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God is never in a hurry. Regulate your pace to fall in with God’s and you will be in no danger.— Sel. v. 10. Came unto the iron gate. If instead of stopping and dreading diffi culties from a distance, we would march right up to our iron gates, we would find them moving out of the way when we reached them.— 'Torrey. It opened to them. When God will work salva tion for His people, no difficulties in their way are ihsuperable hut even the gates of iron are made to open of their own accord.—Henry. The angel de parted. Leaving the other ' steps in which supernatural aid was unneces sary to be taken by the apostle him self.— Lumby. v. 11. When Peter was come to him self. When we are come to ourselves, we shall know and praise the Lord whose angels have been our minister ing servants.— Parker., The Lord hath delivered me. What a contrast be tween Peter’s deliverance and Herod’s death! (v. 24). Be not afraid of the reproach of men, for the moth shall eat them up like a garment. (Is. 51:8.)— Meyer. v. 12. When he had considered. Lit erally “ when he comprehended it.” At first he had been “ like them that dream” (Ps. 126:1), but at length his mind grasped the whole truth and he could act upon it.;—Camb. Bible. Came to the house of Mary. She must have been distinguished for faith and cour age to allow such a meeting in the face of persecution.—Wilkinson. Gathered together praying. A praying household is stronger than the strongest precau tions of human mind.«-Devo. Com. v. 18. A damsel named Rhoda. Rhoda means “ a rose” and this rose has kept its bloom for two thousand years and is still sweet and fragrant.— Maclaren. v. 14. She knew' Peter’s voice. Rhoda was the one who believed it was Peter and this is probably the rea son her name is mentioned in this hook. A poor maid, perhaps a slave girl, pleased God because she had faith.— Gaebelein. Peter’s speech was the cause of his being recognized on a pre vious occasion. (Matt. 26: 73.^-S lu . u - by. She opened not the gate. It was . harder for Peter to get into this prayer meeting than it was to get out of Jail. —-Garry. v. 15. Thou art mad. They had faith to pray without ceasing (v. 6), yet so little that they marveled at the
answer.— Sel. Evidently they had prayed without expectation. They were not unbelievers. They had- not the slightest doubt that God was able to deliver Peter but they were not living in expectation of it. This is the char acter of many of our prayer meetings today.-p^Haldeman. A |aith that is sur prised at the answer to its prayer Just misses the unbelief that would hinder it from being answered.— Cook. How often do we pray for what we can hard ly credit the bestowment of when it comes in answer to our prayers.SH Jamieson. v. 1-7. He went into another place. When told on a former miraculous lib eration from prison (5:20) to go and speak unto the people, he did it, hut in this case to present himself in pub lic would have been to tempt God by rushing into * certain destruction.— Wies. How An Angel Helped Peter. Acts 12:1-17. Memory Verse: “ I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me.” -Psa. 23:4. Approach: (Bring to class a picture of a prison; if possible the Deliverance of Peter by Raphael.) Now we want to get a good look at this picture, and can you tell what kind BEGINNERS of a place this is? AND PRIMARY Yes, it is a prison Mabel L. Merrill or Jail where they shut people up, and in this one the person is not only shut up hut a guard is chained to his wrist, so he could not possibly get away. We usually think of bad, wicked people in prison, hut sometimes good people are put in prison, and the one who is in prison in our story today is a good man, and I Just know every one of you want to hear how this good man came to he in prison. Prayer. Lesson Story: At the time of our story there was a wicked king ruling over1the people, and he began to perse cute the Christians, that is he put them in prison, and even killed them, and so he took Peter and put him in prison, and put a chain around his wrists with a soldier on guard, and also placed
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