God bless you this morning, and God bless
all of our visitors that are here with
us today.
Luli McCoy and her team from the Communication
Ministry are going to be at the information
table at the end of this service today.
If you're able to give us a couple
of months of your time and help, it
would be greatly, greatly appreciated.
Our budgets are limited, and we simply can't
hire any more full-time people.
But if you can help us, there's just
a lot of work and it's piling up
on them, and we'd appreciate it very much.
If you've been looking for a ministry where
you can help get the Word of God
out, this would be a good one for
you to consider getting involved in.
Three o'clock this afternoon, prayer service.
We are praying and fasting for a period
of 21 days as a church.
Now, that doesn't mean we're fasting for 21
days.
What it means is that people are taking
the time to set apart half a day
a day of putting away food, except for
liquids, and spending that time in prayer, believing
God for this city, for the five boroughs
of New York City.
And I'm so gladdened today to find out
that almost 1,000 people have signed up
on the prayer board, praying 24 hours a
day and doing prayer walks.
I mean, just going out on the street
alone, or maybe two by two, and just
walking together and praying out loud for these
various boroughs.
And thank God for that.
Thank God.
Deeply appreciative of how you have embraced this
time of prayer and fasting.
Now, I'm going to be speaking a message
this morning from the book of 1 John
in the New Testament.
Now, the last book is a revelation.
Just go back a few pages from the
last book in the New Testament.
You'll find 1 John, chapter five, and then
the book of Daniel, chapter nine.
In the Old Testament, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel.
Then you have Daniel.
Now, Father, I thank you, God, with all
of my heart.
Lord, we're living in a momentous time.
Help us, Lord Jesus Christ, help us not
to fail of the grace that you've given
us.
Help us, Lord, not to make the mistake
that the children of Israel made when they
came to the very borders of the supernatural
and drew back and died in a desert.
Father, God, help us.
We lift our voices like your own disciples
did when they said, Lord, increase our faith.
Lord, you've got to help us.
We can only believe as much as we
can.
Like the father with a child that was
in difficulty said, Lord, I believe.
Help my unbelief.
Lord, you've got to help us to hear.
You've given us ears, but we can't hear
with them if you don't enable us.
You've given us minds to read your word,
but we can't fully embrace it unless you
give us the hearts to embrace it.
And so, Lord, I stand before you as
your people do.
And I'm asking you, Father, to take us
farther than we've ever gone before.
Give us hearts to believe you, Lord.
Give us hearts and ears to be able
to hear you.
Lord, we have only one desire today.
It's all that's in my heart is that
your name be glorified in this generation.
I'm tired, Lord, of your name being thrown
around as if so casually and so worthlessly.
It's not appropriate.
I'm asking you, Jesus, your name be glorified.
I'm asking you, Father, to do something so
profound in this city that the whole world
will have to take notice.
My God, I know the judgment must come
to this world.
But I see in your word where mercy
precedes it.
I see a mercy call in my heart,
and I'm asking you, God, to give us
the grace to believe this.
Give us faith to pray like we've never
prayed.
Lord, you're not interested in empty words.
That's all religion has to offer.
Empty, repetitive words.
You're not interested in these things.
You're looking for a heart of faith.
And so, God, I'm asking you, Lord, in
this church and in my life, when I
open my mouth to pray, it be filled
with faith.
God Almighty, I yield my body to this
purpose.
I yield my mind and my heart to
this purpose.
And I'm asking you to do this.
Do it sovereignly.
Do it supernaturally.
Do it whatever way you want to do
it.
I'm just asking you to do it.
Bless those that are hearing this day, God.
Bless those that are in home fellowships.
Bless the churches that are listening.
My God Almighty, in the name of Jesus,
give us faith, Lord, to believe you.
Lord God, help us not to look at
impossibility and call it anything other than what
you call it.
Give us grace, Lord.
Give us grace in this generation.
Give me the ability to speak this.
You've put this on my heart.
Help me, God.
Father, I ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
I want to read to you something from
the word of God that caused my heart
to explode in faith this week.
I read it.
I can't tell you how many times I've
read this book.
I don't know how many times over the
years, but I've never seen this.
I've never understood it.
It's as if God hides his word sometimes
until the right season comes.
Remember when Josiah was rebuilding the temple and
calling the people back to the worship of
the true God.
It was then that the book of the
law was discovered.
It's not that it hadn't been around.
It's just nobody, it was hidden.
And the Lord just doesn't casually throw his
word around.
If he knows that there's a generation who's
not going to listen to what he has
to say, he'll hide his word until an
appropriate time.
Otherwise, we would read it and we would
just become more hardened to it and callous
to it.
I want to just read you 1 John
5 verses 13 to 16 and try to
explain it to you.
And the title of my message is, why
should I pray for what seems to be
impossible?
Now, these things, verse 13, 1 John 5,
13.
