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Are we waiting for confirmation of going live? Yes, that's exactly what we're waiting for. We're waiting for a confirmation that... And so these remarks will be at the beginning of the YouTube video, but we're still waiting for the confirmation that we're live on Facebook.
So now would be the time if you have a really great Bible joke, you know, like, like what did Noah say to his sons when they were fishing off the side of the ark? Take it easy, boys. We only have two worms.
Oh, my goodness. How's it going, Robin?
I heard that one. Not heard that one.
Not going. Just keep going. I'm having issues. So just keep going and I'll get it going here. Okay. Sorry.
All right. Well, this will be the official video that's on YouTube, even though we'll have some people joining late on the Facebook live stream. But just to let you guys know, I'm Terri Kammerzell here with Creation Fellowship Santee.
We're a group of friends bound by our common agreement that the creation account as told in Genesis is a true depiction of how God created the universe and all life from nothing in just six days a few thousand years ago.
We've been meeting most Thursday nights here on Zoom since June of 2020. We've been blessed with presentations by pastors, teachers, doctors, cartoonists, scientists, apologists, and all around smarty pants people who love the Lord and have a message to share.
You can find most of our past videos by searching for Creation Fellowship Santee, that's S-A-N-T-E-E on YouTube. You can follow us on our Creation Fellowship Santee Facebook page, and you can sign up for our email list by emailing creationfellowshipsantee at gmail .com so you don't miss any upcoming speakers.
Most of our topics are creation themed, naturally, but from time to time we are blessed with some off topics, such as what we have tonight, which is a little bit off, but also kind of on target because we're talking about prayer, and as Christians, as creationists, as everything, we should be praying.
And so I am pleased to introduce to you guys tonight our speaker, whose name is Mark Cover. And Mark, on the topic of creation, can you tell us a little bit about how it is that we were able to invite you here because you share that common bond with us?
Yeah, absolutely. So in fact, that was my first passion in coming out of high school because I, through a series of physical ailments, I was sovereignly led through a series of doctors referred me, and then I ended up in Amish country, Ohio, in Mount Eaton in a town of 500 people at an osteopath that was doing spinal adjustments.
I had TMJ issues, I had shooting pains in my hips, I was a track team, and I was doing high jump and long jump and discus, and anyway, it was becoming a problem. So this guy had forearms the size of my calf muscles, and he got in my face and he said, what do you believe, young man?
And I said, I mean, I had been confirmed in Lutheran Church, you know, but I was struggling with the whole evolution thing because I had recently gone through my high school biology class, and I was struggling.
And so it was the perfect timing, and he had a, not only did he have a library full of creationist books from ICR and other places, Creation X and HeLa Magazine, but he also had the radio shows on, and he just, while he was working on me, getting my head bones lined up and cracking my back, he was telling me and teaching me about these things.
And so I got this hunger for knowing this because I loved science, and so I ended up, my summer after my freshman year, I was going for chemical engineering bachelor's, and I started reading all these books with these PhD scientists that believed in creation, and it totally reignited my faith in the scripture and gave me a passion, and I wanted to end up working at ICR.
That was my dream when I was 19. So that's my background. And then, because God knows our dreams and He cares about them, years, years later, I ended up sitting in a New Testament survey class and saying, God, what was all that education for?
Because I ended up in corporate America, I was doing systems integration, computer work for chemical companies, and I was like, what was all that education for? I want you to use everything in my background for your glory.
So it started with a prayer. A week later, I'm being interviewed to teach at San Diego Christian College, which at that time was on the campus of Shadow Mountain Church, and so anyway, that propelled me there, and there were all sorts of answered prayers that I could talk to you about that even got me through that time of teaching there, and it was such an honor.
So that's my connection.
With creation, and I have a love for it. Okay, great. And then, you had wanted me to share a song. Is that now a good time, or do you want to wait a little bit? Not just yet. Let's wait until we get to the mystery of effective prayer.
So before we do that, our topic tonight is prayer. So can you tell us about your journey into the prayer movement?
Yes, I can. So I'm excited to talk about what does effective prayer mean, and I'm really excited to get to the testimonies, because testimonies are the fuel for our faith, and it sparks our worship, but yes, it is.
So God convicted me in 1993, so I was saved in 85, and by God's grace, went to a college where a guy who graduated two years before me, he was in Campus Bible Fellowship. Well, I had not studied the Bible on my own in the Lutheran Church other than the fact that I went to a very disciplined catechism program for two years.
We had to go four hours every two Saturdays, and we had to memorize all sorts of answers word for word, so that was good background, but I didn't really study scripture. So in college, I had to write essays on all these different topics, so I had a five-year one-on-one discipleship program, got fired up about the Word of God, and so anyway, so I'm sorry, I think I lost my train there.
There was a reason I was going there. Could you, could you, oh, prayer, right? How do I get in the prayer movement? So anyway, I got convicted in 93, though, of my prayerlessness, and it was a sermon, I remember it was June 27th, 1993, and I was just so convicted of my prayerlessness, and so I kind of went through a crisis there, and God was leading me to repent of that, and that actually ties into something I want to read later, but so God's taken this prayerless guy.
I had a passion for kind of courageous moral leadership. I was like, this country needs courageous moral leadership. The church needs courageous moral leadership. We've got to stand up against what's wrong.
We have to have people that can speak out against these things, and yet I don't think I was ready. I thought I was ready for ministry, and I really wasn't ready for ministry, because God's like, you think you want to be a courageous moral leader?
You're going to have to fight some spiritual battles. You're going to have to learn how to pray better, my son. You're going to have to learn how to really pray, and it's a battle in the spirit, so there I am.
I wanted to go, I was curious about this invitation to the 20th anniversary of Promise Keepers, which is in Boulder, Colorado. I'm there in Cleveland. I don't have much money at the time, and this is 2009.
