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From Acts chapter 13 verses 40 and 41 read as follows: 40 Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you: 41" 'Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you. From Acts Chapter 12 verses 5 through 19 it says using the New King James version of the Bible:: 5 Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant[a] prayer was offered to God for him by the church. 6 And when Herod was about to bring him out, that night Peter was sleeping, bound with two chains between two soldiers; and the guards before the door were keeping the prison. 7 Now behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shone in the prison; and he struck Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, “Arise quickly!” And his chains fell off his hands. 8 Then the angel said to him, “Gird yourself and tie on your sandals”; and so he did. And he said to him, “Put on your garment and follow me.” 9 So he went out and followed him, and did not know that what was done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. 10 When they were past the first and the second guard posts, they came to the iron gate that leads to the city, which opened to them of its own accord; and they went out and went down one street, and immediately the angel departed from him. 11 And when Peter had come to himself, he said, “Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent His angel, and has delivered me from the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the Jewish people.” 12 So, when he had considered this, he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying. 13 And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a girl named Rhoda came to answer. 14 When she recognized Peter’s voice, because of her gladness she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter stood before the gate. 15 But they said to her, “You are beside yourself!” Yet she kept insisting that it was so. So they said, “It is his angel.” 16 Now Peter continued knocking; and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. 17 But motioning to them with his hand to keep silent, he declared to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, “Go, tell these things to James and to the brethren.” And he departed and went to another place. 18 Then, as soon as it was day, there was no small stir among the soldiers about what had become of Peter. 19 But when Herod had searched for him and not found him, he examined the guards and commanded that they should be put to death. And he went down from Judea to Caesarea, and stayed there. In this chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, Peter is imprisoned in chains under heavy guard in the middle of the city. It is implied that the group back at the house is praying for him, and his dire situation. Note that at the end of this chapter, Herod will get his. What happened was on the side of unbelievable in the context of the story. While the group was praying, Peter was visited by an angel who unbound the chains and walked him out of the city and opened the Iron Gate to give him the full getaway. Apparently by what happened and their subsequent reaction they did not specifically cite in their prayers that Peter would be unbound by the stark appearance of an angel of the Lord, who spoke to Peter in his own language. While prayer, and the power of prayer is known to believers and is part of the call of the Kingdom, some of the answers are or border on unbelievable and this was the case here by the reaction when Peter knocked on the door of the group gathered at an abode outside the city at night. Their reaction was telling that although they were the ones praying, they had not prayed specifically in accordance with what actually transpired; just that he would be helped or aided in some way unforeseen. Lessons can be drawn from this passage, indeed there is the duty to pray but how these prayers might actually be answered is in the element of the unknown and at the least unexpected. The prayers are sent, but what will be sent back as a reply is unknowable at first. In this case, it was unbelievable to what would normally be the parameters of the time. In the normal case, people don’t walk out of heavily guarder prison and then through iron gates in the city. This would be something that from the perspective of the group praying was unheard of and had never been seen by them. Peter, had himself walked with Jesus and been in the presence of many mighty miracles, and he also performed miracles himself. but this was a new era where Jesus wasn’t personally present with them in the body. Peter in his first encounter with Jesus had seen an unbelievable event with the sudden copious catch of fish. Herod, as to other leaders often do then and now, was overstepping boundaries in his role as leader, and was in effect playing God. Peter himself, at first was unsure of whether what he was experiencing was real or whether he was still dreaming as he had been sleeping. His initially feel of unreality speaks to the unbelievable nature of what was happening which did not fit into what would be a normal, common or known type of occurrence. The model presented here is the possibility that angels will intervene in real time as part of the answer to prayers but more so that the unbelievable will occur with the commonplace, and things will happen and will be seen that might not quite be believed. The fashion of the unbelievable will be there. You’ll see it and maybe not quite believe it. Someone attuned to a deeper relationship with the Lord, might hear of things, or witness things happening that are unbelievable. This is not to say there is a lack of belief involved, but that what is actually happening is to a larger degree is a matter of disbelief. When Peter came to the door, the girl answering the door knew it was him, but when she didn’t open it initially as she sparked back to everyone else to tell them that Peter was at the door. it was parcel to her feelings that how could this be, this is unbelievable as they had known what Peter’s situation that night was, and where he was as they were praying ferverently and reverently praying for him, and what was his doing knocking on the door? It is also interesting that the angel specifically got him out of the city and on the way directly back to the group at the house who had been praying for him and there was a link up that way. In Corithians, in the chapter on love Paul speaks of the language of angels which they would speak among themselves with, but in this case the angel’s words came into the language of the time and made himself plainly understood. These verses are a sourcc of encouragement to continue in prayer even in circumstances that seem impossible to affect or change. But in a broader sense, there can be an understanding that the unbelievable can and will happen and there can be a further understanding of being sensitive to small messengers and occurrences as well as large ones that are unbelievable. In bigger and smaller ways, you are not always going to be witnessing with what is conventionally considered believable when dealing with prayer and the realms of the spirit. While what may happen and what could happen is real, through prayer we can sometimes expect to have and see unbelievable happenings and elements that take form to everyday realities. It would be something in the range of an everyday reality that Peter could knock on the door, but it became in the realm of the unbelievable based on what the group had know about his circumstances immediately prior to this happening. An example from the gospels of the unbelievable is from Luke 5, again involving Peter and the other fisherman who had been fishing all night with zero success and just about zero hope of a turnaround to getting a catch at this time and juncture. From Luke Chapter 5 verses 1 through 9 it says, 1 So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, 2 and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. 3 Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. 4 When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.” 6 And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. 7 So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink.8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” 9 For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; 10and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.” 11 So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him. During the day Jesus appeared and used one of the boats to preach to the crowd at the shore. You could picture that although the night had passed with no results for the fisherman, it was a beautiful midday or early day sun and everybody was in a sense relaxed, at ease and carefully listening to the words of Jesus as he preached from the boat. While it was disappointing that the fisherman did not catch the fish, it wasn’t a point of great distress or something that they needed to be rescued from, it was more an issue of discouragement in the moment but the discouragement had probably already passed as they listened to the mesmerizing words of Jesus as he spoke from the boat to those on the shoreline. It was probable that Peter and the other fisherman at least knew of Jesus and you could speculate that they could have heard him speak at some point previously, yet if this was the case, they had not yet been called personally by him but would have been amidst the crowd, but of course based on what happened here Jesus would have seen them and known them as he now was calling them personally to walk with him. If they had been in the crowd of listeners previously, they may have never envisioned that they would be called specifically by him as they would be in these precious moments of time. Jesus, after giving them word of the call had them recast the nets a little deeper and droves of fish were caught immediately to the point that is was beyond belief especially in the contest of having fished the whole area with no results through the night. The sight of the fish just about jumping onboard, the immediacy of it, took the form of the unbelievable. There was no hiding of the event as it was now say in the later part of the morning, in a beautiful and inviting sun and the presence of the unbelievable was easily seen and witnessed by all who were present, as it wasn’t the night where people might not see what was happened quite so clearly. So this is another point about the unbelievable, that it will happen right before your eyes, there is not hiding or anything to make it a puzzle, and it will be as plain a sight or occurrence as the noon day sun. It is unbelievable that the Lord can pack in some many blessings in such a short period of time And then it is a matter of discernment how blessing seem to attach to certain approaches and pathway. A friendship can lead to many attached blessings for example. Overall, there can be added awareness and keenness to the presence of the unbelievable as part of the walk with the Lord into the future.
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