Doings — Dan Biser

We rejoice in that, but as Brother Carter shared last night, it is a prime example is that most churches, they don't have a prayer meeting and they don't know how to pray. I cannot tell you over the last couple of years of how many prayer meetings that I've been in and sat with pastors and how many of them came out with confessions of saying, I don't have a prayer life, my church doesn't have a prayer life and we don't even know how to do this.

The Urgent Need for Prevailing Prayer

And so my burden for this concert of prayer was to stand before you and to answer the questions. What's going on in our world today, in our nation today? What's going on in the church today? What are we supposed to do about it?

And what is the response that we're supposed to give? And so this concert of prayer is to answer that question today. And so not only do we have a proclamation of the word from these speakers who have an anointing upon them and a burden upon them for the same thing that I have, we're in trouble, we're in an urgent, desperate plight right now.

And there needs to be a response from the church. And we thank God for everything that we have seen and heard that's been going on. And I shared a lot of that last night. We had the return from Kevin Jessup.

We had the prayer by Carter Conlon in October for the 400 years on Plymouth Rock that he renewed the covenant vows before God. I thank God for everything that I've heard and read and seen of what's going on.

But there is still missing a spirit of prevailing by the church. And that's my focus, that's my heart. Those of you that follow me in my writings and sermons and whatnot, you know, that's my burden that I carry.

I wanna prevail for revival. And the things that I've gone back in history and read and learned and gleaned, it always comes from someone, some small group individuals, someone prevailed in prayer with God.

And it was is that God was so entreated with them that he said, I'm gonna answer your prayer. And I'll share some of those experiences throughout this afternoon. But, you know, this is one of those moments, again, we are at the close of the last days of this year, evil is rising and increasing left and right.

And I'll share some of those stats with you here in a moment. But for us today, I wanna ask of you to give ear as you follow me through this afternoon, again, to share in this word of what I would title doings, D-O-I-N-G-S, doings.

The Concert of Prayer and the “Doings” of the People

And we're gonna read, and it's gonna take me some time because there's over 50 verses with this. I'm not gonna read all of them. And if, again, I'm gonna read fast. And my tech guru here, my boy Phillip, is gonna put that up at the bottom of the page there for you.

You can go to my blog, Dan Beiser II, try to get to there, danbeiserii .blogspot .com. And the first writing that I have in that blog spot is all these verses. Now I'm gonna read most of them, but not all of them.

And I'm asking of you that you would follow along with me. And then when we conclude this sermon, we're gonna take a moment and allow for me to set up for the PowerPoint. And we're gonna walk through a concert of prayer, an actual time of prayer, which again, we sing the old song, sweet hour of prayer, just the blessed hour of prayer.

But deed honest, most Christians can't pray now. Most churches haven't prayed an hour. And isn't it an awful confession and reality that there are some churches in 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days. And if you accumulate all their minutes and moments in prayer, it wouldn't add up to an hour.

And that is a part of our problem. And so those that are on this call have the burden to see the church praying, to be houses of prayer. We're supposed to be people of prayer. We know that that's where the power comes from, the resource of God's grace and mercy, and infilling of the Holy Spirit comes from.

And, but why we don't do it, again, we have every excuse in the book. We don't know how, we don't have time. No one's taught me. And we are here today to do that. We're here today to set an example. You don't have to do it this way.

And if you're doing it another way, God bless you. Continue on. And, but we are setting what we studied in history for the concerts of prayer in the 1700s, that there needs to be certain things in a time of prayer for what we're dealing with here today.

One of them is, most of the time, we don't know what's going on as we see things unfolding in headlines and events, and which people are asking the question, what's going on, the pandemic and the riots and the shootings and suicides and murder suicides, the drug crisis.

We're, what's going on? This is not the same America that we grew up in 30, 40 years ago. And as Brother Doug Small presented it yesterday, we will probably never know that America ever again. And so it is for us to understand what's happening and why it's happening.

And then to answer the question, well, what is God asking of us to do? And there is no better parallel that we can make in our society today as the church, as Christians, than the parallel of the Old Testament, what God did to Israel and to Judah.