Fast forward, a wave passed, and I was like, what? I was like, how am I going to get there? I was trying to figure out how I could fly to Omaha and rent a car. It was the cheapest bet I could figure, and this guy that I only had talked to two times in my life calls me while I'm praying, God, how am I going to do this?
And he says, we're just talking. My wife is talking. We just thought nobody ever stays in our spare room, and we have this extra vehicle, so if you ever come out to Colorado, we want you to stay with us, and you can use our car, and he had a friend with buddy passes, so I got to fly for $14 each way, and I got to go to this thing.
Well, this thing was the day before 20th anniversary of Promise Keepers was a date of repentance, and I'm thinking, whatever. If we ever needed a day of repentance and revival, it's now, so I went to this thing.
Not a very popular event. There was only maybe like 50 people in the whole stadium, and this older gentleman, skinny guy gets up there, and he starts telling these stories, testimonies about God answering in dramatic ways to people that were perseverant, and fervent, and did not give up, and clung to God, and clung to the altar, and cried out until he answered, and I was so stirred.
I said, wow, I just got to go thank this guy for rekindling my faith, and so I went, and I found him, and I just told him this, and he said, we need good men in Washington, D .C. Pray about coming out and serving, so he had a men's prayer ministry in D .C., and you know, ministered, prayed for the Congress, did all the First Timothy 2 things, right?
The First Timothy 2 is, I urge that men everywhere pray at all times, lifting holy hands without malice, without doubt, without wrath, and pray for all those in authority, so that what? We can live quiet, peaceable lives in all godliness, and so that propelled me into this prayer movement, and gave me a very immersive experience for the next, well, I served intensely for about a year, and then I served on and off for another four or five years, and just saw amazing answers to prayer.
People call me a prayer warrior. I don't call myself a prayer warrior. I call myself a prayer warrior novice or wannabe, because I've walked with people who really were prayer warriors, and I know the difference, but anyway, I'm hungry, and I'm.
Learning, so that's how I got into the prayer movement. Okay, well, that's a great story about God's guidance and leading, so okay, so that moves us on to the next topic on your list for tonight, the mystery of prayer, and you want to define effectiveness for us.
Well, yeah, I mean, so when you first asked me about this, you know, I think all of us in the body of Christ, and myself in particular, have been in a season of, wow, God, like, you know, certain things we wanted or expected to happen haven't happened, and so we're all kind of in this asking and inquiring and going, you know, how do we pray effectively?
You know, how do we know the heart of God? How can we connect with His will and all that? So when I was asked, I thought, boy, I don't know. I don't have a formula, right, and so I just prayed about it, and I thought, you know, it really kind of is a mystery in a way, but I can tell you this.
I know that I know that I know because I've seen. It's kind of like at the beginning of 1 John, it says, these things that we've seen and we've heard, we can't help but speak. Like, I know that I know that I know that it works.
I just don't know how it works. I can't put a formula on it. I never know. You never know when it's going to work and in what way, and so I just thought it's important just to ask ourselves, how do we define effective prayer?
Does it mean seeing the outcomes we hope for, you know? Does it mean that, or does it mean, is it more of a journey to wrestle with God, to know Him better, to connect and encounter Him, and then get ourselves aligned with what He's doing and His will?
It's kind of like that whole experience in God, the seven steps of experiencing God with Henry Blackaby, the book, pretty famous. You know, it always involves a crisis of faith because God is working, but we have to go through a crisis of faith and a major sacrifice or realignment to get in line with what He wants us to do and how He wants us to use it, and a lot of times it doesn't look like we expect it to look.
So, if effectiveness involves transforming or getting transformed and conforming our will to His and knowing Him better and encountering Him, then that's the good definition, I think, of effective prayer.
So. Okay, and then, so would you like, this is a good time to share the first song that you have? Well, yes, this is a good time to share because I do know, I don't have a formula, but there are certain components, you know, in the recipe.
I don't know the exact proportions, but I know there are certain components that show up in a lot of biblical prayers and prayers that I've seen answered, and so this song kind of leads.
Us into that. I'm going to quick interject. It's Robin. Yeah, please. So, that is what I have understood, too, that the worship song kind of evokes the Holy Spirit. I don't, you know, like I'm not kind of a novice at this as well, but I think that's why a lot of church services start with a song, you know, so you're kind of evoking the Holy Spirit or, you know, encouraging Him to come or I don't know, whatever.
Keep going. Well, yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because.
Really it jogged my memory of a few things. So, a lot of times, you know, we, I mean, we live in our souls, our emotions, right? We know our body, soul, and spirit, and, you know, the best way to live is being mighty in spirit, right?
We want to be mighty in spirit, and we want our spirit to be in control and rule our emotions and our will and, you know, have our souls surrendered to the Holy Spirit through our spirit, but a lot of times we get discouraged, right?
We can get discouraged, and we have to remind ourselves who we're praying to. So, worship helps us, helps our spirit and our mind retrain and tell our heart and our emotions, remind us who it is and how great He is and how awesome He is and how much He loves us so that when we do pray, we're praying in faith, which is one of the huge, major, important ingredients of prayer and getting effective answers.
So,.
Yes, thank you, Robin. That was helpful. Let me just quick say, too, we're not some weird Pentecostal church either, so anybody's a little afraid. We're not. Our non-denominational church plays praise music, and I learned about the playing, you know, praising God, playing worship music.
I learned that from a non-denominational church also. So, okay, I'm done. Yeah, great,.
And I mean, the point is, like, everything I've said, I can back up with scripture. It's in the Psalms. It's in James. It's in Matthew. I mean, it's all scriptural. So,.
With that said, go ahead, Terri. Okay, so this song that we're sharing, we're going to share a couple minutes of is called You Know All Things by Olivia Buckles. Lord, You Know All Things. Yep. Lord, You Know All Things by Olivia Buckles.
Okay, so let's do this, and here we go.
Let me stop share. There we go. So, I'm just curious, what did you hear, Terri and Robin, or anybody? What did you hear in the lyrics?
