This is a very critical passage, John's Gospel,
Chapter 4, because we have the man, Jesus,
living on Earth.
With all the temptations we face, everything you
can possibly imagine, you and I had to
deal with, emotional stress, pain, loneliness, agony, every
kind of temptation.
Christ, the man, faced and lived as a
man on Earth.
And you find him.
Because I took a pencil one time.
I went through the four Gospels, only looking
for the man, Jesus, because the scripture says,
I am called to live right now as
Jesus lived on Earth, in total dependence on
the Father, the Holy Spirit, to live this
life.
And how Jesus responded and behaved.
And that chapter, you see Jesus using a
normal daily event in life to instruct his
disciples.
And by the way, at home, if you
open your Bible and looking at it, maybe
particularly you're looking at from verse 28 on
through verse 38.
That is a passage where we have Jesus
sitting by the well.
And the disciples went off to buy a
hamburger and French fries.
And they come back.
And they find him talking to a woman.
And they are confused about it.
Because he is not supposed to do that.
It's just like we have on the mission
field, the social restricting.
Men and women don't sit together like in
our place.
They don't usually talk to each other like
the public.
But they didn't care much about it.
Because he's the boss, as you know.
So then when they tell him, Master, please
eat something, then he responds saying that I
have food to eat that you have no
clue about.
Translated, oh, I already ate.
And I am sure the disciples are confused.
Because it says there, they said to themselves,
this is strange.
That's not the word correctly.
But I would say they said something like
the Californian, oh, man, that's a real bummer.
Um, we went through all this chaos to
bring this food.
And we want to eat our food.
And he says he already ate.
Did someone bring him something to eat?
I mean, only normal, rational question.
And Jesus said, no, I have something more
significant.
My food is to do the will of
him that send me and finish his work.
In other words, he's saying, when you went
off to buy food, I run into this
woman.
And she's lost, unforgiven, on the way to
hell.
And her life and her story became the
story of multitude's harvest and the realization of
the lostness of people that I made in
my own image, ruined my physical appetite.
Best illustration I have about this is when
my mother died.
She was 84.
I was home in India.
For three days, I couldn't think straight.
I couldn't eat.
I couldn't drink.
My brothers had to force me say, you
have to eat something or drink something.
I was so emotionally destroyed.
I never been through anything like that in
my life.
Christianity becomes sinful.
And we abuse God and the Bible when
we read this stuff.
And we cannot enter into it.
But rather, we look for Greek and Hebrew
and some theologian who is dumb in his
head because he doesn't know God either.
And tell us, oh, that means this.
That means that.
You have to be rational.
Like a preacher recently said, oh, yeah, that
woman brought the most precious ointment and poured
it at the feet of Jesus.
That means you are given the privilege to
buy the most expensive stuff in the world
and enjoy it.
God wanted you to have all these things.
And after this, you'll be taken to heaven
with the golden streets and all the man's
work on earth.
We are living on earth.
And I say this to you because Jesus,
who walked before us as a forerunner, he
sees this.
His heart is broken for the lost world.
But there are four words I'd like to
point out in the next 10, 12 minutes.
I know some of you are saying, four
points?
That's four hours.
Someone back there, by the way, when I'm
about five minutes before I should end, you
raise your hand, do that.
I'll punish you for doing that too.
No, just please do that.
I just want to make sure I don't
go over time.
In the passage, you'll find Jesus says, well,
your problem is you don't understand what I'm
dealing with.
I want you to be like me.
To do that, he says, look.
Lift up your eyes and look.
I tell you, open your eyes and see
at the fields.
That word, look, it's a deliberate action.
It is deliberate.
You know, just the other day, I was
coming from park my car and walked in
the office and walking on the stairs.
And I paused just for a fraction of
a second.
Right on the wall, there is some flowers.
I've been in this building from the Garden
of Eden.
But I never saw that flower there.
I just stood there and said, this is
weird.
This been here all the time.
I said hi to Betty and walked.
I keep thinking, if this is the case,
how many things are around me that I
did not see?
Because every time I come down there, I
must have walked up there 1,000 times.
I'm just walking up, but not looking.
And this is something that it takes a
deliberate decision for all of us, for me,
to look for something specific.
Idols.
The Bible says they have eyes, but they
don't see.
They have ears, they don't hear.
They have legs, they don't walk.
When our hearts become cold and stoning, we
see what we don't see.
You look back over the years and many
years ago, when you heard about half a
million people dying or 5,000 people died
overnight in a flood or 100,000 people
washed away in Bangladesh or stuff like that.
Somehow, something happened on the inside.
But we hear the same things.
Our hearts are not moved.
It's all a matter of fact.
My eyes are dry.
My faith is old.
My heart is hard.
My prayers are cold.
And I know how I ought to be,
alive to you and dead to me.
Oh, what can be done with an old
heart like mine?
Soften it up with oil and wine.
The oil is you, your spirit of love.
