Knocking on the Windows of Heaven

An event that happened over in the country of China that I'm going to call it, 24 people who changed the world. See, in China, they were under an attack by the Japanese in 1937 and this was officially still before what we, because it was World War II that was beginning when Japan invaded China, conquered the biggest city Shanghai, moved on inland to the city of Nanking. And another big city of this, the city of Nanking, when the military who had came there, had come there from the east, they came to the city of Nanking, but they saw the Japanese army as they were advancing, they said, there's no way we can stand before them.

And so the military, the soldiers, they all left. They said, there's, there's no hope. We can't stand before these, this Japanese army.

And so when the Japanese army arrived at Nanking, there was no defense at all. The military, all the guns, they were gone. It was just civilians there.

Well, the Japanese commander called Asaka was a very wicked man and somehow they must have really been frustrated with the way the war was going. They said, just go in there and start killing civilians. And so their soldiers did.

The Japanese soldiers went into Nanking and just spent weeks there, just killing left and right, killing and raping and maiming everybody in sight. They, it was called the, in history, it's called the Rape of Nanking. And eventually hundreds of thousands, probably two or 300,000 people died in that massacre in Nanking, China.

Something else happened though, there as well. You see, as those soldiers were watching the advance of the Japanese army, there was also a group of foreigners there, Westerners, who also had to make a decision as the army was coming. Do we go and follow the army to safety or do we stay? They chose to stay.

There was 24 people that the way I got the story, 24 men, and maybe a few of them were women, who said, if we leave, there's no hope at all for anybody here in this town. And so they chose to stay and they set up what they called a safe, a safety zone. They fenced off a portion of the city and said, this is a safety zone.

Now, what they didn't know was whether the Japanese army was going to honor their safety zone or not. They certainly didn't have to. The Japanese army were the ones with the guns.

These 24 Europeans and Americans, they didn't have any guns to defend themselves. All they had was the hope that maybe the Japanese army would leave them alone because they were foreigners. Well, it so happened they did.

They saw this safety zone and they said, okay, don't touch anybody within this fence, but everybody else is free game. And they went and they slaughtered and they'd have contests to see who could kill a hundred people the quickest using nothing but a sword. And they do these bloody, horrible things to the refugees.

But in this safety zone, these 24 people said, let's rescue who we can. And they'd go out at night and they'd gather people into their safety zone. Thousands and thousands of them would come until this place was packed out with Chinese civilians.

As time went on, eventually, they had tens of thousands, they figured probably even hundreds of thousands of people in that safety zone that their lives were saved because of these 24 American, well, Europeans, Westerners that were there. One of the reasons, I guess, that the Japanese didn't attack them was that John Rabe was kind of the leader of this group of 24. And he was German.

Well, the Japanese, they were kind of friendly toward the Germans. Eventually, they would join forces and become the Axis powers. And so as they saw this German man here inviting people or defending this safety zone, they decided to honor it.

And as a result, hundreds of thousands of people were saved from annihilation, from death. My question is this, to you that are here, what if you would have been one of those 24 people who saw the Japanese army coming and the people around you are the only ones, their only hope is you, you 24 people, their only hope. If you don't stay, they have no hope of survival.

Would you leave or would you stay? Would you flee with the army or would you stay and just hope that maybe I can save some lives? What would you do? I don't know what to tell you to do. I think maybe there are times God wants us to leave. I think there are times God wants us to stay.

Things down in Haiti right now are pretty dire with the gangs taking over the country. What's the right thing to do there? I don't know the answer to that. I believe Joe Mahorder is still there and the area where he's at, I guess he's made the decision to stay for now and see what he can do for the people.

Other people who are closer to the capital, they chose to leave. They said, there's no point in us staying. We're just going to lose.

It's basically been taken over. And so, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the answer is, but still it's a sobering decision when your face was something like that.

I'd like to tell another story. Again, the same title of this story, 24 people who changed the world. This story happened a couple of hundred years earlier back in Germany.

There was a group of people that moved into Germany from Moravia. So these Moravian people moved into Germany. They set up a city called, a community called Heron Hut.

It was led by a man named, somebody can maybe help me with this, but the, I'll think of his name here in a moment, but they set up this community called Heron Hut and they started this missionary movement. They were praying together. They were, the man who started it was known as the rich young ruler who said yes.

It starts with a C, I believe. Zinzendorf. Count Zinzendorf.

