Standing in the Gap Sp Harvest 1988 — George Verwer

Multitudes are pushing their way through the streets to get here. I think we should start and commit this time to God, and I think it would be quite ridiculous to have a seminar on the subject of prayer and not do a little bit of praying, even though our time is very limited.

Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank and praise you for the privilege of being involved at this great event. We pray for the various seminars that are taking place. Some of us have struggles with these seminar programs because we prefer to be sending people off to other people's seminars rather than taking one ourselves.

But we learn submission through these things, and we believe that this is an important subject, and we believe that we need to face up to the reality of the intercessory ministry, the importance of it, and what it is to be involved in frontline world missions through prayer.

We just give you all the glory because we have been seeing answers to prayer since that day of Pentecost and before then, as we know you are a prayer-answering God, and you can do exceeding abundant above all we ask or expect.

Just guide us now in this time together. In Jesus' name, amen. I would like to share just a couple of prayer burdens and just have a short time of prayer as we continue to wait for people to arrive. I think we need special prayer at this time for the families connected with the great oil rig crisis in the North Sea.

Intercession for Global Crises

This is a lot very much on my heart. Let's touch that situation through prayer right in a few minutes' time. I would like to also commend to you or urge you to intercede for the continuing crisis in Afghanistan.

I'm sure you have followed to some degree in your newspapers yesterday another 150 or maybe in the day before were slaughtered and killed in the fighting there as the Soviets slowly withdraw and leave everything in the hands of their government forces.

Apart from divine intervention, many authorities in Afghanistan believe that there will be a gigantic bloodbath involving hundreds of thousands in the coming months. And maybe you feel this is too big a thing to pray for.

Sometimes in our church prayer meetings we pray for rather small things, and I'm not against praying for small things. But if our God is concerned about small things like someone who has a headache, then I think God will be interested in what's going on in Afghanistan.

So we want to pray for that situation. I'd like to also urge you to pray as we go to prayer for the situation in Iran and Iraq. We know the awesome tragedy of the shooting down of that passenger plane.

We know also that the number of people who were killed there is just less than get killed in a few hours on the front lines. Probably a half a million have gone out into eternity through the Iran-Iraq crisis.

This is not something abstract. This is happening here in our global village. This is affecting us more than we will admit. We want to pray for the few believers in Iran. There are more believers in Iran than Iraq.

I know of few nations in the world that have less believers than the nation of Iraq. It's one of the first countries God ever put on my heart as a young Christian, the land of Iraq. And though in Operation Mobilization, the fellowship I'm involved with, we have done a considerable amount of work in many nations, including many Muslim nations, we have been very limited in what we've been able to do in Iraq.

So we would like to pray for Iraq and Iran, leaders of those countries. We'd like to add our prayers to the prayers of others that that war may end, peace may come, the gospel may be proclaimed in a greater way.

We know God is overruling much of some of the folly and the sinfulness of man as demonstrated in this war. In recent months, the Iranians have been sending children into the front lines to detonate the mines, little 12-year-olds.

They can't afford to give the 17-year-olds because they're doing a lot of the fighting. They are now mobilizing the greatest women's army perhaps of this decade, though they haven't sent them yet into the front lines.

They're training for the protection of the cities. So this is an awesome situation. I always feel I've been to Keswick many times that when you get to a place like this, you enter into a little bit of unreality.

It all looks so peaceful and so calm. The world isn't like this. And I can tell you behind the scenes, Keswick isn't like this. It's a very needy town with lost people, just like London, where I live, where Brussels or maybe you come from.

So as we pray for Afghanistan in that situation, as we pray for Iran and Iraq, as we pray for some of these other crises like the oil rig crises and perhaps other things God puts on your heart, let's pray for the town of Keswick.

Next week, again, the Keswick Convention begins, which has gone on here for over 100 years. And these people, many of the town people, are quite hardened to this convention. Some of them don't even like it being here.

I hope they're a minority. So let's pray for Keswick, nice, quiet, little country, wet place at this time. I've been here when it hasn't been wet. And to do this kind of praying, and we want to pray also for the meetings going on now and the meeting tonight, I'd like you just to form little prayer groups.

We can have two types of groups, those that would like to stand. You can come out into the aisles. These churches are built for standing prayer groups. Just form a little prayer group, a little cluster of three or four people, and those who would rather pray remaining where you are.

