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Complacency: A Lethal Enemy

The pounding at the door rattled the entire house just before the foot of an impatient Roman soldier kicked it from its hinges. Peter was still in bed when the guards grabbed him and hauled him into the dusty Jerusalem streets where a prison wagon was waiting. The high priest had exercised his political power and commanded that the disciples of Jesus be rounded up like ordinary criminals to be incarcerated in a common prison. But with the evening would come to an extraordinary miracle. Acts 5:19 says, “But the angel of Lord by night opened the prison doors and brought them forth.” What a glorious deliverance and testimony! God had demonstrated His power once again, and these early followers of Jesus must have felt invincible.

I think what happened next is typical of human nature. It would appear that in the midst of great victories, a cloud of complacency had dulled some of the believers’ spiritual senses. In Acts 12 we read that the persecution against the church continued. But this time it was Herod who had initiated the arrest and instead of seizing all the apostles at once, he started with James, the brother of John. Everyone assumed that James would be fine. After all, God had delivered the apostles from prison once before, and surely, He would do it again… or would He? We read of no prayer meetings, no vigils, and no intercession. All was well and no one was concerned until the church was devastated by the dreadful news: James was executed at the hands of the wicked ruler. Complacency is among the most dangerous enemies of the believer because it is so easy to fall into and very difficult to detect in our own lives before we are rudely awakened.