Yes. Actually Z, I guess was the name. Count Zinzendorf set up this Heron Hut community and as they united together, they weren't all, you know, they weren't getting along very well, but as they prayed and as they talked and as they worked together, they eventually got some sort of a unity worked out.

Well, Zinzendorf, he had a vision for the church and he started to, as they talked, some of these people, 24 of them said, we're going to do something. We're going to start a prayer meeting and this prayer meeting is going to go 24 hours. We're going to have one hour each of these, for these 24 people.

And so she prays an hour and then he prays an hour and on down the line and around the clock they would go. And the next day they would start over and do it all again. And I think they had a central location there at Heron Hut.

This, this land that was donated by Count Zinzendorf and they would, they would, they would pray at this one place and eventually it grew until it wasn't just one person praying each hour. It was two people praying and then three people praying each hour. But this was a 24 hour prayer meeting that lasted 110 years by the time it was all done.

Out of this, God began to bless. He began to answer the prayers of those people. There was, it was, there were, there were 70 of them from that original group of 300 that had moved in from Germany or from Moravia into Germany.

They, they were, there were 70 of that original group that went out into other countries, other nations, unreached places, and they would set up new little communities and those would begin to grow as God would bless. And they would send out more missionaries. One of the outreach groups had over 200 missionaries going from them and they kept on setting up these churches all over the world.

In fact, somebody has estimated that the Moravians could actually today be, if they wanted to be, they could be the largest denomination in the world. Except for one thing, when they would go into a new country, they would set up a church, people would come in, and then they would, instead of bringing them into their denomination, they would turn them over to one of the local denominations. Says, here you go, you, you disciple them from here.

We're moving on to the next country. And they would go and they'd set up another church. And otherwise they could, there was so much growth during that time.

They said they could be the largest Christian denomination today. But 110 years there they were praying. So I have another question for you.

If that would happen today, would you be one of those 24? Would you be one of those who says, I will take one hour per day or maybe one hour per week? There's 168 hours in a week. Would you take one of those hours? What if you said, well, I'll take whatever hour I'm assigned and, and they do the shuffle or whatever. And here your hour is say from two o'clock in the morning till three o'clock in the morning.

Wow. I didn't know that was the hour I was going to get. Would you still take your hour? Would you still pray if that was the way things ended up? As Jeremy said, we're, I'm, I'm re-preaching some messages that I preached back at Bible school.

The title was Opening the Windows of Heaven. It was five messages. And we were talking about the windows of grace that God has given to us.

And these, these opportunities we use as an illustration, the lake up here. Oh, I don't know, a couple of hours from here, clear lake up in the mountains. It's a lake that has crystal clear water.

And at one end of that lake, there's a mighty river flowing out called the McKinsey river. But as you walk around the lake, it doesn't seem to be any water or not much flowing into it. So how does it get its water that keeps overflowing, overflowing, overflowing? Well, the answer is there's underground springs that are coming up into that lake and they're pumping out into the McKinsey river, which eventually becomes the source of drinking water for the city of Eugene, 90 miles away.

Our lives can be like that. If we allow the windows of grace to be opened into our lives, to allow God to pour His grace into us, we can bless others. And one of the, the thing we looked at last time, a few weeks ago when I preached, was the window of humbling ourselves.

Those who humble themselves, God gives grace. He gives grace to the humble, to those who are willing to humble themselves. That's window number one that we looked at.

We'd like to look at another window here, and it's found in Matthew chapter six, if you want to turn there. There are actually three windows here in Matthew chapter six, that after every one of them, after Jesus said to do them and do them in a certain way, He said, your father which sees in secret will reward you openly. There's going to be a reward, and I believe that reward, at least a big part of that reward, is the grace of God, the power of God pouring into our lives.

So what are these windows that Jesus wants us to open, or He wants us to knock on and make way for God to open these windows? Well, here's one of them in Matthew chapter six, starting with verse five. It says, And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are. For they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.

Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou shalt the door, pray to thy father which is in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Be not ye therefore likened to them? For your father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. Go over to chapter seven, Matthew chapter seven, starting with verse seven. It says, Ask, and it shall be given you.

Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth.

And to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son shall ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, shall he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? How much more will your father give good things? Not bad things, but good things. In Luke 11, the parallel passage, it says, How much more for you will your father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? So the title of this morning's message is, Knocking on the Windows of Heaven.

Knocking on the windows of heaven. We're going to talk about prayer, because that's what Jesus said. He says, if you do it, if you do it for the right motives, not to be seen of men, but for the right motives, then my father which sees in secret will reward you openly.