The Relevance of the Old Testament for National Repentance

And so walking through the Old Testament, and you will have to dismiss, if you listen or have heard any of those preachers that said the Old Testament is irrelevant and not necessary, just dismiss them.

They're a false prophet. They're a wolf in sheep's clothing. Don't listen to them. All the Bible is given to us by God's Holy Spirit. And so every scripture from Genesis to Revelation is needful and instructive.

And it does its work as a sharp two-edged sword, piercing and dividing of soul and spirit and joint and marrow. And it's time for us to glean the word of God. So we're gonna use a lot of verses today, scripture, to look at where we're at, what's going on, why this is happening.

And then we're gonna answer the question by doing what God told us to do, a concert of prayer. Now, again, we are limited because normally the best scenario of this would be that we would be together and that we would be able to feed off of each other in a room, in a place, a setting, to hear each other, to pray in agreement with each other, to multiple people praying together.

So having just me speak to you and share these verses with you is a little unorthodox. It's not what we're used to. We all understand that. And I appreciate your willingness to be with us here this afternoon.

But I want you to also understand is that this is an example being set before you that you might employ this, use this in your prayer group. Use some of it in your church. Congregate other brothers and sisters together that are like you.

Get on a Zoom call. A Zoom call allows for that interaction of each other. We just don't have that ability with this. And that wasn't the intent of this. It was to have the speakers do the two things that God instructed in Nehemiah chapter nine.

Nehemiah’s Pattern of Scripture, Confession, and Prayer

When Jerusalem was ransacked and destroyed and the people started to filter back into the city, Nehemiah's passion was, first of all, to rebuild the walls. And we've heard many sermons over that this past year.

But in chapter nine, when they assembled the people for the solemn assembly, it says is that they read the word of God for a quarter of the day. Then they prayed and confessed for a quarter of the day.

Half their day was in the word and in prayer. The reason that we've done six hours, an afternoon session and evening session yesterday and today is because of that scripture in Nehemiah nine. We are seeking to be in the word of God to understand what God is doing, who he is, what he said, what we're supposed to do for a quarter of the day.

And then we are supposed to be in prayer for a quarter of the day. Now, yesterday, we had a lot of preaching, but not much prayer. And today, this afternoon, we're gonna pray. And we've already started the hundred hours of prayer at 8 a .m.

So we've already had five hours of nonstop prayer for the state of our nation and the state of the church. Now, I wanna ask of you that again, if you're taking notes, and again, I'm gonna go lickety split for time restraints here on this, but you can go to that blog and follow along in these scriptures and the ones that, again, that you may miss that I don't say clearly to you, I'm trying to pronounce the book, the chapter and the verse so you know where I'm at and read with me the instruction that God is answering this question.

What are you doing? What is going on? And he's gonna tell us because of that little phrase there, your ways and your doings. And in Jeremiah specifically, that there is numerous times here in scripture that he says this in ways and doings.

This is why this is happening because of your ways and your doings. And we need to understand that and employ that in our prayer times to address this before God that we now understand our ways and doings and we're confessing and being a part of that.

So I'm gonna start now. Again, we're gonna have this message and then we're gonna go into prayer time. And when we're completed the prayer time, we'll take a short break this afternoon and six o 'clock this evening, we will conclude our concert of prayer with Brother David Ford.

And then at 7 .30 or thereabout, we'll have Brother Doug Small to conclude us for the day and for our concert of prayer. The 100 hours of prayer will continue on for those of you that are signed up to that.

And again, we still have a couple of slots open, but the spirit of prayer is continuing nonstop day and night till from now at 8 a .m. we started and we will conclude January the 1st at noon. 100 straight hours of prayer.

Now, I wish it was like the prayer meeting of Zinnendorf that it was a 100 year prayer meeting. I don't think we have 100 years left, but needless to say, what came out of that was the greatest mission emphasis for the kingdom of God to the four corners of the world.

And that is my passion and desire. Finish the task. We have 7 ,000 people groups to reach with the gospel. And I pray over the maps, I pray over the cities, the regions, the languages for God to send light, truth into those places of the gospel.

