With a message from God’s word, here’s Charles Stanley.
In a moment of crisis, the 3 words most frequently heard are, oh my god.
Well, that is the right thing to do in a crisis, and that is to pray.
to call out to god, to cry out to him.
And in these days of crisis, more people are praying, more people are attending church, More people are talking to god than probably have talked to him in a long time.
All of a sudden, they’re confronted with separation, They’re confronted with this overwhelming group of decisions that they have not had to make in all of their life.
There’s fear, uncertainty, the threat of death, the overwhelming responsibilities that they had not faced before, What do you do in time of a crisis?
Well, you surely pray, but how do you pray in such a way that god hears and answers that prayer?
Well, that’s what I wanna talk about in today’s message entitled, praying in a crisis.
And I want you to turn, if you will, to James chapter 5 and At the end of this crisis mentioned here, there’s a simple principle that usually gets lost because we get hung up on what happens before.
James chapter 5. And you recall this is the chapter in which god has given to the church, the way you deal with sickness in the church and how you go about seeing that those people experience healing.
And so he says in verse 13, Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.
Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praises. Is anyone among you sick?
let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the lord.
And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the lord will raise him up.
And if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed.
Now, it’s the next phrase.
The effective prayer of a righteous man or a woman can accomplish much.
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain.
And it did not rain on the earth for 3 years 6 months.
And he prayed again, and the skyport rain, and the Earth produced its fruit.
It is the last part of this 16 verse that I want us to look at because herein, lies a principle that I think is a good guide for us in praying in time of a crisis.
He says the effective prayer of a righteous man, and you and I know that is a righteous man or a woman, can accomplish much.
The two things that I want us to see in this passage that is always true in a crisis, first of all, that is the desire.
And secondly, the demand. That is when you and I face a crisis, we usually face some specific event or some specific thing that has happened that has grabbed their attention, and that is the focus of our prayer.
Now if you’ll think for just a moment, as you and I think about crises and different kinds of crisis, A crisis is a time that you and I are concerned, but that concern is a narrowed focus that is when we pray normally when things are sort of at least partially normal, whatever that is, we pray for many things.
When we suddenly hear news or a crisis is created, our prayer becomes very narrowly focused to that one issue, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
And we began to pray specific for that particular area of concern.
And the Bible says that god will indeed become involved in those things that concern us or those crises we face.
Because god knows exactly, uh, why that crisis has come, And he certainly is not oblivious to the things that are going on.
No crisis can occur without god’s permissive will. He does not initiate many crises that takes place.
I’m sure he does initiate some of them.
But no matter how it comes, god always takes advantage of every crisis to do something.
And that is to get our attention focused to him, for example.
How many people are praying today who are not praying 2 months ago or 3 months ago or 6 months ago or a year ago.
How many people in church who weren’t in church then? They weren’t concerned about church. They weren’t concerned about god.
They weren’t reading the Bible. And if they prayed, many of them just prayed, you know, just in passing.
Lord bless this at the other. many of them had little concern, a little interest in the things of god.
They were religiously living their life indifferent to the things of god.
selfishly going on about their business, pursuing the things that primarily interest to them.
And all of a sudden, they’re shocked with a reality that husband and wife are gonna be separated There’s a possibility of war, losing one’s loved one.
This avalanche of responsibility that suddenly comes down upon the wife the separation of children from their dads, or from their mother in this war, and all the things that take place.
besides all the crises that come just natural in normal life. God’s interested in all of them.
He sees them every single one. He’s not oblivious to them, and the teaching of this verse is simply this.
God is willing to become personal involved in those things that are crises in our life.
Now you and I know that he desires to be personally involved in every single area of our life, every day of our life, whether there’s a crisis or not.
But for many people, it takes a crisis for god to get their attention.
And so when he allows a crisis, one of god’s primary objectives is to get our focus change.
From me, myself, and my plans and my schedule and my this and my that and my heartaches and my troubles on to god where they should where it should have been all alone.
