Christ of Every Crisis | Part 1

Are you in the midst of a crisis?

To love worth finding, featuring dynamic teaching and insights from Adrian Rogers. Are you in the midst of an unexpected crisis? Troubles come and go every day, but every so often we come up against ferocious circumstances where everything seems to be lost. The book of Acts is full of these kinds of stories in which God drew the church near and revealed himself when everything seemed hopeless. As Herod unleashed violence. If you have your Bible, turn to Acts chapter 12 right now as Adrian Rogers begins this message, Christ of every crisis. And we really don't know where to turn unless we turn to the Lord. And a crisis may come unexpectedly. It may come ferociously, just out of the blue.

I mean a full blown crisis. Somebody said, if you can keep your head, when all of those around about you are losing theirs, it just may be a sign that you don't understand. Or it may be that you do understand some things that I'm going to be sharing with you today from the Word of God. Peter, take Peter also. And when Herod would have brought him forth the same night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains and the keepers before the door kept the prison. And behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him and a light shined in the prison. And he smote Peter on the side and raised him up saying, Arise up quickly. And the chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, bind on thy sandals.

So he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee and follow me. And he went out and followed him and wist not and knew not that it was true which was done by the angel, but thought he saw a vision. And when they were past the first and second ward, they came unto the iron gate which leadeth unto the city which opened to them of his own accord. And they went out and passed on through one street and forthwith the angel departed from him. Now, stop there. We'll take up the reading here a little later.

But let me give you the background again to reiterate what happened. Herod was a wild, a ruthless, a wicked, and a vile man. He wanted to torture, to vex, to disturb the church. He had already taken James, the brother of John, and had put him to death.

He saw that place to multitude. He said, all right, I'll get the big guy. I'll get Peter. And so he put Peter in prison. He said, after Passover, I'm going to bring him out and I'll make him a foot shorter at the top. I'll take off his head.

Herod was absolutely ferocious, vile, wicked, and cruel. Now, that's the situation, and it was indeed a great, great crisis. How do you handle a crisis? What do you do in times of crisis? I want to give you four thoughts today. Put them down because you will need them.

You may need them right now. Some of you who are listening to me right now are in the very midst of a genuine crisis. But if not, you will be. Number one, we should respect, respect the mystery of God's providence, of God's providence. As you look in this chapter, there's one word that comes through.

It is providence. That is, you're going to see the hidden hand of God. God is going to be working in a mysterious way, an inexplicable way. God is going to be in the shadows arranging things, moving things that people cannot see.

And that may be very true in your life right now. God is working, but you cannot see God working. You may be in the middle of chaos right now. Nothing seems to be making sense.

Everything that you thought you had nailed down is coming loose, and the devil is pulling nails. Now, listen to me. Just because it doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean that it does not make sense.

Many of us have many questions. As we look at this chapter, we would say, well, why didn't God let Herod be king anyway? Isn't God God? How could God let a rascal like Herod be the king? If I were God, I'd turn him into a frog. And why, why should James be killed and Peter released?

Why is that? Does God have favorites? Is God capricious? Or has God lost control? And why all of these things happen? Now, friend, I want to tell you something. We do not live by explanations.

Life is not a problem to be solved. It is a mystery to be lived. And you have to back off sometimes and just simply see what I'm going to call the hidden hand of God, and you need to respect that. Have you ever watched a painter paint a picture, put his colors on canvas? Sometimes I get great recreation watching this old man who paints while you watch.

He can, in one half hour, do a beautiful painting. Some of you have seen him. He's an old guy. He's got some sort of an accent. I don't know what kind it is, but this is yada.

I put this on, yes. And he's just splashing the colors on that canvas, and he's mixing this. He says, I think a little more yellow, yeah. And he's just putting it there. And, you know, I look and I see, man, that guy is so good. How does he do that?

It just, everything just turns out good. And then the guy will reach in and he'll get some colors, and he'll go, oh, you ruined it. You ruined it. He put some big old splashy thing on there. Maybe it's going to be a tree in the foreground. And I say, mister, you really messed up.

Let's see how you're going to get out of this. And then all of a sudden it just comes together. It's a masterpiece. Sometimes we look at what God does is God puts his colors on the canvas, and we say, Lord, you're really doing good. And then all of a sudden God just goes, Lord, you have messed things up.

Have you ever felt that way? God, how did you let this happen? Now, it doesn't make sense to me when I watch that man do it, but it makes sense to him.

And just because things are not making sense to you, do not think that they don't make sense. And just because you can't see God working doesn't mean God is not working. Here's Herod's ungodly power. Here is James' death.

Here's Peter's release. Yet all of these things are working together. We call that the sovereignty of God. We call that the providence of God.

