I have a message for you this morning
from Psalm 55.
If you'd turn there in your Bibles with
me, Psalm 55, called, I will call upon
God.
I have to do that this morning.
I've got a cold.
My left ear is blocked.
I feel like I'm inside a huge tomato
can right now, trying to preach.
Praise God.
But Paul, the apostle says, when I am
weak, then I am strong.
We don't need to be seen anyway.
Christ needs to be seen and he needs
to be heard.
The rest of us are negotiable.
Praise God.
Father, just thank you, Lord, for the touch
of your Holy Spirit.
I thank you, Lord, for the forgiveness, the
covering that you've been speaking to all of
us about in this service.
I thank you, God, that we don't have
to be strong.
You are our strength.
You're the strength of our life.
You're the joy of our hearts.
You're the inner power that makes us a
witness in this and every other generation.
And so, God, I ask in Jesus' name
for the anointing of your Holy Spirit upon
your word, not just to speak it, but
to hear it in the inner man, each
one of us.
Oh, God, thank you for the covering that
allows us to push away the condemner and
to believe, God, that we belong to you
and that you will strengthen us from image
to image and glory to glory, even as
by the Spirit of our God.
Oh, Jesus Christ, we stand against all the
works of the devil today, every attempt to
destroy our homes and our families and our
bodies.
We stand against you, Satan, in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We take authority over all of your weaponry
that you form against the righteous.
The word of God says that every weapon
you form shall not prosper, and we condemn
your lying tongue.
That is the heritage of the servants of
the Lord.
And so, God, we thank you that we
have a righteousness and a power to stand
up and declare our Christ in the power
of the Holy Spirit, believing for the miraculous
in this generation.
Lord, we give you the praise and all
of the glory in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Psalm 55, a Psalm of King David, beginning
at verse one.
I will call upon God.
Give ear to my prayer, O God, and
hide not yourself from my supplication.
Attend to me and hear me.
I am restless in my complaint and moan
noisily because of the voice of the enemy,
because of the oppression of the wicked.
For they bring down trouble upon me, and
in wrath they hate me.
My heart is severely pained within me, and
the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
Fearfulness and trembling have come upon me, and
horror has overwhelmed me.
So I said, O that I had wings
like a dove, I would fly away and
be at rest.
Indeed, I would wander off and remain in
the wilderness.
I would hasten my escape from the windy
storm and tempest.
Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues.
For I have seen violence and strife in
the city.
Day and night they go round on its
walls.
Iniquity and trouble are also in the midst
of it.
Destruction is in its midst.
Oppression and deceit do not depart from its
streets.
Now verse 16.
As for me, I will call upon God,
and the Lord shall save me.
Evening and morning, and at noon I will
pray and cry aloud, and he shall hear
my voice.
He has redeemed my soul in peace from
the battle that was against me, for there
were many against me.
God will hear and afflict them, even he
who abides of old.
Selah.
In other words, pause and think about this
particular statement.
God will hear and afflict them, even he
who abides of old.
Paul the Apostle in 2 Timothy chapter 3
warned that in the last days there would
be perilous times.
There would be a breakdown of decency, morality,
civility.
The love of many would begin to grow
cold just for what is decent and right
and just and good.
It would be a perilous time.
Sin would begin to have its full expression,
creating what I believe is and will be
the last worldwide rebellion against the Lordship of
Jesus Christ.
And you and I today are having to
pass as God's people through a season very
similar to that which King David in his
opening text speaks about.
In Psalm 55 verse 3 he says, because
of the voice of the enemy, I'm restless,
he says, in my complaint, and I moan
noisily because of the voice of the enemy.
I don't know about you, but I understand
King David.
I am just so sick of the news.
I'm so tired of the speech of our
politicians.
The childishness, the lack of integrity, the lack
of ability to live beyond themselves and their
petty little agendas.
The loss, as we teach in our Bible
school, of the ability to live for the
benefit of others.
It's appalling.
Truth is falling into the streets.
And of course, as Isaiah said, anybody who
departs from evil now has become a prey
as it is something to be pursued and
vilified in this society because of the oppression
of the wicked, the emboldenment, may I call
it, of the enemies of God to oppress
the people of God, to oppress those who
want to stand for what they believe to
be true.
The action and hatred against us.
They bring down trouble upon me and in
wrath, they hate me.
And many of you know what that feels
like in the workplace.
There's a sudden Jesus revulsion everywhere.
