Message Ten

The God-ordained Way of
Prayer, the Spirit, and the Word for God’s Move

Scripture Reading: Acts 1:8, 14; 4:24-31; 6:4, 7; 12:24; 19:20

1. The book of Acts shows that the God-ordained way to carry out God’s move to fulfill His New Testament economy is entirely by three main substances—prayer, the Spirit, and the Word:
   1. Prayer, the Spirit, and the Word are the three substances of the power in the Lord’s recovery—Acts 1:8, 14; 4:31; 6:4, 7; 12:24; 19:20.
   2. We must pray that we might have the Spirit as the power to spread the Word—6:7; 12:24; 19:20; cf. 1 Tim. 5:17-18:
      1. We must get ourselves saturated, constituted, and even soaked with the holy Word; if we are burdened to preach the gospel, we must get into the Word and be persons who know the Word—Col. 3:16.
      2. We should ask the Lord to bring our entire being into the light and be dealt with by Him to become persons of power, who are full of the Spirit within and without, essentially and economically—Eph. 5:18; Acts 2:38; 5:32b; 4:8, 31; 13:9, 52.
   3. The early disciples could not have maintained the one accord if they had different ways, means, agents, or substances for them to carry out the Lord’s move on this earth; in order to maintain the unique one accord, we all must learn to do the same thing by the same way—1:14; 4:31.
   4. We must not think of taking a way other than prayer, the Spirit, and the Word; any other way will cause dissension and division.
   5. The picture of Lot’s family and his seed by incest shows that when God’s people lose the proper function in life, they use ugly and worldly means for securing the increase—Gen. 19:30-38:
      1. Desiring to have seed regardless of the means, Lot’s daughters bore sons out of their father by incest, thus breaking the governing principle ordained by God.
      2. In principle, to use any kind of sinful or worldly methods to secure increase for our success in the Christian work is to break God’s governing principle and thus to commit spiritual incest—cf. Matt. 7:21-23.
      3. It is possible for God’s people to be drugged with the wicked current of the evil world and care only for success, not for the means; they may care for soul-winning but not for the proper way of doing it.
      4. Some groups use rock music, dancing, drama, movies, and games to satisfy their desire of securing the increase; in the eyes of God this is spiritual incest, which brings forth “Moabites” and “Ammonites”—cf. Ezek. 25:3, 8.
      5. Our spiritual activities must be the doing of the Father’s will; if we do things without this assurance, we break the governing principle and commit spiritual incest, being workers of lawlessness—Matt. 7:21-23.
      6. Ishmael, brought forth by fleshly effort, was rejected by God (Gen. 21:10-12); Moab and Ben-ammi, brought forth by incest, were a shame in history; only Isaac, brought forth by God’s grace, was used to fulfill God’s purpose.
      7. In order to bear fruit we should live by Christ, live out Christ, pray, and help people to receive the living word of God so that they might be reborn; this is the way to bring forth the proper fruit to be the “Isaac” for the fulfilling of God’s purpose—Gal. 4:28.
2. The book of Acts shows that the apostles never initiated any work without prayer; whenever they wanted to do something, they stopped themselves by their prayer, giving God a way to come into them, to fill them up, and to saturate their entire being—1:14; 6:4; 13:1-4:
   1. In order to be one with the Lord in His work, we need to pray ourselves into God and pray God into us so that we are mingled with God—Matt. 6:6.
   2. To pray means to stop ourselves from doing anything apart from the Lord so that He can do His work through us—cf. 14:22-23.
   3. To pray means that we realize that we are nothing and can do nothing; prayer is the real denial of the self—Gal. 6:3; cf. Mark 9:28-29.
   4. To pray by calling on the name of the Lord is to deny ourselves and to declare, “No longer I but Christ”—cf. Gal. 2:20a.
3. The book of Acts shows the prayer that we need in order to be filled with the Spirit essentially and economically so that all our activities would be the activities of the acting God:
   1. The prayer that we need is the prayer that brought in the outpouring of the Spirit—Acts 1:14; 2:1-4, 16-17a.
   2. The prayer that we need is the prayer that shook the earth and empowered the disciples with the Holy Spirit to speak the word of God with boldness—4:24-31.
   3. The prayer that we need is the prayer of the apostles to match the ministry of the word—6:4.
   4. The prayer that we need is the prayer that brought Peter into a trance and brought a heavenly vision to him—10:9-16.
   5. The prayer that we need is the prayer that opened the prison gate for Peter—12:4-14.
   6. The prayer that we need is the prayer that brought the five prophets and teachers into the Lord’s commission—13:1-4.
   7. The prayer that we need is the prayer that brought in a great earthquake and shook the foundations of the prison house—16:23-26.
   8. The prayer that we need is the prayer that brought Paul into a trance and into the Lord’s speaking to him—22:17-21.
4. The book of Acts shows that our working together with God to build up the church is a spiritual warfare and that prayer is the secret to accomplish God’s work—4:24-31; Psa. 2:1-2; Eph. 6:10-20:
   1. The prayers that we utter before the Lord must stand against and resist “counter-prayers” that are directed particularly against the church and the work we are carrying out to build up the church—John 17:15; Matt. 6:13; cf. Psa. 31:20.
   2. Prayerlessness is a sin; all in the Lord’s recovery must be prayerful and stand against the sin of prayerlessness—1 Sam. 12:23; Col. 4:2.