And you just put there in your margin Romans 8.28. And we know, we know, we K-N-O-W, we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, who are the called according to his purpose. Now, most of us, most of us have the idea that we go through life and that life is all good, and then life gets bad, then it gets good again.

Generally, it's not that way. Life is not like 40 miles of good road and then 10 miles of bad road and then 60 miles of good road. No, generally life is more like a railroad track, one rail good and one rail bad. And the good and the bad seem to be running parallel.

Have you ever noticed that? There seems to be certain troubles in life, and we can't always just make them work out together. Good and bad seem to run on parallel tracks.

Now, many of us don't understand that. So, we're wanting to get to the time of life where there won't be any bad things happening. You know, so I'll be glad when all of this is over. And so, then we can do what we want to do. If you're in school, I'll be glad when school is over, then I can start doing what I want to do. If the children are little, I'll be glad when the children are grown, so then I can do what I want to do. When I'm sick, I'll be glad when I get well, so then I can begin to serve God as I want. No, no. The good and the bad, they are there, and they are working together.

Sometimes we would like to just live life without the bad. Here's a girl who marries a boy, and the parents say, don't marry him. Sweetheart, the boy doesn't have the character. He doesn't have what we believe it takes to make a good husband, but she says she loves him. She's going to marry him. And so the parents try to make the best they can out of the situation. They want to love their prospective son-in-law. They get married, and a little baby comes along. Then after a while, he turns out to be a philanderer. He turns out to be the person the parents were afraid that he might be, and he leaves her. Well, I want to ask you, Mother, if you could, would you just turn the clock back and say, no, they won't get married. Would you do it?

Be careful how you answer, because if you say yes, you're going to have to give up that grandbaby, that little baby that you've come to love so much. You see, isn't life mysterious? Isn't life mysterious?

There's the bad things, the good things. God in the crucible of His wisdom, He mixes these things together for His glory, and we know that all things work together for good. You don't live by explanations, friend. You will never, ever explain God.

You live by promises, and so you'll never get it all figured out. You know, if you're a kid, you wonder, why does God put the vitamins in spinach and not in ice cream? Let God be God. You should respect, listen to this, the mystery, the mystery of God's providence. Allow God to be God, and just because it doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.

And if you're in a crisis, don't demand to understand, okay? Number two, you should request the ministry of God's people. Now, what is the ministry of God's people? It is prayer. Look now in verse five. Peter, therefore, was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. That is a great verse on prayer.

Look at it again. Peter, therefore, was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. Now, there seems to be no hope for Peter. Peter is in maximum security. The prison is guarded on the outside with two guards by the door. There are 16 guards who are guarding Peter.

He must have been fairly important for 16 personal guards to guard him, and besides all of that, he's chained to a guard on this hand, and he's chained to a guard on that hand. Talk about a man who is in a pickle. He's in a pickle, and on top of that, he is sentenced to death, and a wicked king says, soon I'm going to execute you. Now, that, friend, is a crisis. You may think you have a crisis, but Peter is really in a crisis.

There seems to be no hope for Peter. Every door is shut, every door except one, and that's the one that goes straight up. That was the door they could not shut. In a crisis, there's always prayer, and when there's no hope on the horizontal level, there's always hope on the vertical level. Now, I want us to look at this prayer, and I want us to just pull over and park here for a moment, because when there's the mystery of God's providence, there's the ministry of God's people.

Now, watch it. I want you to see, first of all, what I'm going to call the frequency of the prayer. Look at verse 5. Prayer was made without ceasing. Now, they prayed, and they did not stop praying, and they may have asked, why doesn't God answer our prayer?

Peter's kept in prison, and God doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get him out. But God is trying to teach them a lesson about prayer, and one of the great lessons about prayer is persistence. The Bible says, ask, seek, and knock, but it literally says, keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking, and in Luke chapter 18 and verse 1, the Bible says, And Jesus spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint. That is, not to stop praying. And you need to learn that God's delays are not denials.

Okay? There's the frequency of the prayer. And then also, notice the fervency of the prayer.

Got it? The fervency of the prayer. This word, without ceasing, may be translated intensely. They were praying intensely. I wonder, what do we know about intense prayer?

I'll tell you one thing. When you're in a crisis, you learn how to pray with intensity, don't you? I love Jeremiah 29, verse 13, where God says, And ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. One of the things that I'm trying to cure myself of is casual prayer. Do you know the Bible calls prayer wrestling?

Romans chapter 15, verse 30, Paul said, Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, for the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, that you strive together. Have you ever thought of prayer as striving, as wrestling? How much genuine agonizing do we do in prayer?