There's people in this world that says prayer doesn't make sense. It's kind of a silly exercise. Why would you go into a room and talk to the ceiling? Nothing's really happening.

You might feel better, so sure, go do it. But it doesn't really do anything. A few years ago when we met some atheists, Jeremy and I went to, Jeremy Brackett, that is, we went to visit these atheists at their meeting.

Well, they had questions about prayer. And they said, why do you think that prayer even works? I mean, there's no God up there to answer your prayers. And when you think that something is happening, it really isn't.

I mean, two groups of people, they brought up the subject of football. And you have a group of people praying that one team wins, and the other group of people praying that their team wins. And sure enough, one of the teams wins.

And so everybody thinks that sometimes your prayer is being answered, when all the time it's just coincidence anyway. There's no God in heaven really making any difference. And so what do you answer somebody like that? How would you answer? If you believe in prayer, and you're talking to an atheist who said, it doesn't happen that way, you know, you can, you can, all these natural things that are happening around us, none of that is an answer to prayer.

It's just the way nature works. You know, there's thunder, and there's lightning, and there's rain, and the sun comes up, and we had a beautiful day. And that wasn't because anybody prayed for a nice day.

That was just, that's just nature. It's evolution. How do you answer people who say prayer makes really no difference? It's just a silly exercise.

And I won't go into the entire conversation we had with them, but we asked them to consider evidence. There are people who say, oh, we believe in evidence. Well, then consider the evidence.

Consider what Jesus did when he was here. He not only said prayer makes a difference, but then people ask him, your entire message, Jesus, how do we know you're telling the truth? Eventually Jesus gave them the evidence. He said, well, you know, I'm going to die, and I'm going to rise again.

And so I challenge these atheists, you know, investigate, find out, did Jesus really rise again? If he did, I think you can trust him when he talks about prayer and says, does it really work? Does it really make a difference? Does it, will your Father in heaven really reward you if you do it with the right motive? Matthew Henry made a quote. He said, when God intends great mercy for his people, the first thing he does is set them a praying. I'll read it again.

When God intends great mercy for his people, the first thing he does is set them a praying. So prayer does make a difference. We believe it makes a difference.

There are conditions though to prayers. If we want our prayers to make a difference, we need to meet the conditions. Psalm 66,18 says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.

So there are times God doesn't hear you. He'll ignore your prayers. If you have sin in your life, 2 Chronicles 7,14, if my people, which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked way, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.

We saw an example of that last night at our members meeting with humbling oneself. Isaiah 55 verse 6 and 7, seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him turn unto our God and he will have mercy upon him and he will abundantly pardon.

In Judges, there was a time when people, you know, over and over again, you have these stories of the Israelites falling into sin, God turning his back on them. An enemy comes in and takes over their country and then they call on God and God hears and sends a judge. But there was one time, it says they called on God, Judges 10 verses 10 to 16, that same thing happened and they called on God.

And God says, well, no, you've been worshiping idols, go talk to them, get your idols to help you, don't talk to me. Well, what did they do? They did the right thing. They humbled themselves even more and eventually God heard and he sent them a prophet and they were delivered again.

But they, you know, that's necessary. We need to deal with unforgiveness. These are, again, conditions to prayer.

We say, I want to pray and I want answers. Okay, you can, but there are conditions. You need to deal with unforgiveness if you want to pray.

Husbands, give honor to your wives as the weaker vessel. And it says, you know, give honor to them that your prayers be not hindered. That's, you know, somehow or another, if we husbands don't treat our wives right, our prayers will be hindered.

I don't understand all that, but it's something to be taken very seriously. 1 Peter 4, 7 says we should be sober or self-controlled so that we can pray. Again, talking about conditions to pray, praying.

Let's also talk about types of prayer. I suppose we have, most of us here anyway, ordinary times of prayer, habitual times of prayer. Probably most of us, before we, as we sit down to a meal, before we take that meal, we'll pray.

That's a habit we have. It's a good thing. Maybe we have a habit of praying when we first get up in the morning or right before we go to bed at night.

Maybe we have a habit of coming here on Wednesday night and praying with the rest of the church. Maybe we have, like we just saw here a few minutes ago, we had prayer before this sermon began. Those are normal praying.

And those are good. Those habits are really good to get into so that you are just by habit remembering to pray. But what about extraordinary praying? Praying that is out of the ordinary, that is not easy, that is, I have to think before I do it.