These things have I written unto you that
believe on the name of the Son of
God, that you might know that you have
eternal life, and that you may believe on
the name of the Son of God.
And this is the confidence that we have
in him, that if we ask anything according
to his will, he heareth us.
Anything, my Bible says.
This is the confidence.
If we ask anything according to his will,
he hears us.
And if we know that he hears us,
whatsoever we ask, we know that we have
the petitions that we desired of him.
It's amazing.
I'm reading it slowly so that it can
sink in.
If we know that he hears us, whatsoever
we ask, we know that we have the
petitions that we desired of him.
Now, verse 16 ties into this.
If any man sees his brother sin a
sin which is not unto death, he shall
ask and he shall give him life for
them that sin not unto death.
Now, these are incredible words.
How deeply am I to embrace them?
What does it mean that I can pray
for my brother and God will give him
life unless he has sinned a sin unto
death?
Now, I'm hoping that I'm going to be
able to explain this very, very clearly before
we get to the end of this message.
Now, go to the book of Daniel, please.
Chapter nine.
If you already have a marker there in
the Old Testament, Daniel, chapter nine.
Now, the Bible tells us in Daniel, chapter
nine, that Daniel understood by the word of
the Lord.
In other words, the word of God was
quickened to him.
From the book of Jeremiah, actually chapter 25,
primarily verses 11 and 12.
It was written clearly.
It was written plainly that the chastisement of
the Lord upon his people and upon his
nation was nearing completion.
He understood it.
It says, in the first year of his
reign, Daniel nine two, I, Daniel, understood by
books the number of the years whereof the
word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, the
prophet, that he would accomplish 70 years in
the desolations of Jerusalem.
Now, Daniel saw something that the casual seeker
of God doesn't see.
He was a man given to the seeking
of God.
He was a man giving to living in
right relationship with God.
And it's not that others didn't have access
to these scriptures, I'm sure.
But suddenly, at the end of all of
this time, it's not even that Daniel wasn't
a seeker of God.
But suddenly, the muddy water clears as it
is.
And suddenly you see deep into the scripture.
And he understood that a doorway was about
to open.
And anyone who wanted to return to where
the place of God's true blessing and purpose
was found could go there.
He saw it.
He said, Lord, you have determined a specific
time where you actually chastised your own people
because of the careless handling of the word
of God.
They had the presence of God as a
nation.
They had the word of God.
But they got caught up in the prosperity.
They got caught up in the blessing.
They became casual, bored, maybe with the narrowness
and the simplicity of going to the temple
and offering sacrifice and having their prayers answered
and ministering to the stranger.
And all of these things that God had
so clearly come down and manifested his presence
and said, this is what my house is
about.
It's to be a house of prayer.
And when people come in, I'm going to
sovereignly answer them.
And the name of God would be brought
to reputation in the earth because of this.
But the people, the caretakers of the house
as it is, the caretakers of the temple
became so utterly careless with what had been
given to them.
Just as you and I can become careless.
We are the temple of the Holy Spirit,
and we can become casual and careless with
the things of God.
And because of that, the Lord allowed their
enemies to come and overpower them.
And take them into captivity.
And to those that were in captivity, the
reports would be coming back that the temple
is destroyed.
The city is in ruins.
The testimony of God is in shambles.
We are in captivity.
And it would seem like such a hopeless
and impossible situation.
And that suddenly in the midst of it
all, this man Daniel is seeking God.
And off of the pages of scripture begin
to lift this incredible promise.
That a doorway is about to open.
Now that's impossible.
To the natural mind, it's impossible.
How could it happen?
We're captivated by then the controlling power of
the known world.
Yes, taken into captivity by the Babylonians.
And now the Medo-Persians have come in
and conquered Babylon.
These are not people naturally given to kindness.
These are not the people who you can
petition the king and say we'd like to
go back.
And build a testimony that glorifies God and
the earth.
And declares him to be more powerful than
you are.
There's absolutely no way.
These are not people that are even sympathetic
to the things of God.
So not only is Jerusalem destroyed, but the
people of God are captivated in a sense
by the nations of the world that have
surrounded them.
And suddenly Daniel sees a door about to
open.
He sees it in the scriptures.
It's not, you know, a lot of people
claim to hear voices.
I don't hear voices.
I see God always speaks to me through
his word.
That's how he speaks.
He's already made an open and plain declaration
of who he is and what he does
and how he intends to do it.
There was a church in Revelation chapter 3
called Philadelphia.
And the Lord said to this church, you
have only a little strength.
You've kept my word and you've not denied
my name.
He said, I'm going to set before you
an open door and no one can close
it.
Because you've done these things.
He said, false religion is going to be
forced to bend before you because of what
I'm about to do for you.
There are people, he said to Philadelphia, who've
claimed a relationship with me.
But you're going to so bypass them.
Those who have been concerned about the honor
of God.