I got chills. I got chills. I've never heard that song before, and her voice is haunting.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but definitely the focus is on God. It's definitely, her song is to Him, right? It seems like a love letter to the Lord. Yeah, yes, she's singing to the Lord, and.
Obedience and a weakness, right? So, you know, those that come to Him must, you know, believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, right? And we're so proud, and I'm speaking of myself, and in general, I think men, because you go to a typical prayer meeting at a church just saying, God bless, you ladies are there.
You ladies are praying, and men, you know, it's like, we can handle it. We're the captains of the ship, and you know, we have to be strong, and so that other people don't get afraid that we're leading, and all this, but yet we, you know, in 1 Timothy 2, in the Greek, it literally says, I urge men, the male, not just generic, I urge men everywhere to pray, lifting holy hands.
So, we have to acknowledge our weakness, and our complete ineffectiveness, and inability to accomplish things on our own, and especially you get into adulthood, and you have a little bit of success, and you start to think it's all from you, and you think, man, I'm pretty good.
I'm pretty competent, and I kind of, you know, I kind of feel like some of the things that we accomplish as adults are kind of the equivalent of, you know, hey, I can wave bye-bye, you know, like, I know how to wave bye-bye, you know, like, well, that's great, but I realized that I discovered something really cool when I visited my 97-year-old aunt, who did make it to 100, and I got to visit her when she was 99 and a half, but she had this old Slovak Bible, right, all in Slovak, so my relatives are from Czechoslovakia originally, a little bit of Hungarian in there, but anyway, so we discovered that her mother, my great-grandmother, stood up at her 50th wedding anniversary, and recited all 23 verses of Psalm 103 in Slovak from memory, and the other thing I found out, which I had no idea Lutherans did, they did a half hour to an hour of worship at the breakfast table before they went to church to get their hearts ready, so that when they got to church, they were already in the ready to worship God and receive from Him, so I, so what I'm, why am I telling you this?
Because I feel like the paths, some of the paths that God has opened for me, it's not because I'm so good, it's because He's faithful to her prayers, three generations back, so anyway, and of course, Psalm 103, you know, the whole, the song, the worship song, right, that's based on it by Matt Redman, I think, Matt Redman, right, 10 ,000 Reasons, that's from Psalm 103, so anyway, I've got, I'm stepping on, I'm standing on shoulders, so I think that's part of understanding humility, and coming to the end of yourself, brokenness is a big piece of getting desperate and knowing that you need God's help, so that leads you to, so if you have to repent of your prayerlessness and your self-sufficiency, right, and so I want to read, I found this Andrew Murray book about living a prayerful life, this is one of the resources I highly, highly recommend, it's not very big, but it packs a wallop, so if you allow me just to read a quick excerpt, okay, all right, this book came out of a minister's conference in South Africa in 1912.
This professor of our Dutch Reformed Theological Seminary had written a letter to our church ministers concerning the low spiritual state that marked the church in general, and which ought to lead us to inquire how far the statement included our church as well.
What was said about the lack of spiritual power in the book, The State of the Church, called for deep searching of the heart. He suggested we come together in God's presence, find the cause of the lack.
He wrote, if we would study the conditions in all sincerity, we will have to acknowledge our unbelief and our sins are the cause of our lack of spiritual power, and that this condition is one that places us guilty before God and grieving God's Holy Spirit.
His invitation met with a hearty response, so there was this gathering of these pastors and seminary professors. 400 professors and pastors, missionaries, ministers, and theological students met on the basis of the above statement at the meeting.
From the very first message, there was a tone of confession, okay, confession as the only way to repentance and restoration. Then opportunity was given for testimony as to what the sins might be that made the life of the church so ineffectual.
They started out very general and bland and vanilla, and then they soon realized the Lord led them to gradually to the sin of prayerlessness and one of the deepest roots of their problem of lack of spiritual power.
No one could be claimed to be free from this. Nothing so reveals a defective spiritual life in a minister or a congregation as the lack of believing and unceasing prayer. Prayer is the pulse of the spiritual life, is the great means by which ministers and lay people alike receive the blessing and power of heaven.
So, and it's also the key to living a strong and abundant life. Jesus said he came that we might have life and have it more abundantly, right? And I have a couple testimonies and examples of how the opposite of what was just said.
So, they literally, the book goes on. The first, so that was just the introduction to this book. Then the first three chapters are, and I quote, the sin of prayerlessness is chapter one. Chapter two is the cause of prayerlessness, and chapter three is the fight against prayerlessness.
So, it gets you an upswing. It starts you out. You gotta confess your sin of prayerlessness, and then you have to work toward, you can fight against it, and you can move on and grow in it, grow in prayer.
So, I have a couple testimonies. So, Moody, okay, Moody used to attribute the effectiveness of his sermons to the people that prayed for him and his own prayer life. In addition, Spurgeon, so anybody out there familiar with the Evening and Morning devotional by Spurgeon?
I got it as a birthday gift with the gold leaf one year on a special birthday, and I'm just so blessed by the guy. Well, he was interviewed, and he was asked what is the key to his spiritual power, and he said, it's the boiler room.
It's like, what's the boiler room? And he took them to the basement of the church, and they had literally had hundreds of people praying from early morning all the way through the service while he's preaching, and he said, that is the cause of why my sermons are so effective, because I got them praying for me.
So, anyway, another thing I want to say is, I went on a journey when I was in Southern California, and I went to Costa Mesa. I went to the original Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa. Chuck Smith, who's since gone to be with the Lord, I saw him preach.
Well, at this time, I was already, I had already interned, you know, and served at the prayer ministry on Capitol Hill in D .C., stone's throw from the Supreme Court, stone's throw from the Senate office buildings, and had been getting up at 5 a .m. and praying for three to four hours with a group of guys.
By the way, persevering in prayer is a lot easier when you're in a group. United corporate prayer, I think the big missing piece, and people that just don't go to prayer meetings because they think they're boring are missing out, but anyway, so what was my story?