And when you and I face something that we feel helpless about and absolutely totally overwhelmed about, isn’t it interesting how easily god gets our focus, uh, from ourselves onto him, and we begin cry out to god to do something in our life to make a difference.
And my primary purpose for this message is to, uh, simply give a little warning and a word of encouragement to many of you who’ve begun to pray that had not prayed in years years, and I wanna say this now, and I wanna say it again, If you think that you can just go from indifference, apathy, no interest no church, no Bible, no god, no Christ, no anything spiritual.
And all of a sudden, you hit a crisis, and god suddenly comes like a bellhop and stands at your door and says, what would you have me to do?
Terrible and mistaken. If you think god is like a puppet that you can dangle on the strings, and you can manipulate him to do anything you want him to do, you’re gonna be disappointed.
God is nobody’s puppet. God is not gonna be manipulated by my crises, or anything else.
God is the sovereign of this universe.
And whether we like to think it or not, everything revolves around him, not us.
And so we can’t live a life that is indifferent, And casual and totally self centered.
And all of a sudden, god gets real excited about helping us out of our crisis.
that is not the way god operates.
And I think in this passage of scripture, we can understand how god does and what does motivate god to become involved in those things that are of concern to us.
I want you to look at this word and this phrase, and we’re gonna primarily just stay with the last part of verse 16.
He says the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
The word there for accomplish is a word that if you saw it in the Greek, it would look like the first part of it would look like e n e r g y energy.
And it is the word from which we get our word energy, and what he’s saying in this passage is this, that this effective prayer of a righteous man brings about the release of god’s supernatural, god’s divine energy into our crisis to make a difference.
I swear to what he’s saying, that when we have effective prayer by righteous men and women, god begins to release his divine supernatural unlimited listen, unlimited energy and directs it toward the target, which is the crises that you and I may face at any given moment.
And so you who are facing a crisis today, the issue is not whether god desires to or whether he’s promised to or not.
The issue is, are you in a position where god is able.
Not that he’s not able to do anything, but are you in a position where god is free to become involved and to release his divine energy in your particular crisis.
And I want to say again, he’s not to be manipulated, You can’t have some particular prayer formula, uh, whereby you can pray, and god always does anything.
And if you’ll look for a moment back in, uh, Ephesians chapter 1.
Uh, the use of this word here is a good example.
He says in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 19.
What is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe?
These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might.
Again, the same word, the working the release of of god’s divine strength and energy and power in our life.
He is more than willing to do that.
In the 3rd chapter, If you’ll notice the 20th verse of rebel of, uh, ephesian, now to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly, beyond all that we ask to think, think about that.
We’re talking about a god who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask a thing, according to the power that works.
the energy of god released within us.
God is willing to release his supernatural power in your crisis no matter what it is, if the situation is correct.
And that’s what we wanna clarify in this message, to be sure that it is correct.
So what we have to ask is, when we cry out to god, is god gonna hear us just because we’re Christian?
No. Is he gonna get involved in everybody’s crisis? No.
He doesn’t promise to do that, but he does promise in this passage.
He says, the effective prayer of righteous men and women will you can look for the divine personal intervention of god in that crisis no matter what it is.
Now think about this. Today, we face a crisis of war that engulfs the whole nation and our greater part of the world.
There are many crises today and there are individual crises in this man’s life, in this woman’s life, in this family, in this business, in this relationship.
But here’s the promise. God says, I’m ready. I’m willing. And we’re talking about supernatural.
We’re talking about the unlimited omipotence of god, he’s willing to release if certain things are true and if certain things are right.
And so that’s what he’s referring here. into this particular passage.
Now, the comforting thing that you and I can be assured of in any crisis is this, that god knows all about the crisis.
He knows every detail. He knows why it is there.
He knows how it came about, and he knows exactly how to saw, to settle, to heal, to deliver, to provide, to protect whatever in that crisis in such a way it is to our best interest.
It may not always be what I want, and so I wanna say up front, just because you and I face a crisis, no matter how righteous you and I may be.
