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When my wife and I began, since
she couldn't read or write music, and I never went to seminary
or Bible school, it was either God was going to help or the
thing would go under. There was less than $3 in the
checking account, and the first offering was $85, was the total
tithes and offering. I remember all those days because
it reminds me how faithful God is. How many have found in your
own life that God is so faithful, right? And he's especially faithful
and his plan to pour good things into our life, the conduit for
that, he's chosen to be prayer. We didn't make that up, we didn't
think it up. God just laid it down in the
Bible, this first principle, you have not because you, just,
it's incredible. You can miss out on what God
wants because you just don't take the time to come before
him like a good child would be with their father and just say,
God, this is what we need. I'm bringing my needs to you.
And throughout the Bible, starting in Genesis when religion began,
when men began to call on the Lord, the first people who ever
belonged to God were not called Jews. They were called people
who call on the name of the Lord. And the Bible follows that word
all the way through onto the New Testament. He's rich in mercy
to everyone who calls upon him. And there's encouragements all
along the way where God keeps saying to us, like, ask and you
will receive. Not scolding us. Come on, you
gotta pray, you're a Christian. Not that at all, but it's like,
come to me. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Therefore, let
us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we might receive
mercy and grace to help us right when we need it. And I know in
an audience this big, underneath the exterior, because it's always
been that way in my life, there's all kinds of needs. in your own
life, in your family, decisions that have to be made, financial,
direction from God, strengthening, running out of spiritual energy.
You know, all these things are true. You know, you get fatigued.
That's why the Bible keeps saying, be strong in the Lord and in
the power of his might. Why? Because you can get weak,
you can get just just eking out a spiritual existence. That's
not what God wants. He wants the best for us. Amen?
He wants to give us everything we need to live lives that will
glorify Him, fulfill His will for our lives. So that's why
God has called His house a house not a preaching. And I'm trying
to do that right now. And not a house of singing, and
they're great, not a house of even worship, although worship
is always involved in what I'm about to say. But he says, my
house shall be called, what? A house of prayer. Why? Because you've got to come where
the action is, come to the throne of grace. I would make an argument
that any sermon that doesn't lead people to the throne of
grace has missed its mark. I don't care how eloquent the
guy was. I don't care how doctrinally
sound. If it doesn't lead you to make contact with God and
receive from God, what's the purpose? We're not Jehovah's
Witnesses. We're not Mormons who just have lectures. We're
Christians. Aren't we? Come on. Somebody
say amen. We are Christians. And we come to God and that is
why you see all through in times of trouble in the Bible. What
did they do? They had an instinct. Trouble.
Call on God. In the day of trouble, God invites
us. In the day of trouble, call upon me, and I will answer you.
I'm not gonna frustrate you. I'm not gonna hurt you. In the
day of trouble, call upon me. So you see it in Moses' life. You see it in David's life. You
see it all throughout the Bible. You see it, how did the church
begin? In a prayer meeting, in Acts chapter two. No one was
preaching. There were no outlines, no PowerPoint,
no anything, but they were gathering for prayer, and boom! God came
and the church was born. And Peter preached the first
sermon and then thousands were added to the church. And God
has not changed and I don't care how tough America or any place
else seems. How many believe still radical
that with God nothing is impossible? Lift your hand up high. Okay?
