Stop Limiting God — Dan Augsburger

The Call to Prayer and Surrender

Father in Heaven, it is a privilege to be here with the Gateway Church. Father, I'm grateful for the good work that you have done. It's obvious that prayers have been going up, and I don't pretend to come in and know you better than anyone else.

I'm only going to share what you've shared with me. Father, they've come because they want to learn from you. They want to learn from the Bible. I pray that you would empty me of myself, that you would forgive me of my sins, that you would cover me with your righteousness, that you would place the Holy Spirit in me so that what they hear would be coming as prompted by you.

Otherwise, Father, their time will be wasted. Make me nothing. Make yourself everything. Bless each person. Help them to hear what you want them to hear as it applies to their particular situation. I ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen. One of the greatest revivalists that ever lived was a man by the name of Charles Finney. Charles Finney lived in the northeast of the United States in New York State. And in his younger days, he was rather wild.

He trained as a lawyer. Many great Christians have trained as lawyers. John Calvin was another lawyer that became a Christian. They have an ability to express these succinctly and directly. And he had been trained as a lawyer, but he had inklings towards Christianity.

And he went to a church one Wednesday evening to a prayer meeting. And the people recognized that Charles Finney did not have much of a close walk with God. And therefore, they offered to pray for Charles Finney.

But Finney was not interested. You can read of it in the first handout called The Possibilities of Prayer. We've printed some handouts for you that have some quotations. I'll use some of these, not all.

But at least you'll have something in your hands as a result of our time together. The second line, I told them no because I did not see that God answered their prayers. He said, they wanted to pray for me.

But he said, no, I don't think so because I do not see that God is answering your prayers. How would you like it if someone came to your prayer group and you said, we want to pray for you. And they said, you can't show me that God is answering your prayers.

Why would I want you to pray for me? We continue. I am conscious that I'm a sinner, but I do not see that it will do any good for you to pray for me, for you are continually asking, but do not receive.

Anyone identify with that? Do you identify with that? Asking and not receiving? That definitely happens. You have prayed enough to have prayed the devil out of this town if there is any virtue in your prayers.

I don't want to read further right now. When Charles Finney left that church, his question was not about the spiritual walk of the people attending. He wasn't concerned about whether what they were praying about was according to God's will.

His question was, is the Bible really true? The Bible says, ask and it should be given, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened. He says, if the Bible says that but they're not getting answers, maybe the Bible is full of lies.

He began to question God. Eventually, as he thought and as he studied, he came to the conclusion, we're going to read right now. He says, on further reading of my Bible, it struck me that the reason their prayers were not answered was because they did not comply with the revealed conditions upon which God had promised to answer prayer, that they did not pray in faith in the sense of expecting God to give them the things that they asked for.

He said there were two problems. They weren't praying according to what the Bible taught and secondly, they were not praying with any expectation of getting answers. That is still the problem in our day.

There are many who are praying but they're praying without having really bothered to learn about prayer. And then secondly, because they haven't gotten answers to prayer, they don't bother to pray much and therefore don't obtain answers.

I'd suggest that there are kind of three things that happen. There's a continuum of experience. There are those who don't expect, they don't pray and therefore they receive no results. There are those who pray because they believe but they still don't get results because they're not praying according to what the Bible teaches.

Then there are those who pray but do get results because they're praying in an intelligent way. We want to move you to the point that you believe in the power of prayer and that you also pray according to what the Bible teaches and therefore get answers to prayer.

That's what we're going to do while we're together. Now the Bible is full of amazing promises and I know that all of you are praying so I want you to turn to someone close to you and for just a minute or two, talk together about what your experience has been when you've prayed.

Okay? Turn to another person, just share together for just a few brief moments what your experience has been with this matter of prayer. Just a few moments. So what's been your experience? Just one or two people.

What have you learned? Janelle. You can thank Roy later. I like that. And what about Janelle's experience? Okay. Anyone else? Any other volunteer? What has prayer meant to you? Anyone that's ever struggled at all with prayer?

I was going to say how many honest people are there tonight? We all struggle some, don't we? That's a given. But I can assure you that God is answering prayers. Someone said that we should approach the promises of the Bible the same way we would if we got a letter from an attorney saying...

The same way that we would say that we would respond to an envelope from the attorney of a rich relative who says, you know, please read this carefully because you're included in the will that's included in the envelope.

You know, if you got a letter and you knew that you were included in the will, if you knew that your name was on a will, would you study that will carefully? Or would you say, oh, it doesn't matter. I'm just going to put it away.

