Alan Lewis
Elon, North Carolina
February 2025
Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city. 13 When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying.
Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. 14 They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.
In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) 16 and said, “Brothers and sisters, the Scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus. 17 He was one of our number and shared in our ministry.”
18 (With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. 19 Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)
20 “For,” said Peter, “it is written in the Book of Psalms: “‘May his place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in it,’ and, “‘May another take his place of leadership.’
21 Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus was living among us, 22 beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.”
23 So they nominated two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. 24 Then they prayed, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen 25 to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs.” 26 Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles. (Acts 1:12-26 NIV)
We are studying the book of Acts. Today, we are going to finish Acts 1. It deals with a church prayer meeting and a church business meeting. It deals with the disciples in the Upper Room, the death of Judas by suicide and the replacement of a dead apostle.
This morning, we are going to look at one of the most neglected areas in the church today. It may be one of the most neglected areas in your life. It is the area of prayer.
Prayer is one of the greatest privileges we have in this life (Hebrews 4:16). “Prayer is the most important thing that you or I can do as Christians. It is essential to the Christian life. It is not something we do when everything else fails.”[1]
You can learn all kinds of things about God by listening to preachers and by doing a personal study, but you can’t have a personal relationship with God apart from prayer.
Prayer is how revival begins. No revival takes place without prayer. Prayer is a prerequisite to revival. That is why we do not see revivals taking place much today.
No one is praying. Many churches no longer have prayer meetings. They no longer have mid-week prayer meetings. If they have them, only a couple of people show up.
Today, we are going to look at the first church prayer meeting. It did not happen in a church but in the room of a house. We call it the Upper Room, which simply means “a room upstairs” (Acts 1:13). It must have been a big room because there were 120 people there.
Some have called it the world’s most powerful prayer meeting. It was a prayer meeting which shook the world. Are you aware that you can change your world through a prayer meeting?
All through the Book of Acts we see how incredible things happen when people pray, supernatural things happen.
After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. (Acts 4:31 NIV)
In Acts 12, Peter was arrested. He was put in prison. He was scheduled for execution but, we are told that “the church was earnestly praying to God for him” (Acts 12:5 NIV).
The church prayed. They had a prayer meeting outside and what happened? A bright light started to shine in the prison. An angel showed up and woke Peter up.
How would you like to be woken up by a bright angel from Heaven? His chains instantly fell off. The angel told him to get up and get dressed quickly and get out of there.
Peter was locked up in prison. He had chains on him. He was heavily guarded. There was no way to escape but prayer got him out. Paul had a similar experience.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew (Acts 16:25-26 NIV)
Apparently, prayer leads to earthquakes. It leads to jailbreaks. It leads to deliverance. It leads to boldness. Paul and Silas were not praying in church. They were praying in prison and supernatural things happened.
In this chapter, we see prayer before a new apostle is chosen. We see prayer before new leaders are chosen. We see prayer before one of the most important days in history (Pentecost).
Someone said, “Everything in the book of Acts happened at a prayer meeting, after a prayer meeting, or on the way to a prayer meeting!”[2]
We are going to look at the first real prayer meeting of the church. It was a powerful prayer meeting. It led to one of the days that changed the world.
There would not be churches without Pentecost. The church would not exist without Pentecost and now it is the largest religion on planet Earth.
Principles of Prayer
1) Pray Promises
Here is a question worth thinking about it. Was the Holy Spirit given on the day of Pentecost because people prayed for ten days in the Upper Room? Most people think so.
Pentecost was a day on the Jewish calendar that God had ordained for the Holy Spirit to come. The Holy Spirit was going to come on the day of Pentecost whether they prayed or not.
The Holy Spirit came because of the promise of Jesus, not because of the prayers of the disciples.[3] After His resurrection from the dead, Jesus gave one command to His disciples. He told them to wait in Jerusalem. He did not even tell them to pray.
On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 1:4-5 NIV)
He ordered them to wait. They were not to go anywhere or do anything. They were not to start ministering to people. They were not to start evangelizing. They were not to go on mission trips.
They were not to begin a program of world evangelism. They were not to start preaching. They weren’t to start working for the Lord. They were not to go home. They were not go on vacation.
You see, they lived in a strange period of time in history. It is a period of time that has never been repeated in history. We do not live in that period of time today. What was this period of time was it?
They lived in the period of time that was post-resurrection and post ascension but pre-Pentecost. They lived in a period of time when they knew that Jesus rose from the dead. They saw Him. He made appearances to people for forty days.
They were given a mandate. They were given a commission to be His witnesses all over the world from Jerusalem to the uttermost parts of the earth, but they were not allowed to go yet.
They were stuck in Jerusalem. They were paralyzed. They could not do anything, so they waited and prayed. We live in a different period of time. We are not told to wait. We are told to go.
They were to stay in Jerusalem. They were to stay and wait. They were told to wait for the Holy Spirit. Waiting is hard. Waiting for anything is hard. It requires a lot of patience.