Those who have not denied the name of
Jesus Christ.
Those have stayed true to biblical Christianity.
I'm going to open a door.
And those who've had a relationship with me,
but it's not been true.
They're going to have to bow before your
feet.
He said, they're going to have to acknowledge
that I've loved you.
In other words, I'm going to do something
so powerful for you and so supernatural.
That one more time, like in the book
of Acts chapter 2.
The 3,000 religionists, as it was, bowed
at the feet of 120 that were in
the upper room.
Now there's no evidence that many people were
aware of this.
But as I said earlier, the plans of
God always come to those who are truly
seeking him.
Now, what did Daniel do with this information?
He did as he was accustomed to do.
He began to pray.
Verse 3, it says, I set my face
unto the Lord God to seek by prayer
and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
I saw this in the word of God
and I set my face to see it
happen.
I went to the throne of God.
Now, Daniel did something in the next verses
I'm going to read to you that you
and I should be aware of today.
Now, he was a righteous man.
He had not been personally responsible for the
suffering he'd been brought into.
He was just a young man when he
was taken in a mass and forced deportation
from the nation of Israel into Babylon.
He had been castrated, made a eunuch in
the Babylonian king's court.
In other words, those things that are most
important to a Jewish boy.
Family is gone.
No chance of a family.
No chance of a relationship.
He could have been so bitter.
And he wasn't responsible.
He was a young man walking with God
and serving God.
But because of the casual handling of the
truths of God by his own people, he
was taken into captivity and he suffered incredible
hardship and pain because of it.
He wasn't personally responsible for his own suffering.
But he included himself within the ranks of
those who had been justly judged.
And you'll see it here.
He did not say, they did this and
they did that.
No, there's something in his prayer.
It was now we did this.
We casually handled your word.
We walked away from the truth that we
once knew.
And it reminds me of Christ.
Christ Jesus was a righteous man, obviously, the
son of God.
And he had not been personally responsible for
the mess that had come upon humanity.
But he included himself within the ranks of
those that were justly judged when he went
to a cross.
And so you and I have a responsibility
to not pray just for ourselves when we
pray.
We don't pray, oh God, bless Times Square
Church.
And that's a wonderful prayer.
Thank God if you pray it.
But we've got to go beyond that.
It can't be just our own church, our
own denomination, our own family.
It's bless the people of God.
We've all sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God.
If you came down, Lord, in our midst
today, if you manifested your glory in the
sanctuary, there's not one of us could stand.
No matter how many days we fast or
how long we pray, we could not stand
because in our own selves, there are all
areas in every one of our hearts where
we've fallen short of the glory of God.
Daniel 9, 4, he says, I prayed to
the Lord my God and made my confession
and said, Oh Lord, the great and dreadful
God, keeping covenant and mercy to them that
love him and to them that keep his
commandments.
Verse 5, we have sinned and committed iniquity
and have done wickedly and have rebelled even
by departing from thy precepts and from thy
judgments.
Daniel said, God, we sinned when we left
the simplicity of your word.
When we started trying to manage the church
from the minds of men.
When we started to come up with formulas
and theories that have not come from the
word of God.
We sinned by departing.
Neither have we hearkened to your servants, the
prophets, which spoke in your name to our
kings, our princes, our fathers and to all
the people of the land.
And Daniel says, it's not as if you
left yourself without a voice.
There were voices raised up.
There were people warning about where we were
going, but we were not willing to listen.
Oh Lord, verse 7, righteousness belongs to you,
but unto us confusion of faces as at
this day, to the men of Judah, to
the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to all Israel
that are near and far off through all
the countries where you've driven them because of
their trespass that they've trespassed against you.
Oh Lord, to us belongs confusion of face,
to our kings, to our princes, to our
fathers, because we've sinned against you.
This is our portion, Daniel said, this confusion
of face.
In other words, we are the people of
God, but somehow we've been marginalized.
Somehow we've been surrounded, somehow seemingly captivated by
forces beyond our control.
But you, he says in verse 9, to
the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness,
though we've rebelled against him.
Neither have we obeyed the voice of the
Lord our God to walk in his ways,
which he set before us by his servants,
the prophets.
Yea, verse 11, all Israel have transgressed thy
law, even by departing that they may not
obey thy voice.
Therefore the curse is upon us, is poured
upon us, and the oath that is written
in the law of Moses, the servant of
God, because we've sinned against him.
Now, if you go back to Deuteronomy, you'll
see that.
It says that you'll work and not prosper.
You'll strive and not succeed in a sense,
but we're talking in a spiritual sense.
Verse 12, and he's confirmed his words which
he spoke against us and against our judges
that judged us, by bringing upon us a
great evil, for unto the whole heaven has
not been done as has been done upon
Jerusalem.
As it is written in the law of
Moses, all this evil is come upon us,
yet we made not our prayer before the
Lord God, that we might turn from our
iniquities and understand the truth.