Sorry, I was on a story there. About Moody, I believe. Yeah, no, I talked about Moody. Oh, okay, Costa Mesa. So, I inquired after the very good sermon, and I said, you know, do you have a pamphlet on your activities during the week?
And they did. Well, Calvary Chapel, as you know, has been a very effective and fruitful and has spread all over, right? And it's like, I wonder what the secrets are to their effectiveness. They have 10, 10 regular prayer meetings a week, 10 a week, not one every other week, 10 a week, and get this, the men prayed every night, 10 at night till six in the morning, six to seven days in a week, and of course, they did it in shifts, you know, but still, like, I'm like, okay, there we go, and they preach all the way through the scriptures, they don't skip scriptures, they pray all, they preach all the way through the word, and they pray like nuts.
No wonder they're spiritual fruit. So, anyway, just some examples to be, say, you can fight the prayerlessness, so. Okay, that is, those are some great examples. So,.
I'm sorry, I've lost track of where we are on your list. No, I'm good, I can keep going, I got my outline. I've been hanging on your every word, and I'm like, wait, what is that?
So, I mean, we have to repent of our prayerlessness, we have to acknowledge it, and then we have to be willing to surrender our will, like Charles Stanley has talked about, you know, pray, how long should you pray?
Pray until you're okay with any outcome, whatever God chooses. Like, pray until you're gonna be okay. Like, there are some things in my life, I don't know that I've gotten there yet on those things. Like, no, I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure, God, that I can convince you that this outcome is the best, and I'm not gonna do this broken will stuff, but, and yet, I think it's important.
We see it in Jesus in the garden, you know, in fact, that song literally could have been a song about Jesus, right? Obedience and weakness is the evidence of love, right? And nothing is gonna get you to pray more than for people that you love and people that are under your charge, especially men, you know?
And, you know, protecting your kids, protecting your wife, you know, protecting even people you mentor, you know, with prayer, covering them in prayer. And the other, so I want to, I need to say the name of the gentleman who I heard speak, so, because I'm not trying to take credit for this.
I have nothing original. I only have things that I learned from, basically, my main prayer mentor, who has, who went to be with the Lord, actually, back in December. His name was Dick Simmons, Richard J. Simmons, and not the guy with the color, not the guy with aerobics, with the big sweatband on his head.
Yeah, I know. But this guy was a walking encyclopedia of revival, the history of revival in the church and the role of prayer in the great revivals. In fact, I accompanied him to do boot camps, men's prayer boot camps, where he does, it's an Saturday program, where it was like, here is the history of revival.
Here is where things, things got bad in the past, by the way. There used to be spiritual debauchery. There's all sorts of times. And then, and then God moved and brought a revival, right? And so, but prayer was always the spearhead.
It was the tip of the spear that led to, and of course, confession of sin that led to God moving again, and Holy Spirit convicting people of sin, and then, you know, them walking in revival. And in fact, so like Charles Finney, you guys familiar with Charles Finney?
When Charles Finney was asked about the effectiveness of his ministry, you know, preaching, you know, um, he said, he didn't, he, when he would go into a town, you know, there were still in a town, he would always ask, pray for whatever, a week, a month, two months, until he fell.
Mark, your network's having a problem.
Moved in the spirit. Oh, okay. Okay. Should I stop talking? No, no. Talking so fast,.
The bandwidth can't handle it. As an IT person, I found that to be very, very funny. But you were saying something important, and all of a sudden, your picture froze. Now it's better. Where did I stop?
So it, it really could be that you're talking too fast, and the bandwidth can't keep, but no, you're good now. Now you're moving again. What was the last thing you heard me say, I guess? Um, Charles Finney.
Okay. Yes. It was like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Just after you said Charles Finney. Okay. Okay. So, um, did you hear a thing about Father Nash? Did you hear a part of Father Nash? No. No. Okay. Okay. So Charles Finney, they were still on horses back then.
He was a revivalist. He was a preacher. And, uh, he, they called him logic on fire. Because he would go, he wouldn't, you know, it's like, oh, religion is for weak people. You know, they don't have a lot upstairs.
They're just, you know, uh, and he, he preached. He got, when he preached, doctors, lawyers, all the, the elite got repentance when he preached. So the point is, what was the key to success? He would write into a town and he would say, has Father Nash been here?
Has Father Nash been here? Father Nash was going ahead and praying wherever God told him to go. And he would pray that God would open the hearts of the people to the gospel. And he would stay a week, a month, two months, three months, until he felt like something broke and that God, people were open to the word.
And then Finney would come in and he'd preach and their hearts were already ready. So it's not that prayer is of the only importance. It's just that prayer is the, is the initiator. It's the catalyst that makes every other thing we do in ministry more effective and more fruitful.
So there's, I've heard stories of, oh yeah, our church had an evangelism campaign and we went and knew God at the door, slammed in our face all the time. And we just went home and cried, you know, but then maybe a few years later, the pastor got wise and said, we're going to pray for our neighbors.
We're going to pray for our neighbors. First, pray for the lost. And sometimes I heard they just prayed for six months, you know, and ask God to show them who to pray for, whose heart was open, dah, dah, dah.
And then when they went out, oh my goodness, they welcomed them in. You know, so again, prayer makes other parts of ministry effective. And since we're in a creation group, I think that we need to ask ourselves, how can we as a creation movement be more effective?
Because, I mean, I might talk goofy and sound fairly young, but I am not that young anymore. And like, I don't want to waste any time. Like, I don't, I want, I'm like, I want to be effective, right? I don't want to just spin wheels.
And so I think it's urgent and imperative that we pray. And so I actually have a prayer partner, a really good friend, Jeff Tompkins at ICR, who is a man of prayer and a man of worship. And God's promoted him, I think, in part because he's a man of prayer and a man of worship.
And he cares about tearing down strongholds. He prays every day, I want to tear down strongholds. Every article I write, I want to tear down strongholds and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, because you know what?