And because you represent him, because you carry
the presence of the living God inside of
you into the workplace, you find yourself the
victim of not just slander, but sudden action
against you.
You find that you're passed over in the
workplace, you know, for that promotion, but thank
God you're not passed over for the kingdom
of God.
They may get the promotion.
Folks, listen to me, keep it all in
perspective.
All right.
They may get the promotion down here, but
you get the ultimate promotion.
You get to be at the throne of
God one day, knowing that you're covered and
redeemed.
Verses four and five, he says, my heart
is pained within me.
I feel sick inside.
What is happening?
David said that was in his day of
what is happening around me in the city.
And in some cases in the city that
has a history of righteousness, God, I feel
sick.
David said inside, and I am afraid for
the future.
My heart severely pained within me.
The terrors of death have fallen upon me
and fearfulness and trembling have come upon me.
I'm afraid for the future.
I don't know about you, but if I
didn't have the Lord Jesus Christ as the
center of my heart and home, I would
be really afraid for my grandchildren.
I would be afraid for the kind of
a world that they're going to inherit in
the days ahead.
Something so dark, something so far from God,
something so evil.
I would be extremely concerned apart from the
fact that Christ is at the center core
of my life and my heart.
And I've always believed that everything I put
into the hand of God, he is faithful
and he's able to keep that until that
day that we stand before him at the
throne of God.
He is faithful.
He is able.
He can give strength where strength is going
to be needed.
We're living in a day when laws are
being passed that are protecting everything, but what
we as the people of God hold dear.
Have you noticed that?
It is tragic what's happening day after day.
You look at the news and you just
see new laws, new regulations, new, and everything
seems to be protecting ungodliness and vilifying that
which truly represents God in our time.
And David said, what some of us say
in our hearts, I don't know about you,
but I've been sighing a little bit in
the last year or so.
And he said, Oh, that I had wings
like a dove.
I'd fly away and be addressed.
If I had enough money, some people say,
if I, my retirement plan was big enough,
I'd be out of here.
I'd be in Tahiti.
I'd be gone.
There must be somebody there on the beach
that needs God out in a place like
that.
I would fly away and I would be
at rest.
I'd be, I wouldn't have to listen to
CNN or Fox or MSNBC and all the
rest of it.
I would be, I'd try to go so
far away that there's no transmitter could pick
it up over there.
Once a year, somebody would come down and
tell me what's happening.
If I even care anymore back on the
home front, all that I had wings like
a dove.
Have you ever thought that?
Have you ever felt that?
Oh God.
I'd even go to Arizona.
Okay.
I'd even go down there and I'd get
a cabin out there in the wilderness somewhere
up or Colorado up in the mountains, far
enough away from the smell of marijuana.
I would fly away and be addressed.
Indeed.
I would wander off and remain in the
wilderness.
David said, as long as I have to
live, don't you find it comforting that other
people that God has used have felt the
same thing that you do.
Don't you find it comforting that the Bible
says there's no temptation taking you or testing,
but such as is common to all people,
but God will not allow you to be
tested above that which you can bear.
And with your trial, with your difficulty, with
your temptation, he'll make a way to escape
that you may be able to bear it.
David says, I'd remain in the wilderness.
I would hasten my escape from the windy
storm and tempest.
You see, because David saw something even worse
coming in the future.
And if you are a person of in
spiritual integrity, if you're in the word of
God, if you're spending time in prayer, you
can see what others around you can still
see.
There's something worse coming to this world.
Now the Bible declares it.
You don't have to be a mystic.
You can see it by reading the scripture,
but most of us have never thought we'd
live to see it in our lifetime.
Most of us have never thought that the
world could go so crazy.
And in just a moment, in pre-world
war two, you think of all the people
sitting at their dining room tables, having dinner
together, eating with their grandchildren, talking about the
future.
Never ever there would be a whisper of
the hell that was about to be unleashed
on the whole world.
The insanity that was about to come and
touch much of Europe and the hell that
people were going to have to go through.
And David saw something on the horizon.
Destroy, oh Lord, and divide their tongues.
For I have seen violence and strife in
the city.
Day and night, they go around it on
its walls.
Iniquity and trouble are also in the midst
of it.
Destruction is in its midst.
Oppression and deceit do not depart from its
streets.
And here's what David saw.
He said, they're relentlessly promoting their godless and
deceptive agenda, even promoting violence in our cities,
if that's what it's going to take to
achieve it.
And David saw it and he saw it
coming and he cried out.