I think about 9-11.
I think about what came to this.
I think about this constant crumbling now of
the infrastructure of this country, the crumbling of
the family, the crumbling of our financial system,
the ineptitude of our political system.
It seems to be all falling apart at
the same time.
God's judgment is just on societies that turn
from him, but it's gradual.
Thank God he doesn't just judge us in
one day.
This came upon us, but it didn't turn
us to the Lord our God that we
might understand where we've failed and come back
to truth again.
Oh, we sang a few songs.
We sang God bless America a half a
dozen times, and then just walked away from
everything that God was trying to speak to
us as a people.
Therefore has the Lord watched upon the evil
and brought it upon us, for the Lord
our God is righteous in all his works
which he does, for we obeyed not his
voice.
Now, so that's the state.
There has to be a true recognition.
When I pray now for this country, I
don't exclude myself from being part of the
problem.
I don't put myself before the throne of
God as the solution and everyone else is
the problem.
That's arrogance, it's pride.
And James said, clearly the Lord will resist
that kind of prayer, but we'll give grace
to the humble.
And Daniel went before God and said, Lord,
is there anybody here can say you've been
everything that you should have been in Christ?
Is there one?
Please don't raise your hand because you'd be
so embarrassed when this video is replayed in
heaven and you see your hand raised and
you finally see yourself in the light of
God and realize, as I said last week,
you're just a junkyard that God has stored
the treasure of his son inside of.
So please don't do that.
But Daniel now begins to appeal to that
which really matters.
In verse 15, he said, O Lord, our
God, you brought your people forth out of
the land of Egypt with a mighty hand
and you've gotten yourself renowned as at this
day we've sinned and done wickedly.
O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I
beseech thee, let that anger and that fury
be turned away from thy city, Jerusalem, thy
holy mountain, because of our sins and for
the iniquities of our fathers.
Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach
to all that are about us.
Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer
of thy servant and his supplications and cause
thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that
is desolate for the Lord's sake.
O my God, incline thine ear and hear,
open thine eyes and behold our desolations and
the city that is called by thy name.
For we do not present our supplications before
thee for our righteousness, but for thy great
mercy.
O Lord, hear.
O Lord, forgive.
O Lord, hearken and do.
Defer not for thine own sake.
O my God, for thy city and thy
people are called by thy name.
Now here's the key.
This is where the prayer turns.
This is where faith comes into the heart.
Daniel says, Lord, I'm not praying.
I'm not bringing you anything of my own.
I'm not saying you should do this because
any of us have done right, but for
your holy name's sake, because it's your name
that's at stake here.
You are the God who brought us out
of captivity and brought us into an inheritance.
And your name was once glorified in the
earth.
And because of our carelessness, your name has
been cast down.
Your name has become a reproach among the
people.
And Daniel says, Jesus, if you and I
are praying Daniel's prayer, we'd say, Jesus, for
your name's sake, revive us again.
For your name's sake, bring back to life
that which was dead.
For your name's sake, get glory to your
name, Lord.
I'm not appealing to you because we've done
anything right.
And we're not bringing to you our righteousness.
We're not bringing our program to you.
We're not bringing our statistics to you.
We're not bringing anything of ourselves to you.
We're simply appealing for the glory of your
name, Jesus.
For the honor of your name.
That one more time in history, that men
would not scoff but rather tremble when the
name of Jesus Christ is spoken.
This is the heart of Christ, and it's
the absolute heart of prayer.
John 12, 28.
Jesus said, Father, glorify thy name.
It came right from the mouth of the
Son of God.
That was his mission.
That was his ministry, to glorify the name
of his Father.
Then there came a voice from heaven saying,
I have both glorified it, and I will
glorify it again.
Thank God for that verse of scripture.
I have glorified it throughout all history, and
I will glorify it again.
God will continuously glorify his own name.
I think of the battle that Israel once
had with the Philistines, and David, the young
man who was going to be king, came
into the camp.
And the reason he went into the battle
with Goliath is because the name of God
was being maligned by this opposing army and
by this voice of confrontation and conflict and
challenge that was coming to the people of
God.
And nobody could fight it because they were
all caught in their own strength and caught
in their own strategies, and they'd lost sight
of the power of God.
Now, God answers Daniel.
And he gave him an understanding in the
rest of this chapter, although I'm not going
to read it.
You can read it when you go home.
But he gave him an understanding that the
answer to his prayer will eventually lead through
a season of great trial before the ultimate
victory.
It's amazing.
He gets an answer, but it's not the
kind of an answer you and I would
expect.
A messenger is sent to him and unlocks
to him all of the future, in a
sense, to the coming of Christ.
And he shows him trial, difficulty, and hardship
and perplexity among nations.
Difficulty, which I believe that you and I
are going to go into in greater measure
in the days that we're in now.
