"Let the children come to me and do not hinder them."

29.6.08 – Children’s Talk – Acts 12: 1-11

Sign for each person involved as the story unfolds…

Let’s see (again) what was happening in that Bible story…

Peter had been arrested for being one of Jesus’ followers [we have a lot to say thank you to God for here, because we are safe and free to follow Jesus and talk about him]

But Peter was put in prison by Herod.

There were 4 squads of 4 soldiers guarding Peter (16 soldiers one sign – 4 watches) and Peter was bound with two chains. Herod wasn’t leaving anything to chance!

The next day (after the Jewish festival) Herod was going to deal with Peter – he was in great danger.
But while Peter was asleep an angel appeared (angels are God’s messengers).

The angel got Peter ready to leave: “fasten your belt, put on your sandals, wrap your cloak around you, follow me.”

Peter thought he was seeing things or dreaming it but when the angel got him away and left, Peter realised the Lord had rescued him!

Now, did you notice what was happening somewhere else while all that was going on?

While Peter was arrested and in prison the church (give out notes to all: Part of the praying church) was PRAYING EARNESTLY FOR HIM (‘earnestly’ means very seriously, they prayed hard!).

See the amazing thing is that though God is mighty and powerful he uses the prayers of his people alongside him to get things done. Like this time – the church was praying and Peter was rescued by God – and when he turned up at the house where they were, the Christians didn’t believe it could really be him – even though that’s what they were praying for!

Sometimes it’s hard to pray and we wonder why God sometimes seems to answer and sometimes doesn’t. Those early Christians had the same problem. Not long before, James had also been taken by Herod, and he was killed – surely the church was praying for him too? Our lesson is to learn to trust God whether he seems to say YES or NO or WAIT. And to make sure we keep on praying so God can do amazing things through us too. All of you are important because you can be God’s pray-ers. You just need to start by talking to God and asking him to help where people need help. We pray a lot of prayers together in church so every time we’re altogether listen to how we pray and learn to pray too. And each prayer is everybody’s not just the person saying it because when we say ‘Amen’ it means ‘let it be so’ – we agree!