And God wants us to believe that and to step in to this plan of
His fulfillment of our needs. So I'm gonna read one of those
little stories that are in the Bible to encourage us, and then
we're gonna pray. Because every time I come here,
it's midweek service, and my instinct is always on the midweek
service, not to do a lot of complicated teaching, but to exhort you so
that we can come to the throne of grace. He's right there, behind
there, there's needs. Those choir members and out there,
I know there's needs. We want God to meet those needs
tonight. I want God to draw us, create
faith in us. So here's one of those stories
that are in the Bible to encourage us how the early church responded
to emergencies. And sometimes it's quite different
than what we call church. You know, the American concept
of church is not exactly biblical in all of its ways. And what
we have to do is escape church culture so that we can live a
life pleasing to the Lord according to his word. Amen? You know there's
white church culture, black church culture, Baptist church culture,
assemblies of God, charismatic this, that, and the all. But
none of those should be our goal. Our goal should be what does
the Word say and let me appropriate it so that God can be glorified
through our lives. It was about this time that King
Herod arrested some who belonged to the church. This is Acts 12,
intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of
John, put to death with the sword. And when he saw that this pleased
the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during
the Feast of Unleavened Bread. After arresting him, Peter, he
put him in prison, listen, handing him over to be guarded by four
squads of four soldiers each. I mean, Peter was obviously a
seeming threat when you have 16 guys watching one former fisherman. and they were on rotation, four
at a time, watching him. Herod intended to bring him out
for a public trial right after Passover. So Peter was kept in
prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him. Look
up here for a second. The sentence in the Greek original,
sometimes it's translated, and a steady stream of prayer kept
going up to God for Peter. How would you feel if the pastor
was taken away from you? And he was facing death from
a madman who had already killed James, the brother of John. You know, there's a time for
everything under the sun. There's a time to sing, there's
a time to study the Bible. But there are other times in
life, all of those are inappropriate, it's time to pray. And when you mingle the wrong,
one thing at the wrong time, you miss the power that God has
available for us. They shut down everything, why?
Because Peter is in the slammer and he is gonna be killed. And
they have no influence with government. They have no influence with the
Roman government. They have no influence with the
temple and the leaders of the Jewish establishment. They have
no influence with Herod. He hates them. And they have
no money. And they have no influence with
the media. And they have zero, but they
have everything. Because they have God on their
side. Sometimes we are counting all of our pieces and all of
our advantages and we line it up and we think like the corporate
world things. How do you solve a problem? You
get this and you get that and you get this and you get that.
Well they had no things to get together. They had zero, nada,
nothing. And they got Peter in the prison.
But they remembered the words of our Lord. Men ought always
to pray and not give up. With man, that's impossible,
but with God, nothing is impossible. And there is a growing movement
in Christendom today in America. Pastor Steve knows about it very
well. It's anti-supernatural, anti
that God still does these things. We just study doctrine and fill
your head with truth, but actually believe God to intervene in a
situation and turn the whole thing around. Oh, a lot of people
are like, that's too emotional. That's too fantastic. It's liable
to abuse, but I'm telling you what the word of God says. Jesus
is the same yesterday, today and forever. Can we put our hands
together and say amen to that? So. The church shuts everything
down. We've had times like that in
Brooklyn. God shut everything down. When you have people who
are mostly poor and you need five, six million dollars, well,
there's a time for everything. But a couple times we just started
the first service on Sunday when we were having, let's say, three
back then. We have three now. One time we were having four.
Started the first service, dismissed the people at the end of whatever
their time was, but never left the auditorium. Just people would
wait and pray and call on God. Why? What are you gonna do when
you face an emergency and there's no way out? except God. And look at me everyone, God
ultimately, inevitably will leave all of us in situations where
we have nothing but Him. He'll remove every crutch Everything
you lean on. Even friends won't understand
you. And your money won't help you. You'll be put in a situation
where God, because He loves us so much, is just waiting for
us to look up and say, God, You're my help. You're my only help.
I have no plan B. You are plan A, B, C, and D for
me, God. It's you or us, and he loves
that, because he loves to supply for his people, and he loves
for us to look to him in faith, for without that kind of faith,
it's impossible to please God. So the church is praying, Peter's
about to die. The night before, Herod was to
bring him to trial. Peter was sleeping between two
soldiers, bound with two chains. And sentries stood guard at the
entrance. My goodness. Chains. Chains bound
to people. Between two soldiers I should
say. Another guard at the entrance. And suddenly an angel of the
Lord appeared. And a light shone in the cell.
