The Impact of Prayer - Leaders' Talks

Well, um Amanda, and by the way, thank you, Amanda and Robbie, for that.

We will be hearing from them again here in just a little bit.

But uh mentioned that we have uh a guest with us tonight and as a Dick is a man.

Um Dick is no stranger to the road.

Um he's the president of Every Home for Christ, uh just down the road here, uh, author of over a dozen books, and a personal mentor of our pastor Steve.

Um he is an overseer for the road, and Dick is a great pastor, and as you might already know, is about prayer, and he's gonna be speaking about that tonight.

Would you give uh Dick a real road welcome this evening?

Thank you, thank you.

Well, good evening.

Who's the happiest Christian here?

Can I see your hand?

See, I always like asking that because I like to be among happy people because the joy of the Lord is our strength.

And uh first of all, I'm thankful that I remembered to be here tonight.

Because, you know, as you get older, well, Pastor uh Stephen Liz celebrating their anniversary reminds me that this year my wife and I celebrate our 100th wedding anniversary.

Fifty years for her, 50 years for me.

That's how we had it.

It's a hundred.

And about four years ago or so, I was or through or so, I was speaking to a group of there were several thousand young people in Los Angeles at a conference, and it was kind of humorous to me because they had some kind of title in it, uh Hearing from the Spiritual Fathers, you see.

And when you get as old as I am, you you the next level is Patriarch.

Right here it's spiritual father.

And so I said, I I actually said my wife and I are in just a few weeks are going to be going to be celebrating our 92nd wedding anniversary, and they clapped and they cheered and a standing ovation, and then you could tell there was a few looking at each other saying, He doesn't look that old.

And so then I explained 40 years, six years each, you know, then.

But uh you do, I was thinking you trying to remember everything, and we have such a uh a crazy schedule.

I actually just got back a day ago from uh Bogota uh in Columbia meeting with all of our team from all over Latin America.

Uh there's about 30 leaders that were there, and uh, and then in just a few days, my wife and I go to uh uh India, where the ministry actually celebrates its 50th anniversary.

The Ministry of Every Home for Christ was actually born in Western Canada in 1946.

I'm sometimes introduced as the uh the founder, but I would have been a very gifted two-year-old if that had been the case.

But uh but uh now we've had campaigns taking the gospel home by home in uh over 200 and uh but now it's about 219 nations throughout the world.

And and just a very quick update this past year was a record year for us.

Uh our teams uh we have 4,500 or so supported workers, and then about last year we averaged 45,000 monthly volunteers in addition to those, and they take the gospel home by home.

And last year we had a record of averaging about 250,000 homes visited every single day.

Now, some people say that's not possible, but with God, how many things are possible?

And so that really is happening, and and we will be going out to India to celebrate with thousands and thousands of people that are coming together from all over India.

But you know, I was telling you, it's sometimes you you get a little older and you start forgetting things, and I just heard a story just a couple days ago about two uh elderly ladies uh in their mid or late 80s, and uh they could only get together a few times a week about now because they're just getting older, and and they were playing cards, and right in the middle of the card game, the one old lady looked at the other one and said, You know, I am so terribly embarrassed.

Uh I I I am so embarrassed, but I have forgotten your name.

I don't remember who you are.

And uh look, I just for me, would you mind telling me who you are?

And her friend just stared at her for about three minutes and finally said, How soon do you need to know?

So that's kind of where I'm at tonight.

Uh but it is it's a joy to share with you.

And and our our office is not far from here, and you know that the Jericho Center is a place where people are coming uh day and night actually for prayer.

Uh, we have a wall of prayer where we've imported 50 tons of Jerusalem stone and have individual prayer grottos in the wall.

And uh if you want to come, uh husband and wife to pray, or you just want to come alone or with a few friends, uh just call ahead and reserve one of those rooms at some point and uh come and join us in prayer.

Uh in fact, we've been seeing real growth in that in recent months.

Uh about six months ago, I did a report for people that support us and and uh mentioned that we were averaging about 1,600 to 1,700 hours of individuals coming into the prayer grottos every month.

And this summer the number jumped to over 3,400 uh all all the months of uh the last three months actually.

And uh so we're thankful for what God is doing in that regard.

And I I want to share tonight for a few moments on what I would simply title the impact of prayer.

The impact of prayer uh supernatural insights from the early church.

About a hundred years ago, there was a contemporary of the great American evangelist Dwight L.

Moody.

He was a Bible teacher by the name of uh A.

T.

Pearson.

Dr.

A.

T.

Pearson had a tremendous gift of Bible teaching.

I only learned something just a couple of weeks ago when I googled A.T.

Pearson, wondered if I could learn anything more about him, and found out that if you've ever heard of the great preacher Charles Spurgeon, uh when Charles Spurgeon stepped down from the pulpit of the Metropolitan Baptist Church in London, it was A.T.

Pearson that took his place.

He was the one that followed Spurgeon.

Uh, although uh A.T.

Pearson was an American Presbyterian Bible teacher, he ended up in London.