Send me, send you. But for us to finish the task, that's what God's intent is. And he tells us this in Matthew. And when the gospel has gone to the people groups, then the end shall be. And so I want to, if you take with your Bibles right now, and I'm going to try to, give me one second here as I bring it up.

Biblical “Doings” and the Call to Repentance

I'm going to read these verses of the doings. Okay. Now you've got the blog, scroll at the bottom, please. First one is in the book of Leviticus. And again, I'm just going to read straight down through these.

You can go to the blog and copy these or follow these and hopefully be able to pray these, okay? Leviticus 18 .3. After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein you dwell, shall you not do? And after the doings of the land of Canaan, whether I bring you, you shall not do.

And neither shall you walk in their ordinances. Deuteronomy chapter 28, verse 20. This is the chapter of the blessings and the cursings. God warns them, which is the same warning upon us, where we're at here.

The Lord shall send upon the cursing, vexation, rebuke, and all that you set your hand unto for to do, until you be destroyed and until you perish quickly because of the wickedness of your doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me.

Well, you know, you see in these verses, the confession that's needed. You have forsaken me. God forgive us for forsaking you. The doings, and we're going to get specific with those here in our concert of prayer in a moment.

Judges 2 .19. And it came to pass that when the judge was dead, that they returned, they corrupted themselves more than their fathers, generational sins, and following other gods to serve them, idolatry.

And to bow down unto them, they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way. 1 Samuel 25 .3. Now the name of that man was Nabal. You know the story of Nabal and Abigail, I pray. And here's what was said of him.

But this man was churlish and evil in his doings. And he was at the house of Caleb. 2 Chronicles 17 .4. But sought to the Lord God of his fathers and walked in his commandments, but he did not do after the doings of Israel.

Psalm 9 .11, Psalm 77 .12, and Isaiah 12 .4 are all worship verses. They're all about God's doings. And God does great doings, doesn't he? And so those are worship verses. But picking up with our sin, addressing our doings, the nation's doings and the church's doings.

Isaiah 1 .16. Wash you, make you clean. Get away from the evil of your doings from before my eyes and cease to do evil. Chapter three, verse eight. For Jerusalem is ruined, Judah has fallen because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord to provoke the eyes of his glory.

Chapter three, verse 10. Say to the righteous that it shall be well with him, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Now we start into Jeremiah. This is where there are more doings than any other book in the Bible.

And God again is addressing, and I believe that this is exactly where we're at as a nation and as the church today, the doings that we have here. And again, there are 16 of them. So I'm just gonna book chapter and verse and move through these.

I'd like to stop and preach on each one of them, but we'll get to that here in a moment. I just want you to have these so that you can use them for understanding the answer to the question, what's going on?

Why are these things happening to us that we have seen happening, not only in 2020, but for the last 20 years? And to answer that question. Chapter four, verse 18. Thy ways and thy doings have procured these things, brought these things upon us.

This is your wickedness because it is bitter, because it reaches from your very heart. Chapter seven, verse three. Thus sayeth the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

That's my prayer, my hope, that we would amend our ways and doings and that God would allow for us to reprieve a moment of respite, of a moment of revival, that again, we might usher in a great spiritual awakening for this.

I can't stop at each verse and speak. I'm just gonna read the verses and try to hold myself to that. Chapter seven, verse five. For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor.

Chapter 11, verse 18. The Lord has given me knowledge of it, and I know it. Then thou showest me their doings. Chapter 17, verse 10. I, the Lord, search the heart. I try the rings, even to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings.

Chapter 18, verse 11. Now therefore, go to speak to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, thus sayeth the Lord, behold, I frame evil against you. I devise a device against you. Return ye now every one from his evil way and make your ways and your doings good.

Chapter 21, verse 12. O house of David, sayeth the Lord, execute judgment in the morning. Deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go out like the fire. And burn that none can quench it because of the evil of your doings.

Chapter 21, verse 14. But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, sayeth the Lord. I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof and it shall devour all things round about it. Chapter 23, verse 32, verse two, I'm sorry.