Fine. All you have to do is turn around a little bit. These pews are not built for small group prayer, but you are. Just turn around. Now, I don't know, is this new to anybody, praying in small groups in a big place?

Is this new to anybody? When I first started this kind of thing 25 years ago, it was very new. Now, it's quite accepted. So let's pray. This is a seminar on prayer in world missions, and the best way to engage in such a seminar is to pray.

That's one of the reasons I accepted it. So form small groups and just pray. We'll turn the cassette recorder off for a few minutes, and we'll just pray. Lord, bless us as we pray in these small groups for these horrendous crises around the world, for the meetings going on here, for other things that we believe by your Holy Spirit you can put upon our hearts.

We are not here playing games. We are not here to fill our head with sort of biblical tidbits that we never really put into practice in our own lives, but we are here in the name of your Son, Jesus. We are here because world missions is total war.

We are here because your Holy Spirit lives within us, and we sense that we are being sent, that we are being compelled into front-line intercession, into heavy artillery spiritual warfare. Help us, for we always feel so weak and so inadequate when we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen. Let's go to it with all of our hearts. Amen. I'd like to just, again, give a word of welcome. My name is George Verwer. This is a seminary on prayer in connection with world missions, and we felt that the best way to start the seminar was in prayer for some of the crisis situations around the world.

I hope that you will take this seminar seriously and that you will write down perhaps at least a few things as a result of what you hear. And one of our goals in Mission 2000 is, as outlined in Timothy, 2 Timothy 2, that which we commit you, commit to you, you can commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

The Crisis of Prayerlessness

I believe one of the greatest needs in the entire church today, whether we think of world missions, church growth, renewal, I believe one of the greatest needs without question is a movement, grassroots movement, toward reality and unction in intercession.

Next to the doctrine of love, there is no other doctrine where the church pays greater lip service than the doctrine in connection with prayer. I have had 33 years of experiencing inconsistency and hypocrisy beyond all imagination in seeing so many people talk about prayer and so few who are willing to pray.

I've seen it in the Christian unions. I've seen it in the churches. I've seen it in my own feeble fellowship of Operation Mobilization. It is one of the number one cons and tricks of Satan himself. People who are not praying surely are people who are straying.

And if they're straying from God, they're in trouble. They may feel good, they may eat good, but they're in trouble with God. So many young people that write to me share that their prayer life is either in a shambles or it doesn't exist.

I've had even my own leaders in my own movement confess that their prayer life is in shambles. So burdened was I about this some years ago, I wrote a letter to all the leaders of OM and asked for immediate resignations of anybody who did not have a prayer life.

As you can imagine, a few people decided to repent rather quick and try to get their prayer life in order. Satan, the Bible says, don't worry about what I say, that's not so important, but the Bible says, Satan as a roaring lion seeketh whom he may devour.

And prayerlessness is one of the subtle methods that Satan uses. Before I go any further, let me mention a few books on prayer that you can pick up at the special book display over in the main tent. I recommend very much the writings of A .W. Tozer.

He's a man who was known by his friends and by his enemies as a man of prayer. If you don't have any enemies, that's also an indication you don't have much of a prayer life. This is one of Tozer's most powerful books, Man, the Dwelling Place of God.

Isn't that exciting? Just the cover will send you for a spiritual loop. Man, the Dwelling Place of God. The Holy Spirit lives in us. And as it teaches in Romans 8, in ourselves, we hardly know what to say as we pray.

But the Holy Spirit, dronings, utterances can pray through us. And that's a book that moves in that line of thinking. A relatively new book on the subject of prayer, written by one of the first missionaries I ever met when I arrived in India as a young missionary about 25 years ago.

His name was Wesley Duell. I've watched this man from a distance for 25 years. And that's why when he asked me to write a little word or a foreword for his book on the will of God, I was willing to do that.

But I feel his book on prayer, his book on the will of God is so new, I don't think it's in Britain, but his book on prayer has been out for a couple of years and I want to commend it to you. How many already have this book, Touch the World Through Prayer?

This is your chance. I can tell you, if I mention this in my main meeting tomorrow night, there won't be any copies left. So I'll give you advance word. And if there's no copies left, then I won't mention it.

But it's a dynamic book on prayer for missions. This man should be giving the seminar, not me. I'm just, you know, I have a lot to learn yet next to this character. He was the leader of OMS, Oriental Mission Society, for many years.