I'll come to it someday. No, you would read it carefully, wouldn't you? Because you would want to know what it said. I'd like to suggest that the promises of the Bible are like a mention of the will. Those are yours to claim.

Those are for you. You know that. What? Absolutely. And let's look at some of them. Look at Matthew chapter 7, actually, 7 to 11. It's the most basic of all the promises regarding prayer. The most basic.

It says, ask and it may be given. Seek and some of the time you'll find knock. And if you're lucky and you persist long enough and it's the right day and God is in a good mood, he'll answer, right? It doesn't say that, but there's a lot of people that that's their attitude towards prayer.

How can I count on God? I seem to pray, but he doesn't hear. It says ask and it will, right? Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened unto you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds.

And to him who knocks, it will be opened. There is no question based on that promise of what God is going to do. Now notice the last verse. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much less?

Is that what it says? How much more will your Father in heaven give bad things? No. Good things to those who read their Bibles. What does it say? To those who ask him. It is God's plan to grant an answer to the prayer of faith that which he would not grant if we did not ask.

Great Controversy 525. Let me repeat that. It is God's plan to grant an answer to the prayer of faith that which he would not grant if we did not ask. Great Controversy 525. Notice Psalms 2 verse 8. Psalms chapter 2 verse 8.

It is God's plan to grant an answer to the prayer of faith that which he would not grant if we did not ask. It is actually on the handout. Do you mind if we read it from the handout? Okay. It says, Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession.

That is a good promise that you can claim right here at Gateway for the city of Melbourne. If God will give us the ends of the earth, he will give us the ends of the city. What do you think? I love Jeremiah 33 verse 3.

Call to me and I will answer you and I will show you great and mighty things which you do not know. Call to me and I will answer you. I believe it is Psalms 81 .10 that says, Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.

That was the favorite promise of George Muller. He felt impressed that he should open his mouth wide, not physically but in terms of being willing to ask God of great things and he fully expected that God would come through.

In 1874, he said this year without asking anyone directly for money, I fed every day 2 ,100 people. Tina, how would you like to have 2 ,100 guests every day, not only every day but for breakfast, for lunch and for supper and the next day the same and the next day.

Would that be a lot of people to take care of? It is a lot of money being spent. He said in addition to that, I supported 189 missionaries overseas. It was in the 1870s, 1874. I sent 10 ,000 pounds overseas.

I paid the school fees for 9 ,000 children. I published 4 million tracts, thousands of Bibles, all by asking God. God impressed him. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. You see the re is no limit to God's giving.

The only limit is our asking. Did you hear me? There is no limit to God's giving, only a limit to our asking. I know that personally. I remember a time in my life when I didn't know how to pay the bills.

Personal Experiences of Answered Prayer

I was in my business as Johnny shared as an executive recruiter. It was a Friday morning and in my business, the assignments sometimes took a great deal of time. They would call and ask me if I would work for them.

Then I had to write a job description which had to be approved. Then I would look for that needle in a haystack. Then I would coach the people so that they would interview well. Then I would follow up.

I remember one person I worked with, they interviewed with 40 different people before they got the job. How would you like to interview with 40 different people? It was a very politically sensitive role and they wanted to make sure that this person would fit into the organization.

It took a long time sometimes to get the work done. This particular occasion, I hadn't been paid by anyone for a long time. I just barely started with three clients, one of which was Cigna Insurance. I was working but there was no money coming.

I told my girls on a Friday morning, unless God comes through, I don't know what we are going to do but we are going to pray because we need the money. Even if I had placed someone, they had to give notice which was usually a month.

Then they would start the job and then two months later I would get paid. It was at least three or four months away. I didn't know but I needed money. I was paying a mortgage because of the divorce, child support, alimony and everything else.

It was very expensive. I was burning more money than I had ever thought of burning. We prayed Friday morning and Friday afternoon there was a call from my client, Cigna Insurance. They said, Dan, we need to call off the search.

We are not prepared to fill the position. It was a handshake relationship. I wasn't going to blow them off and say, hey, how could you do that to me? They didn't owe me one dime. They said, no, you have done your part.

We have not done our part. We are going to send you a portion of what we would have paid you had you completed the work. The check is already in the mail. On Tuesday I found in the mail a check for $16 ,000, a gift from an insurance company.

I had no idea where the money was coming from but I had written my Bible somewhere where it said, ask and it will be given, seek and you will find. I prayed that prayer. I have never gotten a check, quite a dramatic financial answer to a prayer quite like that since then, but I haven't been begging and I have seen amazing, amazing answers to prayer.

