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I want to just talk to you shortly
before we go to prayer.
This is about prayer.
These meetings are about prayer.
It's also about the ministry and about congregations
who are so hungry for Jesus.
And I presume those that have tuned in
today are really praying people you would not
have wanted to be a part of a
prayer meeting.
This is a three-day prayer meeting and
also fasting.
And we invite those to fast with us
wherever you may be.
And you may not be going through what
I want to talk about tonight.
This is just a short message.
I have no homiletical outline, just something God
spoke into my heart today as I was
walking down the streets of New York.
I've been thinking about all the pastors who
know they've been called of God.
They know that the word has come to
them.
This was said about Jonah.
Jonah was called.
You see, there are many gifts, but there's
only one real calling for a minister of
the gospel.
If he has the word, if the word
has come to a man or a woman,
it puts a fire in the soul that
can't be quenched.
And you can't put that out.
The Holy Spirit, even though it may wane,
even though it may go down through what
you've gone through, when you are called, it's
not a career.
It's a calling of God.
And there are many listening to me now.
And the Holy Spirit, while I was walking
the streets, said, I want to speak to
certain individuals, to pastors.
And I feel very strong that that's what
I want to pray about tonight, especially for
pastors who are listening, ministers of the gospel
who are really going through the trial of
their life.
I read a story.
I read in a periodical periodical yesterday.
I believe it was the day before.
Twenty five hundred churches are closing every week
around the world.
Twenty five hundred churches.
I've been traveling for the last five years
and ministers conferences around the world.
And it's a heartbreaking thing to hear.
There are literally thousands who are leaving the
ministry, pastors and even evangelist teachers.
Some of it is because of financial pressure.
Some of it is because of just the
dryness, fruitlessness, some because a congregation is rebellious
and uncaring.
They feel unloved and overworked.
But you see, there's a calling that you
can't get away from.
I don't care how you see when when
I stand before the Lord, it's not going
to be about answering to the competition that
we face in the Church of Jesus Christ
today and in the body of Christ.
When we get to stand before Christ, it's
not going to be how.
What great thing did you do?
What kind of an institution did you establish?
What kind of great ministry?
What kind of how wide was your influence?
It's not going to be that at all.
It's going to be based on one thing,
and that's faithfulness, faithfulness to the call of
God.
And this is where Jonah missed it.
The Bible says of Jonah and I'm not
going to go deep into the story.
You all know the story.
But this is what the Holy Spirit was
speaking to my heart.
Jonah was called and he was given a
destination.
He was given an assignment.
He was told simply arise, go to Nineveh
and preach what I told you to preach.
And it was about judgment.
But you see, this man was overcome by
fear.
He gave in to a fear of failure.
I'm sure that Jonah prayed diligently.
He was a man of prayer.
He was a man who feared God.
God would have never entrusted him to go
to a city and preach repentance unless he'd
been walking with God, unless he had the
word burning in his soul.
And I'm sure he came to the Lord
and said, Lord, I'm going to go preach
this.
I'm going to do my best.
I'm going to obey the call.
I know I'm called.
I know I'm sent.
But when Jeremiah preached this same kind of
message, you sent judgment.
When Isaiah preached it, you sent judgment.
You honored them.
They were not put to shame.
And when Ezekiel preached it and warned, he
lived to see the day that his prophecies
were fulfilled.
Are you going to do that for me?
Are you going to honor me?
Or am I going to preach and look
like a fool?
And I have no results.
And then I'm going to die one of
these days.
And I have nothing to show for my
ministry.
People have not repented.
And he said, I know you're merciful, God.
And God, I have a hint in my
heart that I'm going to preach this.
And you're going to have a mercy party.
And you're going to have mercy on these
people.
And I'm going to have to walk away
and come home with my head hung in
shame.
But, you see, that's not what the call
of God is about.
The call of God is not about the
great things we do or the places we
go, the things we've seen or done.
It's our relationship with Jesus Christ and obeying
the call and taking on the assignment he's
given us and staying at that assignment through
every storm, through every heartache, through every persecution,
and not running.
This man ran.
He ran from his calling.
And I'm saying to you that you cannot
run from that calling.
There are some listening to me now, maybe
some in this house.
You know that God called you.
You're not a hireling.
You know that God put a word in
your heart.
And you know that there's something of a
fire in you that says, if I don't
preach, woe is me.
I've been preaching for 50 years.
And I've never once doubted my call in
50 years.
I've been tried.
I've been tested.
There are times I was dry and empty.
There are times I would have wanted to
quit, but I never, ever questioned this call.
And there are some listening to me.
You have been truly called of God.
You remember the time.
You remember the place.
I remember my call, eight years old, kneeling
in an old-fashioned camp meeting and giving
my life to God and hear the Holy
Spirit speak to my heart and say, give
me your life, preach my gospel.
