When We Cry Out to God

Will you join us? What does God say about how we should respond when we are facing times of difficulty? In times of great turmoil and desperation, it is the privilege and responsibility of men and women of God to cry out to Him in prayer. Yesterday morning, Dr. Stanley explained what it really means to cry out to God, taught how to cry out to God (8min), and led the entire congregation in a time of crying out to God for breakthrough in our nation (12min). The election tomorrow reminds us that our nation is at a crossroad. Will we turn our eyes back to the Lord in repentance and ask for His supernatural powerful to be displayed?

Well, what does God say about how we should respond when we are facing difficulty in hardships and all kind of things in our life that we don’t know how to handle or don’t have an answer for.
Very simple in his word. And that is we should cry out to the lord.
Now let me let me explain the difference between just praying and crying out to the lord.
We talk about praying with thinking in terms of thanksgiving and petition and intercession.
Crying out to the lord is more than that.
And when I I think about that and I think about where we are, just praying is it’s not enough.
There’s something deeper than that. So what I want you to do is to turn to Psalm fifty, uh, seven.
And I want us to look at these verses for a few moments, and I want us to distinguish between crying and praying.
We sit at praying. We’re usually thanking god for something, interceding for something, petitioning him for something, crying out to him.
Is a little different. But Psalm fifty seven, and oftentimes, we find the scriptures that god’s people began to cry out to god because the more desperate they felt, the more needy they felt, uh, and the more dangerous the situation was they cried out to god, not just prayed.
So Psalm fifty seven reads like this. Be gracious to me, oh god, Be gracious to me.
For my soul takes refuge in you, and in the shadow of your wings, I take refuge.
Until destruction passes by. Let’s read that again.
And in the shadow of your wings, I will take refuge until destruction passes by.
I will cry to god most high, to god who accomplishes all things for me.
He will sin from heaven and save me. He reproaches him who tramples upon me.
God will send forth his loving kindness and his truth. My soul is among lions.
I must lie among those who breathe forth fire.
Even the sons of men whose teeth are spears and aras, and their tongues are sharp sword.
Be exalted above the heavens, oh god. Let your glory be above all there.
Now when he says, we’re to cry out to god. Notice how he says it.
I will cry to god most high who accomplish his all things for me, and he will sin from heaven and save me.
Crying to the lord, what does that mean?
So I want to put this on the screen so you can write it down and then I want to talk about what it means to cry so you know the difference.
So beginning with a cry is a spontaneous response to an urgent need.
We are in an urgent time in the life of country.
And so we are crying out to god about an urgent need, and that need is that god would give us the right leader.
And so, notice this. It’s usually centered on one thing, something immediate specific need.
The elections coming to us that most of us have already voted.
It may be motivated by the presence of danger.
And oftentimes we’re in danger, don’t even know we are.
But many times we’re in danger, and know that we are, and what is our response to be, and that’s to cry out to god.
Because we oftentimes feel helpless. Then it may be the response to pain and hurt.
And I think all of us have probably at some point in life had either physical pain or emotional pain, and we cried out to god because we didn’t know what else to do.
And just saying, lord, bless me is not the solution, but crying out to him, which we’ll explain in a moment.
And then it may be the reaction to heartbreaking news.
You hear some heartbreaking news, something about your family, somebody you love, whatever it might be, and just getting down or just walk around saying, now, lord help me through this, crying out to god is an intense petition, uh, toward him.
And then it’s the response to a sense of desperation.
And there are times when we are desperate and there are times and people’s marriages, for example, with their children, in the life of the nation, desperation, god, we desperately need for you to intervene in what’s going on.
So that’s the kind of praying we’re talking about. Not now lord bless America. We’ve already been so blessed.
We’ve taken it for granted. Lord help us. We need more than help.
And so what I wanted you to see here is crying out to him, goes to the depths of our heart, our very being, we’re serious about what we’re talking about.
And I wanna follow that up by this remember of what the Bible says, that we are to confess our sins.
He’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If I’m gonna cry out to Holy God to help me, I’ve gotta I’ve gotta get right with him.
And so dealing with sin is the beginning of it. And the scripture is very clear.
He will not hear if I regard sin in my heart.
So in preparation, asking god to do something awesome, might help us crying out to him.
It’s gotta come out of a clean heart.
So I want you to take a moment or two and just think about your own life.
Think about the future of this nation. The future of this nation is hanging in a very thin balance.
And maybe you understand that maybe you don’t. Maybe you think Well, you just, uh, you’re just oversensitive. No.
I’m not. I’ve lived long enough to watch what happens.
And how it happens, and where we’re headed, and what’s going to happen unless we make god’s holy decision in this issue.
And so distinguishing between crying and praying. As we said, praying is a petition.
I thank giving or intercession. Now, what’s the message we’re sending when we cry out to the lord?
And I want you to chop these down because it’s so very important.
What’s the message we’re sending when we cry out to the lord?
We are facing a desperate situation, and we are fearful. God, we’re in a circumstance.
We desperately need you. We fear what the consequences would be if we do not have your help and your strength.