And uh, but it was A.T.

Pearson who made a statement that one of the several great, great statements I've ever heard uh regarding prayer, and he said, generally, if not uniformly, prayer is both starting point and goal to every movement in which are the elements of permanent progress.

Wherever the church is aroused and the world's wickedness arrested, somebody has been praying.

At least breathe heavy.

It won't even scare me if you say amen.

Let me repeat that last part.

Wherever the church is aroused and the world's wickedness arrested, somebody has been praying.

Amen.

And it's true.

And I want to share with you for just a few minutes on one particular unique and powerful passage in the book of Acts as God began to move in sweeping ways and the challenges that the early church was facing, in fact, the disciples, the key leaders, had been arrested.

And what did they do when they were facing the challenge of the authorities, telling them you can't preach this gospel of Jesus any longer?

And in Acts chapter 4, verse 31, it tells you what they did.

Acts 4:31

This was the foundation of all their strategies.

In Acts chapter 4, verse 31 says, And when they had prayed, say that with me.

Acts 4:31

And when they had prayed, they called a prayer meeting.

And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.

Verse 32, now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul, neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common, and with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.

And some time ago I was just reading through that, and I began to just look carefully at the different things that happened after it said in one they had prayed, and I realized there were at least seven distinct results of the prayer that happened in those moments in the early church.

And it was supernatural.

It was something that was beyond the norm.

In fact, uh the word super means over and above, it means higher in quality or degree, or simply more than.

So if you if you see a target store and then you drive a little further and you see a super target store, it means it's it's beyond what would be normally a target store.

Uh natural means having a normal or usual character, not out not out of the ordinary.

And so, supernatural by definition means departing from what is usual or normal, that which transcends the laws of nature.

You know, I heard another story a while back that, and I love this one, there was a little skinny guy.

He was about five foot eight, weighed about 105 pounds, and he just expected that if a little gust of wind came, it was going to blow him right off the map.

And he walked into a a logging camp up in Oregon someplace.

He asked to see the foreman.

And the foreman came out finally out of a little shad and said, How can I help you?

And he said, I'd like a job.

And the foreman took a look at him and said, We don't need a cook.

We've already got a good cook.

He said, No, I'm not a cook.

He said, I'm a lumberjack.

Well, the guy just broke into laughter, looked at him.

You know, he said, I eat more in your weight for breakfast every day.

There's no way you are a lumberjack.

He said, Well, yes, I am, I'm a lumberjack.

And he and then he laughed even harder, and the and the little skinny guy said, Well, there's an axe over there by your shed.

Why don't you just give me a chance?

So the so the foreman said, Okay, and nearby was a tree, maybe, one of a young tree, you know, maybe about two, three inches thick.

He said, Well, let me see what you can do with that.

And he picked up that axe, and I mean, in one fell swoop, whoop! He, I mean, only about four or five inches from the bottom, uh from the ground.

That thing just fell.

And the foreman looked at him and said, My goodness, he said, Well, let's try a bigger tree.

Went over to a tree that was about eight inches.

He said, Let me see what you can do with that.

And the little skinny guy goes, Whoop, whoop, whoop! I mean, just three times.

And the foreman looked at him and said, Where on earth did you learn to cut timber like that?

And he said, The Sahara Forest.

And the guy said, Don't you mean the Sahara Desert?

And the little skinny guy said, Yeah, now.

Supernatural.

It's beyond what is ordinary.

And so when I look at this passage of Scripture and I see these words, when they had prayed, there are seven things that I could tack on with that expression, when they had prayed.

And the first thing, when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken.

Now, this always means something to me special because we were up, uh, oh, I'm trying to remember the when we were in in California, I led a prayer retreat up in the mountains, Mammoth Mountain, I think, is where the ski area was.

And uh, we got them all together and we were getting ready to go into a night of prayer, and I said to the young people, now we're just gonna get down on our knees and we're gonna begin to seek God.

And we're gonna do this for a little while individually, and you can even pray out loud if you want, but we're just gonna do it.

There was about 150 young people there.

And I read the scripture, and this is not an exaggeration.

I read the scripture, you know, in the book of Acts, it says in Acts 4.31, and when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together, and we're gonna pray for God to shake us in his spirit.

And literally, as they started to pray, you'll think I'm making this up, there was about a 3.5 or a 3.7 earthquake right there in Mammoth Mountain that was big enough that the whole building went.

Oh, we had so many kids get saved that night.

I mean, we, oh, we had revival, and they just wow, this works, they thought.

But look in the paper, you know, the next day it actually said there was an earthquake there.

There, there's kind of two explanations for for this when you say, when you read, the place was shaken where they're assembled together.

First of all, there's it it could be and was, I believe, a simple demonstration of the manifest presence of God.

In other words, this wasn't just an analogy.

The building really shook.

It really shook when they prayed.

But then when we look at it in our generation and today, it can actually be a shaking up of the status quo in order for God to begin to remove impurities from our lives and the lives of the church.