You know what I often ask people? Why aren't we praying more? How many blessings are going missing if it is true that it is God's plan to grant an answer to prayer that which he would not grant if we did not pray?

That is a good question, isn't it? Truly a good question. So it says, call to me and I will answer you in Jeremiah 33 and I will show you great and mighty things which you do not know. It says, think about me.

No, call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know. That is what God says. Matthew 18 and 19, it is on the list there. If two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.

If you study what the Bible says on united prayer, the instances, we looked at the book of Acts the other night with one of the prayer meetings, where we found that every time they were praying together, miracles happened, be it the day of Pentecost, be it God giving them boldness, be it Peter being set free from prison.

They weren't sitting on their hands saying, what shall we do? They were on their knees praying. Many of you, some of you anyway, come from China. I mentioned to the group that one of the great missionaries that went to China, Hudson Taylor, he told his group, he said, if you go forward, you will go forward on your knees.

And he was probably the one that had more to do with the implementation of the house church movement in China than any other person. He said, if you go forward, you will go forward on your knees. If you succeed at Melbourne, you will do so on your knees.

Okay? I cannot stress that enough. If you would turn the page to the top of the next page, this comes from a book called The Kneeling Christian. It's a wonderful book. I recommend it highly to you. This individual says the following, prayer is the key that unlocks the door of God's treasure house.

It is taught too much to say that all real growth in the spiritual life, all victory over temptation, all confidence and peace in the presence of difficulties and dangers, all repose of spirit in times of great disappointment or loss, all habitual communion with God depends upon the practice of secret prayer.

Your spiritual life, your ability to touch the lives of other people, your financial and physical well-being, all should be blessed by your prayers. Prayer is the key. Prayer is the key that unlocks the door of God's treasure house.

Notice further, it can be easily shown that all want of success and all favor in the spiritual life and in Christian work is due to defective or insufficient prayer. Are you not succeeding as much as you wish in this church?

The author suggests it's due to insufficient or defective prayer. The greatest thing he says that we can do for God or for man is to pray, for we can accomplish far more by our prayers than by our work.

Prayer is omnipotent. It can do anything that God can do. When we pray, God works. If you look at the history of revival, it is always initiated by prayer. Someone said, you look at revival, it starts with prayer and it continues as long as prayers are continuing.

When the prayer stopped, the revival stopped as well. What do you think then prayer might be a good idea for this group? Absolutely. It is one of the most important things that you can do. From Ian Bounds, how many of you have read any of the books on prayer by Ian Bounds?

The actually wrote I think either eight or nine books on prayer. It's interesting that he lived during the era of the Civil War. He was taken captive, the Civil War referring to the battle between the North and the South in the United States.

He was captured by the Confederate Army. He was put in prison in a little town called Franklin, Tennessee. After he got out, he had a burden for the town where he'd been in prison. He was a pastor there and there he began to pray.

And I do not pray like Ian Bounds, okay? But he would pray every morning from four o 'clock in the morning until I believe seven o 'clock every day, no matter where he was, no matter what was going on.

And once a week he met with his church members. As a result of those prayers, a revival came that swept through the entire town, okay? He was a man who was working with God on his knees, right? Now, he was also a very busy worker for God, but he knew that he would have no success unless he was praying.

He knew he would have no success if he wasn't praying. Let's read just a few lines. How vast are the possibilities of prayer? How wide is its reach? What great things are accomplished by this divinely appointed means of grace?

It lays its hand on Almighty God and moves him to do, notice, what he would not do otherwise, what he would not otherwise do if prayer was not offered. It brings to pass things which would never otherwise occur.

The story of prayer is the story of great achievements. Prayer is a wonderful power placed by the Almighty God in the hands of his saints, which may be used to accomplish great purposes and achieve unusual results.

The only limits to prayer are the promises of God and his ability to fulfill those promises. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. Ian Bounds said, you know, it is prayer that makes possible what would otherwise not occur.

Did you hear me? Did you really hear me? Okay. How many of you that are going to go home and say, God, if it's true that I can receive blessings as a result of praying, I'm going to start doing my best to have a consistent prayer life, because I don't want to miss any blessings.

Not only for my life, but think of the people around you who are not being blessed because you're not praying for them. You know, one of the best things you can do all of you should have a prayer partner.

How many have a prayer partner to pray with? Some of you do. All of you should find a person that you can pray with and keep you accountable to be praying. I don't know what your program is. I know I've heard about prayer journals or something from Dan Viz, but there's something about praying with another person that is very, very helpful.