And I've never regretted it, never doubted it.
But now I meet pastors all over the
world who doubt their calling.
They doubt it because of persecution.
But, you see, there's been persecution in the
church of Jesus Christ from the very beginning
of the church.
There have been hard times such as you
and I have never known.
Bodies cut asunder, homes that were torn away,
and children ripped from their mothers' bosoms and
thrown into fires and into lakes and rivers
and oceans.
But, you see, Jonah runs from God.
He's trying to release himself from the burden
of the Lord.
He's trying to release himself, saying, I've had
it.
This is enough.
I don't want this responsibility.
I don't want the pain that goes with
it.
Now, in my flesh, I want to say
to every hurting pastor, well, I feel so
sorry for what you're having to go through.
I feel so sorry that you're in such
pain and you're under great affliction.
Let me talk to you honestly from my
heart as a father, a father in the
church of Jesus Christ, 50 years of preaching.
We have to know intelligently how to pray
for ministers and those who are called of
God.
There has to be a biblical right way
to pray for one another.
We can't just pray any prayer.
Let me give you an example.
Here's a man who is running from God,
and God prepares him well, and he goes
into the belly of what he calls hell.
And he admits, he tells God, God, I
know you're doing this.
In other words, this is not the devil.
I'm in affliction, not because of the devil.
The devil's not doing this.
God, you have cast me into the belly
of hell.
These billows that are waving over me, these
problems that I face now, this emptiness, this
depression I'm going through.
This is Lord Jesus.
There's something you're dealing with me about.
And I'm beginning to see it.
It was in the belly of the well
that he came to become a praying man.
He had heard from the word of the
Lord.
But this man began to pray.
He said, I began to cry out to
the Lord.
Now, if you had the opportunity to pray
with Jonah one day after he'd been in
the belly of the well, what would you
have prayed?
How would you have prayed for Jonah?
You say it, folks.
I am saying this in if I know
my heart and the utmost love that I've
ever felt.
How do you pray for a minister?
How do you pray for an elder, a
deacon, someone called of God?
And you're going through some great affliction.
Now, folks, there are so many causes of
affliction beyond our ability to comprehend.
David said, if I had not been afflicted,
I would not have sought the Lord.
That's one very important cause.
But if you had the opportunity to pray
for Jonah, he's running from the Lord and
he's brought affliction.
How would you pray, Lord, here's a man
that's hurting.
Here's a man who's despondent and he's depressed
and he's in the pit of darkness.
Great problems have faced him because, you see,
if you run from the call of God,
it's not that God tries to get you.
You know, some people say when he's thrown
into the belly of the well and God's
prepared the well, he's cast him into this
pit.
People say, God's getting him back.
He's running and God's making him pay.
No, no, not at all.
This is a miracle.
This is God doing something out of grace.
He's trying to save the man because he
so loves those he calls.
He will never let them go.
The only way you can be let go
is if you harden your heart and you
curse his name and you walk away and
say, God, I don't want you in my
life.
But in a time of affliction, because somehow
in the ministry you lost heart, somehow you
may not purposely run.
You may not have just quit.
But something has happened in your spirit that
is so broken you that it's so cautious.
I'm useless to the kingdom of God.
I don't count anymore.
And this terrible fear of failure, not competing
with someone down the street, some young guy
who's just suddenly been so blessed, apparently.
And the people sit in your little congregation
say, why aren't you blessed, sir?
Why aren't you doing great things like that?
God doesn't measure those great things there.
He measures the faithfulness of every man who's
called no matter what the place may be.
But how would you have prayed for Jonah?
God asked me that today.
David, how would you have prayed for Jonah?
Are you going to do it like you
do most of the time?
You come up and say, well, God, deliver
him right now.
Lord, I'm going to pound heaven until you
deliver this man.
He's hurting.
He's suffering.
God will come back.
So I can't answer that.
He's got two more days.
I'm trying to do something in his life.
I've allowed affliction.
I'm not telling you it's not because of
sin.
It's not because of that.
It's something God can't get a hold of
until he takes you through the belly.
He's in here.
I remember a young lady coming to an
altar here, and I told this congregation when
she was weeping.
She was crying after my message convicted.
And I happened to just felt an impression
of the Lord that she was crying.
And I was going to go down and
pray with her.
Hey, it's OK.
Don't cry.
And the Lord said, don't you do it.
Don't touch her.
She's under conviction.
She's in a relationship that's wrong.
You can kill her.
And she's fighting me.
Wait till I'm done.
Wait till I'm finished.
You see, I want us to pray the
prayer.
Here's what I would like people to pray
for me.
Probably nobody hearing part of this service needs
prayer more than I do.
Not to be successful.
I'm 75, and I don't care about those
things.
I've proved everything I've ever wanted to prove
in my life, and I'm on my last
trips around the racetrack.