That doesn’t mean that god is going to always do exactly what I ask him to do.
because what I want god to do sometimes is not the will of god.
What I want him to do sometimes may seem and appear to be right and good and scriptural to me.
But on the other hand, if god’s purpose is higher than my purpose, he says my ways are higher than your ways, and my ways are are greater than your ways, He knows, and he has ways that I cannot touch, that I cannot understand.
So some things he’s going to do in a crisis, no matter what I do, But here’s what happens.
When we respond right in the Tibet crisis and asking for god’s divine intervention, we don’t have to walk away shaking our hands and thinking, god, why did you do it?
Why didn’t you answer my prayer? If you keep your promise, why did it turn out this way?
God, this is a mess. Because when we in just a moment, what has to be made right, our whole attitude about the crises and the outcome will be different.
So what he’s saying in this passage here, he’s interested in getting involved, he wants to get involved, and you can click all through the scriptures in the Old Testament, how oftentimes, for example, just look at the Psalms.
David cried at, oh my god. He cried out to god in one crisis after another in his life.
and how god so beautifully intervened, to deliver him and protect him and provide for him, and to take him through difficult in hardship.
And I mean, He went through some very, very difficult trying, prosecuting times. They were not easy.
But god did divinely intervene every single time, even in the midst of his failure.
So that’s what he’s saying.
1st of all, in this passage that you and I can expect and look for.
Listen, when he says, accomplish much The word is the release of god’s divine energy in your crisis.
Now we say, well, this is our desired god. Here’s the crisis we face.
He says there are 2 demands. Number 1, if you’ll notice in this passage, what he says.
He says, number 1, first, the first requirement, is effective prayer.
Now it’s interesting in this passage that the word prayer is used about 4 other times, This is the only place where this particular word for prayers use, and it implies a specific request, not just general praise, And I mean by that, not to discredit, or to belittle that.
But, for example, let’s say that, uh, in your private devotions in the morning or in the evening, whenever you have them, you pray for a lot of things.
You pray about, uh, your life and your family and your plans and other people and other concerns in the war and all the things that are going on But we’re talking about a specific prayer that is narrowed down to something.
He says, he’s speaking here of effective prayer. We’re You see, he put this on the end of a crisis.
That is we’re talking about the healing of sick, and we’re probably not talking about a bad cold.
We’re talking about a sickness where there’s a sense of helplessness and god must work some miraculous work of healing.
He says it is effective prayer. And so the word prayer here is specific.
It implies me. God, I’m asking you to deliver me in this. And, lord, provide this.
Oh, lord, I’m asking you to protect him. It is specific.
Now, what what does he mean here when he’s talking about effective prayer?
Well, the word for effective here is the word translated strong. We’re talking about strong praise.
We’re not talking about, now I lay me down to sleep, pray the lord my soul to keep.
And if I die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take Amen.
And we learned that as a child, And after a while, we just sort of quoted that by a rope member, it didn’t mean a whole lot.
And I’m afraid a lot of people today, before they go to bed at night, they round off something to god that’s, uh, you could almost say ditto to, probably every once in a while, be the same words, saying the same thing.
We’re talking about praying that’s got heart in it. He said, strong pre. The very word means powerful and strong.
So we’re talking about prayer that is motivated by a burden of the heart.
We’re talking about prayer that has much more power and strength and feeling and emotion, the word, fervency.
Look, if you will, in colossians chapter, for for a moment.
And if you’ll notice in this passage that Paul is referring to one of his cohorts in the ministry, most of this, uh, last part of this 4th chapter is about that.
And he names one of them here.
And in naming him, he describes how he prayed, uh, by the colossians. verse 12, of cautions 4.
He says epaphras, who is one of your number, a bond slave of Jesus Christ sends you his greetings.
Always laboring listen to this, laboring earnestly for you and his prayers that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of god.
Laboring earnestly, that very phrase implies that he not only is just saying words but this man has his heart in it.
