12-13-03 Praying for People

The Apostle Paul clearly says that prayer prepares the way for people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. Think about that for a minute. This is God speaking to us, and He says that if we want people to be saved, we need to pray for them. And if we want people to come to a knowledge of the truth, we need to pray for them. And that as we pray for these people, it will enable them to be saved, it will open the way for them to be saved and will make it possible for them to have opportunities to know the truth. This is why, in several places in his writings, Paul said, “Please pray for me as I go to present this message,” to the people living in whatever town he happened to be visiting.
I know that this kind of prayer works. I’ve seen it happen. I remember baptizing a man who had been an atheist. He was a complete unbeliever. He had nothing to do with God, did not believe in the Bible, and a group of people got together. Now this happened just before I came to this Church, so I can’t claim any involvement in this prayer. But these people said they knew about this man, and his wife had begun to come to Church, and so she asked the people to pray for her husband. And so they did, and over a period of months, they prayed earnestly for this man, who was an Atheist, but he staunchly said, “I’m an Atheist. I don’t believe in God. There is no God.” And he was just stubborn about this. Completely, thoroughly convinced in his own mind, apparently.
Then, after several months of praying for him fervently – and that was it; nobody went to talk to him, nobody spoke to him about it, they just prayed for him. Then, after I’d gotten there, his wife or friend or somebody said, “This person would like you to visit.” And to them, it was like they couldn’t believe it, that he wanted me to come visit. So I went to visit, and he told me this whole story.
And he said, “I have been an Atheist all my life. I have never believed in God. But I’ve invited you to come to my home because I now believe in God. I’m not even sure why I do, but I believe in God.” And then he told me this story, and he said this helped him.
You remember back in 1995, they did a series of Evangelistic meetings over the satellite. Net ‘95, remember that? This guy’s wife finally said, “I’d like you to watch these meetings.”
So he goes, “What would it hurt?” He had one of these motorized satellite systems so, from his home, he could have his satellite dish adjust automatically by tuning in to certain frequencies. Some of you may even have something like that. So he told me that the night that he was going to watch the first meeting with his wife, they tuned in, and there it was. It came in perfectly, and they watched the meeting, and he had to admit that he kind of liked it. But he didn’t want to get too much involved in this thing because he didn’t believe in God.
So the next morning, he decides he’s going to watch a little TV, and he goes in and sits down in his chair, and he adjusts his thing, and he turns on the TV to get the station he wanted to watch, and it was stuck on the Evangelistic Channel. He thought, “That’s weird,” so he adjusted it again, and it would not move. That satellite would not move from that. Now it just so happened that the station he was tuned into was 3-ABN. And 3-ABN was carrying those meetings. And so his satellite would not move off of 3-ABN until those meetings were concluded. I’d like to think there was an angel out there who had his hand on that thing, and every time he tuned that thing, the angel said, “Sorry, it’s going to stay right here.” And so he shared things like that with me, and he said, “Something’s happened in my life, and I can’t explain it, but I believe in God.” And we ended up baptizing that man and his wife.
Prayer changes things. Prayer changes hearts. God will never force a person, against their will, but he will definitely speak to them. I want you to turn to John 17:20. He won’t force people, but he will put some Godly pressure on them, just like a good friend would do. Even the people out here who take care of caring for our community tell you that if you have a friend, and he’s drinking, don’t let him drive. Because they know what’s liable to happen. He’s liable to get hurt.
Maybe that’s what happened to Brian McMann this week or so. Remember that? It happened about a week or go. Brian McMann, an Evangelist at our church was in an accident and almost got killed. He was driving home from Nebraska, and a big semi truck was weaving all over the place, and BOOM! Smashed into his truck and his trailer, flipped his trailer up in the air and his truck up in the air, SMASH! BOOM! BANG! And he came out of it with a few broken bones, but he’s going to be okay. I don’t know if it was drinking and driving or what, but the truck was weaving all over the place; he was either sleepy or drugged or something.
That happens all the time, and so they say out there, the people who care for our community, if you’re a friend of a friend who’s drinking, you say, “No, don’t drive. I’ll drive for you.” You’re putting some pressure on that friend, right? Some of you have put pressure on your friends because you think you should, because you know it’s a good thing to put pressure on them in that situation. You said, “I would do that if I were you because back when I was whatever, this happened to me, and I don’t want that to happen to you.” So for God to put pressure on people, you think that’s a good thing? It’s a good thing. And when you pray, God is able to put pressure on them. We’re going to look at a verse or two about that.