It shows you are not in control. No one likes to wait, but the disciples obeyed. They did not have to wait long. They only had to wait for ten days. They only had to wait about a week and a half.
While they waited, they prayed. They waited. They stayed and they prayed. They also played cards. They threw dice. We will see that the end of the chapter, but they waited and prayed.
They prayed the promises. That is something we should do as well. We have a promise that Jesus is coming back but it is not wrong for us to pray for His return. Any promise of God we find in the Bible we can and should pray.
2) Pray Publicly
We should pray privately. We should also pray publicly. This first prayer meeting was corporate prayer. It was group prayer with other believers. We got a list of people who were there. Someone took attendance. Judas was there but it was a different Judas.
Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. 14 They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. (Acts 1:13-14 NIV)
This prayer meeting did not just have the apostles in it. It must have been cool to have a prayer meeting with the apostles. You wonder how they prayed.
This prayer meeting did not just have the apostles. It had Jesus’s family in it. It had his brothers in it who grew up with Jesus. It had his mother in it. How would you like to have a prayer meeting with the actual family of Jesus?
The leaders were there. The family of Jesus was there, and many women were there was well. This prayer meeting did just have men but women in it. It was a mixed group.
It is not surprising that there were men there. It is surprising that that the women were there. That culture did not value women. They were made a part of this meeting. They were not treated as second class citizens.
This is the only time in Acts that the Virgin Mary is mentioned in the Book of Acts. There is Mary mentioned in Acts 12 but that is a different Mary. It was a common name.
The Mary of the Bible is not the Mary of church tradition. This is the last time she is mentioned in the Bible. Nothing is said about Mary ascending to heaven.
Nothing said about her being a perpetual virgin at the Roman Catholics teach. She had other children. Jesus had a bunch of brothers. Mary was not sinless. She was in this meeting. She needed to pray as much as everyone else.
If you work out the chronology, Mary would have been under fifty at this time. She married young. Women in the ancient world married young. In ancient Rome, girls could get married at 12 and boys at 14.
We don’t know how old she was, but we know that Jewish girls got married young. Joseph was older. That would put her in her mid to late forties. This prayer meeting was public.
It was in the Upper Room. We have all see Leonardo da Vinci’s picture of Jesus sitting at a table with His disciples in the Upper Room. If you go to Israel today, you will find a building that some say is where the Upper Room was located.
Upper room just means upstairs room. It is on the second floor of a building. Today, it is connected to a church. We don’t know if it is the actual site of the Upper Room, but it is the traditional site and has been the site for the last 1600 years.
The Upper Room was where Jesus celebrated the Passover. It was where He has His last supper. He ate his final meal in the upper room with his disciples
The Upper Room was where Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper. It was where He instituted communion. It was where Jesus said, “This bread represents my body, which is broken for you. This cup represents my blood, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins.”
The Upper Room was where Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. It was where Jesus taught the disciples about the coming Holy Spirit. It is where He talked about the Comforter coming. It is called the Upper Room Discourse. You can find it in John 13-17.
The Upper Room was a place of eating (Passover). It was a place of communion (Lord’s Supper). It was a place of teaching (Upper Room Discourse). It was also a place of prayer. What is the application to us?
Do you have an upper room that you go to? Do you have a prayer room? Do you have you dedicated a corner in your home, a closet or an entire room for prayer? We need a place that we withdraw and spend time with God.
3) Pray Persistently
They all joined together CONSTANTLY in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. (Acts 1:14 NIV).
They not only prayed and prayed publicly, they prayed constantly. The ESV renders it, “All these with one accord were DEVOTING THEMSELVES to prayer.” This was a ten-day prayer meeting. Most prayer meetings barely go an hour. This was something they did and kept doing. They prayed.
Now, they did not go into a room and do nothing but pray for ten days and not even take a bathroom break. They did other things and went to other places. We know that from Luke.
While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. 52 Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. 53 And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God. (Luke 24:52-53 NIV)
The early church was marked by prayer. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer (Acts 2:42 NIV).
They may have come to the Upper Room to pray in the evening. The early church was marked by prayer. The modern church is marked by entertainment. In some places, worship has turned into entertainment.
Some of us do not pray at all or very little. We should be marked by prayer. Paul said we should be constant in prayer (Romans 12:12). He said that we should pray without ceasing (I Thessalonians 5:17).
Wherever we go, whatever we do, we should be praying. We should be talking to God constantly and hear Him talking to us.
4) Pray Specifically
Now prayer is not JUST making requests. If you have a conversation with someone, you don’t just ask them for things. That is no type of relationship with anyone, but our prayers should be specific.
One of the things we should pray about is decision making. We should never make a decision without prayer. Jesus prayed before He chose His apostles. He prayed all night before He made that decision (Luke 6:12-16).