There’s strength, there’s power. Something has burdened his heart. He was burdened for these colossian Christians.
Again, uh, the same idea is used in, uh, 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 when he talks about begging god So what he says here, the effective prayer, we’re talking about strong prayer that has heart in it.
Now, When you think about prayer and you think about your own prayer life, I wonder when is the last time you prayed with a heavy, strong burden.
Oh, god. That is something on the inside of you would not let you just get out on your knees and just say, now, lord, want you to do so and so and so and so.
But somehow in your heart, you were struggling. Well, somebody says, you shouldn’t have to struggle with god.
I mean, after all, Should you just be able just to save on the lord? Uh, here’s what I want.
Here’s what I’m asking you to do, and I wanna thank you in Jesus’ name that you’re gonna do it, not always.
Because prayers are always that way.
Look, if you will, in, uh, the, uh, 32nd chapter of Genesis, And if you’ll notice in this particular passage, if you’ll turn there for a moment, that Jacob, all of a sudden found himself facing a crisis.
And the crisis was that his brother, whose birthright he had taken, he had discovered that he’s on his way so all he knows that a battle is going to ensue.
And more than likely, he’s going to be defeated. He may be killed by his brother.
He’s separating his family, trying to protect them, and all the things that are going on.
And if you’ll notice in verse 24 of Genesis 32, then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak, which was, or who was probably the pre incarnate Christ.
And when he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh, so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.
Then he said, this is the one with whom he’s wrestling.
Let me go for the dawn is breaking, but Jacob said, I will not let you go until you bless me.
Here’s a man wrestling with the lord about what is concerning him at the moment.
struggling, having a difficult time with what he’s facing.
There is nothing wrong with getting on your knees and wrestling it out.
That is sometimes that wrestling is a result of fear.
Oh, god, suppose this happens, what am I going to do?
And I’m sure that is the question that many wives may be asking, god today about their husbands and about their teenagers whose father is gone, or some people are asking about their finances or their marriage relationship or whatever it might be.
God, what’s gonna happen? And so it isn’t a simple prayer.
It is a prayer that is evoked by burden, by heaviness. It is a crisis. God, I need you.
I desperately needs you. God, if you don’t get involved in this, I’m sunk. I don’t know what to do.
I feel overwhelmed. I’m scared. I don’t know which way to turn. I don’t know who to talk to.
God, do something. You said, well, now a person should be more calm about that praying.
My friend, it depends on how much you hurt. It depends on how scared you are.
And it depends on where you are in your life and what you’re facing.
And what he’s saying in passage, knowing how we are and knowing what we are.
Look in verse 17 of, um, this passage. He says Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.
That is Elijah was not perfect. He was weak.
He suffered his disappointments, and you’ll recall, he got depressed in life, He became fearful. He’s the prophet of god.
God used in the most miraculous way. And the next thing you see, he’s scared to death.
And I think the reason he put that here is in order for us to understand and to be encouraged with the fact that god understands our fears, and he on the stands when we face certain crises that we don’t know what to do, and we don’t know where to turn, and we don’t know how to handle some things.
And so what do we do? We cry out to god. And so we’re not talking about general praying.
We’re talking about crisis praying. God, what do I do in this particular situation?
Now, part of the problem is we sometimes get a little too sophisticated and dignified in our praying.
And, you know, if we were to decide right now, look, let’s all of us begin to pray.
Suppose we heard some real, real bad news about the war, and somebody came in and said, here’s a cry season, the gulf right now, I believe we need to pray, and let’s say it was something horribly dramatic.
I guarantee you, none of us would care what anybody else thought about the way we prayed with each other.
When my heart is overwhelmed, I could care less what anybody thinks says or does when I’m talking to god.
And the kind of prayer that gets god, holy god, in heaven, releasing his supernatural unlimited omnipotence in my life is when I am burdened and crying out to him.
and believing that he and he alone and expressing my sense of helplessness.
Isn’t that not a principle of scripture?