But right here in John 17:20, I don’t want us ever to forget this, Jesus is praying. This is one of the prayers of Jesus that’s recorded. And He says, “I do not pray for these alone (speaking of His disciples), but also for those who will believe in you through their word.” So the Bible says that God has been praying for you, Jesus has been praying for you. Jesus prayed for all of us. This is what this verse says. Jesus prays for you because He loves you. And through those prayers, things are taking place in your life.
Turn to Hebrews 7:25. Not only did Jesus pray for you back then, how can I say that Jesus prays for you now? Because the Bible says He is, in Hebrews 7:25. It says, “Therefore, He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for Him.” Jesus is constantly praying for you. Does it touch your heart to think that Jesus Christ Himself is praying to the Father for you? He mentions Bill to the Heavenly Father. He’s praying for Bill. He’s praying for Bob. He’s praying for Sally. He’s praying for all of us. I could start mentioning all of your names because it would be true. He’s praying for you. It touches my heart to think about that.
I know that prayer works for other people. Wonderful things start happening when you start praying for people. I can remember reading about the great prayer warrior George Müller. George Müller, a wonderful German fellow, who was a great man of prayer. He prayed for his friends to be saved, and there were four men in particular that he prayed for, that he knew needed to know Jesus. They were lost, wicked men, but he prayed for them. Sometimes they kind of laughed at him for praying for them. “Oh George, go pray for somebody else. Don’t waste your prayers on me.”
But he said, “No, I’m going to pray for you.” And so he prayed for these four men. Two of them were converted after five years of daily prayer for their soul. He saw them baptized.
And they said, “George, I guess your prayers worked, after all.” The third one was converted after ten years of praying for him every day. The fourth man was converted after twenty-five years of daily prayer for him. George was a man who believed in prayer. He knew that people would be moved.
I can remember when my wife and I were just visited a church in northern California. We were visiting that Church with some friends, and the Pastor preached a powerful sermon on the importance of baptism. He made an appeal at the end of his sermon for those who needed to be re-baptized. This was a very specific appeal for those who needed to be re-baptized. What does that mean? That means people who know the truth, and it’s not like they need to be educated about what’s right or wrong in the Bible. They know what the Bible says, but they’ve left the Lord. Maybe they went out in the world and lived out in the world like a person who doesn’t know God.
But they were in Church that day, and he said, “You know who you are. If you know you need to come back to God and need to make a public recommitment of your faith in Christ and to live this life, I’m inviting you specifically. Those of you today, who are here, who have known what was right and wrong, but you haven’t been living it and you’re here today, and you want to make a public commitment, the water in the baptistery is here, it’s warm, it’s ready to go. We’ve got robes back there. You come now, and we will re-baptize you if you’re that person.” He wasn’t talking to first-time people; he was talking to people who knew better, who had the knowledge, maybe somebody raised them in Church, but who had wandered away from God, but who now was ready to make that recommitment to God. I thought that was wonderful.
So he made that appeal, and a few people started to get up to go be baptized. I can’t explain this, but here was a lady sitting right in front of me, and she had a child. I had never seen her before in my life. I did not know who she was, period. Did not ever recognize her, don’t know anything about her. I immediately, as he made that appeal, had a passion for prayer, a burden for prayer, for that lady sitting right in front of me that she needed to go and be re-baptized. Just as clear as I’m saying it to you right now, that’s how it was impressed upon my heart. So just silently, I started praying for this lady, that the Holy Spirit would move on that lady, and that she would go and be re-baptized.
So I am praying this prayer, and as I begin to pray this prayer, I begin to feel a struggle with supernatural powers as I’m praying. The intensity of that moment increased, and the energy I felt, and I began to increase my fervor in prayer for this person, to pray that this person would go and be baptized. This went on for about ten minutes. About ten minutes after I began to pray for her like this, and the intensity, I felt the intensity of prayer and the struggle with the powers of good and evil taking place right there. I could feel it. I’m praying for this person. All of a sudden, she turns to this person beside her, and she said, “Would you watch my child? I have to go be baptized.” And she got up from her seat, and she went up there, and she was baptized.
I know that prayer makes a difference in people’s lives, when we pray for people. My sister Judy, who had become a Seventh Day Adventist not long after I did, was awakened at eleven o’clock in the middle of the night to pray for her pastor. She had no clue why she was praying for her pastor, but in the middle of the night, eleven o’clock, she was awakened to pray for her pastor. So she began to pray for her pastor, that God would be with him and protect him and help him, whatever his need was. And the next Sabbath at church, she spoke to him. His name is George. She said, “Pastor George, on such-and-such a night, at about eleven o’clock, did you need prayer?”