I personally love to pray with other people, and I would wish that for you. It will bring a great strength and a consistency into your prayer. Notice on the next page, Mary Slusser. She was a missionary to Calabar in Africa.

She said, My life is one long, daily, hourly record of answered prayer for physical health, for mental overstrain, for guidance given marvelously, for errors and dangers averted, for enmity to the gospel subdued, for food provided at the exact hour needed.

Notice that, food provided at the exact hour. For everything that goes to make up life in my poor service, I can testify with a full and often wonder-stricken awe that I believe God answers prayer. I know, she says, God answers prayer.

We're in the middle fold on the right-hand side, okay? She said, Due to prayer, as a result of prayer, God would deliver food at just the right time. Well, George Mueller had the same experience. One day, he came down to the breakfast table, and he came to the dining hall where, you know, they would feed hundreds of children.

He actually had five buildings, so they weren't all together in the same building. The table was set, but there was no food on the table. There was a little girl at his side, and she tugged his arm and said, Father Mueller, what are we going to eat?

And he responded and said, We're going to thank God for the food that he will most surely provide. Now, notice, they had done their part. They had set the table because they expected God would take care of them, okay?

They had done their part. There's always a work for us to do. They'd done their part. They prayed, and while they were knocking, while they were praying, there was a knock at the door, and it was the baker in town who said, During the night, God impressed me to get up and bake bread for you.

Do you need bread? And George Mueller said, We would be happy to accept it. He came into the room and said, Look, children, not only has God provided bread, but he's provided fresh bread for our breakfast.

And they were rejoicing, and there was another knock at the door, and this time it was the milkman who said, I was going down the street, and my wagon, something happened with the wheel, and I have to unload the milk.

Can I leave the milk with you? Can I give you the milk? And they accepted the milk. God provided the food needed for that breakfast. He believed in the power of prayer. Now, you learn something from George Mueller.

You learn that God is not always early, but he's never late, okay? I often say I have the most faith when I have the most money in the bank, but when you have money in the bank, you're really not exercising faith at all.

Faith is when you have no money, okay? And you say, God will provide. And from what I see, you know, on the economic, you know, surroundings around us, on the horizon, I think all of us are going to be learning to pray in a much more serious way when we don't see a lot of resources, okay?

It's not a bad thing. God can provide food in the desert. The children of Israel had it every single day, right? Miracle-keeping. Miracle-keeping. And God will provide for us in, as I said, the same way.

I'd like to share just a little bit about, well, one other story from George Mueller, maybe. And then I'll share a little bit about my story. George Mueller was once crossing the ocean from England to Montreal, Canada, or Quebec.

I think he was going to Quebec. And as he was off the coast of Newfoundland, the ship came into a bank of fog. And the captain was a cautious man. It was a day, you know, when they depended on sails. And because of the fog, they couldn't see the potential rocks.

They were afraid of being blown into the rocks. And he told the sailors, you know, adjust the sails so that we will not be pushed into the rocks. Mueller said, I've not been laid once in over 50 years.

We can't stop. We've got to go. And the captain said, this ship is not going to go anywhere. And Mueller said, can we pray? Captain was a nominal Christian. He was willing. They went downstairs to pray together.

Mueller started the prayer. He said, God, Father in heaven, you know that you've called me to go to Canada to preach. I know you have. You know when the meeting is starting. You know that I've never been laid, he said, in over 50 years.

And I don't believe it's your will for me to be laid now. Would you please remove the fog in five minutes? Then he thanked the Lord. It was a very short prayer, very specific. Would you agree that's a specific prayer?

God responded. And he said, amen. The captain began to pray. And Mueller tapped him on the arm and said, you don't need to. Number one, you don't believe. And number two, God has removed the fog. They went upstairs and the fog was gone.

And the man who repeated the story after the fact was a captain who had come to believe in the power of prayer. Same story is told, by the way, about Hudson Taylor. When he was sailing to China for the first time, they too were close to Ashen Island where there were cannibals.

And they were in the doldrums. There was no wind blowing at all. And they were being blown into shore. And he speaks of how they could see the cannibals building a fire on the beach. And they knew what it was all about.

It wasn't to welcome and warm them in the kind of warming they were wanting. And the captain was upset. Everyone was upset. And Hudson Taylor said, let's go down and pray. There's four of us that are Christians.