In our most helpless, desperate moments, in those moments, the spirit of god is able to release his greatest power when we express our greatest sense of helplessness, And I believe there are people praying who haven’t prayed in a long, long time, and they don’t know how to pray, and they think God’s just gonna hop whenever they pray.
And what I want us to see is nothing to judge you from praying, but simply saying that if we wanna get god in on what’s going on in crises moments, we need to learn to cry out to god.
With a burden, listen, not something we fabricate for ourselves, you know when your heart is heavy, you know when you’re scared, You know when you you feel helpless and overwhelmed, you don’t know what to do next.
Oh, god. I need you to do something. And sometimes we don’t know what to ask him.
You said, that’s not very intelligent praying. That’s exactly why he says in Romans 8.
He gave us the Holy Spirit. He said, sometimes you won’t even know how to pray.
But the spirit of god within you will end the seed before the father. So what does he do?
He burdens our heart for the crisis. Oh, we become burdened automatically by the bird nature of it.
And something inside of us cries out. Oh, god do something. He says it is strong praying.
This gets god’s power and on what’s happening.
You say, well, is that the only time god gets his power in what’s happening? No.
You see, the truth is god is willing to release his supernatural power every single day in your life and my life in simple little things.
And the truth is he does. But we’re talking about Christ is praying.
And we’re talking about those things that that cause us to feel overwhelmed.
Here, it may be a sickness under death, and the doctors have given up.
James says, this is what you do.
Remembering that the strong prayers, the strong prayers about that sickness, about that healing from righteous men and women bring about great results that is god releases his divine energy in response to strong praying.
If we start praying for god to do specific things, I believe god will respond when we praise strong prayers, from righteous hearts, crying out to god to do whatever is necessary?
The whole history of the Bible.
That’s what god’s been doing from Genesis 1 all the way through. That’s what he’s been doing in history.
That’s what he’s been doing in your life. and so many ways.
But we’re afraid to take on something as big as a war.
You say, well, me and the whole middle east situation, yes, you.
Yes. Let me ask you a question.
How many men and women does it take to cause god to release his divine supernatural power.
1. Now, I’m gonna show you that in a minute. 1. Just one.
But the question is, am I even burdened enough?
Did I even feel like crying out to god? Now, think about this.
I I hope you’ll get convicted a little bit. Amen? Yeah.
You think about what absolutely saturates your mind every day, and at a little time most people are giving to prayer.
And they sit and watch the television, watch all these things, and it says over here on the corner on the right, lower side are alive.
And you see these jets taking off, men going off, on their missions.
Listen, every time I see that I I just cry out to god, god, protect that man, be his shield, bring him back helping to concentrate and helping to be successful.
And I believe god is answering my prayer just like he answers yours.
Don’t sit then watch the television and just be sort of amused at what’s happening. Listen.
That is your living opportunity to get involved in somebody’s life at that right moment, at that very moment, we underestimate god’s personal desire to get involved on what concerns us.
And part of the problem is we’re so concerned with so many things that concern us and us alone that god can’t even get up enough conviction and burden and hunger and thirst and yearning and weeping over the condition of this world to even intervene.
And god has got America’s attention with a war. Now you think about it.
Vietnam war was over with some 15 to 16 years ago.
America had a chance To thank god, get back to god, turn toward god that terrible war was over, 50 some 1000 American boys lost their lives, and some women.
You’d have thought somehow we’d learned less Korean war, not too many years before that, What do we do?
We’ve got more abortions, more pornography, more wickedness, more violence, more crime, more everything evil, and less and less of things that are good.
We don’t learn very well. God’s got our attention.
And you mark this down before this war is over, he is really going to get our attention.
Because we’re not listening. We still are not listening. Let me ask you a question.
When he says, strong prayers, When is the last time you got on your knees, or sat in the chair?
And I mean, wept over anything besides your own personal condition.
Anybody besides yourself Well, let me ask you when’s the last time you wept about anything?
Have we become so callused and harden and selfish, that the only thing that moves us is what caps our pocket book.