He said, “Oh, did I ever need prayer! I was driving on my way home from a late-night meeting. I was on my way home, and I was out in the middle of no place out on these country roads, and my car just died. BOOM! Just died. I pulled off at the side of the road,” and of course this is long before cell phones and all that stuff. He said, “I didn’t know what I was going to do. There I was, I tried to start my car and it wouldn’t start, and I felt like I was in danger and I didn’t know what I was going to do. Yes, I sure needed prayer.”
She said, “Well, I was awakened at eleven o’clock that night.”
He said, “That’s exactly when my car died.”
She said, “I prayed for you.”
He said, “You know, after I sat there a moment, I prayed, too, and I took out my key, I tried again, and it just started. I have no idea what happened.”
Literally, I could just teach stories like this the whole rest of the time, and you might say, “Go ahead.” And I’m going to tell you a few more, but we’ve got to look at some of the scriptures here. So prayer for people does make a difference.
I want you to turn now to Daniel, Chapter 10. Sometimes people say, “Well, what happens when we pray for other people? What’s going on when we pray for people?” The Book of Daniel shows us what’s happening. In Daniel, Chapter 9, Daniel is praying. And as he’s praying, he’s confessing his sins, and he’s confessing the sins of his people, and he is asking God to be merciful to the Israelites even though they have sinned, and that they have forsaken him. In Verse 20 – go ahead to Daniel 9; we’ll get to Daniel 10 in a minute – in Daniel 9:20, he says, “Now, while I was speaking, praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the Holy mountain of my God, yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the evening offering. And he informed me and talked with me and said, ‘O Daniel, I have come now to give you skill to understand. At the beginning of your supplications, the command went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved.” That’s you. That’s not just for Daniel, that’s you. You are greatly beloved. And at the beginning of your supplications, He hears you.
Now, Dolly and I had the coolest thing happen to us this week. Our oldest son called us two days in a row. Whoa! The next day he called, and he’s the one that has the grandchild. If you ever want to see what he looks like, I’ll be happy to show you. So he’s talking to us on the phone, and we hear these little noises in the background. We say, “Is that Alden?”
He says, “Yes, that’s him. He’s making noise back there.”
I said, “Let’s listen,” so we started listening. So here’s Alden, just going at it, making all kinds of sounds that don’t mean anything. He can’t talk yet; he just can’t speak words yet. He can communicate, believe me, but he can’t say words yet. So he’s just going at it and we’re just listening and she and I are just laughing, it’s the funniest thing. Of course, Kyle’s having to deal with all of that, and he doesn’t think it’s funny. But we think it’s hilarious, we just think it’s so funny.
It kind of reminds of one point when Kyle was talking to us about how sometimes he throws these little tantrums, and at one point, my wife says, “Payback, payback!” So our hearts just thrill to every little noise he makes. And God, up in Heaven, who has trillions more love for you and me than we have for our children; the moment you speak to Him, immediately, He’s tuned in.
Through the years, when we were raising our children, I was always amazed at how my wife was tuned in to those little voices. As soon as there was a little sound, BOOM! She was awake and right. Sometimes, things were happening during the night and we were both up taking care of the kids, but I was always amazed at how sensitive my wife’s ears were to the first little cries of those babies. God is more in tune than all of you moms here put together. And as soon as you begin to speak to Him, He hears your first delicate whisper because He loves you so much.
So He says at the beginning, “WHOOSH!” As fast as that, from Heaven to Earth, “SHOOM!” Gabriel is flying at a speed that not even Star Trek knows about. He is so fast; you have the speed of sound, 700 miles an hour, and the speed of light, which used to be 186 miles a second, but now they know that that’s not true because the speed of light actually increases when it leaves a gravitational field. So Gabriel is able to fly perhaps what some people call “the speed of thought.” Just think, and you’re there.
So when we get to Heaven, we’ll have to be really careful what we think. Because we might be talking and you’re gone, and we think, “Uh-oh, he must have been thinking again!” But Gabriel just SHOOM! Just flew so fast, and there he is with Daniel, and he answers Daniel’s prayer. Daniel is praying for himself and for other people, as well, and got hears. So what happens? The angels get busy. We don’t see it, but when you pray, the angels are busy. They’re doing things. You don’t see it, and because you don’t see it, and because you don’t hear it, you think it’s not happening. But when you pray, things are happing that you can’t even fathom.
