Persecution for the early church seems to have come in stages. It was always there, but sometimes it got pretty severe and it is one of those times we see here. Herod lashed out with a fury when he had James killed. When he saw how happy that made the Jews he had Peter arrested, but had to postpone the execution until after a Jewish feast. In one fail swoop one of the church leaders was dead and the other on death row.
Not only was Peter on death row, but 16 soldiers were assigned to him so that four were always on duty. Two stood outside the sell door and two had themselves chained to Peter. They must have seen this preacher as a pretty serious threat!
“Now what do we do?” the rest of the church must have thought. This is an impossible situation. There is no way out of this one! We might as well just have a pity party and commiserate with each other. How do we face impossible situations today? Do we fret, worry, and get ulcers over it?
Lets see what they did. They made “constant prayer,” or “prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him” as the King James Version puts it.
Either way, when the task was impossible they just prayed with consistency and fervency. The answer to an impossibility was prayer.
What impossibility do you face today? Is it any more impossible that being guarded by a rotation of 16 Romans guards with a death sentence on your head?
Maybe its time for “constant prayer”?
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