He said, oh God, God, I want out
of here.
And honestly, that's the cry of the righteous
heart.
It has to be.
There's nobody wants to go through this.
If you love God, if you love the
ways of God, you love the word of
God and you see where our society is
now headed, you don't want to stay through
this.
Nobody does.
You want to find a refuge.
You want to find an escape.
Now here's my main point today the Lord's
given me.
If you and I are only a natural
church age, we have much to be afraid
of right now.
If we're only a natural church.
In other words, if all we can do
is match word for word, argument for argument,
sword for sword, then the future indeed looks
bleak.
If all we are is an argument, if
all we are is a counterculture thought, if
all we have are facts, even though they're
true, but there's no power behind them, then
we have indeed a future where we're going
to be marginalized and virtually overrun.
Just like the people of God have been
from generation to generation.
Even in the more in the day when
Christ himself was born, a dominant society had
come in.
They had literally corralled.
The people of God were hurting them in
any direction.
They wanted them to go into just account
and tax the people.
Their laws were being violated repetitively.
New laws were being superimposed on that society
from time to time and generation to generation.
We all have to face the things that
those who have gone before us have had
to face, but in the midst of it
all, there has always been a people who
have discovered.
In our case, we need to rediscover a
profound truth.
That profound truth is simply who we are
in Christ Jesus, who we are as the
church of Jesus Christ.
What kind of people are we?
What is the source of our influence in
society?
Can we indeed make a difference?
No.
If we're a natural church, we can't.
If we're operating in the flesh, if we're
trying to build the kingdom of God by
our own ideas, our own strategies, our own
natural zeal, no, we're not going to win
the battle.
But by God's grace, in our time of
weakness, we suddenly rediscover again the source of
our life and the source of our power.
We may be as Saul's army once was
on a hillside with all of our spiritual
warfare conferences behind us, the enemies shouting at
us over the valley, telling us, if you
cannot defeat us, you will serve us.
Make no mistake, that's the battle we're fighting
now.
If you can't put somebody against us and
defeat us, you will serve us.
In other words, you will bend your knee
and you will bow to our agenda.
Nobody, not even King Saul, who stood head
and shoulders above the people had the courage
to enter into this battle.
And suddenly out of nowhere comes a teenage
boy who's been walking with God, who knew
something that the people of God of that
season had forgotten, that it's not by might,
it's not by power, it's by my spirit,
saith the Lord.
Walking again in that which the world mocks,
in that which the world considers to be
foolish.
But remember, it's the foolishness of God that
is stronger than the wisdom of men.
That's what the scripture tells you and I
this morning.
In 2 Corinthians chapter 10, beginning at verse
three, Paul says, though we walk in the
flesh, we do not war according to the
flesh.
For the weapons of our warfare are not
carnal, but mighty in God.
For pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and
every high thing that exalts itself against the
knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity
to the obedience of Christ and being ready
to punish all disobedience when your obedience is
fulfilled.
You know, a lot of people look at
those verses I just read and they talk
about the weapons of our warfare.
They talk about the power we have to
cast down arguments and bring every thought, even
social thought, into captivity to the obedience of
Christ, being ready to punish this disobedience to
God as it is.
But there's a little qualifier at the end
of all this, when your obedience is fulfilled.
In other words, when you and I begin
to agree with what God tells us about
who we are.
Ephesians 4, 8 says, when he, that is
Christ, ascended on high, he led captivity captive
and gave gifts unto men.
In other words, Christ triumphed over darkness and
gave you and me supernatural giftings to fight
against it.
We're not called to fight in the natural.
We are following one, the one who defeated
the powers of darkness, destroyed the work of
the devil.
The scripture says he took everything the devil
has and made an open display of it.
That's what was done in that generation.
When you conquered and invading a foreign army,
you took all their weaponry and you spread
it out on the ground for everybody in
your society to see telling them that no
matter what they brought against us, it didn't
have the power to overpower the kingdom of
God.
When Jesus Christ rose from the dead captivity,
which was the power of death and sin
and hell in the earth was taken captive.
And you and I were given giftings of
God's Holy spirit to stand up as men
and women of God, to make a difference
in our generation.
When evil comes in like a flood, the
spirit of the Lord will raise up a
standard against it.
And the standard is his church.
It's you, it's me standing up and agreeing
with God.
When our obedience is fulfilled, when I begin
to understand that I'm left on the earth
as a living witness of the resurrection of
Jesus Christ, of the fact that he sits
at the right hand of God in all
power and all authority, every name that is
named, not only in this world, but in
the world to come, not only on earth,
but in heaven, every name that is named
is in subjection to him.