In Daniel, Chapter 10, “As you begin to pray,” and we see here, Gabriel kind of throws the curtain back and shows us something really interesting here in Daniel, Chapter 10. He says that, in Verse 13, for example, the Prince of the Kingdom of Persia – I don’t have time to go through all this, but it’s talking about how the Devil is fighting to keep us from having answers to our prayers – he says “The Prince of the Kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days,” and that has to do with the Devil. He’s using the Prince of the Kingdom of Persia as a metaphor for the Devil. He says, “He withstood me twenty-one days, and behold Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me.” And he goes on and explains this.
So when you’re praying, the forces of evil fight against us. And when you pray, the forces of good come to our aid and they wrestle. They literally wrestle with the forces of evil so they can help us and answer our prayers. Wonderful things are happening out there that we cannot see or hear or feel. But as you pray, some people even call it spiritual warfare, and you’re involved in that when you pray. And God hears those prayers. I have a powerful quote here for you, that I’d like to share with you. It comes from “Amazing Grace,” a devotional book written by Ellen White, and on page 257, it says that “Satan will call to his aid legions of his angels to oppose the advance of even one soul, and if possible, wrest it from the hand of Christ.” All you have to do is make a decision that you’re going to do what God asks you to do, and the Devil’s going to do something to try to keep you from it, no question about it.
“But if the one in danger perseveres, and in his helplessness casts himself upon the merits of the blood of Christ, our Savior listens to the earnest prayer of faith, and sends a reinforcement of those angels that excel in strength to deliver him. Satan cannot endure to have his powerful rival appealed to, for he fears and trembles before His strength and majesty. At the sound of fervent prayer, Satan's whole host trembles.”
Remember a few weeks ago, I shared that little line with you, “Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees.” As you memorize things like that, it makes a difference in your hour of need. We just read a story about this man who was in World War II, a Godly man, and he thought he was going to die. He was in the middle of a hot, hot battle; lead flying everywhere, shrapnel going all over the place. Here he is, inside this crater that was made by a shell, and he’s thinking, “I’m dead. I’m going to die.”
And then he remembered just one little part of a Psalm that he had memorized years before, and that became his prayer. And the Psalm said something like, “The Lord watches out for those who call upon Him and delivers them from their enemy.” He remembered that. So as you memorize these things, they come back to you at a time when you really need them the most.
So what happens when we pray? Wonderful things take place. Angels are in motion. The Holy Spirit is in motion. Tremendous things are taking place. I want you to turn to the Book of Revelation 5:8. How soon do those things get started? We just read in Daniel. How soon do those things get started? Right away. In Revelations 5:8, “When He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the lamb, each having a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.”
The incense in the Old Testament sanctuary was at an altar, which actually was not too much smaller than this pulpit. And the altar of incense would be burning constantly, up to God. And that incense represented the prayers of God’s people. And then the High Priest would come in with his sacrifice and stand there and present this to God, and would sprinkle a little bit of the blood on the horns. There were four horns that came out on each corner of that altar. That represented the mingling of the blood of Christ that was to come, with the prayers of God’s people, as they would ascend to God. And so in Heaven, Jesus is our High Priest, and our prayers are ascending to God, and he stands there and His blood, His sacrifices, cleanses our prayers, so to speak, as they ascend to God. So the Holy Spirit is drawing out our prayers, as we studied last time or a couple of times ago, and then they’re cleansed by the blood of Jesus. And He adds His interception there with us, as we read earlier, to our prayers as we pray.
And Satan, in Revelation 12:11, as this happens, this is powerful stuff. It is really powerful. Sometimes, it is so powerful it’s a little scary. It is very powerful. In Revelation 12:11, “They overcame him by the by the blood of the lamb, and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives to the death.” There have been several times when I have seen prayers through the blood of Jesus; specifically claiming the blood of Jesus, make a big difference in the lives of people. I’ve seen at least one person freed from demons. I mean real demons. This person was in demonic influence, to say the least. By claiming the blood of Jesus, I’ve seen that person delivered from that demonic influence. I’ve seen it happen; I was present when a man claimed the blood of Jesus in his life, and he was a dark soul. But he called upon the Lord and asked the Lord to come into his life. He claimed the blood of Jesus in his life, and there was an immediate and permanent change in that person’s life.
As we call upon the Lord in prayer and claim the blood of Jesus, powerful things happen not only for ourselves, but for others. I remember when I was preaching at the British Columbia Camp Meeting, that a lady came up to me afterward and she said, “Do you have time to come and visit with a young lady?”