I want you to jot these down, so when you are praying, look at it, Secondly, we feel helpless before our circumstances.
We don’t know what to do.
All of us have opinions and attitudes and realize we’re facing a very, very serious situation and circumstance that affects the whole world.
What happens to, so it affects the whole world and we recognize that.
And we feel helpless if any one of us could change things, we would, but any one of us can’t, but god can.
We feel helpless before our circumstances. We don’t know what to do.
That, and that sense of helplessness causes us to cry out to god.
Thirdly, we are recognizing that god’s supernatural power to help us in this crisis.
We’re saying, god, we’ll helpless, but we believe that you and your awesome power can help us in and through the situation whatever you choose and however you choose to do it.
Then we’re expressing faith in god that he desires and will help us in time of need because there’s so many promises in the word of god that he will.
We’re crying at to him in faith, believing that he will hear us and that he will answer our prayer.
And so it’s not just the lord. Thank you.
But I want you to see that crying out to god is coming out of a sense of helplessness.
Not any one of us or all of us together can change things.
But god can change things all across this nation and change people’s attitudes, change the circumstances, change the direction of our nation.
And so the next thing I’d simply say is this. How do we cry to the lord?
We cry to the lord with our voice, not simply with our thoughts. He hears both.
And the reason I want to put this on the screen is while you’re praying, you might want to look up and say, we’re facing a desperate situation.
And we are fearful. We feel helpless before our circumstances. Lord, God, we don’t know what to do.
We voted. That’s all we can do, Lord. We recognize your supernatural power. You can help us in this crisis.
We’re expressing faith in god that you’ll that he desires to and will help us in time of day.
So I want you to leave that up there.
So while you’re praying, you might want to glance up there and think, okay, lord. We recognize your supernatural power.
We can’t, but you can because we believe that you’re an omnipotent god, and there’s nothing you cannot do.
Is that clear enough? Okay. What I want us to do is this.
I want us to just break out wherever you are And you can sit where you want to sit.
You can pray with somebody. You can pray with several people. You can pray by yourself.
And let’s fill up this alternate platform in these aisles.
We’re saying to god, lord, we acknowledge our helplessness And we are crying out to you as your people did in the old testament.
So we pray and cry out to you this morning. So let’s get started. Alright?
And we’re remembering the future of the United States hangs in the balance.
Oh god. Father, we’re crying out to you because we desperately need you, Lord.
Desperately need your intervention, father, praying for your awesome power and wisdom to be expressed.
And let us not hesitate to pray.
Let us not hesitate, dear, father, to say it with our heart and with our lips.
And what our heart and our soul feels, that we humbly yield ourselves to you and cry out dear god.
Save our nation. Oh, lord my god.
That the gospel may be spread throughout this world, even in greater ways. Lord, let us not hesitate.
Let us not let us not feel any hesitation, but to cry out god and to believe Lord, god that you hear us, that you wanna hear our voice, you wanna hear our hearts, you wanna hear our pain, you wanna hear our concern.
And lord, we ask we we thank you for the awesome nation that we have.
And we see what’s about to happen.
We pray, holy god, intervene in all of this, hear the prayers of your children, and let us cry out to you, dear father without hesitation in Jesus’ name.
Oh, god in Jesus’ name. Lord, if we pray oh god with apart.
Oh my god. Jesus’ name is Christ.
Father, I just pray that you will set our spirits free to expressed the deepest yearning of our heart.
God set us free father. Now think about what somebody else thinks. We’re we’re praying to you guys.
We’re trusting you to heroes and thank you for it, father.
Oh, god.
Father, we thank you for hearing us this morning.
Not because we deserve it, but because you promised it.
We’ve laid before you our hearts, our soul, our mind, our very being.
And we want your perfect will to be done.
And, father, we pray that all over this nation, people are praying.
And people have prayed this morning already, and we’ll pray before this day is over.
And god, these next two days, is so critical. You know all about them.
We pray that your will will be done, that you will be honored, dear father. And glorified.
Lord is our prayer. Thank you that you’ve heard our prayer this morning.
And as we continue to pray out throughout these days, Lord, we want to be people of prayer, not just praying in times of desperation, but praying daily and praying continually, praying for each other.
Praying for a nation and praying father for those who are preaching and teaching the gospel all over the world, and those father who are translating the word so people can hear it.
And god, one of our primary reasons for asking you to save this nation.
Lord god is an order that we might keep on getting the truth.
Of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the whole world. It’s your will. You sit into all the world.
God, we want it in all the world.
And we humble ourselves before you and acknowledge god that this is your command to us, and you have blessed us.
And blessed us and blessed us beyond all comprehension.
Now, god, we give ourselves to you a fresh and a new this day.
We give ourselves to you dear father to live a godly life, a sanctified life.
And lord in the process of living that kind of life, we want your precious word to penetrate every single heart on the face of this globe and lord god in all those languages that are yet to be translated, they will be, and lord that you will be glorified and honored.
And lord, today, this prayer meeting is about America’s future.
And we are praying for your safety, praying for your will praying God that you’ll have your way and praying God that you will be glorified in it in Jesus’ name.
Amen. Amen.