And every knee will one day bow and
every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord.
When our obedience is fulfilled, that's when you
and I agree that we are not powerless
in confronting the darkness, which threatens this moment
in history.
Will you please get that deep into your
heart today?
We are not powerless in confronting this moment.
We are not just observers on a highway
watching this parade of hell pass by and
dominate our society.
We have power.
Jesus said to the early church, you'll be
given power when the Holy spirit comes upon
you and you will be witnesses of me,
not just an argument about me.
You'll be witnesses of the fact that I
am at the right hand of God and
all power and all authority is in my
hand.
You'll be living witnesses of the reality of
what happened on the cross and what happened
three days later, when by the power of
God, Christ was raised from the dead.
Can you imagine if the early Christians in
the book of Acts in their moment of
social darkness had yielded to the stronghold of
natural reasoning, the stronghold of natural reasoning just
says it's hopeless.
What kind of a difference can I make?
What if they had closed their hearts to
that which Jesus had declared they would be?
He told them to tarry.
In other words, stay in my presence and
pray.
The Holy spirit's going to come upon you
and you're going to be witnesses of who
I am, where you are and in other
places all throughout the world.
If you will tarry, if you will pray,
and if you will agree, if you will
agree, just simply agree, this is the purpose
for my life.
I'm not going to, I'm not called to
run into the wilderness.
I'm not called to fly away and escape
as dark as it may be as foreboding
as the future may seem.
I'm not called to run.
I'm not called to cower.
I'm not called to escape.
I'm called to go down in that Valley
and with the weaponry God puts into my
hand, it looks ridiculous in the sight of
the world.
Goliath said to David, what are you?
Am I a dog?
You come to chase me with a stick
and he probably added in with a couple
of stones or at least one that you've
got in your bag that he could see.
No, the world will mock the weaponry of
God.
World will laugh and say, you have nothing.
You have no organization.
You don't have the money.
You don't have the resources.
You don't, you don't have the moral media
behind you.
You're, you're marginalized.
We've, we've triumphed over you.
Not so fast, not so fast, Satan, not
so fast.
We are the church of the living God.
Christ lives inside of these earthly bodies.
The Christ that rose from the grave, the
Christ that triumphed over all darkness, the Christ
that sits as King over the flood, the
Christ that has all power and all authority,
all might and all dominion lives inside of
you and I.
Oh, thank God.
They didn't back off.
Thank God.
They didn't cower when it looked like hell
had triumphed.
Jesus Christ had been crucified by a society
that didn't want him to reign over them.
Rome is dominating that people of that particular
day, imposing their will, vilifying, mocking the faith
of the people of God on the earth.
At that time, when it looked like it
couldn't be worse, they didn't have an army.
They had no strategy.
They had no weaponry.
And suddenly the Holy spirit came and filled
every one of their hearts and they stepped
out in faith after having been in prayer
and they began to declare who Christ is,
what he was doing, what he was going
to do.
And they were doing it with a supernatural
ability and passing by them were people from
every strata of society.
The scripture says all kinds of opinions, political,
religious opinions passing by.
But when they saw the church of Jesus
Christ empowered by the Holy spirit again, when
there was suddenly a group of people, as
small and insignificant as they were standing out
one more time coming from their inward parts
was this river of life and living water.
It happened just as the scripture says, the
knees of all of those that were standing
before them bent before a Holy God, 3000
religious objections that day, 3000 political opinions, 3000
personal agendas, all of these things bent their
knee before a Holy God.
And that's what the scripture says, casting down
arguments and every high thing that exalts itself
against the knowledge of God and bringing every
thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
When your obedience is fulfilled, when you finally
recognize not just your purpose, but your power,
how heartbreaking it must be to God to
look out upon his church.
And we've lost touch with who we are.
Here go our children into hell.
They're being lied to be destroyed in the
womb.
And those that survive are lied to and
confused in grade school, lied to in high
school, then radicalized in college.
How heartbreaking it must be for God when
he looks down and realizes and wishes that
we understood that we have the power in
prayer to turn this whole hellish agenda backwards
and make it bend its knee to the
Lordship of Jesus Christ.
If we don't believe that after two years,
2000 years of Christian history, then we are
to be pitied of all people.
The evidence is in scripture.
It's not even debatable.
The problem with it all is do you
and I understand the power that we have?