In Haggai chapter 2, verses 6 and 7, you see this uh prophetic statement made by the prophet Haggai that I will shake all nations and the desire of all nations will come.

Haggai 2:6

By the way, there are scores of names of the Messiah, the Lord, in Scripture that are phrases, and here is one of them: the desire of all nations.

That's the Lord.

That's speaking of Jesus.

The desire of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory, and the glory of the present house will be greater than the glory of the former house.

How many really, really believe America needs another awakening, another revival of the glory of the Lord?

And that's what we're we're all praying toward.

Hebrews chapter 12, verse 26 speaks of a shaking.

Hebrews 12:26

It says, Once more, I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens, so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

We've gone through shakings, all of us at different times in our walk with the Lord.

We've seen economic shakings.

Now we look on the news and we see what's happening in the Middle East and the uh radical Islam and things that are taking place.

In fact, in our ministry, uh Every Home for Christ, uh, we've been we've just been introducing, that's why I was in Bogota with all of our leaders for the Latin American region, and we go on, and uh and all the uh the uh uh regional people from Southeast Asia and South Asia will gather in India.

And we're introducing uh uh a 17-step prayer mobilization plan for the nations to mobilize what we're calling a harvest prayer movement because of the sense we need more prayer than ever before, because the challenges that are yet ahead in in reaching a lost world uh are increasing, and especially when you see some of the dilemma that is faced in the persecution of the church in many parts of the world, and I don't know of any other solution but to pray more and to pray harder.

We know we're going to have ultimate victory because we read the Bible, and we know what the Bible tells us is gonna happen, and I not only in Isaiah 11, but also in Habakkuk chapter 2, the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Habakkuk 2 · chapter mention

Uh Matthew 24, 14, this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed, and the whole world is a witness to all peoples, and then the end will come.

How many believe the Bible?

So that's gonna happen, but there's going to be some challenges along the way.

And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together.

And then the second impact I see is a supernatural empowerment.

So, first of all, is a supernatural shaking.

And then is a supernatural empowerment.

And when they had prayed, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

Wouldn't that be interesting to be in a community of believers where all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit?

I mean, imagine.

Well, in fact, you'll see what flows out of the rest of that very statement itself.

Acts chapter 1.8, when Jesus was about to ascend up into heaven.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

In chapter acts, in Acts chapter 1.8, he said, When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me, the New Living Translation says.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

You will tell people about me everywhere, in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and what the Lord is saying was just giving them the scope of the spread of the gospel.

So in Jerusalem, that's right where you live, and then branching out through throughout Judea and Samaria, and then to the very ends of the earth.

The very ends of the earth.

And you know, I remember sometimes when I read passages, memories, thoughts come back of the journey that we've been on and the places where we were.

And I remember back in oh around 1993 and 94, we started hearing testimony from our work in central area of Africa.

Now it's called the Democratic uh uh, let's see, the D D D Democratic People's Republic or whatever it is.

Uh used to be Zaire.

And uh uh but uh we heard in the there's two great rainforests in in uh uh in Africa, the Ituri rainforest and then the equatorial rainforest.

And in parts of Zaire, in the northern part, is is the Ituri rainforest.

And we heard that out of a a cluster group of pygmies, of uh about 6,000 pygmies in this one, and they're they're all related in clans, that 1,400 of them had come to know Jesus in about a year.

And it and uh at that time I was beginning to write a book on what God was doing, and I just had this longing.

I I want to go to that region of the world.

And I remember seeing on a on a television talk show just before I was to fly out uh to Zaire, and then we were going to, in fact, I was initially told it was gonna take uh 11 days in a canoe.

I thought, you know, that's a little long for me to be in a canoe.

And then we found out that there the ministry called Mission Aviation Fellowship have pilots, and we found one.

Can you imagine that was able to take me uh and a couple of others with me and our team up uh into a landing on a grass landing strip by a river called the Mumboyo River up in the northern part of Zaire, and instead of 11 days, it was three and a half hours in the plane.

I mean, this is that's a good deal, you know.

Except we were flying through storms and it was a single-engine plane and literally hail at one point bouncing off the plane and lightning there and lightning there, and you learn new ways to pray.

And and then it was only 14 hours.

The last part of the trip on the Mumboya River was 14 hours, but just before heading on that trip, uh there was I I saw on a talk show, television talk show, a guy that had just written a book called The Hot Zone about Ebola.

And I made the mistake because there was a break, an outbreak then, the first major outbreak of Ebola that uh that I we'd we'd ever heard about, and it was all in the news.

And uh I mean that that book described, I mean, it scared the life out of you, and but I didn't know how close we were to the outbreak of Ebola until we were on the Mumboya River and I had a map, and just a few miles above us was another river called the Ebola River, and that's where it got its name.

So that's how close we were.

And then I I didn't find out until after I ate monkey meat for the first time.

Oh, what does it taste like?

It tastes like you would imagine monkey meat would taste like.

