Voice of the Nazarene 1-14-24

I'm coming to you from North Central Ohio, we share with you the voice of the Nazarene, a week by week venture into the Word of God sponsored by the Bucyrus, Ohio Church of the Nazarene, we joined our Pastor Reverend Ray LaSalle, and the voice of the Nazarene.

Want to talk to you this morning about praying for the needy? How do you pray for those that need God? I do not know of a better example than found in the 18th 19 chapters of the book of Genesis, chapter 18 of Genesis, verse 22, the men turned their faces from fence and went toward Sodom, but Abraham stood yet before the Lord. Then I want to jump down to chapter 19, verse 29. And it came to pass when God destroyed the cities of the plane, that God remembered Abraham, and sit lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities. In the witch lot dwells and I trust the Lord will help me to share with you how to pray for those that need God. Let me take your attention just for a few minutes to Twin Cities, the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities of the plane, actually were supposed to be Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and subforum. And they're all situated in the midst of a garden like plane between the mountains of Moab and the Judean mountains on the other side, fertile land, well watered plains, anything would grow.

Genesis 18 · chapter mention

Everybody wanted to live in that area. And in that valley, now, although cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were renowned for their extreme of sinfulness, wicked, evil cities, they were known for all of their sexual in moralities. The Bible pointed out in the book of Ezekiel that they had neglected the poor.

They were a wasters of time. And there were all sorts of sinful diversities that are mentioned about Sodom. God reached the point where he said, I'm going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.

Leonard Ravenhill, the great English preacher said, in the direction that America is going, if God doesn't judge America, he's going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. Let me say to you, I believe that God is judging America more than you will ever dream. You don't aboard 60 Some million of your own offspring. It just seemed like the closets have opened and everything's coming out of the woodwork. These days, when you consider about 15,000, coming across our borders, not just from a southern country, but from more than 100 different countries, makes you begin to realize perhaps, if that many are coming in every day and being absorbed and nobody knows where they're at, probably they're building a standing army. And one day, this thing is going to blow sky high. God's going to judges. So God said, I'm going to destroy the place there was a man in Abraham's family. In that place, his name was locked. And there was Lot's wife and his daughters and his sons in law and God said, I'm going to destroy this place. And the Bible said that Abraham, lot's uncle stood before the Lord. And I want you to catch the prayer that he prayed. When he realized that God was standing outside his tent with two angels. And God said, I'm going down to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and he's said, Wait a minute, could we? Could we talk about this? Could we plead for Sodom and Gomorrah, if you could find 50 Righteous down there would just spare him and godson a wood. And when they didn't find that many he changed his numbers and Soviet find 45 and it went to 40 and 30 and 20, and finally said if he could find in righteous, which is fair, the city and God said, Yes. The amazing thing they couldn't find 10 righteous people, between the two cities. And here's an amazing thing. What Abraham was asking God to spare Saddam, actually, he had on his mind, his nephew that he had raised by the name of Lot, and Lot's wife and lots Family. And may I ask you, Who do you have in an on your mind when you're alone with God? Is it a family member? Is it a friend? Are you mentioning those names to God when you're all alone, and you're concerned about someone that you're blood kin to or someone, you have a great friendship with? Who's on your mind? God did this. God said, I'm going to destroy this place, Sodom Gomorrah. But before I destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, according to Genesis 19, verse 29, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham. He remembered Abraham, and he sent Lot and his wife and the two daughters out of the city, he had never spared Sodom and Gomorrah, but he offered despair, the very ones that had been named to him by Abraham.

Genesis 19:29

God remembered Abraham get this didn't say that he remembered lot. Didn't say that it remembered Lot's wife, nor his daughters. It said that God Remember this prayer warrior, Abraham. Now, that tells me a couple things. Number one, there are things that are going to happen whether you pray or not.

The sun's going to rise tomorrow, whether we pray or don't pray, it's going to come up. You don't have to have a conversation about it. It's going to come up. Colossians says that God holds all things together. But it also tells me that there are some things that can only happen when you and I pray. And that's why the great Apostle Paul said in Romans 10, one brother and my harvesters are in prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. He was concerned about him. Now.