Are we willing to take seriously the words
that say, have faith in God for verily
I say unto you, whoever says to this
mountain, be thou removed and cast into the
sea and shall not doubt in his heart,
but believes that the things he says shall
come to pass.
He shall have whatsoever.
He says, are we willing to believe it?
Do we understand God has given us that
kind of power in prayer?
That's why David says in verse 16 of
Psalm 55, as for me, I will call
upon God and the Lord shall save me.
You know, sometimes we're praying, not just to
be saved from the circumstance that's before us,
but save from ourselves.
Save from our fear, save from our, our
lack of proper vision of who we are
in God.
He was called to be a King, yet
he wanted to hide.
He was called to rule and reign as
a Christ type actually in the earth.
And yet he wanted to fly away and
get away from it all and be in
the wilderness.
He just got tired as we do.
He got tired of the speech.
He got tired of the oppression.
He got tired of the wrath, people trying
to set him up because he was anointed
of God.
He, he got tired of all of the
conversation of his time and all the evil
schemes and the evil plans he got.
He just got tired like you and I
do.
But instead he said, I will call upon
the Lord God and the Lord will save
me because in inwardly David knew that escaping
into the wilderness is not the answer.
Inwardly David knew that burying myself in some
pursuit is not the answer.
Inwardly.
He knew that he was called to reign
and inwardly somehow some way that's got to
get back in the hearts of God's people.
I'm not talking about physically reigning on the
earth.
I'm talking about a spiritual reign.
I'm talking about the power that God's given
us in prayer.
I'm talking about a spiritual awakening in a
perishing nation.
I'm talking about the person like you and
I that says, I'm just not willing to
let my children, my grandchildren, I'm not willing
to let this generation go into captivity.
I'm not willing to sit on the sidelines
or spend my future in Tahiti and say,
well, so what?
So what?
The society goes into captivity.
I'm going to find myself a place to
ride out the storm.
It's the man, it's the woman of God
that says enough with being lazy.
I'm going to the prayer meeting.
I'm going to begin to pray.
I'm going to start calling out on God
and the Lord will save me.
And David says, evening and morning and noon,
I will pray and cry aloud and he
shall hear my voice.
It doesn't mean you have to pray an
hour every time, but you can take a
moment in the workplace when all hell seems
to be breaking out.
And you can just lock yourself away in
the, in the bathroom for a moment and
say, God have mercy on this place.
God, I stand against this weapons of hell
that are formed against these souls of the
men and women that I work with.
I stand against this wicked agenda that's trying
to dominate our, our day.
And he shall hear my voice.
David said, he has redeemed my soul in
peace from the battle that was against me.
For there were many against me.
God will hear and afflict them.
Even he who abides of old.
And it's phenomenal when you realize the word
afflict here means to weaken the agenda and
bring them into submission to the will of
God.
God will hear and weaken their agenda and
cause their knee to bend and cause their
tongue to confess and push back the darkness.
And one more time, we will know light
folks.
Here it is.
Listen to me carefully.
Now we either have a spiritual awakening in
America.
We either go back to prayer in the
house of God, or we go into captivity.
There's no middle ground.
This thing's not going to last for long.
We've been given a window, just a very,
very short window now to pray.
But if we don't pray, we will most
sincerely regret this day.
But David did pray.
And I remind you a day came when
he danced before the ark of God, as
the presence of God came back into Jerusalem.
And those that wanted to do violence in
the city are on the sidelines.
And those that wanted to afflict the society
on the sidelines, those who wanted to bring
in godlessness are on the sidelines and David,
and I'm sure many who are with him
dancing at the presence of God, one more
time coming into their streets.
And that's our prayer many times in this
church.
Oh God, may we dance outside on the
streets of this church.
May we have the privilege of dancing outside
one day in these streets saying only God
could have done this.
Only God could have done this.
God will hear.
If we will pray, God will hear.
This is not the time to be spiritually
lazy.
This is the time to go down to
the brook and get the weaponry that God
has prescribed for you.
Those stones were in that brook and the
water was running over them probably for thousands
of years, making them smooth, fashioning them.
The weaponry that God has for you and
I in prayer is smooth.
It's been fashioned by God.
It's powerful.
It has the ability to go into the
foreheads of our enemies, casting down imagination, bringing
down every thought that exalts itself against the
knowledge of God.
It's not time to be lazy.
It's time to say, God, what do you
have for me?
What weaponry would you put in my hand?