And I know I'm a little, I'm not, I'm off my outline, but it's okay. Because I'm passionate about creation, because guess what? We're sitting here under 400 years of tyranny and the glory of God being robbed from us in connection with science, in general, okay?
In general. We've been robbed. We've been looted and pillaged, okay? I won't use the R word. We've been looted and pillaged, and the glory of God. So that's why I switched when I, so after my undergraduate in chemical engineering, just for fun, okay, for fun, I studied Shulman's outline series on genetics, RNA and DNA and biosynthesis and all that stuff.
And I was like, this is incredible. I mean, this is so many years ago before we learned about epigenetics and all the other more unbelievably complex stuff that goes on in with our genes. But I was like, this is a miracle.
How can you not fall on your face? So every day for in graduate school, by God's grace, I was able to switch my National Science Foundation fellowship over to biochem. Every day was like worship for me in graduate school.
And that's what I want. That's what kids deserve. That's what parents deserve, to be able to connect science and be in awe and wonder and fall on their face, which is why I think without worship, I think creation would be more effective when it's blended with worship and when it's blended with the intercession.
And I'm going to get on my soapbox one more time before I forget. And you're gonna be like, man, I don't know,.
We're not gonna invite this guy back. But anyway. Oh, no, this is a, this is hitting on the heart of the topic. You know, we're all about creation. And we totally get where we have been robbed and pillaged and in the glory of the glory to God has been actually robbed and pillaged.
But keep going.
I'm muting now. No, no, thank you. Please. I didn't. I really didn't want this to be a monologue. I really didn't. I want it to be conversation. But um, I think what can hinder effectiveness, so now we're kind of talking about the opposites of some of these points, humility, brokenness, repentance, surrender, you know, is, I have, I think, in, in some places, I've seen and heard too much pride, too much arrogance, and too much mockery, if you will, some mocking spirit in how sometimes creation is presented, especially against evolution, and evolutionists, and the atheists and John Sanford, Dr. John, inventor of the gene gun, okay, brilliant, guy.
Like, I love that guy. Network. Network. That when he talks about timeout,.
You're again, you're again, passionate and talking too fast again. All right. So you're talking about Dr. John Sanford, who is the head of Logos Research Associates, and he invented the gene gun.
Okay, I forgot about that piece. Yeah. So yeah, inventor of the gene gun. So I heard him talk about Darwin, kind of like Darwin's undoing and kind of the key 10 key flaws of Darwin's thoughts and his philosophy.
And he paints it as a tragedy. And the guy literally tears up. He says, he is broken. He is, we need to weep. We need to weep for their lostness. Okay, and getting broken over the lostness of the lost is so important to fuel prayers that are fervent.
And we want to talk about James, the fervent effectual prayer of a righteous man. You get fervent when you're broken, and you're weeping over them. So that's where I think we need to be. So I feel like we could be more effective as a movement if we blended more prayer, corporate prayer, worship, and the science presentation and did it and ask God to help us do it in a creative way.
And I think we would be more effective and we would have, if you will, penetration or distribution to a broader spectrum of denominational denominations.
But anyway, just my thought. Okay. Okay. All right. So we're we're going through your list of components and effectiveness of prayer. So you've touched on humility and brokenness, repentance and surrender.
Are you ready to move on to faith and obedience?
Sure, because I think I did get to talk a little bit of I mixed them up, desperation and fervency, right? Okay, I talked about a little bit too. Yeah, so until we get broken, and until we remind ourselves about the glory of God and who he is and his love and his faithfulness, and part of that is reminding ourselves of how he was faithful in the past.
So after my parents and my both, both my parents had cancer at the same time, and they passed away within, you know, a couple years of each other. And so I went out, I drove across the country, and I went to Coronado, because that was a very significant place for my family and I over the years.
I love Coronado. God had done amazing, miraculous kind of healing and beginning of reconciliation with my parents that had been what I would call terminally separated. They never divorced, but they were terminally separated.
And yet God used the cancer battles and the journey of them both to start a reconciliation process and a healing process. So anyway, I drove out to California and was in Coronado for five weeks, and I was just like, okay, I got no family, and I'm not married, and I have no idea why I'm still here, God.
What do you want? What do you want from me? Where am I going? And so, you know, I cried out to God, and I was basically like, why am I still here? I don't know why I'm still here. And immediate, so that was a prayer.
It was just a, it was just a prayer. And I got invited to a Bible study that night, and they were, happened to be studying 1 Corinthians 13. And it was this amazing dynamic group. I mean, I mean, it was, it was a Holy Spirit directed Bible study.
Like, there was, everybody was, it was moving. Like, one person's insight triggered somebody else's, triggered somebody else, and there was just this awe, sense of awe about the love of God. And at the end of this thing, we went to pray.
And literally, almost every single person's prayed, God, thank you for sending Mark. He's such a blessing. And I'm like, okay, so that was the answer to my prayer, right? The answer to my prayer was, you're here to be a blessing.
Like, I'm not letting you off the hook. I've invested a lot in you, and I haven't got a lot of return, mister. And so, you're not getting out of this that easy. And so, having to obey when we don't understand is, is important.
And so, and the other, I guess the last component I want to talk about is, you know, like I said, I talked about love and sacrifice. Are you willing to be an answer to your own prayers? So, it's not just about prayer.
It's about prayer and action. You know, are we willing to be an answer to our own prayers? Like, to go out there and put feet to our prayers? You know, it talks about what in the armor of God, right? Belt of truth, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, and our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, which I believe is repentance and humility.
You know, like, are we willing to put our feet on the ground and go and love the one? So, there's Jackie Pullinger. I don't know if you all heard of Jackie Pullinger. She wrote a book called Taming the Dragon or something.
But she was a fairly upper-class person from England, and God, she was single, and God commissioned her or led her to go to Hong Kong to work with the worst of the worst drug addicts in Hong Kong. So, she basically gave up all her wealth and put everything in a big, I don't know, what do you call it, a trunk?