God knows how to get America’s attention, touch the pocket book of an American, and god, you become the most popular one.
suppose somehow, and I don’t know how this could ever work, suppose God sent a message to this nation.
You want this war stopped? Close up the bars.
Shook down the house of prostitution. burn up all the pornography. Stop all the abortions.
And right down the line, I wonder if we’d even do it to stop a war.
Here’s what we’d say. Well, we thank you very much, God.
We, we think somehow, we’re gonna get this done. And you mark this down.
God is getting America’s attention. And when Hussein said that he had some surprises, he and the devil probably have a lot of them.
And our only shield is jehobah. Right.
That’s our only shield is jehobah god.
But let me give you a word of encouragement, because listen to what he says in this you say, well, it’s about time.
It’s getting a little discouraging. But I’m telling you the truth, AMN.
I’m telling you the truth, and the truth sometimes is upsetting.
Listen to what he says in this passage.
The effective president is the strong prayer of righteous men can accomplish much.
We said the first requirement is strong praying. this haphazard, slipshowed kind of praying, that won’t work.
The second requirement is found in these two words, three words, a righteous man.
Now, you and I know that’s righteous men and women, so that’s taken for granted.
We’re not denying anybody there, particularly right in that area.
Now, what does he mean when he says, righteous man?
That is he says, you wanna get god’s supernatural in on what is a crisis in your life or in this nation, then strong praying, praying with the heart, a deep genuine concern.
And secondly, And this is where the rub comes.
Because a lot of folks who started praying all of a sudden in the face of the crisis hadn’t talked to God, hadn’t read the Bible, hadn’t gone to church, weren’t even interested in the things of god.
All of a sudden, they started praying, and I wanna tell you, I’m sorry. God’s not listening.
You said, the Bible says, ask anything that should be done unto you.
The 2 great truths in these three words, a righteous man, a woman.
Righteousness in the Bible, two ways to look at this.
First of all, every single one of us who is a Christian, positionally, we’re righteous.
That is when you and I became a child of god, the Bible says in Romans chapter 5 verse 17, that you and I you and I have been clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
That is, he sees us as righteous. That is, we are rightly related to him.
as sons and daughters of god once we are saved with the grace of god. That’s my position.
Just for example, when you were saved, you became a child of god. That’s your position, the family.
You’re a child of god. No longer an enemy. No longer separated. You’re a child of god. That’s your position.
Has nothing to do with your conduct. That’s the position.
A righteous person, by position, is the person who’s been clothed in the righteousness of Christ, made righteous now as of god washing the blood of Jesus Christ, a child of god forever.
The second way that word is used is by lifestyle or conduct. that is righteous living.
He says, not by works of righteousness, which we’ve done did he save us, but according to his mercy.
And that is it is a good conduct that say this, it’s by the grace of god.
So now what he says in this passage here, the effect is prayers of a righteous man or woman can accomplish much, he’s talking about 2 things.
Not only must that person be a child of god righteous, But that person’s conduct, their lifestyle must be right.
The conduct must be right.
Look, if you will, in Psalm 66, for a moment. And let me explain something. Yeah.
And you know this verse by heart, I’m sure.
Psalm 66, and verse 18, and there are many, many others here.
Psalm 66, and verse 18.
He says If I regard wickedness in my heart, the lord will not hear That’s a real simple, listen there.
If I regard inequity in my heart, the lord will not hear.
What does he mean by regard iniquity in our heart?
He means if I willingly and knowingly choose to sin against god, and keep on sinning against him, and do not deal with it, god is not going to hear my prayer.
If he did, he would be contributing to my disobedience contributing to my rebellion and contributing to my waywardness.
He says, if I regard a liquid in my heart, that doesn’t mean I sin against god and deal with it.
And you see, one of the reasons he placed this illustration here of Elijah He was a man with a nature like ours.
He had prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and you know the story.
Elijah wasn’t a perfect man. Elijah, this debate god. He got depressed.
He was full of fear at one time in his life, running from old Jezebale.