It just like like uh Ben and Jerry's actually has ice cream, you know, called chunky monkey, and it says made with natural ingredients.

So I don't uh particularly uh I haven't really eaten that.

But we so I had so now where was I?

But it was only afterwards that I found out you could get Ebola from monkey meat.

Uh but that was 15 years ago, and I'm doing fine.

But so we what but we heard of These all these people coming to Jesus and the humorous part about what when I first heard about the pygmies coming to Jesus, all of our reports, and we have got a wonderful database system, and the reports that come in of how many homes are reached and how many people respond, and then how many are discipled, and then where there are no churches at all in many of these places, and 15 or 20 people come to Jesus, we form baby fellowships, just like Acts, the the early chapters of the book of Acts, people meeting in homes and places gathering together under trees.

We call them Christ groups.

And uh so we we get the got these reports, and I noticed that our director for that region never told how many homes were reached, and so I sent him a letter saying, My brother, we we are so thankful that for the pygmies coming to Jesus, but for our statistics, we appreciate if you tell us how many homes are being reached amongst the pygmies.

So he he writes back saying, Well, brother Dick, you don't understand pygmies don't live in homes, they live in trees.

Well, of course, I thought this is funny.

I remember Tarzan, you know, uh from Tarzan movies, living up in a tree house.

So, like an idiot, I write him back saying, Well, even if they live in tree houses, that's still a home.

Why don't you tell us how many tree houses uh that you're reaching?

And he writes back saying, You don't understand, they don't even live in tree houses, they just sleep in the trees.

And of course, we've taught we've called our ministry for years, the every home crusade, and we have a motto, the last home.

We won't stop until we reach the last home on earth with the gospel.

So I get a letter back from him, and uh uh and he prints in big letter because uh Lingala and French were the two main languages, but he spoke English, and so he prints in English.

He said, Brother Dick, we will not, he said, we have launched the every tree crusade.

And he said, we will not stop until we reach the last tree on earth with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And do you know, a few years later, after that, we received a report that to all the their evidence, all 6,000 of those pygmies in that group had now come to Jesus Christ as Savior.

And so we're seeing these kind of things happen.

And so when I see, oh, I wanted to tell you, when it says, and and and and you will take the gospel even to the ends of the earth.

And when I got out way out into this remote area, and the I was told the name of this place is called Bosuka.

And so I said, Bosuka.

And I said, Well, what does Bosuka mean?

And so the interpreter turned to the pygmy, one of the pygmy leaders, and he was asking them what bosuka means, and then the interpreter started to laugh.

And he turned to me, he said, It means the end of the earth.

And so I've been there.

And but we've seen what God is doing, and you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses.

And so the second impact is the supernatural, a supernatural empowerment.

And then the third, the third impact you see in this passage, but I would preface it again, and when they had prayed, they spoke the word of God with boldness.

There was such a courage that they had to give the good news of Jesus.

And we are seeing this in workers all over the world that uh, in fact, when I stand like with our team of workers uh in in um in Latin America just a few days ago, and you realize what either they themselves or the teams that they have, what they go through and the places they go into and how they minister.

Uh it's absolutely astonishing.

And of course, we've we've over the years seen so many stories.

I remember a few years ago in India hearing about 13 Hindus that had come to Jesus in a Hindu village.

And one of our field evangelists went in after these 13 had come to Jesus to baptize them in the local river.

And when each one of them came up out of the water from being baptized, they saw their houses in flames because they were being burned to the ground because they'd given their lives to Jesus.

And then I heard the testimony that the last one that was baptized came up out of the water, a young lady, and said, I want to publicly thank God that on the very day of our baptism we have lost everything we have for Jesus.

We have lost, I mean, it was just there that I don't even understand some of the courage that they have.

And we we've heard these kind of testimonies over and over in the ministry in some of these most difficult areas where people are very severely persecuted.

The fourth impact is a supernatural unity.

Now, and when they had prayed, the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul.

See, it all begins, it all flows out of the prayer.

And when they had prayed, these different things come.

And when they had prayed, the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul.

The message Bible that I've come to just really enjoy, and in fact, this is my Bible, and my wife, she she's upset now that it's that it's scotch taped, so the pages don't fall out.

And someone said, Well, you can send it away and get it get it rebound, but it takes six weeks.

And I said, I can't afford to be without my Bible for six weeks.

But anyway, I love them, I love the message, and if you if you you'd like to get uh into a uh a unique paraphrase, you'll enjoy you'd enjoy the message.

I've been in it for several years now.

Uh the message reads for this passage the whole congregation of believers was united as one.

One heart and one mind.

Isn't it more enjoyable and more pleasant to be among believers that are united?

I mean, don't we just believe that's God's plan?

He wants us to be of one heart and one soul.

I remember one of the most remarkable stories I've ever heard about this, and I don't know if you ever heard this.

You we all know about the Olympic Games.

Every four years you have the best athletes in the world come together.

But uh some years ago, um they began to announce the the Special Olympics.