I guess they used to call it a trunk, not a crate, a trunk. So, I heard her speak in 2010, and she was like, are you willing to love the one? Because her book is about praying without ceasing 24 -7 for these drug addicts, and how literally she had 95 to 100 percent deliverance of these hardcore drug addicts in the ghettos of Hong Kong, because she always had somebody praying one-on-one with every single person.
I mean, really? Wow. So, anyway, it's just stuff like that. You can't deny the power of prayer and the power of obedience and loving the one in front of you. Are you willing to love the one in front of you?
So, I'm going to pause there, and I want to tell more testimonies, but I want to see if there's some questions in the chat or if you guys, if you get triggered in the midst of this flurry.
Of words. Yeah, if anybody has something that they'd like to contribute, you can either unmute yourself or you can write it into the chat. We do have somebody who's following along on Facebook, and she has made a couple of comments.
One of them is that prayer worship seems to be different than gathering to pray for requested prayers. It's kind of a, she ended it with a question mark, so I think.
She wanted you to kind of address that. Okay, yeah, well, yes. I mean, there are different kind of forms or modes of prayer. I just feel like anytime you start out in the Word and reminding yourself of the character of God and His faithfulness that leads you to faith and worship, then your prayer is going to be more faith-filled.
But yes, there, I mean, obviously, there's praying in your closet where, you know, we're only you and Jesus, right? Your Father in Heaven hears you. Nobody else knows about it, but then there's corporate prayer, right?
So, I think it's, and I can just say this, we can get, I've experienced this, and I'm ashamed of it. Sometimes, like, sometimes you can end up being a prayer snob. Like, oh, well, you know, we pray the big prayer.
We pray for national revival. We pray for, yeah, okay, yeah, but are you praying for your aunt that you got a beef with for the last 15 years, you know, that gets, that grates on your nerves, you know?
Are you willing to pray the list of needs? And I think, I just feel like, you know, Jesus said in Matthew, you know, two or three in agreement can bind or loose heaven and earth. And so, I believe, yes, I think corporate, as long as you get one or two in agreement, praying, you're more effective and praying for those things that are people's needs are important.
And yeah, and I would just say this, so I've got my best friend Chad in Omaha, Nebraska. He's got MS, but we are prayer partners, and I'm telling you, it's like one log away from the fire, ain't nothing happening.
But, you know, you get two sticks together, you know, so sometimes I don't feel like praying, and we have this little code, capital U, number four, capital P, question mark, which means up for prayer.
Are you up for prayer? So, either I text him, or he texts me, and then, even if we don't feel like it, we start to pray, and God starts to move, and it gives you energy, and you get momentum, and you get in the words, and then scripture comes, and then sometimes we think of a worship song, and it's all blended together.
Word, worship, and prayer, and it's more enjoyable and sustainable when those three things work together. So, I hope that helps address what your.
Comment was. I like that, having a prayer partner, so, and you guys don't necessarily call each other, but just knowing that you're praying at the same time, is that what you're saying? No, that's the.
Whole point of the U4P question mark. Okay, well, and then one of us dials. Yep, okay, so you pray together, yeah, but yeah, that's testimonies, but I'm, again, I want to be free to hear what people.
Are wondering about, and then I want us to pray together. I think I'm a prayer snob.
I'm trying to be a reformed one, too. You stepped on my toes. God is completely capable of making us humble.
All right, well, Mark, go ahead and go on with your testimonies of answered prayer. Okay, so,.
And it's funny, because when we started, when I started to think about how am I going to fill an hour, it's just like, I could go on for three hours because of the testimonies, but I'm not.
We got 26 minutes, but if people want to ask questions, then you really only have about.
How long? 10 to 15, 10 to 15, right? Okay, so, in my own personal life, right, I mean, we have the one side where Natalie Grant's song held. You guys familiar with Natalie Grant's song held, right? Again, this is why there's this mystery, right?
Like, how can a young mother pray for her two-year-old and still, and she dies in her arms, you know? It's appalling, I think she says. It's appalling, right? So, again, I'm not a formula person. I don't have all the answers, but I know that I know that I know that over time, and so, it's like an investment.
It's like seed that dies, you know? You sow the seed, you know, it's a mystery. It's a total mystery of how that all works, how the seed dies and then sprouts new life. It's a mystery, but we know it works.
It brings life. So, I have a few testimonies. So, for instance, and I think some of it is because God wants to build faith in other people. So, my cousins, my cousin Tom and Joanne, who I love and who have loved me more practically since my parents passed than anybody else in my family, and Tom was working super hard, had eight years of no raises, and other people at his workplace had gotten raises, and they were just kind of heartsick over, you know, and they were literally, it was, they were questioning God at that time, and so, they're like, can we, I said, can we pray?
I was like, let's hold hands. Let's really do this, and we held hands, and I said, God, your word says, right? Pray the word. Stormy O Martian. Your word says that your throne is established on righteousness and justice.
So, we're asking you to act in alignment with your character and bring justice to this situation for Tom and his, for a raise, and literally the next day, his boss comes into his office and apologizes to him and makes and gives him more double the raise than anybody else got, and to try to make up, so he got convicted at some level because we prayed he got convicted, and Tom got the raise, and they were like, my cousins were like, whoa.
So, again, that's just one, one example. So, when I was going to teach at San Diego Christian College, I had friends that were living in El Cajon, had a really sweet place, and they were on their way to move to Orange County.
So, I'm like, this is great. I'm taking over the lease. It's all furnished. This is going to be amazing. So, the landlord was like, heck no. Uh-uh. You don't have a rental history. Even though I owned a home, you don't have a rental history.
I ain't renting to you. So, we prayed, and I was just like, I was so, I was like, God, how could this not be? This is, this is it. Like, you got to do something, but if you don't, I guess you must have something better.
So, it was just this weak little thing at the end of my prayer, our prayer. You must have something better. So, the next day, I go to the school, and I go to this, they tell me, go to this bulletin board.