I'm not an anthropologist. But I knew do know that every one of us have some friends and we have family members that were concerned that they know Jesus Christ. We have family and we have friends that we realize they need to come to know the Lord. So I want to make a couple of quick observations. Number one, it's God's will for everyone to come to Christ. I'm gonna tell you one old split a church quicker than anything.

It's a hyper Calvinism, teaching that says some people are destined to heaven and others are predestined to hell. That's false. That says untruthful as the devil is a liar. John 316, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, Whosoever shall not perish but have everlasting life. They are in Second Peter chapter three, verse nine, the Lord is not slack concerning His promises.

Some men count slackness, but as long suffering to us we're not willing that any should come should perish, but that all should come to repins. So it's God's will that every man, woman, boy and girl would come to know Jesus Christ. Now study history a little bit spatially presidential history. And there will be a name that will come up Lee Harvey Oswald, anybody remember that name? Lee Harvey Oswald was the man that shocked and killed John F. Kennedy President back in November the 22nd 1963. They're still investigating that and it's still out there on the table, but they know that he was the main one that pulled the trigger. Lee Harvey Oswald was Oswald was just a young kid and he would walk his way to school and on his way to school, he had to cut across the church yard little Baptist Church on his way to school to shortcut his way.

Every morning, five days a week he'd cut across that church yard or that little Baptist Church.

By the time he got to the 10th grade, he thought nobody loved him. Nobody cared and he dropped out of school, enlisted in the military. When he got out. He became a drifter. Believe that nobody cared and of course, we know the story. November 22 1963. I'm going around Indianapolis 465 On my way from college to work an eight hour shift at a cabinet factory and had the radio on and they announced on John F. Kennedy had just been shot.

A new pastor came to that little Baptist church and he asked one of the deacons Did you ever know Lee Harvey Oswald? And he said, Yes, I knew him when he was a boy. He would cut across our church yard, you'd see him every day, every morning, going to school and coming back from school. Then he said this, he said, Lee Harvey Oswald, he said he was bad seed. And we didn't want him coming to our church.

Bad seed. We didn't want him coming to our church. And I wonder what could have happened if that Deacon had walked out one morning or one afternoon and, and called him by name and put his arm around him and said, Son, I know you cut through here on your way to school. I don't know if you know that we have a Sunday school on Sunday. And we'd like to invite you to come you can make some friends here and we would love you and we've got a pastor that would care about you. But he said he was bad seed and nobody at our church wanted him to come.

Listen, it's God's will for everybody, to come to know Jesus Christ and be saved. God loves everyone, spite of our backgrounds, in spite of our race, in spite of our lifestyle, in spite of any deformities that we may have had, God loves everyone and wants us to bring people to Jesus Christ. Here's the second thing I want to point out. It's an observation. Prayer allows us to partner with God and bringing others to Christ. I can partner with God, in bringing people into the kingdom. Why do we need to pray because prayer is the means that God has ordained for certain things to happen. Prayer is the means that God has ordained for certain things to happen. John Wesley said, God does nothing except by prayer. And we all talk to God about men before we talk to men about God. Andrew Murray said that God rules the world by the prayers of the saints, and prayers, ladies and gentlemen, allows human mortals like us to join God in partnership in reaching people.

Without God, we cannot and without us, God will not. Here's the third observation. No one will pray for those close to you like you. Preacher, I've got people that I know when I care about and they need in would you make a visit? I had a lady that came to this church for years before she died. And she called me and said my brother's unsaved. And he's about to go into open heart surgery in the morning. Would you go visiting?

Well, I said I guess I can. I said, Are you going to be there to my own Oh, she said, I'm going to the Ohio State Fairgrounds the the fairs on but you go seeing I mean, I didn't know I've never seen him on my life, didn't know him. His name, didn't know where you live. She told me where he lived. I went to see. And of course, she didn't show up. May I say to you that if God lays somebody on your heart, you don't need to send anybody you need to go. And you need to pray. Nobody's any closer than you, then you know him and you need to pray for them. Here's something else.