You may the Special Olympics where they're usually held around the same time, usually after, I think, the regular Olympics, where the people have uh handicaps, we would say, or uh the the uh uh uh obviously they're challenged in various ways, uh, some physically, some mentally.

And I believe it was uh related to the 1984 Olympics that actually were in Los Angeles, if I'm not mistaken, the the story I'm about to tell you happened at the Special Olympics uh during that time, either after or before, whenever it was at that time, and there was a group of about nine young people running in like a oh, I think it was like 50 meters or something, they were running in a race, and they were 16 years of age, 17, maybe even a couple of them, 18, I don't know the exact ages, but their minds were like those of a five-year-old or a six-year-old.

So they were not, they were not normal.

We understand that.

And so they were all lined up to run in this race, 50 meters, and they really all wanted to win.

That was their desire.

And when, and here there was a crowd of thousands and thousands of people looking on at this race as it was about to begin, and the starter lifted up his pistol and said, ready and set, and you could see, you could you could tell by their demeanor, the way they would look at one another, and the way they would smile, and that they wouldn't, they just weren't normal athletes.

You could tell that.

And then when the the the the the starters said, on your mark, get ready, you know, and uh fired the the pistol, and they all started running.

And you could tell they weren't running as fast as normal athletes would in any sense, but as they started to run, they only went maybe 10 or 12 meters or maybe 30, 40 feet, or whatever that would be.

And one of them, more a more heavy set, a young man, stumbled and he fell down onto the cinder track, and the way his knee hit, and just in fact, he reacted like a four-year-old or a five or six-year-old would in that same situation.

He rolled over onto a side, his knee was just cut slightly, he grabbed a hold of it, began to just sob and cry out in pain, and the the crowd was looking on and they saw the most amazing thing happen.

All the other runners stopped and turned and ran back to him.

And they formed a circle around him, got down, and one of the one of the young people was patting him on the head, saying it's okay.

Another one actually bent over and kissed the wound.

You know, kiss it better.

And the whole crowd, the clock is still going, the race is still going, but they're watching all of this happen before their eyes, and what happened next absolutely stunned everybody.

The other eight kids, young people, put their hands underneath that boy and lifted him up, and they all ran the rest of the race together.

And they all finished at the same time, and I understand they all got the gold medal.

They did it together.

That's a picture of unity.

Oh, that the Lord would let us have that kind of spirit in the church.

Number five, number five is uh a supernatural generosity.

That's giving beyond normal.

And when they had prayed, neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common.

And here the message Bible reads No one said that's mine, you can't have it.

They shared everything.

Oh my, imagine a church that would be like that.

You know what?

It's it's being alert to people around us and the needs they have, and then be responding to those.

Verse 34 and the message says, So it turned out that not a person among them was needy.

Not a person among them was needy.

That's a powerful picture of the early church, a supernatural generosity.

And uh over the years I've come to meet people that have that kind of a spirit.

And oh, how refreshing and encouraging it is.

And I know in a ministry like ours, it absolutely could not be doing what we're what we're doing around the world without generous people.

And so we thank God for them.

Well, there's just a couple more here of thoughts that I want to share.

Uh, the sixth thing is a supernatural anointing.

Because it says, and and and if you if you preface this within when they had prayed, and then you look at the different things that follow, it says you could say it this way, and when they had prayed with great power, the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ with great power.

The apostles gave witness, they had an authority.

They had, you know, what you could call it was an anointing.

Now, some people, how do you even define the anointing?

One of the great writers on prayer, E.

M.

Bounds, who actually lived during the Civil War, and then he was an attorney during the Civil War, and then after the Civil War, he became one, I think, probably one of the greatest intercessors that I've I've ever I've ever read about.

And he's written, he wrote numbers of books on prayer, one of which uh it profoundly impacted my life when I was about 21 or 22 years old and just starting in the ministry.

And and in one of his books, Ian Bounds said this, and I I found this in a devotional.

He said, Everyone knows what the freshness of the morning is like, and this is the way he said it, when orient pearls abound on every blade of grass.

But who can describe it, much less produce it?

Such is the mystery of spiritual anointing.

We know, but we cannot tell others what it is.

We call it unction or anointing.

Unction is a thing that you cannot manufacture or produce.

It is the anointing which gives the words of the preacher such meaning, sharpness, and power, and which creates friction and stirs and revives many a dead congregation.

And then he concludes, spiritual anointing is in itself priceless beyond measure, if you wish to edify believers and bring sinners to God.

There's something about that supernatural anointing when it comes.

I remember hearing a story, uh a true story of in our own ministry in China.

And we we share so little.

If you went on our website, you wouldn't see anything mentioned about China because of security issues.

And so, in a setting like this, I can say a little bit.

Uh except to tell you, it's one of our most fruitful fields in the entire world.

And I remember when three ladies were going home to home in a village and came to a particular house, three ladies came to a house, and when they knocked on the door to give them the gospel, to share with them about Jesus, because when we go home to home, we always have literature, and and and in the event no one's even there, we can at least leave the printed page, often for adults and children, uh, with a clear message so they can read it and and know who Jesus is and even have an opportunity to respond.