I have to be intentional about it. It won't come automatic, so I need to exercise some discipline, exercise my will in order to do it. Well, there's a few examples of that as well.

The Bible says that God hears those especially. One of them is repetitive praying. Consistent praying, praying for the same thing over and over and over again.

We may say, God, I don't want to bug you, but God says, go ahead and bug me. Luke chapter 18 tells the story of the persistent widow and says this widow kept coming to the judge over and over again. God says, do that.

It's a good thing. It shows that you believe prayer really works and that there really is a God in heaven that hears your prayer. United praying.

Jesus said, where two or three of you are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of you. If any two of you shall agree as to asking anything, it shall be done. So agreeing in prayer.

James talks about the fervent prayer of a righteous man. So there must be several kinds of prayer. Maybe there's the non-fervent and the fervent.

He says the fervent. Specific praying, praying for specific needs that are so clear, I'm praying for this, that when that answer comes, there'll be no doubt this was an answer to prayer. Watchful praying.

What does that mean? You say, what does the Bible say? It means when it says watch and pray. Basically it means you're doing without sleep in order to pray. Maybe getting up early.

Maybe staying up late. Maybe there's, maybe more than that. When just a few days before we went to Bible school, we went over to Christian Aid Ministries and we were there for their open house.

During one of the sessions, or several of the sessions, they had these breakout times. And we had to choose, well, who do we listen to? Here's one on one of their programs called Salt, and over here's one on the Billboard program, and over here's one country that they're working in. Which one do we listen to? Well, we chose the one on Liberia.

There was a man there, Ryan Miller, who's from Liberia, giving a talk on God's work at Sewe. S-A-H-W-E. Sewe.

God's work at Sewe. Well, I don't know too much about Liberia. Let's go listen, see what's going on there.

Well, he told the story that a few miles from the camp base, there was this village that had been given over to devil worship. Its name was Sewe. This devil worshipping village was a stronghold of satanic powers.

And I'm not sure how far away it was. Was it an hour away up there, up in the mountains to the northeast, I guess it was. But it was known for that.

A few times there had been missionaries gone in, maybe many times, gone in to try to evangelize this satan worshipping village. And they would put curses on these pastors, and they would die. They would put curses on foreigners, they would die.

These witch doctors would put curses on their enemies for whatever reason, political reasons, money reasons, and they would die. And this was happening all the time. There was a high death rate there.

It was a horrible, horrible, dark place. Pastor Ocken from Kam, the Kam base there, he says he really feels God wants him to go to this village in Sewe. He feels that God wants him to go and share the gospel there.

And he knew the reputation that this village had, but he decided to go anyway. He took a helper with him, and he headed off toward that village. And as they started walking into that village, people knew why he was there.

He met some people, and they warned him, Pastor Ocken, you can walk into this village. You'll never walk out. Many have tried, all have failed.

You won't be the exception. He says, you will die if you stay here overnight. But he chose to stay anyway.

They got a room to stay in, and they went into that bedroom. And everybody knew he would never come out of there. But night fell, and all night long, he said, he did not sleep one wink.

He prayed the entire night, waiting for morning to come. When the door opened the next morning, and he walked out of there, everybody was watching, and their mouths were hanging open. They could not believe he had survived the night.

It was like Daniel coming out up out of the lion's den. Everybody was shocked. He's still alive.

But that shock opened the door for them to listen to the gospel. And he started sharing the gospel with the people of Sewi, and they listened. And one by one, they began to respond.

They repented. They forsook their Satan worship, and they followed God. Eventually, there was a church formed in the village of Sewi.

Eventually, there was two churches, and then three churches. And people were responding to the gospel. And many people from all walks of life were responding and getting right with God.

One of the ladies who responded to the gospel in that village was a lady named Sis Blessing, S-I-S. I'm not sure if that's short for sister or what it is, but that was her name, Sis Blessing. Now, when she was born many years ago, she had been dedicated to Satan.

She was given to Satan. She said, she's going to be a Satan worshiper. And probably her parents received some sort of a reward from Satan, maybe extra power from Satan by giving their little baby girl to Satan to worship.

And she grew up in that. And she was a powerful witch. She had a reputation.

She could place a curse on anyone, and they would die immediately. But she became a Christian, and she became a follower of Jesus. She renounced her witchcraft.

She renounced her Satanic worship. And after she was a Christian, someone sat down to interview her and said, you're a Christian now, and you used to be a witch, and you used to cast these spells on people, and they would die. Oh, yes, she says, I never failed.