Don't ever give up. The Bible tells us in Luke 18 One men are always to pray and not to faint.

That means don't quit praying, and never give up. And one of the great things is the experience of others. Why do I need to make mistakes so I can get experienced when I can look at the experience of others and step off of their shoulders. And I've been for the last few days studying about Muller and George Mueller and his tremendous ability to pray. One of the great prayers that he had was for the needs of his orphanages and what he would do one of his main secrets. According to his prayer journals, he would find a scripture that aligned itself with the knee that he's praying for, and then put his finger on it and say, God, you did it for them back then. And I know you can do the very same thing for me now and I'm claiming it when it came to his family after he was saved and they were unsaved he took x 16 Verse 31, is his promise. They said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that thou shalt be saved and thy house.

And he said, Lord, I believed on you, I give you my heart, you changed my life, you saved me, and the rest of the Scripture and thy house and thy house, and he can't put his finger on a God, I want you to save my family claimed his promise. So how should I pray for the loss?

Well, first of all, you need to identify him, you need to know who they are. And that one time, I had a, what I call the top 10.

Most Wanted in my Bible, I wrote down the names of the top 10 most wanted that I wanted to see saved. And I mentioned the early service, I used to be with the FBI, FBI, that's Fat Boys of Indiana. I'm now with the Fat Boys of Ohio. And don't laugh, some of you have joined me your twins. Back to back, I think I'm a twin right now. But you don't have to have a 10 most wanted list. But you do need a list. If you want to pray, you need to have their name down so that you don't forget to pray and you continuously pray, and you partner with God, you identify him to God, this is who I'm praying for God, I want you to bring them into the kingdom. So a short pencil is a whole lot better than a long memory, write it down. Just write down their names. The here's four ways you can pray for the needy, I don't want you to forget it. I want you to join me in the weeks ahead. And I want us together to begin to pray for people that need to know God is there anybody you want to keep out of hell? Anybody you want to get to heaven? Then you need to join with me. And let's begin to put some names down. And when we're alone with God, call out those names. I want to give you just real quick four ways. Number one, ask the Holy Spirit to convict them. You said, well, preacher, when you talk about Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit, I don't want anything to do with anything like that. Well, you don't know what you're saying.

Because you can't even get saved without the Holy Spirit's involvement in your life. Listen to what the Bible says in John 16, verse seven and eight.

Nevertheless, I tell you, the truth is expedient for you that I go away. For if I go not away.

Now, listen, when Jesus was here, he was in a fleshly body.

So the only people he could talk to was those within hearing distance, the 250 million people that inhabit the earth while Christ was here, he couldn't deal with all of them. He was in a bodily form. But he said, the cover will come to you, if I depart, and I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment. You see, the Holy Spirit isn't confined to a body like Christ was when he was on earth. And he can dwell in you and he can dwell in you. And it doesn't matter if you're Chinese, Japanese, American Russian, if you'll open your heart, he wants to dwell in you.

And here's what I understand.

It's the Holy Spirit that convicts a person's heart, no amount of preaching, no amount of pleading, no amount of fingerpointing, it takes the Holy Spirit. So we need to pray somebody said to me recently, who do you pray to when you pray? I said, What do you mean?

What do you pray to God the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit, I said, I prayed all three, I know them all. In fact, the matter I said, when I'm in a jam, and I'm sure it changed all time, I just speak to the spirit Lord helped me Spirit of God helped me right now why God's up in heaven and his sons had his right hand, the Holy Spirit's right here. I mean, if he's within shouting distance, I think it's time to start shouting a little bit and talk to him pray to Him. And so he wants to dwelled with us. And I wrote down these words to a song about the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, you're welcome. Here.

Come, flood this place and feel the atmosphere. Your glory, God is what our hearts longing for, to be overcome by your presence, Lord. Do do you think that we can do anything without the Holy Spirit? I don't. We need him.

And here's the second simple thing. Ask God that gave give those last people sight.

You say, Well, I have family and friends and it seems like they're blinded pastor. No, they're not seeming like they're blinded. They are blinded.