He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. Quick! Get up! He
said. And the chains fell off of Peter's
wrist. Then the angel said to him, put
on your clothes and sandals, and Peter did so. Wrap your cloak
around you and follow me, the angel told him, and Peter followed
him out of the prison. But he had no idea that what
the angel was doing was really happening. He thought he was
seeing a vision. And they passed the first and
second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city.
It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. And
when they had walked the length of one street, suddenly, the
angel left him. Then Peter came to himself and
said, now I know without a doubt that the Lord sent his angel
and rescued me from Herod's clutches and from everything the Jewish
people were anticipating. And that's how Peter kept on
keeping on and ministering and traveling and being an apostle
because when it seemed like he was doomed, I'm gonna say it,
The church prayed him right out of that prison. There's no other
moral to that story except that the church prayed, God heard,
God answers. Listen, there's a lot of mysteries
to prayer. I don't pretend to understand it all, but in this
story, we know one thing. They prayed, God answers, Peter
was delivered, and God's name was glorified.
Notice what happened here, ladies and gentlemen, because I want
to just be brief and then let's get to praying for the things
that face us. You know, Pastor Steve, what
challenged me was, see, in America, we have it so easy and we're
spoiled. But I went with my friend Ravi Zacharias some years ago
to Hong Kong. And someone with money brought
in about 700 or 800 underground church leaders in China, from
China, from mainland, to Hong Kong. Actually, we had the conference
in an ark. Someone built an exact replica
of Noah's Ark. Hello? Noah's Ark, in the water,
but moored, not able to sail. And it was a conference center. People could visit and look at
it. And it was wild driving up every morning and going into
Noah's Ark with the exact dimensions that are in the Bible. So here
were these people from mainland China. Some of the provinces,
the government doesn't help you, but it's like not too heavy persecution. other provinces, oh my goodness,
just in jail, who knows what could happen, and half the people
I was speaking to had been in jail for Christ's sake. I felt
unworthy, felt I shouldn't even speak to them. They've been in
jail for Christ, and here I'm in Brooklyn eating a pastrami
sandwich and now going over to Hong Kong to try to minister
to them, but I did, and I fell in love with them. And see, that's
how they live. Did you know that the fastest
growing Christian church in the world, do you know what country
that's in? It's in China, where it's illegal. The church is growing
fastest where it's been banned. Why? Because they're down to
basics. The Bible, God, prayer, Jesus,
the gospel, be brave, trust Him, pray, then pray more, and that's
how they live. And when you hear them worship,
and you hear them sing, it'll take your breath away. It'll
take your breath away. And I'm reminded as I read about
Peter's escape about how those people pray and all the great
things God has done there for them and continues to do. So
notice what happened. The church is praying and Peter's
in the prison being guarded, chained, and everything. But
that stream, this is the mysterious part of prayer. Prayer mounts
up before God and it almost like gains pressure and breaks through. You don't see the answer right
away. And sometimes you have to pray
through, keep on praying, keep on believing. And then the breakthrough
comes in answer to that prayer. Some prayers are answered just
with one sentence. You pray, and the answer's on
the way, or it comes within 48 hours. Others, you just have
to mount up in prayer. Keep on praying. Well, as they
kept on praying, here's what God did, and he still does this
today. The Bible tells us, suddenly, from heaven, an angel was sent. When we pray, when churches pray,
every revival in the history of our country and the world,
the Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, the Welsh Revival,
any revival that you read about and study, of which I've done
a lot of reading and studying, every revival begins this way. People can't take it any longer
and they begin to pray. And when they pray, listen, God
sends something from heaven. It's not man-made. You can't
create it. You can't organize it. You can't
manufacture it. It's something supernatural from
heaven. In Peter's case, it was an angel. In other cases, it's been a deep
sense of his presence. And sometimes he comes, and people
now who are unconcerned about their soul get convicted of sin,
and everyone's wondering, why is everyone so broken and convicted
of their sin? Someone's been praying. But when
people pray, God responds and sends something from heaven.
And I don't know about you, but I'll tell you about my own life.