And I don't care if it looks stupid
to this world.
The foolishness of God is stronger than the
strength of everything this world has got to
offer.
I'm going down to that brook and I've
taken those five stones of prayer and by
the grace of God, they're going into the
foreheads of those who would destroy this society
with wickedness and with evil, casting down their
thought that somehow they can exalt themselves against
the knowledge of God and be unchallenged.
It's time to pray.
That's why we're out on the radio now.
That's why we're across the country now.
That's why we're in 192 countries now on
Tuesday night, because it's time to pray.
That's the time we're living in.
I know that this world is going to
spiral out into unspeakable darkness for the scripture
says so, but I also know that God
is a God of mercy.
God is good and his mercy endures forever.
I also know that if we will call
out to him, there can be one last
final, great spiritual awakening gathering into the kingdom
of God, countless hundreds of thousands, perhaps even
millions of souls.
It is surely a cause worth undertaking.
It is surely something that you and I
should be giving our heart and our time
to praise me to God.
God will hear.
I will not run, but stand in prayer
against that, which threatens my future, my family,
my city, and my nation.
I will agree that Christ has given me
power and my prayers can make and will
make a difference.
And just as David did, I will call
upon God.
No matter how dark it looks, I will
call upon God.
I'm asking you, I'm asking you as your
pastor today to make a commitment to pray
a commitment.
If it's only five minutes a day, it's
not volume of prayer.
It's faith and quality.
It's the life that says, God, I believe.
I believe that I have the power to
push back this darkness.
I encourage you with all my heart to
not run, but stand, especially now.
I encourage you to agree with God that
you are not just, as I often say,
an orange pylon in somebody else's game.
You are an integral part of the work
of God in the earth today.
When all the rewards one day are given
out in heaven, all the names that we
knew are going to be sitting in their
seats for a thousand years, where people who
really laid hold of God and they learned
how to pray.
God hears every word and it's really prayer
that pushes back the agenda of darkness in
any generation.
And I will call upon God.
Folks, listen carefully now.
The Lord has given us a worldwide prayer
meeting in this church, unprecedented, perhaps in the
history of the world.
We are connected to groups and individuals in
192 countries now in this world.
People are joining us, whether they come in
live real time or they join after, depending
on their time zone, they're coming in and
they're praying with us.
They're submitting their prayer requests.
God is answering prayer.
We have over 8,000 answers to prayer
now.
People in dire situations, children have come home.
People who have been given physical death sentences
literally have been given life again.
It's amazing what God has been doing.
I want to ask you to pray.
If you understand the seriousness of the moment
and the greatness of what God has put
into our hand, he's given us a prayer
meeting that's around the world now.
I'm asking you to join me in prayer.
Join the elders of this church.
Join the leaders of this church.
Join the summit interns and graduates who come
just to pray every Tuesday night.
The staff members of this church that come
to sit on the platform after a long
day's work, they come as well.
Join the choir that comes out, even though
they've had a long day of work as
well.
Let's believe God for our city now.
Father, I thank you, Lord, with all my
heart today.
You have enabled me to deliver your heart.
Lord, help us to heed this moment, to
understand the gravity of what we face, but
the glorious power that you've given us to
confront it.
Help us, Lord Jesus Christ, to understand what
you've called us to be and what you've
called us to do.
God, I praise you for all of it.
Begin in my heart, Lord.
I ask for a renewed faith, renewed courage,
a renewed sense, Lord, of mission.
I ask for a renewed call to be
born in my heart for your kingdom, a
renewed passion, God, for our children that starve
to death in our streets spiritually.
I ask for a renewed fight as a
grandfather to not give this generation over to
darkness.
If nobody fights for them, they don't even
have a voice to speak for themselves, Lord.
I ask as a church that you deliver
us from laziness and self-seeking, and help
us, God, to pray.
Help us, Lord, to do what so many
before us in their time of despair have
done.
It's all through the Bible.
It's not debatable.
They prayed, and when they prayed, you came
in power one more time.
God, help us.
God, help your church across America.
Help us, Lord.
Help us, O God.
Deliver us from lightness, and bring us back
to prayer.
Father, we thank you for these things.
In Jesus' name.
We're going to stand in just a moment,
and I'd like to give an altar call
up in the annex in North Jersey and
people at home.
Here is the altar call.
It's simple.
I will not run, but I will stand
in prayer against that which threatens my future,
my family, my city, and my nation.
Secondly, I will agree that Christ has given
me power, and my prayers can and they
will make a difference.