Now, in a similar measure, those in the
upper room, as well as in Acts chapter
4, they knew that the answer to their
prayers would most likely bring many of them
into the sufferings of Christ.
And yet still they prayed.
I don't know the exact prayer in the
upper room, but it must have been something
like this.
Lord, we've all failed you.
We ran when we should have stood.
We were quiet when we should have testified.
We boasted a loyalty which we were not
able to fulfill in our own strength.
Abject failures, everyone in the room, from those
that had leaned on his chest to those
that had made vocal boastings before him.
One thing I'm sure these people knew, that
they weren't going anywhere without the strength of
God.
But I believe that they prayed something like
this.
Lord, use us to glorify your name and
to draw many to yourself.
They knew that for God to answer this
prayer, they would be brought into a place
of scorn and derision.
Now, there would be great fruit born into
the kingdom of God, but I remind you
that when they came out of the upper
room, yes, there's 3,000 turned, but there
were also mockers there that accused them of
being foolish and intoxicated and other things like
this.
And there will be mockers.
When you and I pray, Lord, glorify your
name through me, you're literally insured you're gonna
be brought into a place where, yes, there'll
be fruit, but you will have to endure
the mockery of a failed and fallen society
and of many who are not going to
go with God in the future.
In Acts chapter four, the disciples were arrested
Peter and John and they were threatened.
They were threatened by the powers that then
existed that they were no longer to speak
in this name.
And I'm sure those threats were very real
to them.
Yet they went back, they gathered in a
prayer meeting and they prayed, stretch forth your
hand and use us in greater measure to
affect our generation.
And they knew that for God to answer
their prayer, that it was going to be
hardship for some of them.
And of course, history lets us know that
that was the case.
There was a Roman arena and many other
such like things, not for everybody, but for
many.
But still they prayed.
They didn't pray for some cosmic visitation of
God that will change their whole nation in
a moment of time.
They prayed that God would use them.
They prayed for the courage to stand in
the marketplace.
They prayed for divine healing to flow through
their hands and for the work of God
to be continued in the earth.
Now God answered Daniel's prayer.
Later on as we study the text of
scripture, we see that Cyrus the king issued
a decree.
Suddenly God moves upon an impossible situation.
Imagine how incredulous it must have been when
this door opens and word gets around.
A decree has been issued.
We can go home.
We can rebuild.
The testimony of God's glory can be established
in the earth again.
Not only that, but some are saying that
the glory of the latter house will be
greater than the glory of the former.
But not everyone returned when the call came.
Everyone was invited, but not everyone returned.
That initial return was about 50,000.
Remember, it says you can pray for your
brother unless he has sinned a sin unto
death.
And here's how I would define this.
It's no longer regarding or even desiring the
lordship of Jesus Christ.
The people who are called by his name,
but they no longer regard him.
It's simply a casual association.
And just like in Romans chapter 1, the
scripture tells us they once had the truth,
but they held it in such light regard
that they eventually changed the image of God
in their minds.
And without restraint, they began to call that
which is evil, good.
It's a sin unto death to so casually
handle the word of God that they can't
hear anymore.
Won't hear.
Don't want to hear.
When the word of God comes in the
heart, it's crucify this Christ, we have another
one that we've made.
We have another Christ that we're following.
We don't want this Christ of Calvary.
We don't want this beat up and bruised
and wounded savior.
We don't want to walk in the pathway
that he has prescribed for our lives.
We don't want to share in the suffering.
We don't want to be misunderstood.
We've created another Christ.
And they so loosely and casually handle the
word of God that they can't hear anymore.
But to those who did return, the Bible
tells us they built a temple of greater
glory than the former because this is the
temple that Jesus came to.
It was the physical temple they rebuilt.
Now they had a real struggle in rebuilding
it, but they kept moving forward by the
word of God that he brought through his
servants.
They completed the temple.
It didn't look like much to many of
them, but it was the temple that Jesus
came to.
It was the temple that he walked in.
It was the temple that he did the
miraculous and spoke clearly and plainly.
Now back in 1 John 5, where we
began, I want to read it to you
again.
And this is the confidence, verse 14, that
we have in him.
If we ask anything according to his will,
he hears us.
And if we know that he hears us,
whatsoever we ask, we know that we have
the petitions that we desired of him.
If any man see his brother sin a
sin which is not unto death, he shall
ask, and he shall give him life for
them that sin not unto death.
He shall ask, and he shall give him
life.
Though the situation looks overwhelmingly impossible, he shall
ask, and he shall give him life.
The majority of New York City have not
sinned unto death, folks.
Oh, they've sinned.
But the sin unto death is when you
can't hear the voice of God anymore and
you don't want to hear the voice of
God.
But I believe that many people do want
to hear the voice of God in our
generation.
There is an inner hunger.
There is an ability.
And on you and I, this promise, I
hope it's not just me that sees this.