They said, but we're a little confused. Some of those people you cast spells on were pastors. They were Christians.

And we've always been taught, we're a Christian, and now you're a Christian too. We always thought that the power of Jesus is stronger than the power of Satan, and that your power from Satan won't be able to touch a Christian. So how does this work? Why were you able to curse these pastors and kill them if they were a follower of Jesus? She says, well, actually, that is true.

The power of Jesus is more powerful than the power of Satan. She said, when these pastors would come in, if it was somebody else, some government agent that we didn't like, we could kill him immediately. But these Christian pastors would come in, and we'd try to put a curse on them, and it wouldn't work, not at first.

It was just like we knew our power was not strong enough to kill them. So she said, we would have to change our tactics. Instead of just putting a curse on them right away, we would befriend them.

And after we would befriend them and be buddies with them, then we'd start enticing them to sin, and they would fall. And one pastor would fall into maybe some substance, maybe it was tobacco or alcohol. Another one would fall into immorality or some sexual sin.

She says, after they would fall into sin, then we could put the curse on them, and they would die. And we were always successful until Pastor Auchin came. And that was the message that she gave.

And a very sobering story, the warfare that we're in as Christians. Now today, like I said, that village has numerous Christians in there. The power of Satan has largely been broken, and God's kingdom is at work.

Do you want to be people of prayer? I've got a few suggestions for you if you do. I would like to suggest three words, time, place, and list. Time, place, and prayer list.

First of all, time commitment. If you're like me, you probably have a problem when you're trying to pray with a wandering mind. You get down to pray, and your mind goes in all these different directions, and all of a sudden, time has passed, and I haven't really prayed.

I would encourage you, one of the ways to deal with that is just set aside enough time to make it worthwhile. If your mind's going to wander for 15 minutes, and you only have 20 minutes to pray, it's going to be gone. But if you set aside half an hour to pray, or an hour to pray, then if your mind wanders for 15 minutes, you can still get some prayer in before your time is up.

So set aside enough time. I think of the story of Daniel. Daniel had apparently three times that he prayed every day.

He knew he was going to do it in the morning, he knew he was going to do it at noon, he was going to do it again in the evening, and it didn't matter if there's lions or whatever standing in the way, he was going to still pray. And he set those times aside, whether it was a day he felt like praying or not, whether it was a day he was in danger or not, it was a time he had set aside. So set aside time to pray.

Set aside a place to pray. We could, um, I would just like to ask this question. You look at the different religions in the world.

Many of them have objects to help them pray. The Muslims, they have a rug they roll out on the carpet, and they pray toward Mecca. The Catholics, you know, they got these rosaries, these beads that they pray, you know, down through the list, or what, the crucifix, the rosary, the... Anyway, they have these little things that they use, objects to help them pray.

So my question is, as Christians, how about us? Do we have an object to help us pray? Do we need an object to help us pray? We'd say, well, no, of course not. We're Christians. We don't believe in idol worship.

We don't need that. But actually, Jesus said there is an object that'll be very, very useful in your prayers if you use it wisely. It's called a closet door.

He said, go into your closet and shut the door, and then pray to your Father who sees in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. So use the closet door as a very valuable tool.

Now, what does that mean? What is a closet door? Well, it means privacy. Get private. Get alone.

Jesus was the one who recommended a closet door, and He had to even improvise to come up with a closet door because He didn't have a place to lay His head. He didn't have His own house, as far as I know. So where's He... Jesus didn't get His own closet door.

Well, He used a mountain for His closet door. He went up into a mountain to pray. The point is, get alone.

I just heard a testimony here this last couple of weeks of a girl writing about her father. Well, describe your father to us. Well, he likes to take walks in the dark so he can pray.

I said, well, that's a very interesting way to have a closet door. Get out on the street. It's all dark, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock at night, or maybe it's early in the morning.

I'm not sure, but it's dark. Nobody else is out on the streets, and he starts walking, and he's got total privacy to pray to God. So look for times of privacy.

I've heard that there's an epidemic going on in this world today. We get calls from people on the billboard line who are victims of this epidemic, this epidemic called loneliness. And I'm going to put this word up here.

And I got a call from a man here a few months ago who said, I'm a lonely man. He says, I don't make friends very easy. I'm mostly alone.

And he wasn't bragging about that. He was more discouraged about that. And most of us would say the same thing.