My flock has driven them away and has not visited them. This is a condemnation on the pastors. Behold, I will visit you for the evil of your doings, sayeth the Lord. Chapter 23, verse 22. But if they had stood in my counsel, had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil ways and from the evil of their doings.

Chapter 25, verse five. They said, turn again now everyone from his evil way and from the evil of your doings and dwell in the land that the Lord has given unto you and to your fathers forever and ever.

26, three. If so be they will hearken and turn every man from his evil way, that I may repent me of the evil which I purposed to do unto them. Here's where I'm at. That God would repent from the evil that he has promised to do to us and is doing to us even now because of the evil of your doings.

26, 13. Again, the plea. Amend your ways and your doings and obey the voice of the Lord your God. And the Lord will repent him of the evil that he has pronounced against you. That's the prevailing. All that we could prevail today.

For God to turn and repent from the evil that he has determined against us and leave a blessing behind instead of wrath and judgment. 32, 19. Great in counsel, mighty in work for thine. Yes, our eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men to give everyone according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings.

35, 15. I've sent also unto you all my servants, the prophets, rising up early and sending them. Return you now every man from his evil way and amend your doings and go not after other gods to serve them adultery.

For you shall dwell on the land which I have given to you and to your fathers, but you have not inclined your ear nor have you hearken unto me. 44, 22. So that the Lord could no longer bear because of the evil of your doings and because of the abomination which you have committed.

Therefore is your land a desolation, astonishment, a curse without an inhabitant is at this day. Jumping down to the conclusion of the minor prophets in the book of Hosea, chapter four, verse nine. And there shall be like people, like priests, and I will punish them for their ways and I will reward them for their doings.

Chapter five, verse four. They will not frame their doings to turn back unto me, their God. For the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them and they have not known the Lord. Chapter seven, verse two.

And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness. Now their own doings have beset them round about and they are before my face. Chapter nine, verse 15. All their wickedness is in Gilgal.

For there I hated them. I hated them for what they were doing. For the wickedness of their doings, I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more. This is God speaking. All their princes are revokers.

Chapter 12, verse two. The Lord has also a controversy with Judah and he will punish Jacob according to his ways and according to his doings will he recompense him. Micah, chapter two, verse seven. Oh, that thou art named the house of Jacob is the spirit of the Lord straightened.

Are these his doings? Do not my words do good to him that walks uprightly? Chapter three, verse four. Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but he will not hear them. He will even hide his face from them at that time as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings.

Chapter seven, verse 13. Notwithstanding, the land shall be desolate because of them that dwell therein for the fruit of their doings. Zephaniah, chapter three, verse seven. Last four verses of the Old Testament.

And I said, surely thou will fear me, thou will receive instruction so their dwelling should not be cut off. Howsoever I punished them, but they rose early and they corrupted all their doings. Chapter three, verse 11.

In that day, shalt thou be ashamed for all of your doings for wherein thou has transgressed against me. For then I will take away out of the midst of them those that rejoice in their pride. And thou shall no more be haughty because of my holy mountain.

Zechariah, chapter one, verse four. Be ye not as your fathers unto whom the former prophets have cried, saying, thus saith the Lord of hosts, turn you even now from your evil ways and from your evil doings.

But they would not hear, nor did they hearken unto me, saith the Lord. Chapter one, verse six, but the last one. But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants to prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers?

And they returned and they said, like as the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways and according to our doings, so has he dealt with us. A lot of verses there, a lot of instruction there.

Interpreting National Crisis as Divine Judgment

And I wanna walk through and answer these questions for us today from this whole purpose of this concert of prayer. What's going on? Why is these things happening? And then to say, what is God asking of us?

What has God required of us as the church to give an answer to them? I am so tired of listening to church and spiritual leaders say, we don't know what to do. The Bible's very clear and we have preached it and taught it and brother Doug presented it yesterday and I preached it Sunday morning to my congregation, call for a solemn assembly.

When you see these things happening, what things? Judgments. The judgments of God are falling on our nation because again, of our evil ways and our doings. Most people sitting in the church, when you ask of them, we've been taught this in the church today, we've been discipled this way.