I said, “Well, sure. With you?”
She said, “Yeah.”
I said, “Okay.” So we went back there and she introduced me to this lady, whom I’m going to say her name is Mary. Mary was very, very depressed – I mean really depressed. Depression, I must hasten to say, can result from lots of things, and sometimes a chemical imbalance in the body can bring on depression. Sometimes there can be terrible emotional trauma, grief, which can bring on depression. A very common side effect of grief is depression, when you’ve had a huge loss; I’ve seen that happen. Sometimes, however, depression can be caused by demonic influences. We must never, ever assume that that is the case, but we must consider it a possibility and just realize that that’s just one of the possible things that might be happening.
And so here’s Mary, and she’s really depressed – one of the most depressed people I have ever personally talked to – and so this lady introduced me to Mary. She said, “Mary, I’ve asked this pastor to come visit with you for a moment.”
And she said, “Okay.”
So I’m visiting her, and I said, “What’s your name?” and she told me her name. I said, “Where are you from?” and she told me a little bit about that, and she was really depressed. Throughout the conversation, little things that she was saying and the ways she would say it showed me that she was just under a dark cloud. Finally, toward the end of our visit, I said, “Mary, would you like to go to Heaven when this world is over?”
She said, “I don’t know.” She was just really depressed.
I said, “Would you like to have someone pray for you?”
“I don’t care.”
I said, “Mary, I’m going to make you a promise. I’m going to promise that I’m going to pray for you every day.” Now, I don’t make that promise lightly, so I’m careful not to say it too often because I can’t pray for everybody every day, or I’d be on my knees all day long, right?
And so she says, “If you want to.” Really depressed.
I was starting to get depressed because I’m sitting here with this person, and I said, “Okay, I’m going to pray for you, so I prayed for her there.” And every day back home, I mentioned her name and I prayed for her. I said, “Lord, won’t you please remember Mary? She’s depressed. And I’m asking you, in the name of your son Jesus, through His shed blood, that you please, if there are any evil spirits in her life that are bringing on this depression, or who are making it worse, I’m asking you in the name of Jesus that you would remove those evil spirits from her presence, and that she would be able to pray to God and to find the joy and salvation in Christ.” I prayed for her that way every day, earnestly asking the angels of God, through Christ, through His blood, to push back the evil spirits who might be in her life.
About a year later, I was back up in B.C. in another church where I was doing a weekend series of meetings, and I had no idea that this was her home church or her home area. And about the third night of the meetings, there she was, sitting right about in the third pew. There she was, just sitting there like that, and she had a smile on her face. Wow! I knew something must have happened. After the meeting, she stopped me and she said, “Could I visit with you for a little bit?”
I said, “Sure.” So we sat down and the first words out of her mouth were, “I don’t understand it; I don’t know what’s happened to me, but I’m not depressed anymore.” I knew there were other people praying for her, so I’m not saying this is because of my prayers alone that she got better. I know there were lots of people praying for her. My point is that prayer made a difference in that lady’s life, and all of a sudden, she’s not depressed anymore.
So then she says, “Can you tell me how to know Jesus as my savior?”
That’s what I’d been praying about for a whole year, so I thought, “This is wonderful.” So she gave her heart to Christ, and a couple of years later I met a friend of hers, and I said, “How’s Mary?”
She says, “She is doing so well. In fact, she has such a powerful testimony that she’s going to different churches just to give her testimony because they’re so excited about what God has done in her life.” Isn’t that exciting? So the Lord really, really heard our prayers. Our prayers make such a big difference in the lives of people. You can’t even begin to understand it because, I told you a few weeks ago, praying for people is the hardest kind of prayer there is because you don’t see anything happen right away, usually.
Remember, I told you about the garden seeds. It’s like planting seeds in your garden and you don’t see them sprout right away, and you get impatient; you just want them to poke their head up. Praying for people is like that. We get impatient when we start praying for people because we don’t see things happen right away, but the angels are doing things, Jesus is doing things, He’s adding His intercession to your prayers, He’s praying for them with you. Powerful things are happening when you pray for people.
Right here in Ephesians 6:12, it says, “Always remember, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Those of you who are married, I want you to think about your marriage right now. Think about it. If you’re a normal married person, you have conflict in your marriage. If you tell me you don’t have conflict in your marriage, I think you’re in denial. Always remember this: your conflict in your marriage is not just you. We do not only wrestle against flesh and blood. It is not just flesh and blood. Do not think that the Devil doesn’t know your address. He knows how to push buttons in your life. Prayer - praying for each other and praying with each other.