We’re not talking about perfect when we talk about righteous.
We’re talking about this, that the kind of strong listen, the kind of strong praying that god gets involved with is a kind of strong praying that comes from many women who are living right when they send, they deal with it right there and keep moving, which means that prayer begins with repentance.
If I’m right with god, god is going to hear me, and he’s gonna get involved.
But this is why I say that folks who have been careless and had different had been to church had prayed on the to god in case of emergency, manipulate god, and so my prayer provide my need, protect me and my family, and then ignore god in other areas of their life, You said, well, I’m not regarding inequity in my heart.
If I choose to do my will in rebellion to god’s will, whether it is sophisticated rebellion or outright, wicked rebellion.
This is making a difference. God says, I’m not going to hear it.
The greatest need in this nation today, listen, Before we started all this praying, we needed to get on our knees and cry out to god, not god save us from a dictator but god save us from our sins.
God forgive us of our sins, repentance over sin in this nation.
Then we’d be ready to pray for god to do something else. We’ve got it backwards.
Oh, god. Do this. do that and do the other.
And god’s waiting for me to do something about me.
If I regard a Nick within my heart, he’s not gonna hear me.
Listen, I didn’t say he didn’t wanna get involved.
I didn’t say he wasn’t sitting in heaven just ready to release his omnipotent power in our life in any crisis and he’s willing to do it when we are in a position so that he can that he’s no longer contributing to my sin and my wickedness and my rebelliousness and my product of living, but he’s now contributing to my holy life, my obedience to him, and my willingness to seek and to do the will of god.
Listen, that’s what gives the prayer. Teeth. He said, it abails much in the eyes of god.
It carries weight with god in the throne room of god when those prayers come from strong listen.
There are strong prayers of burdened hearts out of righteous lives. He says otherwise, I’m not gonna listen.
Now here’s a very encouraging word to me, and it’s a simple thing.
Look at that verse again. He says the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
Now listen carefully. because here’s why I want you to see how absolutely valuable you as an individual are.
What did he say?
He says, the strong prayers of what’s the next word?
The strong prayers of what? A. Listen to that. A. Not a whole church.
Not the whole kingdom of god.
A, the effective prayer or strong prayer of a righteous man or woman gets god’s supernatural power released in their crisis.
Here’s what that says. You say, well, I’m just one person.
What can my prayer do about the Middle East situation? That’s not the question.
Ask god what your prayer can do because here’s what god promises.
The strong prayer of a single righteous man, a woman gets god’s attention and gets god’s power, release in that crisis no matter what’s going on.
You know what the devil has done? He has sold us the biggest job. Listen.
He has said to you over and over and over again, Man, this is a this is a world war.
What are you talking about? Your prayer.
Do you think your prayer for Saddam Hussein gonna do any good.
Your prayer for the president’s gonna do any good.
And your prayer for these men of those whose names you don’t even know, you think that’s gonna do any good.
You’re wasting your time. Now, if everybody gets together to pray, then then maybe god hears that, but my prayer friend, that’s the devil’s lie.
What did he say?
He said, the strong prayer of a single person gets god’s supernatural power released in that given crisis, no matter what it is.
That’s why when somebody comes to you and says, I am desperately desperately in need of help.
I desperately need something to happen in my life.
Don’t react by saying Bohama gets somebody to pray for you.
There’s somebody who knows god. Listen. If you’re saved, you know god. Listen.
Your single prayer can transform a person’s condition, just like that.
If you will believe god now listen to me carefully, This, I can’t, my prayer won’t, isn’t even scriptural.
Unless you are living in sin, disobeying god, and so full of yourself God can’t even give you a burden for someone else.
I love that verse. Listen to that. Listen to that. Do you understand what he’s saying?
you, your single prayer from a righteous heart, crying out to god, believing god, trusting god, feeling a sense of helplessness before god.
Believing that he will release his supernatural power, god will answer your petition.
Here’s what the devil does.