The apostles had an important decision to make. One of the Twelve apostles died. He killed himself. John MacArthur outlined this section – submission of the disciples (Prayer in the Upper Room), suicide of a disciple (Judas), and selection of a disciple (Matthias).[4]
Judas was one of the most tragic characters in the Bible. He went from this sterling reputation as one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ to one of the most hated men in history.
He is so hated that in Dante’s Inferno, he is placed in the lowest level of Hell (the ninth circle of Hell) and even names it after him (Judecca). It is the level of hell reserved for traitors.
Judas started out great. He had incredible privilege. He not only got to hear Jesus teach and see His miracles for three years, but He was specifically chosen by Jesus to be one of his apostles.
Only twelve people in that day were chosen to be one of Jesus’ official representatives. He was given a leadership role.
He was given a special ministry. He was in charge of the money. He was the treasurer of the apostles. He was the one with the bag (John 12:6) and he goes on to commit the worst crime in history.
Jesus called Judas a devil (John 6:70). Satan entered him (John 13:27). Satan entered into one of the apostles. He took control of him. That sounds a little scary. He betrays Jesus in the dead of night. He leads Jesus’ enemies right to Him so he can be arrested and killed.
Not only did he betray Jesus, but he did it with a kiss and he did it for money (thirty pieces of silver), which shows his greed. Judas had a sin problem.
He did not have a problem with pornography or alcohol. He had a problem with money. He loved money more than he loved Jesus. He stole money from Jesus and the Apostles. Can you imagine stealing from Jesus?
He had a problem with greed. He wanted to buy a field with the money he got from betraying Jesus but, he felt guilty and tried to return the money. They would not take it. He threw it on the ground, so they used his money to buy the field.
Critics of the Bible say that there is a contradiction between Matthew 27 and Acts 1. Acts says that Judas bought this field (Acts 1:18). Matthew says that the chief priests bought this field (Matthew 27:6-7) but there is no contradiction. The chief priests bought this field with Judas’ money that he gave them.
Judas became one of the greatest failures in human history. Think about this. He was not the only apostle to fall. Both Peter and Judas sinned. Peter denied Jesus. Judas betrayed Jesus. Peter was forgiven and restored. Judas was not. He committed suicide instead.
After he betrayed Jesus, he felt guilty. His conscience bothered him. He wanted to undo what he did but it was too late. The money became a curse. He didn’t even want it, so he returned it.
His sin caused depression and depression led to suicide. He hung himself over a cliff. His body began to swell in the heat. The rope broke. His body fell.
It split open on some sharp rocks below and his intestines spilled out. Why did we have to know all of that? Acts 1 was written by Luke the doctor, so he added that detail in about Judas’ rather gruesome death. He would have made a good pathologist.
Judas committed suicide right over the field that was bought. It became a field of blood. That is where Judas spilled his blood, and the field was purchased with blood money.
It is called Akel-dama. This was an Aramaic word. In Aramaic, it would have been pronounced hakhail-da-mah. This Field of Blood still exists today. You can visit it in Israel.[5]
Judas was not the last leader to fall. Many leaders since Judas have fallen into sin or committed complete apostasy. Some have become atheists. It still happens today but it caused a problem.
They had a leadership problem. They were one apostle short. They needed twelve, not eleven or thirteen. Why twelve? Why were twelve needed?
There were twelve tribes of Israel and there had to be twelve apostles. In fact, Jesus said that the twelve apostles were going to judge the twelve tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:28).
These disciples had an important decision to make. Who should replace Judas? Whoever it was he had to be qualified.
It had to be someone who the apostles knew personally.
It had to be someone who was a part of the ministry of Jesus and had witnessed it.
It had to be someone who witnessed the resurrection. It had to be someone who saw Jesus alive.
It had to be someone appointed by Jesus Himself. The apostles were appointed by Jesus Himself.
Two men were on the ballot. We would have just taken a vote. We would have had an election. That is the American way. It is democratic. That is not how they did things. They prayed.
They nominated two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. 24 Then they prayed, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two YOU have chosen 25 to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs. (Acts 1:23-25 NIV)
They also cast lots (rolling dice, drawing straws or flipping a coin). Should we do that today?
John Wesley believed in cast lots to make decisions. He cast lots to decide who he should marry. That did not work out too well. He was never home, because he was always away ministering to people. His wife was jealous and accused him of having affairs. His wife eventually left him.
This was an OT way of determining the will of God. It is not commanded for us. There is no command for us to cast lots. We do not see anyone doing this after Pentecost. The disciples do not cast lots after Acts 1 but we should always pray before making decisions.
[1] David Hocking, “The Power of Prayer” (Acts 1:12-26), Spoken Recording.
[2] https://kiebowman.com/2022/04/27/change-your-world-at-prayer-meetings/
[3] David Hocking, “The Power of Prayer” (Acts 1:12-26), Spoken Recording.
[4] https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/44-5/replacing-judas
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6SkIL15X1I