Wesley Duell, Touch the World Through Prayer. Write it down, try to get a copy of that great book. Mountain Rain is a book that comes out of the great OMF movement. What a privilege we have here to have James Taylor with us, who will be speaking tomorrow night.

This is a book about James O. Fraser, that man who made such an impact among the Lisu people. Mountain Rain. Write it down. If you want your faith encouraged, if you want to be challenged about spiritual warfare, that's a book that you will want to get.

I'm sure this book has already been mentioned, Operation World. Surely the most practical book for intercessors that has ever been published. Presenting information on almost every nation in the world.

Facts about the political system, what's happening with the church, what mission societies are there, what's being done, what's not being done. There may actually be a few of these available at the back of the church.

Otherwise, they're over at the official literature display. We need to, with a book like this, not just have a copy, but if we are visionary, missionary-minded, spiritual revolutionaries, we are going to be distributing this book.

If there's anything that competes with our prayerlessness, it's our lack of sanctified imagination, our lack of divine, holy ghost enthusiasm. It is a scandal in the church. It's beyond a scandal. We should be arrested and put in prison if God was doing his part.

He's too merciful. He lets us press on. And I pray that you will not just read this book, but that you will become a distributor and get quantities. As many a Christian leader, many a pastor will never buy this book.

They would never take their own money to spend four pounds on a book like this. But if you give them a copy, they probably accept it. Most of them are trained in at least basic manners. And so they probably will accept a copy and it might revolutionize their ministry.

I think you actually get a free map of the world with that book. I noticed they're going into European maps as well. But I still like a map of the whole world. And you get that free of charge with the book Operation World.

You also can get free of charge somewhere around here. I haven't put everything together yet. I've just come through the night. I don't know where everything is, but I believe you can find a copy of this bookazine, magazine called Islam.

This should challenge our prayer batteries as much as anything. One out of every six people in the world today is a Muslim. There is up to now, excuse me, only a tiny response among Muslims. Here's a map showing the Muslim world.

I discovered a mistake. They don't have Malaysia as a Muslim area, but it certainly is. Christians are even being persecuted in Malaysia to some small degree. Islam, you can get it free. Little magazines like this are all tools you can use in spreading this vision for intercession.

And in your own ministry of intercessory prayer, there are a number of other books connected with the prayer life. And I'm sure as you go over to the literature table, you will discover some of them. Praise the Lord.

Peter's Deliverance and the Church's Persistent Prayer

Now turn with me to the Book of Acts. The Book of Acts. Be patient with me. Book of Acts, Chapter 12. I'd like to get a time for questions at the end, but I don't promise. Because sometimes I make a promise like that and then I don't keep it and I feel convicted.

But that's my goal, to give this material and give you a chance to ask questions. I don't want to pretend that the whole area of prayer in connection with world missions is, you know, some simple little thing.

There's no problems. You just get the little Verwer seminar package and away you are. Little Miss Intercessor, little Mr. Intercessor to shake the whole world for Christ. Some of you have trouble just shaking yourself to get out of bed in the morning, much less shake the entire world for Christ.

So we want to give an opportunity for questions. Here in the 12th chapter of the Book of Acts, we have Peter in prison. And he is well guarded. Look at the situation in which he finds himself. Verse four.

When he had apprehended him, put him in prison and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him, intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people. Peter, therefore, was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing by the church unto God for him.

It won't take time to read the whole chapter. It is a very exciting chapter, like almost all the chapters in the Book of Acts. And every Christian should read the Book of Acts every year and memorize part of it.

And of course, put it into practice. That's the hard part. It's a book of action, the acts of the Holy Spirit more than the acts of the apostles. We find that God answered their prayers. They were only praying concerning Peter's situation.

But God heard their prayers, and we find Peter miraculously delivered. And look at verse 12. And when he had considered the thing, he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying.

I want you to mark that. How many of you have learned to mark your Bibles? Did you ever mark your Bible with a pen or colored something? You got all these wonderful marking systems. When I discovered that as a baby Christian, it revolutionized my Bible study, that I could mark my Bible.

And that helped me also to memorize certain passages of Scripture. Many were gathered together praying. And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a maid came to hearken named Rhoda. And when she knew Peter's voice, she opened up the gate for gladness, but ran in and told how Peter stood before the gate.

