“And they, leaving heard it, lifted up their voice with one accord to God, and said, LORD, Thou art the God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them; who hast said by the mouth of Thy servant David, Why have [the] nations raged haughtily and [the] peoples meditated vain things? The kings of the earth were there, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ. For in truth against Thy holy servant Jesus, whom Thou hadst anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with [the] nations and peoples of Israel, have been gathered together in this city, to do whatever Thy hand and Thy counsel had determined bore should come to pass. And now, LORD, look upon their threatenings, and give to Thy bondsmen with all boldness to speak Thy word, in that Thou stretchest out Thy hand to heal, and that signs and wonders take place through the name of Thy holy servant Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place wherein they were assembled shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the word of God with boldness” (vss. 24-31).
The effect on the gathered saints of the report of the opposition, and the threatenings of the leaders of the Jews, was to draw forth their dependence on God, and the expression of it in prayer. There were but few assembled, but the report of the doings of the council would go forth in a short time throughout the entire Christian community. The apostles, and those who were with them, feeling deeply the solemn character of the crisis, and the gravity of their situation, lift up their voice with one accord to God, and addressing Him as Jehovah, they pray both in view of His power and His counsel, as witnessed in creation and expressed in revelation. The apostle gave their report: one of the company led in prayer, all the others praying along with him in the Holy Ghost.
There was no such thing as the singing of the second psalm, and the application of it made by Peter in prayer, as has been alleged; neither was this a form of common prayer in use in the Jerusalem Church, for “in this way you would improperly transfer to the primitive Church the usage of a later time.” They needed no formula of prayer then, for they had the Spirit in power, and He was all-sufficient both to sustain them, and to give them the proper sentiments and form of words to use in their prayers. Nature in distress needs no form in which to express itself: neither does grace; and here it must have been the Spirit-given prayer of the moment they uttered, fa they refer in it to “their threatenings,” as if spread out by them at that time al they prayed in the Holy Ghost.
It has been well said, “The most effective weapons which the Church cat employ in distress and persecution are prayers and tears.” If the prayer of a righteous man availeth much, the prayer of many righteous men, when offerer with one accord, availeth still more.