I need something from heaven like regularly. I need something
from God. I need something that only God
can do. You do what you can, you try
to figure out things, but then you get in a spot where you realize,
you know what? God has to come. God has to come. Notice, something was sent from
heaven, and then Peter was woken up by the angels, slapped him
upside the head and said, wake up, get up quickly. That's another
thing that God does when people pray. He wakes other people up. Do you have someone in your family
tonight? Do you have someone in your circle of friends? They
are sleeping, not physically, they are spiritually sleeping.
They're not awake, they're comatose. They're not concerned about anything.
You can talk to them, argue with them, you can cry over them,
but when we begin to pray intercessory prayer, God can come and wake
them up. My daughter's with Carol out
in California. She was as far away from God
as you could get. God woke her up. I tried everything,
money, crying, screaming, you name it, I tried it. She got
worse. And then when God just let me
run out of energy and we did nothing but pray, God actually
came one night and woke her up and gave her a dream where she
realized, what am I doing with my life? How many believe God
can still do that? Lift up your hand. He can do
it for your daughter, your son, granddaughter, grandson. He can
do it in whatever situation. And you can't give up. Satan's
gonna say, nah, that's just emotionalism, that's just religious hyperbole,
and that's just extravagant talk. I'm telling you, God is not changed.
He can wake people up when we pray. Wake them up. That's why
Luther said, whoever prays well, studies well. Because when you
get up to preach, unless you've prayed and the Spirit is working
with you, people can hear a good sermon and remain absolutely
the same, unchanged. But then God comes, and he can
wake them up. Last thing I wanna just say.
Something came from heaven, Peter was woken up, and the Bible says,
what a beautiful metaphor. It happened literally, but what
a picture. And the chains fell off. Did you know that when we
pray, God can make chains come off? I don't know how it is here,
but you know, in New England, I was just up in New Hampshire,
and I was in Boston, and I was then out in Pennsylvania near
Harrisburg, but I've been reading these articles. There's a great
article called American, I'll think of the last name before
I'm done here, it's all about It's all about the opioid disaster
that's happening. I was in Pennsylvania speaking
somewhere and there's Amish farms. and trees and everything nice
and then I get to these pastors and I talk to them and they said
there's overdoses. It makes the heroin epidemic
that was in the 50s and 60s in New York and then crack and cocaine
and crack in the 70s, 80s, 90s, makes it look like child's play.
And it's not some poor minority person in downtown Brooklyn sticking
a needle in the arm in an alley. It's everywhere, all colors,
all races, all everybody. So empty and they get hooked
and they can't get off. We need something supernatural
from heaven if we're gonna see that broken. Do I get a witness
here? You think that, listen, we're
gonna offset that just by nice teaching and nice music by the
Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir or this great choir? No, it's gonna
take something from God. It's gonna take something from
heaven. It's gonna take some power from God to break those
chains. And I've seen that happen so
many times. Before I close, let me just, I'm thinking of one
right now. I could tell you so many that I know God answers
prayer. Carol has seen God answer prayer.
She just had a great answer from prayer I was sharing with your
pastor and his wife. I once needed $6 million, so
bad, and God gave it to me in 10 minutes. Someone came up and
said, the project can't go on, you're $6 million short. I had
no way to get $6 million. And oh, we prayed and I cried
to God. And then I came back from where
I was and in 10 minutes at 12 noon and 10 after 12 on my first
day back from Argentina, I opened two letters and one was a donation
for a million dollars from a man I met once. And the other one
was a gift of $5 million from a woman I still have not met.
and it's exactly the amount that I needed. It wasn't seven million
or three million. I'm telling you, God answers
prayer. Can you say amen with me here? God answers prayer. So I'm not talking about something
here that's just a verse in the Bible to me. Oh, God is so faithful. So one day, let me get done here. On one day, I'm in church on
a Sunday. Years ago in our previous building,
and I'm preaching. And what I don't know is that
a ministry in our church was going to what was called then
on the West side, the salt mines. It's changed now. And it's become
a very kind of bougie kind of place, expensive now, but it
used to be called the salt mines because the Department of Sanitation
stored their salt there for bad weather, snow. So who was living
in those salt mines in that area was a colony of male prostitutes
who were living in total degradation, total mess. It's the sickest
subculture you could ever possibly think about. So I didn't know
that that ministry, they've been going out on Saturdays, bringing
them blankets, feeding them, talking to them, sharing the
gospel. But on this Sunday, they brought about 12 of these guys
into one of the services on Sunday, and they were there somewhere.