He says, look at how big it is, and look at gigantic it is, and look how overwhelming it is, and look how impossible it is.
The devil’s line is always this. Look through my eyes. God’s line is always this.
Look at this through my eyes. Every mountain becomes a mole hill. Every crisis begins to shrink.
every problem begins to be dissolved from the eyes of god.
I just wanna say to many of you who’ve been praying and you’ve been talking to god and crying out to him, But you’ve never stopped to think about the past.
What about all the sin and indifference in rebellion?
in your life that you’ve not dealt with.
You see, you don’t start, for example, let let’s say that I owed you a lot of money.
Let’s say I owed you a $100,000.
And I came to you and I said, turn to new leaf.
Man, it’s a brand new book in my life.
I promise you, I’m not gonna ever borrow any more money from you. It’s a closed deal.
Never borrow any more money from you. This that that settles the whole deal.
It may settle the future, but I owe you a $100,000.
And my big time confession about not ever borrowing any more money from you hasn’t got anything to do with the past.
And if I start, oh, god, from now on, lord, if you’ll just say this, and if you’ll just change that.
And, oh, god, if you’ll do so and so, here’s what I’m gonna do. God says, mhmm.
What about the past? Because all this back here that I’ve not dealt with negates all the promises and all the things that I want god to do, Here’s what I want you to say.
Listen to me. God help you. Listen. His desire is a personal intimate relationship.
Jesus Christ wants you and me in a personal relationship to him, everything we need he’s gonna provide.
The crises he’s gonna be there and that And so that’s why he’s not gonna jump just when we holler crisis when we’ve ignored him.
Seblin, I wanna ask you a question.
Are you walking within daily trusting him, loving him, obeying him as best, you know, how through the power of the Holy Spirit.
And when crises comes, You don’t have to straighten up a bunch of stuff in your life.
You just begin to cry out to God.
Oh, what about some of you who’ve never been saved?
You’ve been praying about this war, and you’ve rejected Christ.
And he says, no man comes to the father but by me.
How can you reject the one whom god sent?
Who makes it possible for us to pray to him and expect god to ignore your rejection of his son to ignore your apathy toward his son, to ignore your indifference toward his son, Are you mocking or using his name in profanity?
You expect him to ignore all of that, and then just to come clean and answer all of your prayers?
my friend, it will not happen. It cannot happen because that is not the nature of God.
His primary interest is not in my needs, but in my relationship.
And when I’m in right relationship with him, all these things, Holy god has absolutely promised to take care of.
God has our attention in this country.
And what we need is a big time wholesale, holy ghost revival of repent before almighty god crying up to him to clean up our life and clean up our nation.
And then we’ll see God’s supernatural power in the most absolute amazing, miraculous ways.
But the question is, are we willing to pay the price of a clean heart?
to get the supernatural power of god into our crisis.
Lord Jesus, Oh, god, stir our hearts, move our hearts, prick us with conviction, expose our hearts to ourselves.
Help us to see things as they are.
And, oh, god, give us the wisdom to cry out to you.
Give us the wisdom to repent of our sin, and to recognize that you want to, but you can’t, as long as we hold you off with sin.
I pray for those who had lost who need to be saved this very moment, that you would grant them the courage to cry out to you and know that that’s one cry you always hear.
Oh, god be merciful to me a sinner and save me through the death of Jesus Christ.
I pray for those who are living in sin, who are trying to pray and get you in on their problems and wondering why they’re not working.
While you’re not answering prayer, while the problems are not being solved, the crisis is still before them.
Granted the wisdom to repent of every single known sin, everything that you bring to their heart.
Oh, god, given the courage and the wisdom to repent of it, to turn away from but the power of the holy spirit to renounce it, to walk away from it, and to trust you, to cleanse and to get involved.
God give them the wisdom to make things right In order to make their life a valuable, precious, powerful tool to impact everybody around them.
We love you. We praise you, and lord how we adore you for your patience.
And for your wonderful grace daughters is our prayer in Jesus name. Amen.