And it's an error, I believe. We've been taught to pray and to speak in generalities and we don't pray or speak in details that sometimes are very much needed. And so because we don't know these things and we've read a couple of times that where God condemns them, you don't even know who I am.

And this is one of the great needs of our hour today is that the church would at least know who God is. You have probably heard and probably spoken and we all love it so much that God is love. For God so loved the world.

We know all those verses, but I don't remember the last time I heard someone preach that one verse there that I've read where God says, I hate you. You know, Ravenhill used to preach that. He used to say, put a bumper sticker on the back of your car and at one end, put God is love and put on the other end, God hates you and see what the response is.

Most congregations don't know this because they don't know the word of God. They don't know the word of God and they don't know the God of the word. And so it is a concert of prayer. Why they read a quarter of the day, the scriptures because they hadn't heard the word preached or taught to them for years.

They've been in captivity and they had come back from captivity there in Nehemiah and they was trying to reestablish what had been always before. And as I've said, we probably will never go back to what our society was in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

We will never know that anymore. And so for the church's mentality to say we just want things to go back to the way that they was is an error, it's wrong. God is revealing something new to us about what's coming.

Many of us who have been in discussions and talks and many have been preaching it. We're going into a day and an age of persecution in the United States, unlike we've ever seen before. And the church better get ready.

And you say, well, why, why this shift? Why are we going to lose our freedoms? Why are we going to lose our availabilities and privileges as coming together in churches in this? Most churches today because of COVID and have shut down and they were running huge overheads of thousands upon hundreds of thousands upon some of them, the mega churches, of course, millions.

They will never recover and they will have to shut their doors. Where is the church going to go? Where is the remnant going to assemble at? Well, we're going to go back to days like many of those in the persecuted lands and other places, either underground church or we're going to assemble in house churches.

We're going to assemble in storefronts. We're going to go back to days where again, starting a church doesn't mean that you already had a piece of land and a building and supplies and all. We're going to go back to just waiting upon God, going back to the basics, the nuts and the bolts of learning who God is, worshiping God, confessing before him, pleading with him.

And that's the whole dynamics of the concert of prayer that we have established. And again, this is just an example. If you've got another thing and again, adding to, I've been in sat in enough prayer meetings to experience and to glean, boy, I really like that.

I'm going to use that. Boy, I don't care for that. I'm not going to use that. You'll note that one of the things that is profound about any of the things that I have done predominantly for a call for a solemn assembly or any of it, there's no music.

There's no special songs. There's no congregational singing. Music has become a distraction. Now, music is a gift from God. Don't get me wrong. And I love music and I know many of you, many of you might even be worship leaders.

Many of you might be having a song playing in the background while you're listening to me. Well, turn that off. I don't want to be distracted from hearing your music, okay? But I want us to be, this thing, this concert of prayer is sung on two things.

It's not about music. It ain't about somebody's testimony. It ain't about you. It's about God. I want to know what God says. I want to know what God's going to do. I want to know what God is doing. And I want to know what I'm supposed to do to stop it.

Because I'm watching a scripture of Exodus there where the children of Egypt were coming after the children of Israel across the Red Sea. And God said, I will deliver you from your enemies. And he caused the chariot wheels to come off.

I want to tell you that the chariot wheels are coming off in our nation. God is coming against us like never before. Death, dying, and destruction. And when we get to our prayer time this afternoon, it is that one thing that I am pleading for to stop.

At whatever opportunity that God will allow me, that we not get to the last D. We're already experiencing death. We're already experiencing dying. We have cancers. We have opiate crisis. We have suicides.

All these things at record numbers, epidemic proportions. We have now lived through COVID with record numbers day in and day out. Death and dying and destruction upon our streets. They burned the businesses.

Nashville, they blew it up. Our homes are shattered. Marriages are destroyed. Our way of life is crumbling. The chariot wheels are coming off. And we're heading for the last word of D, desolation. God said, because of your ways and your doings, I will do this.

Specific Social Sins and the Call for Repentance

And for almost 20 years of this century, I have watched, studied, prayed, anguished, reached out to any and all that would listen to me to say we're being judged. And I had to fight with spiritual leaders, church leaders.