Because the church is supposed to be a Holy Ghost hospital.
I don't care if you don't say amen, I'll say it again. The
church is supposed to be not a nice place for the family.
That is nowhere found in the scripture. It's supposed to be
a Holy Ghost hospital where emergency cases are dealt with and Jesus
shows himself mighty. So anyway, the service ends,
and the people are praying at the altar, and now we're gonna
get done with the service. And I'm walking down, and I'm
in the front, and I'm backing up, and Carol's playing the keyboard,
and I'm backing up, and I bump into this blonde lady, short
blonde hair, thin as a rail, black dress, black stockings. And I go, ooh, excuse me, ma'am.
And suddenly a voice comes out and says, no, that's okay, ma'am. And I looked immediately for the Adam's apple and it was
a guy. I'm not talking about a sloppy
transvestite. I'm talking about looking good as a woman. The whole deal, the whole thing.
I went up to my wife, I was in shock because I've seen all kinds
of things, but this one just blew my mind. I went up to Carol
and I said, see the blonde? She said, yeah, I said, that's
a guy. She said, no way, don't say that. I said, no, you go
over and you just talk, right? So his name was Ricardo, Ricardo
Aparicio, but his name in the street was Sarah. And he was
a male prostitute. He had been raped when he was
10, 11, 12 by uncles, cousins, all kinds of stuff. You don't
want to know. I wouldn't go into it here. But I learned his story
because we became friends. And Ricardo, ended up, to support
his drug habit, he just was out there prostituting. So he would
wait out and there would be limos coming in from New Jersey and
other places, fancy cars. They stopped, he would get in,
or the other guys. He was obviously dressed, looking
like a woman, not all of them were like that. I said, Ricardo, as I got to
know him, so how do you live? I mean, what is it? He said,
man, it's hard out there. He said, I always go out with
razor blades hidden in my sleeve, because I don't know where I'm
gonna end up, and if I have to slash my way out, I'm gonna slash
my way out. But no one's gonna put a hurt
on me. Meanwhile, he's destroying his life. So lo and behold, Sarah
comes again to the church, and he gets saved. Wait, he receives
Jesus as his savior. People loving on him, crying
all over him, and he comes up dressed like Sarah, and he gets
saved. But I mean totally saved. The chains break off. He comes
awake. He realizes, what in the world
am I doing? He didn't know that before. Because
only God can show you that. You can talk until the cows come
home. Only God can show you those things. So, he asked to get baptized. We said, we're gonna baptize
you. So we line up the date and then,
I know there's a Tuesday coming up, so I pull him aside and I
said, listen Ricardo, I wanna introduce you to the church and
you're gonna get baptized. He said, okay. I said, but not
like that, not dressed like that. You gotta come Tuesday night.