According to second Corinthians four four it says, In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of a them that believe not less, the light should shine into them, you get it. And so when we pray, we pray God remove the blinders let him see, they're blinded by the cares of this world and life. Life will show loads you down, you don't have time, hardly to seek God, and it blinds us. You say, Well, if that's true, is there any illustrations of that in the Bible? I think so. I'll give you one is the 15th chapter of Luke.

And you'll pick it up in about the 11th verse, certain man had two sons in the younger these went to his father and said, Father, give me the portion of goods that fall under me now, you need to understand Jewish boys, the eldest son immediately got two thirds of the inheritance. And the youngest only got a third. And the Bible said that he divided under them their inheritance. So that means right, then the elder brother got two thirds, and the younger brother got 1/3. Now later on, you hear the the older brother complaining and murmuring. I don't know why he was fussing about it, he'd already received two thirds of the inheritance, everything coming to him. So we need to find out about the younger returning, the younger wasn't going to take from him.

But we go back to the younger of the two and he said, Daddy, I want you to give me the inheritance. In other words, Dad, I don't care about you. I'm treating you as though you were dad. And I'm asking for what false to me in the father never played with him to stay.

Sometimes it takes tough love that stuff ended. And look at what it says in verse 13. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

And when he'd spent all their rosin mighty famine in the land, and he began to be in one, and he joined himself into a citizen of that country, and he sent him into the field to feed swine.

And he would feign it filled his belly with a husk that the swine did eat, and no man gave it to him. Now, a Jewish boy is on the bottom, when he's living with a hogs and Sin always fascinates.

But nobody mentioned sin also.

assassinates. We hear how sin thrills but nobody wants to talk about the fact that Sin kills.

And the Bible said in verse 17, everything's gone, his friends are gone, the money's gone. He's hungry. And the Bible said that he came to himself what that what does that mean? It means the blinders fell off. It means suddenly, he saw like he had never seen before. And he said in that moment, why even the service back at Daddy's house, have it better than I do down here. I think I'll arise. And I'm going home. And that's what he did. Now, here's the third thing. Ask God to send somebody to reach your lost loved ones.

Did you know that nine out of 10 times when protocols are reached, they're not reached by the parents. Nine out of 10 times. Parents of not able to reach the protocol is somebody else. And so pray God send somebody else. The Bible says Matthew 938, pray, therefore the Lord of harvest, they will send forth laborers into His harvest.

Here's the fourth thing, ask God to help you to reach someone.

Here's what I've done. I've claimed a promise when God called me to preach and specialty in evangelism. And then when I went into pastoring, I began to realize I wouldn't always be in the town where I was born. It meant that I'd have to go out and reach people. And I said, God, who's going to reach my people? And I got this little verse in Ephesians, six, eight knowing whatsoever good thing and the man do it. The same shall he received the Lord, this is what I know. If I tried to reach your people, then God's going to reach my people. I'll do my best to reach somebody's boy or girl. God will send somebody to reach my boy and my girl. So I challenge you to ask God to help you to reach somebody for Christ. You never know the power of an individual invitation. Never know how far reaching it is. There are people in the house right now you would not have been here but somebody else here invited you to come brought worse was on and a man showed up in town. He just got out of the military and you know, it's brought worst and beer He said, Man, I found my town. I love the beer. And so he got a rental and got married and began to live here and his wickedness. But one day, we had a friend Day weekend and somebody invited him to come.

What long we had and he didn't come and wasn't long after that I had Rick Stanley calm. You've heard of Rick Stanley. He was the stepbrother of Elvis Presley, had him come and preach. And it seemed as though God would bless Rick Stanley with giving an invitation beyond about anybody I'd ever seen.

More people would come to an altar on one Sunday than most evangelist at all week long. And they invited him to come and three people invited him come, he said, I might as well go to that church, they just keep asking me. And the first one to step out of a seat and come down the I was this tall gentleman that had moved to this town for the brought worst of the beer.