Well, I don't know that we can say that we're being judged. How can you not read the passages that I just read and not understand? And what I learned was, was that they weren't studying the word of God.

Study to show thyself approved unto God. And I read these verses. And again, is they wanna always talk about this. Now in the context, yes, in the context, it isn't us, it's Jerusalem, it's Judah, it's Israel.

But the time we get to the book of Jeremiah and the time we get to the minor prophets there of Zephaniah and Zechariah and Micah, Israel's gone. The Assyrians have come in and God has destroyed them. Desolation and removed them from the promised land.

And Judah, because they did not, Ezekiel tells us this, because you saw what I did to your sister and you didn't learn the lesson and you didn't change your ways. Matter of fact, you did worse than they did.

Isn't that the awful verses in the Bible where it says, and you did worse than your father. You have Ahab who did worse than Omri and Omri did worse than that which preceded him. And what an awful, awful phrase in the Bible.

And what do we say about our society? What do we say about our generation? Have we not done worse in this generation than the generation that was before us? This has been a progression over the decades.

In my lifetime, I'm only 52 years old, but in my lifetime, I have watched this unfold of God's judgments upon our nation. The cataclysmic events, Hurricane Katrina, 9 -11, the wildfires, record setting, the hurricane season, record setting.

I get tired of saying that all the time. 2020 has been filled with that, record historic stats and numbers. I follow the death rate that's going on in our nation because again, I read that as judgment in the Old Testament where God says, I will remove you.

And normally in those passages of scripture, he says, I will remove you in these ways. This was God's judgment in the Old Testament. I will kill you by famine. I will kill you by the sword and I will kill you with the pestilence and I will kill you with the wild beast.

So anytime that I read a famine, I think of God's judgment. Anytime I read a pestilence, COVID, I think of God's judgments. Why is the United States five times worse than any other nation that's upon the face of the planet right now dealing with COVID?

Well, I know there's a lot, everybody's got their editorial comment on that, but do you think anybody in the church ever stood up and said, God's judging us for our evil ways and our evil doings? Well, damn, what evil ways and doings?

What are you talking about? Well, let's just walk through history. 1933, Supreme Court issues a mandate. Before there was no sale, there was prohibition. There was no alcohol sales. It was considered for most and has always been considered for most is that alcohol is one of the things of the forces of hell that is used against men.

And most, if any of you that have ever lived through alcoholism and an abusive home or a person that you've watched destroy their life with alcohol, you can shout a hearty amen. But in 1933, because they couldn't control what they do, they legalized it.

And I'm telling you from 1933 till present, alcohol sales and abuse in this nation has skyrocketed. And only in eternity will we know how many people died from that abuse. Somebody says, well, I just take a beer every now and then.

Well, I just social drink occasionally and it's not that bad. And you say that to a recovering alcoholic. Why would you set a stumbling block before your brother? And he says, don't look. He said, if you want to come into my presence, he said, make sure is that you haven't drank wine or strong drink when you come into the presence of God.

Be ye holder. I don't want nothing to do with it. And every alcoholic that I ever knew started with one thing. They started with one drink. They never intended to become an alcoholic, but that's where they went because their ways and their doings led them that way.

It led them away from God into this demonic hold. Now we see it with the opiate crisis, the drug crisis. 70 ,000 people died from drug overdose deaths last year. 70 ,000. That's almost twice to three times the size of the two counties that I pastored here in West Virginia.

That would remove Mineral County and Hampshire County of West Virginia where I pastored and live, that there would be no one left in these two counties if everybody, 70 ,000 people. At 70 ,000 lives, that's 70 ,000 families, that's 70 ,000 people.

That goes into eternity. Here we are, brothers and sisters, dealing with the crisis of the hour. 1933, Supreme Court legalizes alcohol sales and use. 1963, Madeline Murray O 'Hara comes along and she doesn't like it because she's a proclaimed atheist and she doesn't like it down there in Baltimore, Maryland, that in the public school system is that they would read the Bible in the morning hours.

They would read Bible scriptures over the PA system to the children. And so she sued them and she won. Separation of church and state. And they took the Bible. It's not prayer. They took the Bible out of the school system.