And uh in in in places like China, they'll even put their cell phone number.

You know, there's over six or seven hundred million mobile phones now in China.

Twice as many mobile phones in China as there are people in America.

And so the police can't even keep up with track all that they try, but uh so so our workers will often write their cell phone number and say, if you uh on on the literature they give, if if you have any questions, call.

And they do.

Well, anyway, they came to this house, and when they opened the door, there was a young couple weeping, just standing there weeping.

And of course, it didn't take them long as they said, Well, what's wrong to this couple?

They said, Well, our little boy, I think it we stepped on a rusty nail some week days before that, and it advanced to the point what it seemed like there was no hope whatsoever.

The doctors could do nothing, and they they thought, well, our little boy is going to die.

And one of those ladies said, Our Jesus can heal your little boy.

Would you have the courage even to say that?

You might say, Well, let's pray and see what might happen.

Sometimes that's the way, but they they said, Our Jesus can heal.

Well, they were they were open to anything to happen.

I mean, when you get to a point of desperation like that, they invited them in.

Oh, please, yes, pray to your God, please.

They prayed over that little boy, and the testimony we received was that the power of the Holy Spirit came instantly, and that little boy broke into a sweat and was totally healed in that moment.

And one of the workers gave the literature.

You know how easy it was to lead them to Jesus at that point?

See, we told you.

And they they led that couple to Jesus, but that's not the end of the story.

About six weeks later, they got a phone call, one of the people that left their phone number, and said, Could you send us 49 Bibles and 49 lessons about Jesus?

Because they told them they would send them follow-up material.

And they they said, Well, why do you need 49?

Because that's how many of our neighbors are now meeting in our home, and we're telling them about Jesus, and they want to know more.

And that that's what I mean by the power of the Holy Spirit, with great power.

The apostles gave witness to the resurrection of Jesus.

It's the anointing.

Uh, yeah, I had another memory that came to my mind of uh there's a great Scottish theologian by the name of Jay Sidlow Baxter.

He's in heaven now.

And one time in a large church, I had the privilege of being um on a team uh for a mission weekend speaking, and Jay Sidlow Baxter uh that I had heard of, I'd read his material, and uh and Jay Sidlow Baxter was one of the speakers.

Now he was unique.

I tell you, every word that he spoke seemed to be filled with power, but he he was unique in this regard.

He read his sermons word for word, and he had bad eyesight.

So he would have his notes like this.

I I can't even get into the depth of what he spoke on, other than to say that some weeks before that or months, he had lost his wife.

I think they'd been married over 60 years, and he described the love he had for his wife and the loss of his wife, and then described how the loss of his wife brought him into a new intimacy and love of Jesus.

I honestly never heard anything uh quite like it.

But during that message, during that message, he got to speaking.

Somehow he got into Hebrews chapter 7, where Jesus ever lives to make intercessor for us, and he saves us to the uttermost.

Hebrews 7 · chapter mention

Now, this part I remember distinctly because he's standing behind the pulpit and he's reading this.

He's saying, Oh, he saves us to the uttermost.

Oh, this is what he's saying, his salvation is full, free, final, and forever.

Oh, I can hardly stand it.

I'm so happy.

Oh, I'm almost beside myself.

Oh, I think I'm going to do it.

Oh, I hope nobody is offended, but I can't help myself.

I'm so happy.

Yes, I'm going to do it.

And he laid his he laid his sermon down, stepped back, and went, Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! And went right back to his sermon.

That was my memory.

You don't have to be spectacular to have the anointing.

There was a couple guys, I mean, uh there was a businessman's luncheon.

I heard this story some years ago, and a guy came to this business luncheon, kind of new, Christian businessman, and before the speaker got up, a couple guys near this newcomer were talking about their pastor.

And they said, Man, last Sunday he had the greatest anointing I think I've ever seen our pastor have.

And the other one said, Oh man, I know.

That was just incredible.

And they were talking about the anointing for a while, so finally this newcomer sitting right there said, Excuse me, I I I don't I don't think I understand that.

What is the anointing?

And well, they kind of looked at each other and looked at him and said, you know, uh, I don't know how you'd even describe it.

He said, but we have a farmer in our church, he lives outside of town.

Name's Farmer Brown.

He has the gift of wisdom, like no one I know.

I I'm sure if you go out and and and see him, his farm is just outside of town there.

And if you go out and you ask him, I uh I'm sure he can describe to you what the anointing is.

And so the next day, this this guy goes out to see Farmer Brown.

He finally finds him out in the field someplace and goes over to him and says, Are you farmer brown?

He says, Yeah.

And he said, Do you go to such and such a church?

Yeah, he said, Well, I've heard that your pastor sometimes really has the anointing.

He said, Yeah, he he he he really does.

Last Sunday, he really had the anointing.

And so the the guy says, Well, can you explain what the anointing is?