But what I read is that if I
ask for my brother, now, when I looked
it up, it just means fellow human being
as well as it can be somebody who
once knew God and is backslidden.
If I ask, God will give him life.
Now, the death means, in the original text
it means just cut off from the enlivening
influence of God.
If you see your brother cut off from
God, and you ask, you'll give him life,
which means you'll quicken him.
You'll bring him back to life again.
It's a moment in history where God says,
I've set before you an open door as
my people.
Not just for yourselves, but for many others.
If you will simply ask in faith, standing
on the promises of the word of God
that if I ask for my brother, if
I stand in front, you see, there's a
lot of churches in the city that are
almost empty now and have very little influence.
But there are people that are willing to
hear.
And it may look like a cemetery, but
that doesn't mean anything to God.
He's well able to bring life out of
the grave, folks.
That's who we serve.
That's who Christ is.
And hasn't history taught us that that's where
Christ's name is truly brought to glory.
If we can do it, then there's a
shared glory, may I say that.
We write books about it and we put
out strategies and we tell everybody else how
to do it.
And that's essentially what we've probably done for
the last 20 or 30 years.
No, no.
God in his mercy brings us to a
place where he's the only one that can
make a difference.
He lets Lazarus die, lets Martha quote all
the scriptures she wants, lets Mary fall and
weep at his feet.
He waits until the situation is totally hopeless
and then comes in and does what only
God can do and brings his own name
to reputation.
History teaches us this over and over again.
135,000 people come against the nation of
Israel.
God calls a young man called Gideon.
He initially starts with about 20,000 or
so people and then he brings it down
to 300 because the odds were too much
in Gideon's favor.
300 versus 135,000 then gives him a
ridiculous battle plan to the natural.
Put a torch in an earthen jar, stand
in three companies on the mountain side, take
the torch off the jar, smash it, put
the torch high and yell the sword of
the Lord and the sword of Gideon.
That means the word of God in the
mouth of a human vessel.
That's really what it means.
The word of God in the mouth of
a human vessel.
And one more time, God brings his own
name to glory.
He waits till Daniel is in the lion's
den and the stone is put on the
top and the king's seal is on it
before he shuts the mouths of the lions
and brings his own name to glory and
turns the laws of that nation.
Waits till the Hebrew boys are in the
furnace, all wrapped up in their coats and
thrown in to the furnace before he appears
and delivers them out of the furnace and
brings his own name to glory.
The king said, I threw three men in
the fire but I see four in the
midst of it now and one of them
looks like the son of God.
History teaches us over and over and over
and over again that Jesus Christ brings his
name to glory when it can't happen any
other way.
We are living at a time like that
right now.
There's no other way.
We've tried all the strategies.
We've had all the big name personalities.
We've been on television and radio all over
the country and all over the world and
produced a generation of death in the midst
of it.
We have a Lazarus result in a sense
of much of our efforts.
Not all thank God but much of it.
When the Lord Jesus Christ is willing to
do so much more, I'll stake my life
on this.
I'll stake my hope, my future, my everything
that Jesus will glorify his own name in
this generation.
The greatest thing that you and I can
do is not come up with another program
but simply come up with a heart of
prayer that agrees with God.
We've made a mess of your testimony.
This nation should be singing Amazing Grace every
Sunday.
The streets of Manhattan shouldn't be empty of
traffic on Sunday when they're full Monday to
Friday with people lusting for fame and money.
They shouldn't be empty.
There should be traffic jams at the Lincoln
Tunnel and the George Washington as people are
coming in and trying to get to the
house of God.
History has taught us that in these critical
moments that we're living in, that there have
been a people that have laid hold of
these truths.
You imagine Daniel bringing this to some of
his close associates and people around.
God is about to release us and there's
always a people that all they can see
is the captivity, the destruction, the hopelessness.
They can't see the hand of God.
Well folks, live there if you want, but
I'm not going to live there.
I see the hand of God in this
generation.
There's always a people that come to the
shores of incredible promise and all they can
see is the giants.
They're brought by the word of God to
the edge of a marvelous victory in the
earth, but they choose to see the giants.
They choose to see the impossibility.
They choose to listen to the statisticians and
all of those other voices apart from the
voice of God and they say, no Lord,
it can't be done.
We're too far.
It's too hopeless.
In Mark chapter 5 there was a ruler
of the synagogue whose daughter was dying.
He went to Jesus and said, my daughter
is dying.
Could you please come and help?
And then as they were heading to his
house, a word came.
Thy daughter is dead.
Don't trouble the master any further.
Thy daughter is dead.
It's hopeless.
There will always be this word come to
you when Jesus is coming to do a
miracle.
Jesus is coming to do something in your
life, in your home, in your family, your
community, your church, wherever you're from, but this
word will come to you.
Your daughter is dead.
Don't trouble the master.
Don't go in the prayer closet.
Don't speak to him anymore.