If we were lonely people, we wouldn't look at that as a positive word. We'd say that's a negative word. But I encouraged him to find another word that's a positive word.

I said, what if you, first of all, try to make friends. Friends are good. But when you are alone, think of it not as loneliness, but think of it as another word.

This is a word that's a positive word, solitude. And solitude is a good thing. Solitude is a productive thing.

You're not a victim of solitude. Solitude is something you choose. And so if you're a place in life where you don't have a lot of interaction, turn to this thing of solitude.

Spend time alone with God. And if you do have a lot of people all around you, then make time alone with God. Use a closet door if you have one available.

Use a mountain if that's all you have. If you're like Richard Wurmbrand spent all those years in solitary confinement, he used the prison door. That was his means of solitude.

So find solitude when you can. And the last one I want to mention is, so time alone, solitude or time and then the closet door or a place and then finally let's talk about a prayer list. Let me say this about the solitude just in a moment.

I remember a camp meeting I was at with a bunch of young people and in the mornings those young people, I would see them taking their Bibles out to try to, you know, this is a camp meeting. What are you going to do with a hundred other youth around? How are you going to ever find time to pray? But they were doing it. They would go off into some far corner of the campground and find time alone to be alone with God.

Are you that committed to finding solitude, to finding time alone? I would encourage you to do that. The last one, a prayer list. You know, how often have you told somebody when they share a concern with you, I'll pray for you.

I'll pray for you. And then how often have you forgot to ever really pray for them? Now, to be fair, I think it's powerful to tell somebody I'm going to pray for you. That's encouraging.

It feels good. But what do you think does actually more to tell them you're going to pray for them or to pray for them? Which is more powerful? Which actually does more? If it's just enough to tell somebody you're going to pray for them, but then actually not pray for them, does it actually do as much as if you actually do pray for them? And probably really powerful to do both. Tell them you're going to pray for them and then actually do pray for them.

The Apostle Paul, he seemed to do this. He has this little phrase in his writings, making mention. He just makes mention.

He must have had too long of a prayer list to pray for five minutes for each person, every church, every name. But he says, I'm going to make mention of you in my prayer. And so he did.

He'd pray for them by name, lift them up to God, and then probably pretty quickly go on to the next person, the next church that he was praying for. But make mention of them. So keep a prayer list if you're not sure how to pray, when your time to pray is here.

I remember somebody handed me a cassette tape back when cassette tapes were the way to hand out sermons. And this was a tape from up here at the preacher up at the Jefferson Baptist Church. And he was talking about his journey as a pastor.

He said, I think he had been a dairy farmer earlier on in his life. And he was called, somebody asked him, would you please come and be a pastor of our church? He eventually said, okay. Well, he doesn't know how to be a pastor.

So he starts taking seminars, learning about how to be a pastor, how to grow the church. And sure enough, the church started growing, starting out at 100 and then 150 and then 200. This is going great until there was a church split and half the members left.

Now they're back down to 100. More seminars, more church growth techniques, grow, grow, grow, back up to 200 and then another church split. And now he's wondering, well, what's going on? Why? You know, something we're doing wrong.

Well, he went to another seminar. This time it wasn't about church growth, it was about prayer. And somehow he was inspired.

Motivate your people to pray. Make that the focus of your life. And as he did, good things begin to happen.

They begin to have this love for one another they didn't have before. There was growth and this time the growth stayed. Today, he said, at the time of this sermon anyway, in a city of 2,000, they have 1,500 members that are there.

They have a motto, much prayer, much blessing, little prayer, little blessing, no prayer, no blessing. And we went up there to visit. We saw their big, you know, on the board, it was like a prayer chain.

Every 24 hours they had this big display, who's going to be praying and what the needs are they're going to be praying about and so forth. So that was their focus. And, you know, in spite of differences in doctrine that I'm sure we would have, it was hard to deny that God was doing something.

God was honoring their focus on prayer. I even asked him, you know, 1,500 members, well, how does this work? Well, he says, actually, I pray for, he tries to pray for every single member every week by name. So, 1,500 names on his prayer list that he has to pray for.

And I don't know if he does, I pray, he doesn't do that by memory. I think he's got a list somewhere that he knows who I'm going to pray for. And he doesn't do it all at once.

It's too much work to do it. I mean, you can't, you know, can't pray for so much, you know, more than, I forget what he said, I think it was 45 minutes, and he needs a break. So he'll go take a break.