My wife and I agree on this: we don’t know how we could have gotten through all the years of life together if it weren’t for prayer. There are so many things that afflict your home through your kids, through finances, through all kinds of things, and if we didn’t have prayer, we wouldn’t have a prayer! I’m totally a believer about the power of prayer.
Those of you who have kids who are in trouble, who are out there someplace, don’t you think that it’s just flesh and blood. It isn’t just hormones. The Devil’s involved. He knows how to do things and set things up and bring people and influences into their life. Don’t think he doesn’t. And even if they’re not teenagers, if they’re two-year-olds (Some of you are going, “I know that’s the case.”), little kids can be affected. That’s why it’s so important that moms and dads be people of prayer, and that you pray earnestly for God to help you with those children, to shield them from the influences that the Devil is trying to bring into their life.
Then He goes on to take up the armor of God in Verse 18, and tells us that part of that armor against this assault by the Devil in our lives and by the people we love is prayer. He says, “Pray always, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to the sins with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”
I remember how one time there was a man in my life, and I started to pray for him, that he would give his life to Jesus. My wife and I were giving his wife Bible studies, and every week, she was loving the Word, she was believing the Word, she was accepting the Word, but her husband was never there. I didn’t think he was there. I found out later that oftentimes, he was in the other room, listening while we were giving those Bible studies. Then one night, I said to her, “Is there anything your husband likes to do?”
She said, “Yeah, he likes to play golf.”
So I said, “Do you think he’d play golf with me?
She said, “Yeah, I think so.”
So I called him up on the phone, and I asked him if he’d be interested in playing golf with me, and he said yes, he would. When I say golf, I’m being very generous, okay? Some people refer to their typing as hunt and peck; my golf was hunt and hit. So we went to play golf, and we began to have a weekly appointment playing golf. We just had such a good time together, and I prayed for him, that he would give his life to the Lord, and I tried to do my part with him by participating in something he enjoyed but trying not to be too pushy, just trying to be a friend.
So Jim, come on up here. This is my old golfing buddy, Jim.
And so time went by and we baptized Janet, and then years went by, and occasionally we would have contact. You know, Janet is an amazing person. She would send me a Christmas card every year, telling me about her kids and what was going on, and all that. And I remember thinking about you [Jim] when I got one of those Christmas cards. And then on their 25th anniversary, you [Jim] were headed down south to California, and you stopped on your way to the church that we were pasturing at the time down there in Canyonville years ago, and you came and told me that you had been baptized a year or two before.
So I believe that prayer can do anything. And here’s Jim now. The prayers of his wife, the prayers of others who knew him and loved him – you know Jim, we’ve often talked about why you love the Lord and why you’re here, and every little thing that God did, but you know, in the bottom line, is the prayer of those who loved you. It’s what made the difference. I’m going to end right there. Let’s stand for prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, of all the things we may not do, may prayer not be on the list of things we don’t do. Lord, help us to understand the power of prayer. We’ve looked at it a little bit today, Lord. We realize that prayer is such a powerful, powerful thing that touches the hearts and the lives of people that we don’t even have the chance to touch physically. But we know that every time we pray, they receive a hug from God, and they feel that love, and they feel that presence of the Lord.
And so right now, while we’re here in prayer, I want you to think about the people you love who need you, who need your prayers. I’m going to ask you to start praying for them right now, whether you want to do it out loud or privately, but just start praying for them right now, in this moment.
Let’s pray for our church right now, just silently, if you want, just pray for our church right now - the people, children, those who aren’t coming. Especially pray for those who haven’t come in a long time, pray for them right now.
Let’s pray for our children, and our schools, and our teachers, and you know our schools’ financial difficulties, let’s pray about that right now.
O Lord, I want to pray for these people right here today, in this church. I ask in the name of Jesus, who is alone worthy to mention His name, I pray through Jesus Christ and His shed blood that you would please touch the lives of these people here today. Help them Lord, those at school. They must have difficulties at school; there must be challenges to their faith. Perhaps there are things that they don’t dare even mention. O Father, please be with those young people at school. Surround them with your presence. Help them to get through these difficult days without yielding their minds or their bodies to the Devil. Help them to be faithful to God, and to do what is right even though others might laugh at them.
Lord, bless the marriages in this church. I ask in the name of Jesus that you will help each husband and each wife know how to communicate with each other. Amen.