The Power of Prayer

I would like to read a very famous passage about prayer and the power of prayer.

A famous story from Exodus chapter 17, from verse 8 to 13.

Exodus 17 · chapter mention

The Amalekites came and attacked Israelites at the Raphidim.

Moses said to Joshua, choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites.

Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.

So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered.

And Moses, Aaron, and Huer went to the top of the hill.

As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning.

But whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning.

Very strange.

What's the relation between his hands and the battle down the valley?

When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him.

And he sat on it.

Aaron and Hur held his hands up.

One on one side, one on the other, so that his hands remained steady till sunset.

Can you imagine to raise your hand twelve hours from the sunrise to the sunset?

Try to do it for five minutes, you will be.

So Joshua overcame the Amalekites' army with the sword.

Going up to the top of the hill with the staff of God in his hand, he made a big change to make a history.

This is a real story.

It's not a myth, it's a real story, it's a historic story.

In the Old Testament, the enemies were flesh and blood.

But in the New Testament and the New Covenant, Jesus taught us that our enemies are no longer flesh and blood.

In Ephesians chapter 6, verse 12, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood.

Ephesians 6:12

We have no enemies out of flesh or blood.

No, even your flesh and even your blood.

But against rulers, against the powers, against the word, rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.

We are in a fight.

We are in a real battle.

And our enemies are not seen, are not felt, they are not flesh and blood, which is more serious and more dangerous.

And the results can be with a great impact.

Going up the hill to pray for Joshua, to pray for the future, to pray for the nation, to pray for the salvation, to pray for the fulfillment of God's will in his nation.

This is the power of prayer.

This story is a practical application to see with your own eyes the power of prayer to make the history happening.

In general, the prayer life is an expression, is a testimony, is a thermometer to measure three things: your humility, my humility, my faith, my trust, and my love and passion to be with God.

Take care of that.

Your prayer life will tell you how much you are humble before God, how much you trust God and how much you love Him.

Let me explain this.

In 2 Chronicles chapter 7, verse 14, if my people who are called by name, if my people, if my sons and daughters will humble themselves and do what?

2 Chronicles 7:14

And pray.

There is a great link between humility and prayer.

Why?

Why?

It's very simple.

The prayer life is a message sent from my heart to God saying, Lord, I need you.

I cannot do it without you.

I cannot live it without you.

The prayer life is the real expression of our you, our own, your, my real humility.

What is pride?

Pride is Lord, I can do it without you, I can live it without you, I can be independent.

Humility is I cannot.

I want to depend on you.

I need you.

So I'm seeking your faith.

So I'm calling upon your name.

So I'm sparing time in my life to come to be united with you.

The same thing.

The prayer is the expression of how much I trust him.

I have faith in him.

In Hebrew chapter 11, verse 6, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists.

And prayer is, I come to you, I go to into your presence because I believe you are there.

You are there, not only you are there, and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

You are not only there, but you hear, you listen, and you answer.

You are a real God, you are a living God.

I believe in you, I trust you, I depend on you.

You are more than anything else in this world, real to me.

Prayer is the expression of faith.

And the real expression of love.

If you love someone really, you love him, then you want to meet with him, you want to get in touch with him, you want to see him personally, not just to have a phone call.

Hi honey, how are you?

I miss you, bye-bye.

No, no, you want to meet her, you want to spend time to her face to face, you want to hear her voice because you love her.

Prayer is you go into the very presence of God to do what?

To see him, to meet him, to listen to his warm voice.

Psalms 63, verse 1 and 2.

Psalms 63:1

Oh Lord, you are my God.

Earnestly, I seek you, I want you.

My soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you.

For what?

Because I have seen you before, I have met you before, and since then I long to see you again and again and again.

And every time I meet you, I have more passion.

Earnestly, I seek you.

Remember that your prayer life will tell you how much you are really humbled, and how much you believe in him, and how much you love him.

And this is the our story in Exodus 17.

Moses, the man of prayer, the man of miracles, the man of God, he knows well how much the prayer is more important than anything else.

Yes, we need Joshua down the valley, we need our men, we need to serve, we need to go to the valley, we need to go to work, we need to love, we need to preach the gospel, we need to do that.

But above all, and before anything else, we need to do what?

To pray, to go up the hill with the staff of God in our hand, to raise our hand, to raise our voices, to cry out to God, Lord, we need you, Lord, we believe in you, that you are there, you listen to our prayers, you Lord, we love you, and we want to meet with you.

In this story, we see clearly three lessons.

The prayer, three expressions, and in this story we see three lessons.

Number one, what is happening up the hill in the prayer, what is happening in the presence of God is determining the result of what is happening down the valley, not vice versa.

Not vice versa.

Wow, it's very dangerous, it's becoming very dangerous.

As long as Moses, verse 11, held his hands up, the Israelites were winning.

But whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning.

The same Joshua, the man of God, the same army, the same weapons, the same day, the same everything.

But what is happening up the hill is determining what is happening down.

The same enemy, the same problems, the same challenges.

But if you don't win the battle in the presence of God, you cannot win it down the valley.

You cannot, you cannot, it's very clear.