Yes, I will call upon the Lord.
I will.
I will pray.
I will.
As God strengthens me, I will.
As God quickens me, I will.
When we stand, I'm going to ask you
to just make your way out of your
seat, and just come to the front.
We're going to pray together for a moment
after we worship, and ask God for the
courage, for the strength, for the conviction, for
everything that we need to do what God's
calling us to do.
Let's stand together.
Balcony, go to either exit and make your
way down.
Main in the sanctuary, do the same.
Please, folks, heed the call to pray now.
Beloved, when we come into the presence of
God, we come in one way, sometimes small,
feeling small, needy, overcome, powerless.
But then we open our mouths, and God
will begin to pray through us, and he
will begin to share his heart.
We start one way in our own understanding,
and we can end up in the spirit
of God, praying the heart of God, and
God answers that prayer.
As I was thinking on this thing, Pastor
Carter came to me, and he said that
we as a church need to be filled
with the Holy Spirit, because we cannot pray
as we are called to pray, with power,
with faith, believing, except we follow the example
of the early church, and we ask to
be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Because a very small group of people who
were fearful and trembling, but still obeyed the
Word of the Lord to them, that await
on me, and I will fill you with
power.
I will fill you to overflowing with my
Holy Spirit, and I will give you the
power to pray my heart.
I will give you the power to pray
believing.
You will start one way in the natural,
but you will end in the power of
the Spirit, which moves back darkness, which breaks
unbelief, which changes things.
It is the privilege of the church to
be filled with the Holy Spirit.
When we come to Jesus Christ to be
forgiven of our sin, the seal that he
has done this, he has answered that prayer
for forgiveness and covering, is that a measure
the Holy Spirit comes, and he lives in
us.
But then we are promised more of the
Holy Spirit, and that is real, and we
can ask for it, and it will change
everything.
With the Holy Spirit indwelling us in a
greater measure, it will change everything.
Beloved, you will not be the same when
you're filled with the Holy Spirit.
When Pastor Carter was filled with the Holy
Spirit, and he will tell you, he was
a fearful policeman, but I witnessed the change,
and he became a lion in the Spirit.
Not that the physical man had changed, but
God fully indwelt him by his power, and
he changed.
This is a promise to us, his church.
We're going to believe God that we're going
to be able to pray, but I think
first, we need to pray to be filled
with the Holy Spirit, that we may pray
in the Spirit with the mind of God,
according to the will of God.
Beloved, the Holy Spirit is for us today,
and God will not give us a gift
that will not glorify Jesus Christ, and we
can ask fully and freely to be filled
with the Holy Spirit, and the Scripture says,
how much more is our heavenly Father, who
is a good, good Father?
He will give us the Holy Spirit if
we ask him, and you know that word,
ask, A-S-K, ask for A, S,
seek, K, knock, ask, seek, knock, and the
Scripture says, ask, and you will receive, seek,
and you will find, knock, and the door
shall be opened unto you.
So before we pray, I would like us
to join in prayer, and all those that
would like to be filled with the Holy
Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in tongues,
with the evidence of the power of God
coming into you, we can have this, and
this is for us.
So Lord, I just thank you, and I'm
just going to ask now, you know, beloved,
we're going to ask in faith, the same
way we did with salvation.
We came to him needy, and he answered
that prayer, and he saved us, and we
could come the same way, asking, Lord, I
need to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
I need the power.
I need a prayer, a prayer language.
I need the ability to pray with the
mind of God and the Spirit of God.
So Lord, I thank you that we just
come in faith as a very needy people,
knowing our need of you.
I thank you in the New Testament that
it is our privilege to be saved, and
then to ask you to fill us with
the Holy Spirit.
So I ask you, Lord, in the name
of Jesus, all over this building, those that
are seeking, those that are asking, those that
are knocking, that you would be pleased in
Jesus' name to fill them with the Holy
Spirit.
I ask you to come upon them, O
God, and I ask you to fill them
and give them, O God, the power to
speak in a prayer language that glorifies you.
I pray we stand against every hindrance of
the enemy, every lie of the enemy.
We thank you, O God, that as the
saints of God all over this building, we
lift our voice, O God, and we ask
you now to fill with the Holy Spirit
those, Lord, that are seeking this experience.
And I ask, Lord, just join me, church.
I just ask you to open your mouth
now, and I just ask you, if you
have a prayer language, that you would begin
to pray that the will of God and
the filling of God would come upon every
hungry heart in this place.