I want you in men's clothing. God made you a man, you're a
man. You're not a woman. If he wanted to make you a woman,
he would have made you a woman. He made you a man. He said, but
pastor, what am I gonna do? I have no clothing. I've been
doing this for years. I said, okay, we're gonna figure
this out. I'll get you clothing. So on a Tuesday, got his hair
cut and looking good as a man now. And I introduced him to
the church as God is my witness. He's listening to me now. I said,
ladies and gentlemen, I want you to meet Ricardo. He's Cubano,
he's from Cuba. Ladies and gentlemen, I want
you to meet someone getting baptized this week, Ricardo Aparicio. And he walks up with a sweatshirt
on and just jeans. And he puts his hand up like
this. and he starts to praise God and cry and we all cry and
the church is going crazy you would think the Queen of England
had just walked into the building that's how happy people you were
because that's what Christianity is about seeing God change people
do I get a witness here? come on, do I get a witness? so so now we get close and he's
telling me about his life and all this stuff So, he comes to
me one day, and he says, Pastor, I gotta tell you something. I
met someone. I said, who'd you meet? A girl. She love God? Yeah, I wanna introduce
you to her, okay? So now, Sarah, Ricardo Aparicio,
The chains are so off. He is so awakened. Light is shining
on him in his soul. He gets married. I know when
I say that it doesn't mean anything to you, but if you would have
seen him, you'd be running around this building doing a Jericho
march. He got married. Do you realize
what that means? He got married. So the next year,
We rented Madison Square Garden. We wanted to start another church,
and we used these big outreaches to start churches. So we got
2,000 people who are homeless in shelters. We brought them
in. I got some corporations to supply food that we could hand
out to them when they left Madison Square Garden. We sold the rest
for tickets just to cover these exorbitant costs to use the garden.
And we had this rally because they couldn't put people behind
Carol's Choir because of sound problems. So there was maybe
15,000, but we could have filled it with 18,000. There were 15,000
people there. And I showed a video of the old Sarah in the
street, pictures of him. And we went with a film crew
from CBN back where he used to hang, and he met the people he
used to hustle with and run around with, and one dressed like he
used to be dressed, but nowhere near looking like a woman, broke
down crying and said, Sarah Ricardo, is that you? I can't believe
that's you. And there he is with his wife. So at the end of the
event at Madison Square Garden, we showed this video, Carol sang
a song, I think it was called I'm Clean, I'm Clean, I've Been
Washed in the Blood. My sins that were so many have
all been taken away. And they saw the before and after. And then I said, I know you didn't
expect this audience. I want you to meet Mr. And Mrs.
Ricardo Aparicio. And they walked up on that stage.
That place went nuts. They went crazy because they
realized there's no chain God can't break. There's no darkness
God can't shine his light in. There's no anything. That's impossible to God. So
this is the power that we see. Peter was awoken. And for someone
here, I just want to add this. You're trying to get a door open. And maybe that door isn't supposed
to be open. Because what's interesting is
when they came to the final gate, the gate opened by itself. When
we pray and God intervenes, gates, doors open by themselves. The
angel and Peter didn't have to get a big piece of lumber and
say, come on, let's get this thing open. It opened by itself. Remember what Paul says in another
letter? Pray for me for a wide and effectual
door of ministry has opened for me. He said, God opened that
door for me. And when you have open doors,
you gotta follow them. You gotta go there, but God opens
those doors. So how is it with you all here
tonight? Anybody here got faith in their
heart that you wanna pray for someone that's not present? The
church was praying for someone that was not present. Intercessory
prayer is like this, look, and I'm done. With one hand, you
touch God, and with the other hand, you touch that person,
that situation. It's not praying for yourself.
They weren't praying for themselves in the church. They were praying
for somebody else that they love, Peter. And they touched God,
and they touched Peter. They were the conduit, and look
what God did. Sent something from heaven, woke
them up, chains came off, set free. Our God is an awesome God. An awesome God. Let's give God
just one more. Close your eyes with me. We are
standing on holy ground. Sing. And I know that there are
angels all around. let us pray Jesus now we are standing in his presence Every eye closed. The Lord loves
us so much. He wants to meet every need.
He wants to go to that person that you love, that situation
you're concerned about. He does not want us to worry.
He says over and over again, double negative in the Greek.
Don't worry. Not even about a single thing.