And God saved him and called him to preach the power of a invitation. My dad worked as the assistant parks manager at a trucking firm. His boss was Duncan, who was the main manager and and Duncan began to notice the dad wouldn't bring lunch, it just bring an apple and go back to the back part of the the parks bins and he had sat down and it opened his Bible and he'd read it and Doug could begin to talk to him. Others begin to come in and they would visit with him. And finally, Duncan, during a time when his life was about to fall apart, ask, ask my daddy said Wilbur, what is it about you that you have a piece when the rest of us are in turmoil? He told him how he found Christ after the Second World War and found peace dunka broke down and began to weep.

And he said I want to know your Christ. Dad invited him into the kingdom of God. And Duncan wound up the last I knew he was a pasture out around Bridgeport, Indiana. Is there anybody here that could say somebody else invited me? That's why I'm here.

Now, farmers, they have a little prayer God use in the sunshine in the rain, and we'll keep down the weeds. In other words, God does his part and we do our part. Visions 320 says down to him that's able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think that's God doing his part. According to the power that worketh in us. God works through us. Did you catch that last line? Isn't that amazing?

That it works through you and you and and you and you and you in the back? God wants to work through us. God is saying I'll give the sun shot. I'll give the rain. You just keep down the weeds. God has no hands but our hands to do his work today. He has no feet but our feet to lead men in the way. He has no tongue, but our tongue to tell them how he died and he has no help but our help to bring him in to his side. This is a little hospital. Lady had sent some lumps in her breast and had gone to the doctor. The doctor sent her to a specialist and sure enough, she had breast cancer.

She had gone into the hospital that day they removed a breast.

And they said Tomorrow we'll take the other send her back to her room and it wasn't long she was sobbing. And the lady in the next bed got up and walked over said What's wrong honey? She said I have got cancer. I don't know how bad it is baby. I won't live very long. They took a breast today and they're going to take the other tomorrow. And I'm scared to death. The little lady said well I know the Lord.

And if you don't mind, I'd like to talk to the Lord and pray with you. Would that be all right? And she looked up to the tears and said that'll be fine.

And that lady laid her hands on her begin to pray. And then she said Lord if you would, it wouldn't bankrupt heaven if you would heal this little woman.

Would you heal her lord and touch her climbed back to her bed the next day they came and they got this precious lady to remove the other bras they did a quick check and didn't make sense. So they did another test another test and half the day went by nothing but test and found that they came in and told her said we can't find any cancer at all in the remaining breast. It looks like You are healed. We have proof that you had cancer, sent her back to the room. And she said that the other lady said they can't find any cancer. The other lady got out of bed and went over to her and said, Well, they didn't find any cancer. Why don't we pray that God will deal with your sins so they can't find any sin in your life either. I like to pray with you. And if you confess your sins, the Bible said that God would forgive you of your sins and remove them as far as the east is from the west. And she led that little lady to Jesus Christ. Then she told her said, you know, you're going to leave the hospital. I want you to go find you a good church, and start attending that church faithfully, and begin to pray for your unsaved husband, that he will come to know Christ. And if he doesn't give his heart to Christ, don't quit the church. And whatever happens to that church, don't you ever quit the church, don't let anything run you off, you'll be faithful. She found her a good church. She told a couple people in the church that she had an unsaved husband that she had begun to pray for and they began to pray and God brought him in and some of the men of the church befriended him and he came to know Christ. You had a teenage son by the name of Steve. Steve came and Steve was saved. And God called Steve into the ministry. See right now was pastoring, where Adrian Rogers pastored they're the Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. They run 1000s back the man of the highway, four lanes just goes out and dumps off at the church, because everybody's coming and going service after service after service. 1000s Steve Gaines wrote his book. And in it, he shared the testimony of his mother about how the she said I lost her breast but I found a savior. He mentioned in the book about the little lady that came and prayed with his mother for divine healing and then came back and led her to Jesus Christ. And at the forefront of his book, he said, I'm dedicating this book to a woman I've never met, that I do not know her name, but she took the time to invite my mother to know Jesus Christ. And as a result, I'm now a Christian and a pastor. You have that kind of power to partner with God and make a difference in people's lives around you.

Thanks for being a part of the voice of the Nazarene. Visit us every Sunday at 9am with BNC's Pastor Ray LaSalle. For more information regarding BNC, visit Bucyrus nazarene.org.