Leave him alone.
It's too late.
It's over.
Jesus turned to this man and said, don't
be afraid.
Only believe.
And when he came to his house, it
says, he saw the tumult and people weeping
and wailing for the loss, the hopelessness, the
ruin, the loss of dreams and visions and
all these people are crying and they're of
the household of faith, folks.
It's not like he's gone into some foreign
nation.
It's his own people.
It's the house of faith.
And then verse 39, it says when he
came into the house, he said to them,
why do you make this a do and
weep?
Why all the wailing?
Why all the unbelief?
And then he said something phenomenal.
The damsel is not dead.
She's only sleeping.
I'm telling you, folks, the church is not
dead.
Only sleeping in our generation.
Only sleeping.
Not dead.
Only sleeping.
Because dead to the natural eye, but she
can still hear the voice of God.
You see, Jesus spoke to her and said,
young girl, arise.
He spoke to her.
She could still hear him.
He spoke to Lazarus.
Lazarus, come forth.
He spoke to him.
I have no problem at all standing in
front of churches that are empty now knowing
that God is well able to speak to
whoever can still hear.
He spoke to her.
The greatest thing that you and I could
do today for the Lord's glory is here's
how it starts.
Get up and face your impossibility.
Whatever it is that the devil and your
mind and your circumstances telling you can't happen
in you.
Because it's very hard if you can't believe
for yourself, how do you believe for others?
That's where it has to begin.
The devil has come to you from the
time some of you are children and told
you you're stupid.
You're a non-achiever.
You'll never amount to anything.
You had words spoken into your heart and
in your mind, your life is a mess.
It's a ruin.
It's captivated very much like the children of
Israel.
You don't see a way out, but I'm
telling you today that God has set before
you an open door.
You've come here today.
You don't have much strength, but you've been
in his word and you've not denied his
name.
And he says, I know you and I'm
setting before you an open door.
I'm telling you folks, when you go through
that door and suddenly you begin to realize,
hey, all things are possible to him who
believes.
Suddenly the miraculous starts unfolding in your heart,
your life, and your mind.
And you now become a force to be
reckoned with in the kingdom of God and
by the kingdom of darkness.
Because you know something that the casual observer
of God doesn't know anything about.
You know that he's able to change anything
and bring victory into any situation.
And then suddenly, as God has been good
to you, you and I start praying for
our brothers.
We start praying for every person.
Oh folks, they may not look like they
can hear, but you'd be surprised.
We start praying from the drug addict to
the agnostic, to the high schooler, to the
college kid, to those on Wall Street, to
those in the entertainment industry, to those in
various churches throughout the city that seemingly died
years ago.
And suddenly we realize, hey, there is no
limit to what God can do.
And our prayer suddenly is, Jesus, glorify your
name.
You've glorified it before.
Glorify it again.
Call these people out of darkness.
Call them out of death.
Glorify your name, Lord Jesus Christ.
And suddenly God begins to answer.
Graves begin to open.
Churches come back to life.
People begin to sing praise again.
And you and I can't take any credit
for it because we know it has not
come from anything we've produced.
It's something that God has done in each
of our hearts.
It all starts by winning those initial victories.
I want to give an altar call this
morning, and it's very, very simple.
For everybody, for everybody, that you've got something
you can't get out of, and you've got
something you can't get into.
You've got somewhere you should be leaving, and
you've got somewhere you can't go.
You're stuck, as the children of Israel were
stuck in the Medo-Persian Empire at the
time that this word came to Daniel.
But you're willing to say today, by God's
grace, I'm not staying here.
There's a door open.
And I'm out of where I shouldn't be,
and I'm going into where I should be.
And I'm not going alone.
By God's grace, many are going to come
with me.
I'm going to be a voice.
God is going to use my life in
this generation.
I'm up and out, and I'm up and
in by the grace of Almighty God.
I'm speaking to people who are living in
an impossible place.
If you are willing to trust God today,
we're going to pray one prayer at this
altar.
Lord Jesus Christ, glorify your name.
Glorify your name.
We're not coming to Him with any presentation
of goodness from ourselves.
We're not saying you should do this because.
Not even because I've fasted and prayed.
You should do this for your own namesake.
Bring glory to your name, Jesus.
I believe that's the key to the victory.
I believe with all my heart.
And once the Lord begins to do it
in your life, then suddenly there's an explosion
of faith comes into your mind.
And you say, Lord, what you did for
me, you can do for others.
You are the God who raises the dead
and gives away where there is no way.
Now, Father, I know, I know, I know
I have spoken from your throne.
I know I have a word from God.
I know, Lord, that many of us are
at a juncture.
We can't go farther without faith.
I pray today, Lord Jesus Christ, break bondages.
You said in the book of Hebrews that
out of weakness they were made strong.
Women receive their dead back to life again.
Lord, this is the testimony that you've always
longed to have in the people.