And then later in the day, he'll come back multiple times in the day to get through his prayer list. A church leader from history, I think it might've been Martin Luther. He said this, he says, I'm so busy that I need three hours of prayer every day.

I'm so busy, I need three hours of prayer every day. And I don't know if this was before he started the Reformation or what it was, but, you know, one of these church leaders anyway, think about that. I've heard the opposite.

I've said, people, I've said, I'm too busy. I'm so busy, I can't pray every day. He said, I'm so busy, I have to pray every day.

How do we look at prayer? I want to look at one more window here. Again, from this list in Matthew chapter six, Jesus said, your father will reward you openly. This is in Matthew six, verses 16 to 18.

So let's just keep on where we left off. Moreover, when you fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.

But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy hand, wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy father which is in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. So here's a way we can take our prayers. Jesus said, pray fervently.

Now here he's adding another thing, another window, another way to knock on the windows of heaven, fasting. What's fasting? Well, we probably know what it is, but in case you don't, fasting is doing without food. It might even be doing without a specific food.

It might even be doing without more than food, maybe food and water. But basically, it means, yeah, going without food for a while, a given period of time. Jesus said, do it secretly.

Don't do it for the praise of men. But he says, if you do it for the right motives, my father will reward you openly. One of the reasons that he tells us to fast, we could look at some of the reasons.

One is, Jesus said that his followers would do that. So are you a follower of Jesus? Jesus said his followers would fast, Matthew 9, 13. It also says in Psalm 35, it's a way to humble ourselves.

So if we are serious about humbling ourselves, fasting is one way to do it. Personal discipline is another reason. Health benefits is even a reason to sometimes fast.

To get answers to prayer, that's what we typically think of when we think of fasting. This kind, Jesus said, goes not out, talking about a demon-possessed boy. This kind goes not out but by prayer and fasting.

And, you know, speaking of maybe the least important of the reasons is the health benefits, but it's probably still a good reason. I know once I got older, I didn't used to have any problem gaining weight before. I didn't have, I didn't, I was, I'd probably eat what I wanted and I didn't, I didn't gain any weight.

But once I turned about 50, all of a sudden I got this problem that if I keep eating, it just keeps piling on. So fasting has been a good thing. If you don't, if you have any questions about that, you can ask me afterward.

But that's probably the least important reason. There's other reasons. Personal discipline is a good one, is a reason to fast.

You know, we live in a world where moral sin has taken over so many people. And we hear about it a lot, this, you know, all the sin that's online, the sin that's out in town, the sin that's all over. And I would just encourage us, value a clear conscience above everything else because God has, there's pleasures in this world and some of them God has given to us.

He says He's given us richly all things to enjoy. Pleasure is invented by God. But there's some pleasures that are not ours.

And when we commit moral sin, we're taking pleasures that do not belong to us and making them ours. We're stealing. All right, that's what we're doing.

But there's other pleasures that do belong to us. And one of those is food. As long as you haven't stolen the food, you can eat it and it's pleasurable and it's yours.

You're not forbidden to eat food. It's a legitimate, it's a legitimate pleasure that you can partake of. And so when you learn to fast, you're giving up something that's legitimate.

It's good. It's yours. And you're learning to say no to pleasure and it's really good exercise spiritually.

So personal discipline. And, you know, keep that clear conscience no matter what. A clear conscience is going to do far more to make you happy than, you know, all the pleasure in the world where some of the most miserable people in the world are the people that have chased after pleasure and they got a defiled conscience.

And they're some of the most miserable people in the world, even though they've had all these pleasures that a lot of us are saying, I've never had that or I've turned away from that, perhaps. I think I've shared this here before. So maybe somebody will see how many of you remember.

Can you name two people in the Bible standing on the side of a creek? The other side of the creek is a deadly enemy with the ability to kill the good guy on this side. So who are the two people? Do you remember? It's been several months. David is one.

His enemy was Goliath. Who's the second one? Jacob. And his enemy was Esau.

But notice how these two men with an enemy on the other side of a creek responded to their enemy. David didn't get close. He stayed at least a slingshot's range away from Goliath.

He threw this stone, knocked him down, cut off his head, clearly keeping his distance until it was safe to do so. Jacob did the opposite. He ran up and gave him a hug.

They embraced each other, sent gifts along ahead first, and then they embraced each other. And what's the difference here? How does that apply to us? Well, we have two great big enemies in our life. We have the enemy of pain.

We have the enemy of pleasure. And I'm talking about illegitimate pleasures. And they'll both kill you if you let them.