Joshua couldn't see it because he was there fighting and winning sometimes and defeated sometimes.

What is happening?

But up the hill, Moses could see it clearly.

It's up to me, it's up to me.

Very dangerous.

If you lowered your hand, Joshua will be killed.

The kingdom will be defeated, the glory of God will be gone.

Do you believe that?

Do we as a church now we believe that it's up to prayer first?

We have to go up the hill and to fight and to win it there, so we can go and change the world down the valley.

Jesus told us this in John 14, 12 to 14.

I tell you the truth, I tell you the truth.

Anyone who has faith in me, this is the power of faith through prayer, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.

He will do even greater things than these.

Because I am going to the father.

And this is the relation between faith and prayer.

I am going to the father.

And whatever you ask in my name, I will do whatever you ask in my name.

It's a blank check.

So that the son may bring glory to the father.

There is here a very good remark.

Sometimes we think, okay, I will go to and I will pray, Lord, I want three Mercedes and four castles.

Whatever you ask in my name to bring glory to the Father, I will do it.

If you don't ask for yourself, if you ask for my glory, Jesus said, I will do it.

I will do it.

I have hundreds of stories to tell us and to tell me that this is true.

This is true.

Many things that we want as a church to do it for God's glory.

We want to see the unbelievers coming to accept Christ.

We want to see those far away, not from this sheep pen, to meet Christ.

And we cannot go to them.

A lot of barriers around them, a lot of barriers inside them.

For example, this is the case of the Muslims that we live among them in Egypt.

And for so long we felt that we are unable to do it until we discover there is something here.

Jesus promised that whatever you ask in my name for my glory, I will do it.

Let's try.

So we decided to try it.

Okay, let's try, Lord.

We cannot go to them, but you can.

If we tell them that you are the Son of God, they will not believe it, they will mock us, they will disgrace the truth.

But if you go to them in a vision or a dream, then they will believe you, and then they will come to us and we will baptize them.

So we made a deal with him.

Since then, we started to see hundreds and thousands of Muslims met Christ in a vision or a dream.

I tell you one story.

I met, I saw a lady came to our uh church, and her story is very unique one.

She is a medical doctor.

Jesus appeared to her, and she gave her life to Christ.

And she started to pray for her husband.

I want my husband to believe in Christ too.

So she started to pray and pray and pray for him.

So Jesus appeared to him and he believed in Christ.

So why not our kids?

So they started together to pray for their kids, and Jesus appeared to them and they believed in Christ.

Why not my sister, Lord?

So they started to pray for her sister.

And Jesus visited her sister and she accepted Christ.

And why not my nephew?

Her daughter, Lord, why believe her?

So go and visit her.

They brought her to our church.

And in a in a worship service like this, the girl was sitting among the crowds and she saw Christ.

I didn't see him, but she saw him, and she accepted Christ.

And the whole family went to be baptized together.

What a great celebration.

What is it?

You ask in my name for my glory.

I will do it.

Nothing is impossible to God.

The prayer is the expression of faith.

The second lesson in this story, the length of the prayer determining the victory.

Wow.

It's becoming difficult now.

We thought it's like that.

Go and visit him, he will go and visit.

And that's no, it's the length and the depth.

The length and the depth.

Read with me verse 12.

So that his hands remain steady till sunset.

Usually in the Old Testament, they used to start any battle by the sunrise to use God's light because they had no light at that time.

And usually they finish the battle by the sunset.

And Moses had to pray 12 hours.

I don't know whether it was in summer or winter, but anyhow, let's make it 12 hours.

Nonstop.

Why?

You are the man of God.

You say to him, Help Joshua, I'm going to sleep.

No.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

As long as we pray, God is in action.

The minute we stop praying, God will stop.

By prayer, we give him the reason.

We unleash his hands.

We open the door for him to come down and reveal himself.

We are in a battle day and night.

And we need people to cry out day and night.

And this is what we read in Isaiah.

In Isaiah 62, verse 6 and 7.

Isaiah 62:6

I have posted watchmen on your walls.

And God is looking for these people.

To do what?

Oh Jerusalem, oh the church of Christ, all my people, they will never be silent day or night.

You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest.

For what?

And give him God no rest till he establish the church, Jerusalem, and make her the priest and all theirs.

Watch.

This is what decided to do in our church.

If it's so important to pray, if the battle is so long, if you have to reach the unreach, if there are millions, not just few.

If Satan is at work day and night, we have to do the same.

To give ourselves no rest, so God wants Himself to have no rest.

God is in action.

He wants to have no rest.

And the only way to keep him working is to give ourselves no rest.

So we decided to have the same thing in our church: to have the 24-7 house of prayer, and to make shifts, and to call people, come and pray, come and pray, come and pray, stand in the gap, stand in the call upon the Lord.

So the gates of heaven will be open day and night.

And get God can come day and night and visit our people and make Himself known.

The length of prayer is very important.

We have no time now.

We have no time now.

We want everything to be maximum five minutes, ten minutes.

How can I pray more than ten minutes?

All the words gone.

I don't have more words to say.

Which is a big miracle.

We made it very difficult for God, especially in Egypt.