Please wash me anew in the wine of
your blood.
Keith Green.
I've been in this journey now well over
40 years serving the Lord.
But I confess to you how often I
must repent, hundreds of times, literally, because I'm
the one who hears news all the time
what's going on on the mission field.
But often, it's all information to share with
somebody and talk about this.
But I find so few times it drives
me to my knees, emotionally moved and hurting.
I see it.
I hear it.
But I don't see it.
And I think it has to do with
the condition of our heart.
You know something strange?
My 62 bug, I don't mean bug that
bites you, but my Volkswagen.
That's one good thing Hitler did.
And when I'm driving anywhere, if there is
a Volkswagen 10 million miles away, I will
see it.
I'm not thinking about looking for Volkswagen.
But somehow, my bug is in my conscience
and subconscious.
And without me thinking and looking, I see
it.
Somebody's wearing something that you like.
Without you knowing, you see it everywhere.
Jesus lived with passion, rejecting everything and anything
and friendship and any involvement that would take
away from the commitment to his father to
go to live and die for the sake
of the lost.
And that emotional, that feeling always kept him
on the narrow road.
He was not allowing 1,000 things to
distract him.
So his eyes, his ability to see was
clear.
And I pray that in the midst of
everything that happens, somehow we will be able
to see clearly.
And that clouds our vision.
It is our self-centeredness.
It's not all about us spending three hours
on computer looking for this and that and
Facebook and all the other things going on.
But honestly, how much time it takes to
look for things that we can pray for,
look for ways that we can do something
about the need and the opportunities.
The second thing, Matthew 9, with the harvest,
not only you see it, but also you
pray.
And tonight, in the amazing thing, I remember
as an 18-year-old praying for Albania
and Bhutan and Burma and Mongolia and places
I'd never been to, never even had any
understanding about it.
But people like me, not knowing even much,
but prayed and prayed and prayed.
And you see what God has done.
And so when we pray from here, you
will be surprised what God will do as
an answer to prayer.
And the best prayers we offer are prayers
when we don't feel like praying.
You know why?
Because that is a prayer of faith, not
of feelings.
And so then the third thing, Jesus said,
I send you, go.
So you have look, you pray, then you
go.
And tonight, like Gisela said, of the 20
,000 villagers ministering among these struggling women, missionaries,
we are think about the privilege we have
to pray and help them go.
But then there are times God calls us
to go.
When I was in California speaking at a
meeting, two young people came to me, so
happy and joyful, and said, oh, so glad
we came to hear you tonight.
I said, yeah, I'm glad.
Tell me.
He said, you know, we both are studying
to be medical doctors, to finish our studies
and be doctors and go to Africa to
serve God and be missionaries there.
And tonight, we found out that maybe we
can be doctors and make a whole lot
of money and support so many more missionaries.
I said, you are making the biggest mistake
of your life.
I said, did God call you to go
to Africa or where?
He said, yes.
I said, I don't want your money.
God is not looking for your money.
If the Lord called you to go somewhere,
my recommendation, get a one-way ticket.
Get your degrees and be a doctor.
Go anywhere and invest your life, and he
will know what to do with your life.
He has a plan.
Who will go for me?
Our response should be, here am I, send
me.
It is not simply going to India or
China or Mongolia or Tibet or Afghanistan.
No, either you go or you are back
home, you sit in your home.
Our commitment must be, Lord, while I live
on Earth here, my life is involved in
going and sending and praying, doing anything, everything
in the world, because all other things, basically,
are incidentals.
The real call is for us to be
his witness while we live on Earth, and
Jesus did that.
And finally, because the brother did this to
me, and I'm going to get him.
Jesus said, I send you to a harvest
that you have no clue.
You didn't do much about it, but it's
all yours.
Can you imagine the day we stand before
the Lord with the multitudes that no man
can number from communities we are praying for?
The Muslim countries and the tribals and women
and children and slums and all these people
around the throne that no one can number
them, because too many, and there you find
some people living in the most remote community
in Nepal that took eight, nine days for
one of our brothers to climb up there
to be a missionary, and you find 500
or 1,000 people having their hands raised,
worshiping the Lamb that sits on the throne,
and they will say, you have no clue.
You were a part of that mission.
In Gospel for Asia, and you traveled and
spoke in meetings, you worked on the computers,
and you just prayed, and you've been doing
this, and you had no clue we even
existed here, but just wanted to know.
Now you look and see all things as
they are, no more through dark glass.
We are the fruit of your journey and
the harvest.
Why people work eight hours a day and
five days a week and year after year
after year?
What will people do?
I mean, I ask the question at home.
Why are you working?
The answer is to make money and to
build your home and whatever else, but as
I always say, we need to have our
needs met, and we need to live here,
and God will take care of us, but
really, what we live for is something beyond
time, materialism, approval, and achieving a whole lot
of stuff for this life because it's not
going to survive.