And they said unto her, thou art mad. But she constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, it is his angel. Peter continued knocking. When he had opened the door and they saw him, they were astonished.

But he beckoned unto them with a hand to hold their peace, declaring unto them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, go show these things on the James and to the brethren. And he departed and went to another place.

Now, as soon as it was day, there was no small stir. No small stir among the soldiers concerning what was become of Peter. When Herod had sought for him, found him not, examined the keepers, commanded them should be put to death.

And he went down from Judea to Caesarea. And there, here we find an emergency. Here we find one of God's chosen anointed instruments put in prison. And we find God's people responding to a specific challenge and engaging in prayer at a prayer meeting.

Restoring the Acts 12 Prayer Meeting

As we think of the task of world missions, if we are going to see the gospel penetrating every part of the world, then there must be a resurrection of the prayer meeting. We've even heard people give the idea that, you know, they have their own personal prayer time, and they don't really believe it's necessary to have a prayer meeting.

A man from California wrote in a very somewhat famous book some years ago, that any meeting in your church that you have to push, it's better to drop it. As a pastor, you really can't afford that energy to push things that people are not interested in.

Thousands of pastors in America in the past decade have dropped all prayer meetings from their church. Some have dropped the main prayer meetings, but keep some kind of token prayer meeting at some weird hour of the morning when hardly anyone goes, but at least you can say you have a prayer meeting.

I'm sure some of them are sincere in having that prayer meeting at six o 'clock Saturday morning, and I am in favor of such meetings. Anything is better than nothing. But I cannot understand it, how so many churches today no longer have a real prayer meeting.

Unfortunately, some churches that do maintain their sort of old-fashioned prayer meeting, it is a rather dull, dry, introspective session in which people are often praying the same prayer week after week, and very seldom do young people go.

I'm sure you are aware of the great gulf gap fixed in this country and many countries between the older people and the younger people. You, of course, can tell me of wonderful exceptions. Fine, I love exceptions.

But the fact of the matter is that a very huge percentage of young people in Britain are going one way, and a huge percentage of the adult population, of which I am part of, seems to be going the other way.

The wall is getting broken down in some places, praise the Lord, but it is getting rebuilt in other places. What a wonderful thing it is to go to a church where the young and the old are praying together, interceding together, getting to understand one another better, engaging in prayer.

The amazing thing is also when there is a prayer meeting, there is often very little prayer for world missions. Again, there are beautiful exceptions. The prayer meeting usually consists of a Bible study.

I'm not against that if they extend the meeting to an hour and a half, but to try to have a one-hour prayer meeting in which you cram in a half-an-hour Bible study, 15 minutes of prayer requests, leaves a rather tokenish form of prayer that I do not find in the book of Acts.

I do not find in the history of the church. I do not find among godly men and women who have shaken the world for Jesus Christ. And since I don't find it, I don't believe it. I don't accept it. We need to have in our prayer meetings a minimum of 45 minutes to an hour before God to seek his face.

Part of that time may be confession. It may be a little bit of worship and then moving in to intercession. There can be another hour at another occasion which could be all worship. I'm not against that.

We have lots of that. That's on the increase. We know the great emphasis in praise in some nations over the past decade. I think it's beautiful. But I believe that praise that does not lead to agonizing, hard work intercession often leads to an introspective, self-centered brand of Christianity in which people are basically looking for a nice feeling.

And in the long run, we produce a kind of Christianity that A .W. Tozer said you would not find in the New Testament. And he was one of the strongest voices against spreading a degenerate, effete brand of Christianity to pagan lands.

I remember getting in trouble with that Tozer quote at the famous Urbana Convention 20 years ago when I was somehow able to speak. I still feel to this day that A .W. Tozer had something to say that we should have listened to.

It's not enough to send out people to other lands. They must be people of quality. They must be people who know how to pray. They must be people who understand spiritual warfare. They must be people who will not fall apart with their brother in Christ.

The first time there's a misunderstanding, first time to discover their brother in Christ is a sinner. But they will know how to pray through that situation in love and brokenness. We have a massive amount of disunity on the mission field at this present time.

We have a lot of prayerlessness on the mission field. We don't need another generation of prayerless spiritual midgets. We need men and women who know how to pray. We need men and women who know how to fast and pray.