I pick off an index card off a bulletin board, and I call the number, and the guy's like, how'd you get this number? I'm like, uh, you're advertising a room for rent. Uh, that's five years old. I'm like, really?
And so, he's like, well, tell me your story. So, long story short, I tell him my story. He said, well, I'll pray about it with my wife. I got invited to their home. We, I told him my story. We prayed in a circle, and they're like, okay, we want, we think this is, this is God.
We want you. So, there I am, two minutes away from the school I was at, you know, and I got to go to Shadow Mountain every day, I mean, every, every weekend for worship. It was just an amazing thing, and I had, it was, again, it was yielding my will to his will.
Um, so, uh, another testimony about the power of worship and prayer together. So, I went to a large event that was a, it, and the, and the power of fasting. So, it was like a 36-hour event. It started on a Friday night at a minor league baseball field in Sacramento, and it was six hours of worship the first night, and I, a Lutheran Missouri Synod boy, I had never experienced more than 10, 15 minutes of singing out of the hymn book, and so, literally, it took me an hour or so until I was, like, literally singing to the Lord, you know.
I was singing with all my heart to the Lord, and then it just kept growing and growing and growing. Six hours of this. Next day, we do rounds of preaching, confession of sin, and repentance in these two-hour cycles, and we're still fasting, and there was one moment, I was a volunteer, and we had a moment where, uh, you know, we had to confess the sins of moral impurity in the church, and I mean, and they were like, no, you need to make amends.
There were, there were, there were people calling their loved ones on the phone, weeping, confessing their sin of affairs and all sorts of other stuff, and, and we're taking communion. Literally, the next guy gets up there, and he says, one hour ago, while we were confessing our sin and praying, Craigslist spontaneously announced it was removing all pornography from its website.
I mean, and I got such chills, and this roar erupted from the crowd, and so that, for me, that is the power of corporate prayer confession of sin, which is what we have to do. If we regard iniquity in our heart, He's not going to hear us, but God moved in such a powerful way, and He's like, it's not rocket science, guys.
It's not rocket science. It's not intense, and you have to get humble, and you have to get together and unified. So, I got, I got one more. I got, I got, I could do a whole program on testimonies, but I want to tell this one.
So, Dick Simmons' wife Barbara was his prayer partner and his rock all his life. Well, she got convicted that she needed to do a 40-day water fast when she was, like, in her late 60s, and he was a little concerned, because she was already skinny, and he was like, are you sure?
So, you know, 10 days, and he's like, oh, he'll, you know, he's going to, he'll humor her, you know. Yeah, okay, sure, baby. You do that. You do what God tells you to do, right, and so he's not doing the fast, but, you know, he's trying to be sympathetic and not eat a bunch of food.
So, 10 days go by, 20 days go by. Are you sure? You know, you look a little weak. No, God told me to pray and fast for 40 days, and so she made it the 40 days, and there, this is when they're at the prayer, you know, the prayer embassy, the war room in DC, okay, so they walk across the street on the 40th day to break their fast, and guess what happened that day?
The, that was the day of 9 -11. That was the day the towers went down, and guess what didn't happen that day? The plane that was supposed to hit the Capitol building and would have sent us into martial law and taken out a lot of our lawmakers, God gave the grace to those guys to charge the cockpit, and that plane went down in rural Pennsylvania, and I, nobody can tell me that it wasn't partially because of the obedience of that older lady who obeyed God to fast and pray, didn't know what she was praying about, just knew she was supposed to fast and pray, so again, that talks about obedience and the power of of that even with one person, so anyway, got more stories, but I'd like us all to pray for needs in your life and the ministries that you guys represent.
Yeah, those were some really good.
Stories, Mark, and we have some feedback coming on both platforms, both here on Zoom and on Facebook, and a couple of people in both places are talking about just the importance of having prayer partners and have, and being able to pray together and how much, and from their personal experience, how just their testimony of how effective it is and how much it motivates you to be able to be consistent when you have a prayer partner.
Like that, and here in the Zoom platform, our friend Deb is telling us about how she goes on prayer walks throughout the city to specific places and maybe just neighborhoods, campuses, different places where she goes and does prayer.
Walks with her prayer partner, but I would love to hear testimonies that she might have or others have at Answers to Prayer, too, so we can all call, kind of get in on the praise and gratitude party.
Here. That would be great. Yeah, and then, but then we also have another question of maybe you can give us some ideas of how to remain positively faithful when our prayers are not answered or the.
Answer is no. Yeah, so again, number one, if you're praying alone, you know, it's hard to stay encouraged, so, and by the way, I just want to give a shout out to Mary Cazor. She has actually become a dear prayer partner to me, even though, like, there's no reason why we should have met in the natural.
There is absolutely no reason why we should have met, and we met through Facebook and her literally listening. I was in a season of grieving, deep grieving, at, partially because of unanswered prayer or answer, an answer of no to some of my desperate prayers, and I heard a worship, and, and I really was in a season where I couldn't worship myself.
I was, my heart was so broken, I couldn't worship, so I feel you, and I heard a worship song or two from her daughter that I'd never heard before, Laura Cazor, and I, it was, God moved and started to heal my heart and encouraged me again, and so that's how we got connected, but it's so much easier, so, to stay encouraged when you're connected with the body, because even if you're in a season of grieving, it says this in 2 Corinthians 8, I believe, you know, or 2 Corinthians 9, and it's talking about finances, but I think it applies in general.
Like, when we're, some, one of us is in a season of surplus, and another person is in a season of famine, right, feast versus famine, and he wants us to stay connected so that I can literally live and stay encouraged based on God answering the prayer, answering prayers for somebody else, and I can actually have more faith sometimes that God will answer somebody else's prayer than my own.