And oh Farmer Brown thought for a minute and said, Well, you know, I he said, You see my cow over there?

Yeah, I said that that's Bessie, my cow.

She'll give you about eight or ten quarts of milk every day.

But that's just normal for her.

That's just being a normal good cow.

See that tree over there beside near Bessie?

See that bluebird up there in the tree?

Yeah.

Can you hear it singing?

I say, yeah, I can.

He said, Well, that's just normal.

That's just normal for a bluebird.

Bluebirds are supposed to sing like that.

But now, if you can get my cow, Bessie.

Up in that tree singing like that bluebird, you've got the anointing.

So, there you go.

Now, now you I want to give you some kind of depth in my teaching so that you can take something away with you and say, well, at least he fed me.

With great power, the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of Jesus.

Well, let me conclude with point number seven.

And when they had prayed, great grace was upon them all.

The New Living Translation reads, and God's great favor was upon them.

God's favor.

Of course, that's related to the word favorite, as we know.

These people, in a sense, were God's favorites.

I I once heard someone say, if you want to get in good with God, brag on his son.

That's good.

If you want to get in good with God, brag on his son.

You know, it reminded me in Genesis how it says in Genesis 6, 8, Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

And uh so I was I looked this up in the Message Bible, and it just simply this is the way the message paraphrases things.

It just says, God liked what he saw in Noah.

God liked what he saw in Noah.

So you look back at this passage of the impact of prayer, and when they had prayed, it brings a supernatural shaking, a supernatural empowerment, a supernatural courage, a supernatural unity, a supernatural generosity.

There's so much that happens, a supernatural anointing and a supernatural favor.

And I want to encourage you again, I first of all, even in the simplest way to set aside time to be alone with the Lord on a daily basis.

And I and I encourage, you know, there's 90 of course, 24 hours in a day, so there's uh you know, four quarter hours in each hour.

That's 96 15-minute periods.

Surely we can give the Lord one 96th of our day.

Surely, just to open up the pages of the Word and talk to Him and then watch it beginning to begin to grow in our walk with Him.

And we often refer to that as a quiet time, but it's just a time to be alone with the Lord and then to get with others to pray.

And just I encourage people, of course, to have a set time every day because once you develop a habit, in fact, psychologists tell us that if you do anything ex nearly exactly the same time and in a similar way for 21 times in a row, like 21 days in a row, you it that I don't know how they came up with an average like that, that that it forms a habit.

That if on the 22nd day you don't do it, you you'll be saying to yourself, something's wrong.

What's wrong?

I'm missing something.

And so it's a matter of developing a habit.

And then it's just like breathing, it's just like normal.

Let me conclude with something over the years that has uh impacted my life, and it's a statement, and it's why I believe so strongly in our ministry uh in prayer being an absolute foundation.

Uh, every home for Christ, we often refer to that the ministry is built upon three unalterable convictions.

Conviction number one, that the Great Commission must be taken literally.

How many agree every person on earth deserves at least one chance to know who Jesus is?

And so we find strategies to do that, and that's why we go to where people live, because everyone lives someplace.

The Great Commission must be taken literally.

Number two, without unity, the task is impossible.

No one denomination is going to win, reach the whole world.

No one strat, no one ministry is going to.

We can play different parts.

We need each other.

So without unity, the task is impossible.

But but conviction number three, prayer will remove all the obstacles that stand in the way.

And that's why we mobilize prayer as we do.

Our executive director came to me a couple years ago, Tim Millerbrook, and he said, Dick, you know, I don't know that you've ever thought much about this.

You know, we have morning prayer with the whole staff, uh, then in the afternoon we meet again with the whole staff.

Um, and now we uh encourage all the staff to set aside one entire day every two months.

We call them climb the mountain days, and they go into the prayer grottoes, and uh, and uh, you know, they're still on salary, but what they do is they just take that day to be alone with the Lord.

But he and he was telling me, Sitter, I don't know if you're aware of this, I was adding up the amount of time that the staff spends in prayer, and it's now 20% of their work week.

In other words, a double tithe of their week is spent in some way related in prayer groups or in prayer.

And you know what?

I can tell you what's interesting about that?

I think they're producing now more uh out of their walk with the Lord than even before, because there's nothing we can tell that of anything that's diminished.

And yet the Lord is doing so much more.

And I was, and the reason I allude to that is in my own life, I have felt that my calling is more, and I I'm just telling you, my heart is more that of an intercessor than uh, you know, I know I I lead a ministry and all that, but we have a whole team that do a lot of things.

But I feel closer to the heart of God's purpose in my life when I'm with people praying.

And so that's just something I feel, and and uh I've and I sometimes say this, I don't say that to be boastful, I say that to be grateful.

That the Lord, how many know that God, I like to say it this way, God can do more in five minutes by accident than we can do in five years on purpose.

And so we need God in our strategies.

But there's a passage of scripture I would end with.

I won't get into a great lengthy discussion in this, but because when you get into the book of Revelation, there's a lot of things that sometimes sometimes are confusing to many.

