THE KING’S BUSINESS
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tury church may learn this also. And they knew how to pray. They first strengthened their hearts by meditating upon whom and what God was. He “made the heaven and/ the earth and the sea and all that in them is.” With such a God to pray to and to trust, what if the great Sanhedrim is against us? What if all the kings aijd ecclesiastics o f the earth are against us ? Oh if we could only remember who and what our God is we would never fear again (Ro. 8:31). Having first strengthened their hearts by meditating upon who and what God was, they next strengthened their hearts by call ing to mind the scriptures. The scripture- full man will never be a fear-full man. The scripture quoted was just to the point. God had foreseen and predicted hundreds of years before just what had now come to pass. »It was the Holy Spirit who was the real speaker in the Psalm quoted. David was simply His mouthpiece. The apostles held a pretty strong doctrine o f inspiration. The doctrine they held is not a popular doctrine today, but it is the apostolic doc trine and it is the true doctrine. The kings o f the earth and the rulers set themselves against the Christ and so -'did all o f the great theologians o f the time. That did not make Him any less the Christ o f God, and the fact that the names o f great rulers and great philosophers and great theolo gians can be arrayed against Jesus today, does not make Him any less the Christ of God. “He that sitteth in the heavens will laugh: the Lord will have them in deri sion.” How He must laugh at much that that calls itself “modern scholarship” and puffs itself up and says high things about Jesus not knowing this or that. Jesus, against whom that ancient conspiracy was formed and against whom the modern con spiracy is forming, was God’s “ anointed.” He is God’s anointed people, God’s anointed Priest and God’s anointed king. The world 'rejects Him as prophet, preferring its Tuesday, October 24. Acts 4:25-28. '
unto God rather than unto any man or any company o f men. One who really knows God- and knows His .Son Jesus Christ and knows the truth about Christ cannot keep still, he “cannot but speak” the things which he. has seen and heard. The authori ties were helpless. They could threaten, but they dared do no more. They wished to punish Peter and John for their faith fulness in proclaiming the Lord Jesus and the power o f His name, but they feared the people. The miracle was so evident that to punish them for performing it would have brought down upon them the wrath o f all the people. The people were glorify ing God for that which was done, that God had done it was beyond a question, for the miracle was o f a character the reality o f which all could see. It was entirely unlike some o f the “modern miracles of healing” for which we have no evidence but that o f the person claiming to haive been healed, but who to all appearances is as sick as ever, or o f whose former sick- nésses we have no conclusive proof. Monday, Oct. 23., Acts 4:23, 24. Peter and John had obtained a great vic tory, but they were not puffed up over it. They still felt their need o f fellowship and of. the help o f the brethren in counsel, and above all in prayer. “ They went straight to their own company.” Oftentimes today when a man has stood unflinchingly for the truth he becomes proud and withdraws from the common crowd o f believers. Péter and John were kept from this fatal mistake. They alone had been dragged before the council, but they went right back to those who had not been so honored, and “ repeated all that the chief priests and the. elders had said unto them.” And then a significant thing happened ; they did not tremble, neither did they rage, but with calmness and with confidence, with a spirit-given unanimity, “ with one accord,” “ they lifted up their voices unto God.” Ah ! the early church knew what to do in peril, to pray. God grant that the twentieth cen
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