The barriers between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church, the war became very high.

We became very separated.

And even among the evangelicals, it's a miracle to get them together in unity.

But for years we were crying, Lord, Lord, please.

This is your heart, this is your wish that they might be one as we are one.

By that they will believe that you have you have sent me.

This is the miracle that will change the world.

So we prayed this prayer for so long, for many years, until, until, until we decided that in 1111-11 we will come together as believers from the different parts of the church to declare the unity, to pray together for the land of Egypt, to intercede, and to spend twelve hours from the sunset to the sunrise.

How come?

It's very difficult.

It's impossible.

And we had to pray and pray and pray and pray for such a thing to happen until it happened.

35,000 people came together for 12 hours, nonstop.

We thought that at 2 a.m.

or 3 a.m.

they will get tired.

Many of them had to stand up in the rows 12 hours.

We thought that at 3 a.m.

they will be tired and they will at 3 p.m.

At 3 a.m.

in the they started to shout out Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! For 15 minutes! Non-stop.

And the enthusiasm started to grow more and more and more.

Millions seen that have seen that over the many satellite televisions.

And it was the day to declare that the church in Egypt decided to become one as the Father and the Son wanted her to be.

The length of the prayer.

We will see miracles.

We will see change in the history.

The depth of the prayer.

You cannot pray ten hours without going deeper, deeper and deeper.

In Exodus 32, verse 32, we see here Moses himself teaching us how deep we can go into the prayer, into the intercession, standing in the gap for a nation.

Exodus 32:32

But now, Lord, please forgive their sin.

Have mercy on my people.

They have sinned against you.

They deserve.

They deserve to be dispersed.

They deserve the shame.

But please, Lord, forgive their sin.

But if not, if you are not going to have mercy on my people, then plot me out of the book you have written.

Let me die with them.

Wow.

Wow.

This is intercession.

Intercession that I'm praying for my brothers, my sisters, those that they have gone so far that they hate me.

But I'm praying to the degree that I'm ready to say, Lord, if you're not going to save them, if you're not going to reveal yourself to them, if you're not going to do that, let me die.

I don't want to live.

I don't want to live.

Jeremiah prayed the same prayer.

And three, in Lamentation 3, 48 to 50, streams of tears flow from my eyes because my people are destroyed.

My eyes will flow unceasingly without relief until the Lord looks down from heaven and sees me.

A sentence said by Charles Finney changed my life long, long ago.

Your man, Charles Finney.

You do you know him?

Do you know him?

Okay, thank you.

He said that to give birth to a newly born baby in the kingdom of God, I have learned to have the labor pain before the delivery.

To pray the travailing prayers until I give birth.

And without this pain, I don't expect people will be born again.

It's the depth, it's the depth, how deep we go in our prayer, how much we are ready to sacrifice for the answer.

Lastly, I have two minutes to go.

Lastly, you cannot do it by yourself.

Such a prayer to change the history, to change lives, you cannot do it alone.

Moses himself couldn't do it alone.

He needed Hur and Aaron.

He needed people to strengthen him.

You cannot do it alone.

You cannot do it alone.

When Moses' hands grow tired, anybody will be tired.

They took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it.

Aaron and Hur held his hands up, one on one side and one on the other side.

We need people around us.

At the local level, at the church, many, many, many churches they depend on the prayer committee to pray for the church.

So they uh they are the prayer warriors, they will pray for us, they will pray for the church, they will pray for the city, they will pray for the state, they will pray for the United States of America, they will pray for the whole world.

This is their job.

And our job to come and enjoy.

In our church, we have a prayer committee, but they pray for the congregation that they come and pray.

And I said it many times that I want the day of prayer, Monday is not a worship service, it's the day to pray, to intercede for the nation.

I want this to be much bigger than any worship service.

Then we believe in the power of prayer.

After the revolution, after the earthquake, people started to come in thousands to pray.

We used to have 800 1000 in our Monday, but now we have a full sanctuary, and we stand one beside one another, and we hold hands and we raise it together, and we cry out.

We need each other, we need to come together, we need to challenge one another.

That the most important thing that we can do for the kingdom of God is to pray.

So at the local level, we need to pray, and we come together in unity.

At the national level, we need the same thing.

At the city level, we need to bring all the churches together.

We cannot do it alone.

At the national level, we we need to bring all the believers together, and this is what we are trying to do.

Why 1111?

We are calling the church to come together at the New Year Eve.

We did it, we decided to do the same thing.

To call thousands of people to go to the square and to pray there for a new year and a new day and a new chapter.

Jesus will come and save Egypt from the power of darkness.

How come we we can do that?

It's impossible.

So we had to stay ten days, the leaders together, ten days to pray for the day of the new eve, so we can go as a church together to pray.

And the miracle happened, and the miracle happened, and millions of people have seen that.

We need each other.

Would you devote yourself to prayer?

Would you make it a priority on world life?

Can we stand up to pray, please?

It's your time to decide.

If God spoke to your heart, if you have listened to his voice, can you make prayer a priority?

To go up the hill before going down to the valley.

Do you devote yourself to help the other to help the others and to ask the help of others?

Because you cannot do it alone.