Forgive us, God, for trying to negotiate through
this life in our own strength and somehow
add you into the mix.
Forgive us for this ignorance.
I pray, God, open prison doors, give sight
to the blind, heal the wounded in heart.
Deliver those that are captive and let the
treasure of the life of Christ be revealed
to the poor.
God, do what you've always done.
Bring glory to your name today.
Bring glory to your name.
God, take me farther than I've ever gone.
I thank you for the journey to this
point, but this journey doesn't stop.
Lord, it's a journey that goes forward.
It has to progress.
I pray, God, don't leave me where I
am.
Take me farther.
Father, I thank you for this.
I thank you for the freedom.
I'm believing you for freedom today.
You do not tease your people, Lord.
You do not give us your word and
send us out the way we came in.
No, you're not a man who can lie.
You're an eternal God who doesn't lie.
I believe, Lord, that you're going to do
something at this altar that will astound us.
I believe it with all my heart.
I ask you, Lord, to give courage and
faith to those who need to trust you
today.
In Jesus' name.
Now, we're going to stand in the annex.
You could step between the screens in Roxbury
the same.
And those that are listening on the internet,
you can just go to your knees right
in your own living rooms.
But for those that this word is applied
to you, slip out of your seats, please,
and make your way to this altar.
The balcony, go to either exit, if you
will.
And we're going to believe God for the
miraculous.
No less than the miraculous today.
Just come as people are worshipping.
And those of us who are going to
be still in the sanctuary, we're going to
pray for these who come today.
And we're going to believe God for a
miracle.
Lord Jesus Christ, I take you at your
word.
And I pray for my brothers and sisters
who come to this altar today.
I pray, God, that you give everyone life
so abundantly, so powerfully, that a new song
of praise will be put upon their lips.
I ask you, Lord, for supernatural healing of
woundings and words that have caused grief for
many years.
I ask you, Lord, this day, God, as
Samuel came to Jesse's house and poured oil
upon David, that you pour the oil of
your healing and your power and your presence
on every life.
The cry of my heart today, Lord, for
each of us is that you would glorify
your name through us in all the earth.
That you glorify your name.
The prophet Isaiah saw it.
He saw people glorifying God in the midst
of the fires.
No matter what struggles or trials await us,
there was a people who had a song
that could not be put out.
It couldn't be taken away.
Lord Jesus Christ, give us life, Lord, that
we may believe you, that we may walk,
O God, in faith, that we may believe
beyond our borders and believe for those, Lord,
that our eyes say to us are dead.
But God, you don't see what we see
and you don't think what we think, Lord.
Lift us, God, out of ourselves, Lord, and
into the place where you are.
I have only one request, Lord, that you
glorify your name in the city.
Jesus, glorify your name on the airwaves, in
the stores, in our neighborhoods.
Lord, where young people gathered for violence, let
them gather for prayer.
Lord God, Lord God, do it so profoundly
that nobody could touch the glory.
Only fools would even try.
It would be so obvious to everyone that
it's simply you.
Begin in this house today with us, Lord.
Father God, I pray that you glorify your
name, Jesus.
Everywhere we go, in our homes, Lord, our
families, our workplace, our lack thereof, whatever it
is, God, that you glorify your name.
Now, folks, would you lift your hands, please?
Everyone in this house, and we're going to
sing, Father, glorify your name.
And let it come right from the depths
of your heart today.
And believe, believe.
I want you to see an open door.
And you take that open door and you
walk through it into the strength of Christ.
Just do that right now.
We'll all sing it together.
Lord, we're not willing to leave here the
same as we came in.
Thank you, Lord, for many, many today walking
through that open door to rebuild and reclaim
and to bring glory to the name of
Jesus Christ.
Father, we thank you, Lord, that our prayers
for these five boroughs are not in vain.
God, you hear the prayers of one saint
more than the millions of voices that don't
know you.
You hear the prayers of one saint of
God.
Oh, God, thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, Lord.
Thank you, God.
Hallelujah.
Thank you, Lord.
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, Lord.
This afternoon at 3 o'clock, we're going
to continue to pray for New York City.
Some of our elders who didn't have a
chance to pray in the first meeting will
be leading us, and then various ministry leaders
also in the church will be part of
that as well.
Then next Tuesday will be open microphone, which
means that if you have a prayer burden
on your heart, you may be given an
opportunity to pray with the church about that.
Oh, glory to God.
Hallelujah.
Thank you, Lord, for this day.
Lord, thank you for what's coming.
I envision a day when we're going to
dance in the streets and clap our hands
and shout for glory at what you've done.
You're so merciful, Jesus.
Thank you, Lord.
Thank you, God.
In your precious name.
Amen.
See you at 3 o'clock and 6
o'clock this evening.
Please turn.
Make a friend.
Don't let anybody ever leave this church lonely.
God bless you.
See you this afternoon.