If you really get into intercession, you're going to find out that the devil will fight you and oppose you. Prayer is work. I'd rather preach for an hour than to pray for half an hour, so far as the labor that it takes for genuine prayer. There's the frequency of the prayer. There's the fervency of the prayer. Sometimes we don't feel like praying, so we say we'll not pray. Friend, if there's ever a time when you need to pray is when you don't feel like it. You pray till you do feel like it.

But pray, pray not only frequently, but fervently. And then there's the fellowship of the prayer. The Bible says that it was made of the church.

Look in verse 5 again. Prayer was made without ceasing of the church. That is, they came together to pray. Didn't Jesus say, where two or three of you are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them?

And if any two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it will be done for them of my Father which is in heaven? God is pleased when His children pray, but God is more pleased when His children pray in fellowship. There's nothing that will bind us together as a church more than praying.

If you've ever had a prayer partner, you know that your heart and his heart or her heart are linked together. There are times when God comes when the church prays that is glorious and wonderful. It is what we call the fellowship of prayer. This prayer was made of the church for Peter. And then I want you to notice the faith of the prayer. The prayer was unto God. It was unto God. Prayer was made unto God. They were not praying to one another. They were not praying to impress one another.

So many of our prayers are, little memorized prayers. I heard about a young lawyer, just got his degree, opened up his brand spanking new law offices. He didn't have any clients, but didn't even really have a secretary, but he had his shingle out front, heard footfalls in the hallway, thought his first client was coming, so he picked up the phone like he was busy and said, hello, yes, no, I'm sorry, I can't, no, no, perhaps next Thursday I have a heavy corporation case coming up on Wednesday and so forth, but perhaps we can arrange it. And he put the phone down. By this time the man was standing in front of his desk and he said, yes, sir, good, sir, what may I do for you? He said, well, I'm from the telephone company.

I came to hook up your telephone. Many times our prayers are that way, like trying to impress somebody else, but there's no one on the line. These people, they weren't trying to impress anybody else.

They were desperate. Their prayer was unto God. You know, today I think the reason we don't pray with frequency and fervency is because we think we can do it without prayer. You know, perhaps the worst thing about us is not our prayerlessness, but our pride. I mean, we have our machinery. We have our plans.

We have our methods. We have our pastors. We have our choirs. We have our Bible fellowships. We have our buildings. We have this. We have that. And so we come to church and think, well, we'll do it.

We know how to do it. And you know what the devil does? The devil stands in the corner and smirks and he says, you can have your buildings, you can have your choirs, you can have your fellowships, you can have your preacher, you can have all, everything you want.

You can even have your Bible studies. As long as you leave out the power of God that comes with fervent prayer that will not take no for an answer. The devil mocks at our schemes, laughs at our organizations, ridicules our talents, but he fears our prayers. Now, these people are going to pray.

Peter's in prison. They're going to pray. They don't have money to bribe Herod to get him out of prison.

They don't have political influence. But they're going to pray. And the world may laugh. But, friend, the devil didn't laugh. Someone has wisely said the devil trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees. The prayer is unto God and God is God and God controls the universe.

We need to learn that. That when we're speaking, when we're praying, we are praying to God. And so there's the faith of the prayer and then there's the focus of the prayer. Look in verse 5 again. The Bible says, Therefore prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God.

Now watch this. For him, they were praying for Peter. It was a prayer not only with intensity but specificity. What did you pray for this morning? Do you know so many of our prayers are so vague if God were to answer them, we wouldn't know it and if God didn't answer them, we wouldn't have to admit it.

Lord, save the lost this morning. Well, if somebody gets saved, you can say, Well, I prayed for somebody to be saved and that lost person got saved. How do you know that was your prayer? How do you know it wasn't my prayer, somebody else's prayer? You know, we have these vague general prayers. At least when they're praying for Peter and the answer came, they knew it was an answer to prayer. Isn't that right?

It was made for him. Have you ever heard anybody, when you visit somebody and they say to you, Y'all come see us sometime. Y'all stop by, y'all come see us sometime. They don't mean that. I tell you what, if they say this, Hey, man, I've got some of the finest steaks you've ever seen in the freezer.

Could y'all come by next Saturday at five and we'll have a cookout? They mean it. That's with specificity. What are you praying for? What are you asking God for?

When you say, Lord, I want you to do this or do that. If God would answer your prayer, would you even know it? You see, there's the focus of the prayer.

It was for Peter and God answered. Now, when you're in a crisis, respect the mystery of God's providence. Coming up on Monday, you're going to hear part two of this important message, but maybe today there is some crisis in your own heart, a relationship that you have, and you'd like to share a prayer request with us. At Love Worth Finding, it's one of our great honors to come alongside you and pray with you and for you. If you can go to our website at lwf.org slash radio and scroll down to our prayer wall. There you'll find the option to submit a prayer request or pray for others or both. This resource is one of our favorite ways to keep the ministry and the community praying continually for one another's needs.

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