Why? I think one of the reasons is because we are so, we are so married to our, our own expectations, right? We're so invested in our own expectations, and when our expectations aren't met, we get crushed, and so we don't, we don't have the faith to pray again for a while, and I think God understands that, that we have seasons where we're not praying as much, but at least if we stay connected with the body, if we can get ourselves to get out of our grieving places and, and pray with other people and listen to what God's doing, it stirs us up quicker than if we stay isolated, so.
And as an example, Rachel pointed out, like,.
The four friends who brought their friend to be healed by Jesus, they were determined to do.
Something. Yeah, there we go. Right, he didn't get there by himself. Very good. I was gonna throw in there, um, that, um, about getting discouraged when, um, you know, the, that, uh, November thing that happened early in November was very discouraging for me, and I, I think I quit praying for, like, three or four weeks because I was just mortified, and then I realized, you know, if I really, you know, confess and repent, maybe I can turn, not me alone, obviously, you know, I mean, I don't, but, you know, at least I'm working toward turning that around or turning, you know, turning things around.
Um, I, I get very, um, whoever, you know, said that, Terry, let them know that I, you know, I get really, really upset when God doesn't say yes. Yeah, but looking at other people's prayers being answered does encourage me.
Thank you.
Yeah, and I would just say, it triggered one other thought, is that, um, I found that when I was at the prayer, kind of prayer embassy, so to speak, in DC, uh, I, there was some serious stuff going on in my life.
I mean, major, like, major warfare, spiritual attacks, and just crazy stuff happening, and I would find that when I would get my mind off of just praying for my own breakthrough, so it's the idea of contending for each other's breakthroughs.
So, when I would focus on praying for somebody else, then all of a sudden, when I wasn't looking, poof, this got, this issue got resolved, or at least one big piece of this issue disappeared. I was like, what?
I wasn't even thinking about that. So, I don't know. Again, that's mysterious. It's mysterious, but I just know, I've seen it over and over and over. Um, yeah, I don't know why,.
But I've seen it happen, so. I think, I think. That's encouraging. Prayer, really, um, like, it changes our hearts, too. It helps just remind us of our focus, like, you know, several of the things that you've said, and I was, um, I'm in part in a, in a support group on Facebook for people with a certain, um, chronic illness, and, and this group is thousands of people from all over the world, I mean, and so it's not a Christian-based group, which is rare for me to be in any group that's not specifically a Christian-based group, but, um, you know, sometimes people just need to vent, and, and yesterday, somebody vented and just said, just some days are just so hard, I can't focus, brain fog, you know, all of this stuff, and what do you guys do to get through these things?
So, you know, you read and you see a lot of encouraging things, but not, nothing that's specifically from the Lord, and then all of a sudden, this one pops up that just, like, hit me so hard, and it was, I pray for other people, and it is, and that's been something that, even for me, because, because of, um, managing this, this illness, is that, you know, there are days that I have a hard time doing anything, but I just, I literally, right away, put that on a sticky note and just stuck it to my computer, pray for others, because it does, like, just getting yourself into a focus where you're thinking about other people, and you're talking to the, to God, and you have something to say to Him, then that really changes your perspective, also.
Yes, yes, His ways are mysterious. His ways are.
Beyond finding out, He says, in one part in Scripture. My ways are beyond finding out, so don't try to figure them out, but try to get close to His heart and cling to Him with, with all your might. So, who, I want to see prayer requests.
I want us to pray. I want us, popcorn prayer. Whatever, whatever you've moved to pray about, please, uh, unmute, or if I don't want to take over. I'm just saying, I would like to pray, so we only got five minutes, I think.
All right, so if you guys want to, um, how about if I open, and then I'll, I'll say a short prayer, and then if you guys feel led, you can unmute yourselves and pray, and then, Mark, you can.
Close. Does that sound like a good plan? Well, I thought Mark was going to pray for us. We should have him pray for you, Terri. Terri's dealing with a, a, an illness. Yeah, so he can close,.
And he could do that, but, but how about if people want to pray? Does that sound like a good plan? I'd like to hear people pray. Okay, all right, let me open, and then as people feel led, they can do that, and then, Mark, you can close.
Okay. So, um, dear Heavenly Father, we just want to, um, come before you, and, and thank you for, for this presentation. Thank you for Mark and his ministry, and thank you that you've equipped him to be suitable as a person who could come and share such a topic with us.
It just is so encouraging to hear his stories, and his diligence, and praying to you, and informing these partnerships that he's mentioned with different people that, that, um, pray with him. We thank you for those people as well, and even for Mary, who's with us tonight.
We thank you for the partners that you've given to Mark to, to, um, keep him focused on you, to keep him grounded in you as he goes through this journey that we call life here on earth, and it gets bumpy sometimes, but, but we know that, that when our focus is on you, that when our gaze is fixed on you, that, that things just seem to be a little clearer.
Not always easier, but just clearer, because we know where our hope is, and so we thank you that that's true for Mark. We thank you for the testimonies that he shared with us tonight, and we ask for a blessing over him, and his, um, activities, and his, um, job that he's doing now.
We just pray for him, and.
For his family. In Jesus' name. Heavenly Father, I just pray for each of us who has family members who are lost. Um, I pray for my own parents, for my sister, for my uncle, for my cousins, for my dad's cousins.
Um, they're such a burden on my heart, and I just lift them up to you, not knowing how to reach them. It seems that my own attempts are vain, but I pray for their souls, knowing that they are in your hands, and I pray for those among us, Lord, who have family members that they are praying for.
We lift them all up to you. We know, Lord, that you deserve their praise for their thanksgiving, their salvation. We just want to honor you, oh God, by lifting up these people and asking you to save them, knowing that we can't save them.
We just ask you for the words to say to them, to encourage them, to lift them up, and to set them on the right path, according to your Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name.
Father, I thank you for the privilege of coming before you in prayer, and even though we're commanded to come, it's because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ we can come to the throne and pray directly to you.
And I, Father, I'm thankful for all that you do in such a desperate time as we feel we've been in for the last year or more, that you have given us so many blessings and so many.