening evil, and preserved in faithfulness to Him Whose name we bear?
III. The relation of the one case to the other.—The one explains the other. The intention of a miracle, as one has well put it, is to manifest the Divine in what is common and ordinary. A miracle is designed to teach men that God is everywhere working, and that the ordinary operations of nature and life are but as the veil behind which he screens Himself from our beholding, and which, in the miracle, is for the moment removed. God delivered St. Peter from prison by a miracle, in answer to the prayers of the Church, not that men might think that by this method only He answers prayer, but that we might expect and discern the answer when it is given by ordinary and natural means.
(a) Learn not to expect supernatural appearances and supernatural operations in answer to prayer.
(b) Learn to recognize God in that which is natural, and to accept the answer when it comes in the ordinary course of events.
Illustration
‘I have read of a king who led forth his steel-clad chivalry to place a despot’s yoke upon a free people. Just before the battle was joined, he saw their ranks bending low to the ground. “See,” he cried in exultation, “they submit already.” “Yes,” said a wise counsellor, who knew the men better than his master, “they submit, but it is to God, not to us.” And in a few hours the king and his army were scattered in shameful rout. Let the Church of Christ, as she stands face to face to-day with so many opposing forces, submit herself to God in humble, earnest prayer, and every foe shall be vanquished, and a glorious victory won.’