So we are given tonight the opportunity to
spend this night in prayer, and so to
you, my brothers, okay, screaming and all that
stuff is there, but I just wanted to
know, tonight or morning times or Tuesday night
and your private times or prayer room there
when you pray alone, the prayer request, and
I somehow would like you to know that
the incredible possibilities that we have even through
our prayers while you're in half-sleep, which
you will not, I know, mean so much,
and the times and things we are praying
for is going to mean so much tonight.
John shared about the PayPal thing, that's right?
Yeah, people can support missionaries and all that,
and volunteers, I mean, I can tell you,
some sister, some brother, you know, like you
said, in the TV land, you know, you're
watching us, and if God can use you
to tell someone about Revolutionary War missions and
go to our website and start reading materials,
can you imagine one of them decide that
they will help one of these children or
a sister or a missionary?
Can you imagine that missionary may be the
one that I talked about in Nepal able
to win hundreds and thousands to Christ, all
of us doing whatever we can, either we
are going or sending praying, all this means
that we are building the Lord's kingdom, and
I pray tonight that we will look upon
this as the tremendous privilege the Lord gave
us, and he says, I am asking you
to be involved with this, and he lived
for this.
All right, let's have a lot of prayer
before we continue with more prayer requests, and
as I pray, would you pray that the
Lord will give you his heart?
Because whatever we are gonna be praying tonight,
you know, the Holy Spirit must burn our
heart, and he can do that, we can't
do it for ourself, and as, you know,
Bob Pierce, early days of his life in
China, seeing the multitudes, he was so brokenhearted,
he was weeping on the streets of China,
and I saw him in Singapore many, many
years ago, he opened his Bible, and he
said, I took my Bible, and on the
leaf of the Bible, he wrote these words,
oh God, let my heart break the things
that break your heart.
Let me see things, oh Lord, as you
see.
Let me feel your feelings.
Let me pray with your burden, and let's
pray for ourself, and right after that, we
will move forward with the rest of the
prayer meetings, let's pray.
In silence, we wait before you, oh Father,
forgive us for the times we see things,
but we don't see.
In a thousand ways, on a daily basis,
he calls us to see stuff on television
screen, and magazines, and emails, and we hear
things, but oh Lord, we remain cold and
distant, and
as your saints in the past often prayed,
we too repeat those words to you, oh
Father, and ask that you will take eternity
and stamp on our eyes.
Let our hearts break with the things that
break your heart.
Lord, those of us with our children, and
grandchildren, and our family, and all of us,
Lord, we are grateful for the provisions that
we have, house to live in, clothes to
wear, food to eat, vehicles, and bicycles, and
motorbikes, Lord, how blessed we are.
Even this building, we are sitting in, its
air conditions, and the comfortable chairs, and carpet,
and oh Lord, we are aware, even right
now, some 62 million children living in abject
poverty, living in the slums and wandering on
the streets as child laborers just in India
alone.
We think about half of the world that
wait to hear your name for the first
time in their life.
Lord, I pray that these things will not
end up producing guilt and condemnation, but rather,
Lord, that we'll see how much we need
you, how much we need to become like
you, dear Master.
You are not looking for workers.
You are looking for sons and daughters, those
who'll share your passion, and I pray
these words for myself, for I know how
often my eyes are dry, my heart is
so cold, everything's so rational and logical.
Oh Lord, stir our hearts, move us, that
we'll move away from externals and pretends, but
rather, Lord, our hearts are deeply gripped by
your love and your pain for the lost
and dying world, and thank you for what
you're doing, and the tremendous privilege you gave
us to have a small part in seeing
multiplied millions hear the gospel and give their
lives to you.
And they become part of the local church.
Thank you.
That day we look forward to when we
stand with you and before you, along with
the multiplied millions that no, no man can
number.
Oh Lord, for that day, let it be.
Oh Lord, that we will, every single day
of our life, we will live with our
eyes fixed.
On that day, we thank you.
Now Lord, I pray that you'll lead us
tonight during this season of prayer.
I know, Lord, there's some of us sitting
here, we have our struggles and concerns and
guilt and all kind of remorse and failures.
Lord, none of us are strong, yet you
assures us your forgiveness and your grace.
Please, Lord, answer prayers tonight.
Heal those who are not well in their
body and their mind.
Then Lord, I pray that you will move
us from ourself and from the environment of
being with others into your holy presence.
Use our feeble lives.
And then Lord, I do pray for my
brothers and sisters that are streaming tonight from
many, many nations.
And Lord, I pray you are here, the
same way, Lord, you are there with them
in that living room, in that kitchen, in
the hospital room, wherever they may be.
I pray, dear Jesus, may your precious presence
be really felt, Lord, I really mean that,
that they will truly feel, Jesus, you there
with them.
And then you give them your burden, your
passion, especially tonight, to pray, to change a
world that so much need.
Thank you that you brought us together from
all over the world as a family tonight
during this time of prayer.
We say this in the name of Jesus,
our Lord, amen.
Amen.