I remember when Alan Redpath, who I must confess was one of my spiritual gurus, came to Moody Church in Chicago and tried to call God's supposedly chosen, generally frozen people to prayer and fasting.

I will tell you, he didn't last long after that. You cannot believe the resistance there is in our churches to such things as prayer and fasting. You cannot believe how many elders in our churches refuse to go to prayer meetings.

And yet are the elders in the church. And will put heavy pressure on a pastor or leader who tries to take the church into any kind of extremism or make any changes. Brothers and sisters, if we are not committed to change, we are committed to death.

I repeat that. If we are not committed to change, we are committed to death. Because the Holy Spirit is moving. He is changing. He is transforming. He is stirring. He is shaking. He is doing a new thing.

That doesn't mean we change our doctrines, God forbid. For if we did that, we would be anathema. But it does mean we can make some other changes. That may bring more life into the prayer meeting. That may allow a little more freedom.

That may begin to focus on, for example, unreached people's groups. As there has been this new emphasis through men like Ralph Winter and other missionary leaders that we must focus on the unreached people.

Prayer for Unreached Peoples

90 of the missionary work is in areas where there is already a church. There is already response. Praise the Lord. We want to continue that. But only 10%, approximately, would be among the unreached people.

The Kurdish people. The Baluch people. The Uyghur people. How many of you pray regularly? Say once a week. Once a month. I like to be big-hearted. We don't want anybody to go out of here feeling too guilty.

How many of you pray at least once a month for the Kurdish people? Warm my heart and raise your hand at this time in this honesty survey. Maybe you got in the wrong seminar. No. Hallelujah. Maybe you're in the right seminar.

I want you to put the Kurdish people on your prayer list. There are 20 million souls. We know why there's so few people at Mission 2000. There's a number of reasons. But one of the reasons is that world missions is not a priority in the British Church.

Anybody who doesn't know that doesn't know anything about Britain. Now, admittedly, I can't be an expert. I've only lived here for 27 years and preached up and down in almost every single part of the British Isles for 27 years.

So I'm sure someone else can bring me into correction. There is a token interest in world missions. Nobody's opposed to it. But there is not a major interest in world missions and the unreached people at this present time.

So therefore, anything we do like Mission 2000 will basically get token response. Of course, they'll eventually blame it on the organizers. They didn't publicize enough or they didn't send out enough gospel blimps with an advertising banner hanging on the back of it.

But, you know, listen, if we are hungry for God, if we believe in world missions, if we believe the Bible and we even heard if we even heard that there was such a conference as this going on, it would go to the top of our list.

One man from the United States just heard about this conference. He's a man of vision. He's a man who believes in the Bible, believes in what he just heard about it. Guess what? I just met him walking down the street.

He came from Chicago. But we can't get people to come here from Carlisle, from Preston, from Manchester. Don't think I have an axe to grind. If I communicated that, that's wrong. I don't have an axe to grind.

I have a message to declare. My pre-Mission 2000 message is the same as my post-Mission 2000 message. The church needs a shaking. The church needs revival. The church needs to get on her knees in repentance, in brokenness.

There's no purpose to have one more seminar and fill our heads with biblical tidbits if we are not going to obey, if we are not going to repent, if we are not going to get up out of our beds in the morning and get upon our knees, if we are not going to reinstate the Book of Acts prayer meeting into the church, if we are not going to turn from sham, parade, and spiritual death, as A .W. Tozer called it, and come into light and unction and reality.

There's no purpose. So when we walk out the door of this church, we will be accountable. We will be accountable for what we have received here. You say, by what authority do you speak these things? By the authority of the Word of God.

Hundreds of verses. Hundreds of verses. We are having fights in some of our groups on subjects where people have two or three disjointed scriptures. Here's a subject in which there are hundreds of verses.

It is a subject we can unite on. In fact, most men of God and leaders do unite on this subject, at least in terms of their verbal commitment. It's when it comes to actual praying that the difficulty comes in.

You then get what you call the excuses. The many excuses why we can't be there. I spent 26 years trying to get people to go to nights of prayer in Great Britain. It's lucky I didn't die a premature death in the process because you just can hardly get people to pray beyond one hour.

Now, there is a movement. They got a better name than O .M. had. We just called it Night of Prayer. Just come from one last night. With this generation, they're also getting shorter and shorter. But we still at least have them.

