Nearly everyone who has read their Bible knows there was a revival beginning in Jerusalem in the first Century. It began with John the Baptist preparing the way for the anointed Messiah of Israel we know as Christ the Lord and it multiplied on Pentecost when 120 spoke in tongues understood by Israeli's from all over the known world in the language of the lands they inhabited and a multitude gathered to determine what was happening.

         Three thousand of them came to believe in Christ as their Messiah and Saviour from the power preaching of Peter the Apostle on Pentecost and the international church of the Lord at Jerusalem now had devout members representing the languages of the known world.

         In those days, the holy apostles healed everyone who came to them and the sick were known to be healed in Saint Peter's shadow as he passed by in the anointing of the Spirit of Christ in him.

         Bread was broken house to house as the early church shared the common wealth after having sold their homes to lighten their burdens in this world and house the tremendous surge of saved souls joining them in the practices of holiness.

         In one famous scene we find a couple lying to the Apostle Peter saying they were giving all of the sale price for their home into his care when it was but half, and he immediately pronounced their death.

         Such signs and wonders produced a healthy fear of God among the early Church in Jerusalem and elsewhere with the love of God to motivate great zeal in the people and the Word of God multiplied and prospered even more.

         The phenomenal growth of the movement empowered by God threatened the entrenched religious leaders of Israel so they who had Christ crucified proceeded to persecute the church in Jerusalem violently and in driving them out, the persecuted went into all the known world preaching the gospel in the power of holiness they learned from the apostles.

         The holy apostles ruled over the church with life and death power to where, "No man dared join himself to them." (Acts 5:l3) And only they were able to continue openly in Jerusalem. What the religous leaders did not know was that they who withstood them in the name of Christ, resided in "the secret of his Presence." (Psalm 31:20) The Lord they thought the Romans had killed for them lived in his apostles and they in Him.

         So it was when they jailed Peter and he was let out of the prison by the angel of the Lord, the Apostle was led by the Spirit to a house where the people of the Lord were still praying for his release.

         Prayer is emphasized throughout the holy Book leaving us with strong inferences suggesting holy and pure prayers in the love of God provided "the supply of the Spirit" for the phenomenal first Century revival.

         Prayers made in the anointing of the Spirit of God belong to those rare Saints of the most High God who serve one Master.

         Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord in the Spirit of the anointing in such Power and Light few believers ever experience in this lifetime.


         So it is spiritual prayers are made of Spirit while carnal prayers are of the flesh. Live by the Book and pray the Book. Just as fully sanctified preachers should learn to proclaim the Spirit of the written Word, so fully sanctified prayers ought to manifest the Spirit of the written Word. Your opinions and your ambitions, your theological designs and your prejudices, your plans and your desires, ought to all be left out of your preaching and your praying.

         God inhabits his praise, his preaching and his prayers in the body of Christ when we are dead to ourselves and alive to his perfect will.