And I know they're confusing to me.

We wonder when's this gonna happen?

What what what what is John really seeing?

And and all the the sometimes the symbolism and uh and what does all this mean?

And then you come down to, well, of course, in in Revelation chapter 5, it talks about the elders and living creatures coming before the Lord with with uh uh harps in one hand and bowls in the other, filled with the prayers of the saints.

Revelation 5 · chapter mention

And of course, some have taken that to be an interpretation of what they call harp and bowl ministry, or uh, like I've written a book on it called Worship Saturated On Worship Saturated Prayer.

Actually, the book title is Intercessor Worship, but on worship saturated prayer and the impact that that has, because when they brought their bowls and their harps before the lamb, then the song was sung.

A new song the Bible says, that out of every tribe and every tongue and every people and every nation, the redeemed were coming.

So it was the song of the harvest.

And then as you go on, you get to Revelation chapter eight, where an angel comes before the throne and releases, you can read this for yourself in the first six verses of Revelation chapter eight, they release all the prayers of the saints.

I don't understand all that that means, but it says it's mingled with incense.

The message Bible says the incense-laced prayers of the saints rose before the throne.

And then everything of the final aspects of God's mystery and plan are then unfolded after that.

And so Walter Wink, the great theologian, made uh comments on this because the Revelation chapter 8.

Revelation 8 · chapter mention

Oh, I have to stop and tell you, when I was in Bible college, a roommate came to me.

Oh, please, ladies, now don't be offended.

But he said to me, Hey Dick, there's a time when there's going to be no women in heaven.

And I said, What?

What do you mean, no women in heaven?

Yeah, look at this verse.

It says, and there was silence in heaven for about the space of half an hour.

So I didn't want you to, but because I didn't, I didn't, you know, his crazy roommate that I hope he's living for the Lord.

Anyway, but it does.

It starts now.

Why is that significant?

What have the angels been doing since their very creation, all through history, day and night, but worshiping at the throne?

What has Jesus been doing, ever living to make intercession for us?

And suddenly it stops.

And I was, oh, I went to a commentary once because I was very interested.

Well, I wonder what causes the silence.

And do you know what the commentary says?

The commentary actually said, no one knows for sure what causes the silence.

And I thought, well, thanks a lot.

I can write commentary like that.

No one knows what this means.

Let's go on to something else.

No one knows what it means.

And as I was looking at it, what full unfolds after that.

Because as soon as the prayers are released at the throne, seven angels are given trumpets, and each one sounds, and something happens until the seventh angel sounds with the trumpet.

Revelation 11, 15.

And when the seventh angel sounds with the trumpet, there's a great shout in heaven.

The kingdoms of this world have now become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.

There is something that's happening in that moment because it's over.

The kingdoms of this earth are now under the control of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And so here's what Walter Wink says about that silence and about the prayers being released.

And this is what I'll end with.

Walter Wink says this so beautifully: heaven itself falls silent.

The heavenly hosts and celestial spheres suspend their ceaseless singing so that the prayers of the saints on earth can be heard.

The seven angels of destiny cannot blow the signal of the next times to be until an eighth angel gathers these prayers and mingles them with incense upon the altar.

Silently they rise to the nostrils of God.

Human beings have interrupted the heavenly liturgy.

The uninterrupted flow of consequences is damned for a moment.

New alternatives become feasible.

The unexpected becomes suddenly possible because God's people on earth have invoked heaven, the home of the possibles, and have been heard.

What happens next happens because people prayed.

The message is clear.

I've got to do that to wake everybody up.

The message is clear.

History belongs to the intercessor.

Now that may not excite you, but it excites me, and I'm gonna go home excited.

The message is clear.

And you know why it's so important about this.

You may not be able to sing as beautifully as the worship team.

You may not be able to teach the Bible like Pastor Steve or others.

You may never write a book, but you can touch heaven every day.

You can intervene in people's lives.

Intercession is from the Latin word intersidiri, which means to go between, to go into someone else's battle.

And you can do that every day in the simplest way, asking the Holy Spirit to guide you, and uh and he will.

Wherefore let thy voice rise like a fountain day and night.

But long before Tennyson said that, God said to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 33, 3, call unto me, and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things thou knowest not.

So I thank you for letting me be a part of your worship time tonight.

And let me just pray for you before I step aside.

Father, I thank you so much for this extraordinary gift you've given us called prayer.

Lord, it's it's something we can we can be involved in no matter what our gifts are, no matter what our talents may be.

And Lord, we can be history changers.

And Lord, we can be difference makers.

And so, Lord, we want to be that for your glory.

So bless the road, Lord, to bless those who are coming to be nurtured and encouraged.

And the days that are ahead, Lord, we pray that each one here will prosper and be in health, even as their souls prosper, and then corporately that this body will prosper to bring you even greater glory than we could ever imagine.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

And everybody said, Amen.

Can I have you guys stand with me, please?

Who wants that kind of faith?