But there is a movement led by a man named David Bryant, who will be the main guest speaker at the O .M. conference in the Netherlands this year, who the Holy Spirit has used to start a movement called the World Concert of Prayer Movement.

They put a new name, more with this generation, and they're starting prayer concerts and they are spreading. And thousands have gone to some of these prayer concerts that may start at seven and eight in the evening and go on to eleven or to midnight.

We're having a little mini prayer concert here, which is patterned after the concept that David Bryant launched and talked about in his amazing book, World Concerts of Prayer. We can't go very long because apparently there's some kind of curfew here at Keswick.

But it's amazing in these prayer concerts that I've been in around the world, how when the actual time comes to pray, sometimes people feel a little nervous about me. I don't know why. I guess they know what I stand for.

They come and share their excuse why they're not able to be there. I don't have a bad attitude toward those people. I don't have the problem much of bad attitude for people. If I ever have a bad attitude, it's toward myself, my wretched self.

I got enough other problems without having an attitude problem toward God's people. But I want to see a movement of prayer in the British Isles. I want to see people on their faces together. I heard something incredibly exciting about a great prayer meeting that took place in Birmingham with some 15 ,000 gathering together for praise, for celebration.

That's exciting. And may it spread all over the country. The tendency, however, in Britain is to mainly think about Britain. 50 ,000 recently marched through the streets of London. In a praise, prayer, celebration march.

What an amazing event. Wish I had been there. Hallelujah. Things are happening. God is answering prayer. There's a staring in the mulberry bushes. When it comes to world missions, to some degree, we are left out in the cold.

Missionaries are considered specialists that you only bring in on occasion when there's a missions conference. So we have Mission 2000 and we're overrun with missionary speakers. When I saw the number of the speakers here, I called up and said, I don't want to go there.

I don't want to take up the time that James Hudson Taylor could be using. Let him speak for two hours. But somehow some other people got on the phone and they bent my arm and here I am. I prefer to go into situations where missionaries don't often speak.

Making World Missions a Churchwide Priority

I just come from Chicago. Largest Christian rock festival in the world. Petra, you name the band, they're there. Five days of hard gospel rock. Believe it. Anybody over 30 would have a nervous breakdown within a mile.

The Holy Spirit was there. And I had the joy after Petra closed down, because the police don't let them play after 10 o 'clock at night, to speak to two and three thousand of these jumping, leaping young people about world missions.

And a lot of copies of Operation World went out. And every time I go there, I've been there almost four years in a row. We see people decide that world missions is a priority. Do you believe that? How many of you believe that world missions, reaching those Uyghurs, reaching those Baluch, reaching those Kurdish people, 20 million of them, reaching out to Turkey, where all the believers could sit in the first couple of rows of this church, reaching out to even beyond that, into the unreached people of the Soviet Union, the unreached people in certain sections of China.

How many of you believe this is absolute top priority for God's people today? Raise your hand. Well, that's encouraging. Of course, one would expect that. Mission 2000. What is our hope if we are going to see a grassroots movement for intercessory prayer for world missions?

One of our hopes lies in what you do with this seminar material. If you are willing to allow me to appoint you as a recruiter, as a mobilizer for world missions so that you will go out from here, convinced that you should not just believe what you've heard and act upon it, but that you should recruit others.

You can mobilize a prayer meeting in your own place of residence. Don't do it on the same night as a church prayer meeting. Don't necessarily blow a big trumpet about it. Just start it in a small, quiet way.

A small group who want to intercede for world missions, not for just one group, but as the Holy Spirit leads world missions. If you're linked in with a church, make the missionaries from that church one of the main targets.

It might be good for you to share with the leader in your church that you want to do this just in an informal way in your own place. He might even decide to come or he might say, why don't we do this in the church instead?

If we are going to go forward, we've got to develop holy ghost stubbornness. Got to develop stickability. We've got to realize if people like us, a tiny number of us who choose a seminar on the subject of intercession, if we don't do something about this, who will?

Peter was in prison, but the church without ceasing prayed for him. Tomorrow night when I share, we may look at how this is practiced in Acts 13, where they prayed and commended those first missionaries out into the harvest field.

I also hope to share in the main meeting before our concert of prayer, something about the obstacles of prayer, the fiery darts of Satan against your prayer life, hindrances to your prayer life. So I won't get into that at this time.