But if you were to pray for me
as a minister of the gospel, I would
ask you to pray like some of our
intercessors that are on our mailing list that
pray for me.
They say, Pastor Dave, we pray that you
be faithful.
Because there are not many faithful fathers anymore.
A lot of them have fallen.
Pastor Dave, please, we're praying that you be
faithful.
They're not praying that I be blessed financially
and have a bigger house.
They're not praying for any of those physical
things.
They're praying, oh, God, keep our fathers, keep
them faithful.
That should be the prayer we pray.
God, keep the ministry faithful.
Take away all of those assignments we put
on ourselves that are not of God.
The burdens we carry and the gimmicks we
get involved in and the projects that we
undertake that are not mandates from God.
And we get burdened down, and we're not
free in the spirit.
I would that God free us.
And I would that prayer being made anywhere
you may be hearing and listening to me
now, that God would raise up faithful pastors
who in their time of trouble and sorrow
and pain.
And I'm telling you, the more I've walked
with God, the longer I've walked with him.
I realize looking back over my afflictions, and
they have been many.
I feel like Jacob sometime leaning on the
cane, saying many in heart have been my
afflictions.
But I know that I know many of
those afflictions.
God has allowed in my life to bring
me back to the prayer closet, to get
my face back to seeking him so that
I can come to the pulpit after all
these years.
Not with some dead letter, but something of
life, something that speaks life.
And, folks, that's what we need to pray
for one another.
God, the Bible says, Joan out of the
belly of well, the Bible says, and the
word came to him the second time.
And Jonah said, yes.
And he went to Nineveh and he preached.
I'm asking God for you, pastor, pastor's wife,
Christian worker, deacons, elders.
I don't think God's going to answer some
of our prayers until he he does something
in us.
I believe some of his prayers are not
answered yet because there's some work that God's
trying to do.
John is closer to himself and he knows
he has to linger with you.
He has to allow some of this so
that you will come to him like the
pastor with his eye closed.
Pastor, I talked to today who called me.
And he said, but I am so down.
I'm so depressed.
I can't find a doctor anywhere that can
help me now.
I've been from doctor to doctor, place to
place.
I live in continual pain and I feel
like forsaken of God.
He said, I don't want to die, but
I'm too tired to live.
And I'm listening to this.
And I said, oh, God, see how I
wanted to jump in.
And because I was screaming in my spirit,
God, give me scripture.
What prayer do I pray?
How do I reach him?
See, you could not have reached Jonah by
your prayers or anything you said when he's
in the belly of the well.
You couldn't have said a word.
This is a spiritual battle.
And I said, God, I am speechless.
In fact, I told the pastor, I said,
look, I don't have any word.
I don't even I can't even pray.
I don't know how to pray.
Then he said this, and I got the
clue.
He said, I have an inner knowing in
my heart that all of this that I'm
going through and all this pain is not
just physical.
It's something spiritual, something God's trying to say
to me, something he's trying to accomplish in
me.
He's trying to bring me to a place
that he could never have brought me unless
I go through this.
He said, my prayer now for the day,
my prayer now is this.
And this is how I'm joining him in
prayer in my devotions.
Now, I'm not praying for his deliverance right
now.
God will deliver God in his time.
As soon as God has gotten the attention,
as soon as God has said what he
wants to say, then as soon as there
are determination, deliver, die.
I am the Lord's.
I'm going to trust him because it's a
battle of faith.
The devil is trying to destroy your faith
and God's trying to bring you back to
a renewed word.
He wants to give everyone listening right now
a fresh word from heaven.
He wants to renew your spirit and he's
going to do that.
And my prayer from my heart for you
is, oh, God, help us now in our
affliction just to turn to you and hear
your voice.
Seek your face, humble ourselves before you and
believe that he will keep his hand on
me.
Lord, this is my prayer for the body
of Jesus Christ tonight.
This is my prayer for those within the
sound of my voice who don't know which
way to turn now.
Lord, we pray for those who are bereaved,
those who are bereaved, those who have lost
somebody.
We pray the spirit come and comfort Lord.
But even then we can't reach.
There's nothing I can say.
There's nothing this body could do.
We can pray.
But, oh, God, in the final analysis, it's
a personal thing that you do when every
one of us with bereavement or with sorrow,
with pain, the things we don't understand, we
go to you and we cry it out
and we unburden our heart to you.
And we allow the Holy Spirit to come
and renew our spirits and lift us and
change us.
Lord, draw us nigh.
Lord, let there be a cry go up
from pastors everywhere and from Christian workers and
from the body of Christ.
Lord Jesus, you will do only what is
right for me and you will lead me
only where you want me to be led.
And you'll bring me out victorious and you'll
give me a fresh word from heaven.
Will you stand, please?
This is the conclusion of the message.