Now, both have destroyed many people. Many people have been destroyed by pain. Many people have been destroyed by pleasure.

But your response to those two enemies depends on which one it is that you're facing. If you're facing the enemy of pleasure that's trying to destroy you, I would caution you, don't get close. Like David, if he would have went up and tried to hug Goliath, I mean, he would have been shredded and fed to the birds.

That's what would have happened. But Goliath was, I don't know what the size difference, but twice as big for sure, probably three or four times as big as David. And it would have been all over.

He didn't hug him. He threw a rock and cut off his head. And that's what pleasure will do if you get close.

The Bible says flee fornication, flee these sins of the pleasure. And attack it from a distance, cut off its head or run away from it. Don't try to embrace it.

It'll kill you. But if you're dealing with another enemy, this enemy is pain. It's coming.

You can't avoid it. What do you do with that? Are you going to try to fight that pain? Are you going to try to destroy it? Many people have and it doesn't work. I would encourage you embrace it.

Be grateful in that pain. If you try to destroy an anger, it will instead destroy you. But embrace it, be grateful, and then see, God, how do you want to use this pain in my life? Let it be a chastening effect on you and change you.

God answers prayers when there's fasting involved. And we've seen God work in many ways. One way that came to my mind recently was when Amanda, she was heading over there to Bangladesh to visit a friend.

And she had this problem that we didn't know what that problem was, but it was a gallbladder issue. It was pain in her stomach. We knew that.

We thought, well, maybe it's an ulcer. She took ulcer medication. That didn't work.

So we had other ideas. That didn't work. But we had this plane ticket bought for Bangladesh.

And what do you do? Do you stay home and try to get the problems fixed? Well, the answer came back. We decided, for better or worse, no, she's going. So she went.

But we were concerned. My wife was probably as concerned as anybody. She said, well, I'm going to, the whole time you're there, I'm going to pray and fast one meal per day while you're gone.

And so she did. Every, I think it was breakfast, was typically the meal she would fast and pray for Amanda while she's gone. And you see, the problem with this gallbladder is as long as the pain comes and then goes, it's, you're probably still safe.

But if it comes and stays, you're probably in trouble. You got to better get to a hospital pretty quick. Well, there were a few bouts of that drain her two weeks stay over in Bangladesh.

There was a few of those times the pain came, but it went away, thankfully. And meanwhile, my wife's at home praying and, and, uh, and fasting. And, um, you know, when Amanda got on that plane to come back home, we knew she was going to have another, I forget, 15, 16 hour flight.

That's not up in the air at 30,000 feet. It's not a good time to have a hospital emergency. And so once again, we prayed, well, she made it home within 24 hours of making a home.

The pain came again. This time it didn't go away. This time we did go to the hospital and she was admitted.

She was, it was confirmed. Yes, this is a gallbladder. They did surgery though.

We were close enough to the hospital. Thankfully they took it out. But, you know, we often thought, well, that would have been really disastrous if it would have happened up in the airplane, if it would have happened over there in Bangladesh where we're not sure what kind of healthcare they have.

Maybe it's better than I think, but you just don't know. God answers prayer. Um, I would like to just give you one last challenge here.

Maybe we could stand here. We're going to have prayer in just a moment. So if everybody could stand, I want to read a little article here by James bear, former phone team member now passed away.

Maybe you can close your eyes and listen to this. It says, read Ezekiel 22 and this is where it says, God was looking for somebody to stand in the gap and he didn't find anybody, somebody to make up the hedge. He sought for a man and he found none.

That's the passage. So here's what is written. Sometimes we hear the idea that the devil seems to have a monopoly on the souls in a particular area.

Are no Christians there who take serious interest in interceding for the souls in their community? God most graciously uses men and women of faith to stand between and to intercede for sinners before God in such a way we are, we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Notice the dilemma in his Ezekiel's prophecy concerning Israel, read the whole chapter to get the picture. They were committing the sins of our present generation and that had caused an irreconcilable breach between them and their God.

The hedge needed to be filled. The gap in the line of defense needed a warrior armed. God lamented that he sought for such a person in Israel and he found none.

May I encourage you? The devil has it too easy in your community. One man in the closet interceding before God and for his church and community through serious prayer and supplication can make it extremely difficult for our enemy. God gives us an amazing privilege.

By our prayers of faith we can influence God to delay judgment and move in the hearts of men. He wants you to be engaged in this intercession. Will you step up to the challenge?