And, Lord, I just thank you, O God,
we just abandoned ourselves to your Word, and
we ask you to fill these seeking people
with the Holy Spirit.
I thank you you did that for me.
I thank you you did that for so
many in this building, O God.
Now, we recognize we cannot pray except by
the Holy Spirit, and I ask you to
put your spirit now upon all these hungry
people.
And I thank you, O God, you are
pleased to answer this prayer.
We come believing, O God, knowing you answer
this prayer.
We stand against every hindrance and lie of
the enemy, every fear, everything that is holding
them back from being filled with the Holy
Spirit.
And we thank you, O God, that this
service where we are asking, seeking, and knocking,
you are going to answer exceedingly above and
beyond all that we can think or ask.
I thank you, O God, those that have
been seeking this experience for a long time,
O God, that you will touch today in
Jesus' name, that those that, Lord, just want
this experience, O God, that you would touch
them in Jesus' name.
Lord, we ask for this gift that we
may pray in the Holy Ghost.
We ask for this gift that we may
be found, O God, coming in one way,
but you stirring us by the power of
the Spirit, that we, O God, may pray
according to the mind and the will of
God.
And I thank you the darkness cannot stand
before the Spirit of God.
I thank you we can pray in the
Holy Ghost, and you shatter strongholds in Jesus'
name.
We can pray, O God, and we know
that you will afflict the plans of the
enemy, that we will make a difference as
we are filled with the Spirit of God
and pray according to the will of God.
I thank you the darkness cannot stand.
I thank you no weapon formed against your
church will stand in this last hour of
time.
And I thank you you are pleased to
fill us with the Holy Spirit, that we
may be found praying in Jesus' name, that
we may call on your name, that you
may hear us, that we may call on
your name, and you will answer us, that
we may call according and whatsoever we ask
in Jesus' name.
It may be done, because we are not
asking to consume it on our lusts, but
we are asking that with us souls may
be saved, that the darkness may be broken
over our children, that you will make a
difference by showing up in our streets, that
you will let it rain by your Spirit.
O God, these are impossible with us, but
nothing is impossible with you.
So we unite our voice today, O God,
believing we are weak in ourselves, but you
are strong and you are mighty to save,
that, O God, you will answer this prayer
so deeper and better than we can ever
know.
So, God, I thank you today for touching
us with the very little mustard seed of
faith.
You are touching us, filling us with your
Spirit, that you may do a mighty thing
in your church, in our generation.
To God be the glory.
Beloved, lift your voice.
Find your voice now, because he is here
to answer our prayer.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
Hallelujah, Lord.
Thank you, God, for your presence.
Thank you for your power.
Thank you for the touch of your Spirit.
Thank you for raising us up as a
people of prayer.
Thank you for giving us the heart to
agree.
Lord, this is our purpose on the earth,
to glorify you and to see people released
from darkness.
God, thank you.
You've given us the weapon of prayer, more
powerful than anything any country or army possesses.
We have the power to push back darkness.
Satan, we stand against you in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We push you back in the power of
his name, and we command you as Moses
once did before Pharaoh.
Let the people go, that they may serve
God, that they may worship God.
Hallelujah.
Thank you, Lord.
That's a type of prayer you showed it
to us in the Scripture.
A simple man, God, a simple man had
the power of faith in his heart.
God, we thank you.
The devil will have to let our families
go.
The devil will have to let our children
go, our husbands, our wives go, our cousins,
our aunts, our uncles.
We believe, God, with all our heart, we
believe with all our heart that we have
the same authority to stand before darkness and
say, let the people go, that they may
sacrifice unto God, that they may serve God,
that they may worship God.
We speak to the darkness that would try
to swallow this nation, and we command you,
we command you in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ, we command you to yield
to the light, yield to the light, yield
to the light, yield to the light.
And God said, let there be light.
And there was light.
Hallelujah to the Lamb of God.
Let there be light in our schools.
Let there be light in our homes.
Let there be light in our cities.
Let there be light in our colleges.
Oh God, oh God, oh God, put to
shame the works of darkness.
Put a display of them, oh God, their
powerlessness, Lord.
Father, we thank you, God.
We thank you for an awakening.
We thank you for something that only you
can do, Lord.
We recognize we can't, but you can, oh
God.
And you've given us the power to move
your heart and to move your hand.
Hallelujah to the Lamb of God.
Thank you, Lord.
Thank you, mighty God, in Jesus' name.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.