Don't worry. Stop worrying. But in everything, by prayer
and supplication, with thanksgiving. Tell God what you need. He'll
work it out for you and he'll give you a peace while you're
waiting for the answer to come. Peace that passes all understanding. Before I turn it back to the
pastor, is there anyone here like me? I got some situations
happening right now in the church. I am at my wits end. I'm trying
to help two people. There is no human answer. And
I realized that this afternoon, it's gonna take a divine intervention. It's gonna take God doing something
only God can do. So I wanna reach out in prayer
for that person that I'm praying for. Satan is just working overtime
in this person's life. I gotta stand in the gap because
he doesn't know enough to pray for himself right now. He's deluded. Anybody here wanna just get out
of your seat and come up and stand with me here in the front
before we close? And just say, pastor, I want
to pray with you. I want to agree with you for the situation I
have in my life. Just get up out of your seat.
Anybody want to come? Just come up representing your
son, your daughter, your grandson, your granddaughter, whatever
the situation might be that needs, someone needs prayer. Just come. We are standing unholy ground. And I know that there are angels
all around. Let us praise. Let us pray. Jesus now. We are standing in his presence. Holy Grail. Before we pray, can you lift
your hands up with me whether you're standing or sitting? Sing
it. We are standing on holy ground. And I know that there are angels
all around. Let us praise Jesus now. We are standing in His presence. Keyboard just gonna play that
through again. Don't sing. Let's just talk to God. Everyone
just talk to God as he plays. Deliver him. Deliver him. Deliver
him. Yeah. Yeah. Father God, we bring every son,
we bring every daughter, every granddaughter, every grandson.
Every family member might be chained, might be asleep, in
prison of their own making. Satan just has them locked up.
We pray that you will break through, Lord. Break the chains. Get in
there, God, and get them out. Wake them up. Send something
from heaven. Something that they'll know,
this is not somebody talking to me, this is God touching my
life. Let them know that. Isn't that
the way you change Saul of Tarsus, Lord, into Paul the Apostle?
We're praying, we believe, we believe that nothing is impossible
to you, God. So God, we pray in these situations
and things that only the people and you know about, that you
know we're facing, God, we pray. We lift up a steady stream to
you tonight. We are holding on to you, God.
We have no plan B. You are plan A, B, C, D, God. You have to do this. You gotta
do it for us, God. Didn't you tell us to come? Now
do as you said. You said if we would call, you
would answer. So we're calling. Now come and
answer and be faithful to your word. You said if we asked, we
would receive. That if we would knock, it would
be open. If we sought, we would find it, Lord. So we're digging in the ground,
Lord, putting a stick in the ground right now and drawing
a line. We will believe God to answer this prayer. We will believe
God to change the situation. We're believing you, God. We're
not just saying a prayer. We're praying and believing.
And we're going to expect. And we're gonna worship while
we're waiting for you to turn it around. And when you turn
it around, we'll give you all the praise and honor and glory. It won't go to any pastor, no
church, denomination. Jesus, you will receive all the
glory and honor and praise. Do it again, what you did for
Ricardo. Do it again in all these different
situations. We love you and we praise you. Just stop playing for a second,
brother. We're going to go to acapella here. Just every eye
closed in the building. Everyone stand, please, whether
you're in your pew or not. Just stand, everybody. Let's
pray with our eyes closed that God is going to use us this week
to talk to people about Jesus and to be used by him to fight
this epidemic, the opioid epidemic. American epidemic, that's what
it is. And it's not just in the form
of those Oxycontin and all that stuff, it's just sin running
rampant. And we're the light and we're
the salt. We gotta ask God to use us. Spirit of the Living
God, fall fresh on me. Spirit of the Living God, fresh. Lift your hands and sing break
me. Keyboard play. Break me. Melt me. Fill me. Use me. Spirit of the Living God One last time, sing break me.
Let's all sing together loud to Him as our prayer. Break me,
melt me, Fill me, use me, Spirit of love! Fill me Lord, and use me. Śrīla Prabhupīda, O Kṛṣṇa,
Calling Upon God
Series Prayer
We can talk to the God of the universe. Let that sink in. The God who created everything and holds all things together wants to talk to you! Why do we struggle so much with praying? Why are prayer meetings often the smallest in our churches? Prayer is calling upon God.
| Sermon ID | 918181332440 |
| Duration | 46:29 |
| Date | |
| Category | Conference |
| Language | English |
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