We will pray and ask God to blow the ship off into the sea again. And everyone went down. And Hudson Taylor came up and met the first mate and told the first mate, you need to adjust the sail. The wind is coming.

The first mate said, I'm not going to. But Hudson Taylor was insistent. And there was a bit of a wind in the sails. He put it up. And sure enough, a wind came and blew them back off. And Hudson Taylor believed with all his heart.

It was in response to prayer. Great Christians, right? Had a great walk with God. But God answers prayer for all of us. I'd like to share just a few things about my story of answered prayer. I'm a slow learner.

I'm a challenged learner like all of you. I like what's familiar. And sometimes when God wants to get my attention, he puts me through various Sunday trials. And the ones that seem to get my attention the best are the financial ones.

Surrendering Answers to God's Will

When I was in the executive search business, I did very well. I placed once an international director of quality. They paid me over $60 ,000 just to find the one person. That's a lot of money for just placing one person.

You fill a few of those jobs. You have a great year. But I hadn't been paid for a long time. I told you about that. And I was quite concerned about it. And it got to the point where I was really desperate for money just to pay insurance.

That's a pretty common everyday thing. Didn't know what to do. And I'd been reading a book that I would recommend to you highly called With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray. I don't know if anyone's read that.

But it's a book that's very instructive. 31 short chapters. It's a great book for your devotions. If you want to be inspired to pray and learn how to pray, that's a good book to read. Well, in that book, I'd read that when we ask, we should expect an answer.

So I'd put an ad in the paper, ask God to bless, but wasn't seeing anything. And I remember on a Friday morning that I prayed and told God, you know, I've learned that when I ask, I should get an answer to prayer.

I'm not getting anything. Please have someone come. Maybe it was a Thursday. I prayed and I was pleased that someone actually called that day and said, Dan, you know, we'd like to come and look at this thing that you're selling.

I was trying to sell an antique hutch. I invited them to come. I wanted to get $800 from this hutch. They were only prepared to offer me $795. And I'm ashamed to admit that over $5, I sent them packing.

You know, I thought when I prayed, I got what I wanted. That's how many people feel about prayer. I prayed, you know, I've used the word, you know, the power of God's word. And, you know, I asked for $800.

Give me the $800. They said no. They drove away. As they drove down the driveway, God began speaking to me. He said, there's something wrong with the picture here. You asked me to send someone to buy your hutch and over $5, you actually sent them away.

Well, I quickly repented, quickly repented. I said, God, I'm sorry. I've made a mistake. I wait till I thought they were home. I called up. I said, you know, I've changed my mind. If you want to buy the hutch for $795, it's yours.

But they answered and said, we've changed our mind. We have no interest. Then God got really serious with me and said, when you are serious with me, I'll be serious with you. You know, when you really want me to answer, you need to be prepared to accept my answer.

Now that's a very important point. I'm sharing some very important principles about prayer and speaking because often God's answers are delivered, listen carefully, in rough packing cases. They don't look like maybe the wonderful things they are, but the reality is they are just the things that we need because we've asked God.

You see, I didn't recognize that the answer in the $795. Well, I went to bed that night and because I think it must have been a Friday, went to church the next morning and had a, you know, a blessing.

The church came home and it was cold. It was during the winter. And in Pennsylvania, it gets really cold in the winter. Now, there are times when you have a storm come in, it's called the Northeaster, and you might get three feet or four feet of snow on the ground and you literally can't go out.

You can't drive anywhere. There's way too much snow and it's illegal to go out on the road because they don't want to have cars in the way of the snow plows that are trying to remove all the snow. So, you get a two or three day vacation because there's so much snow around.

So, we were in the middle of winter. There was lots of cold and I came home from church and the house was cold. Well, I ran down to the basement thinking I could maybe, you know, it was a break or something, discovered that a fan belt had broken off the heater.

So, I said, oh, after Sabbath, I'll run to the hardware store and I'll replace it. After Sabbath, I rushed down to the, actually, it was the auto parts store and as I approached the door, I was within two feet and someone inside locked the door and pointed me to the sign that said close with a big smile.

Well, I'd been trying to learn how to say thank you no matter what went on. So, I said, thank you, God, but I was not happy. In fact, I was quite angry with God and I'm living proof that you can, you know, we sing the song, give thanks with a grateful heart.

I was giving thanks but did not have a grateful heart. It's possible, possible to have an ungrateful heart when we sing, when we are living with Jesus. Well, I came home not happy and I happened to be reading the biography of George Mueller where it talks about how when his wife died, he wanted to have the sermon and his sermon was God gave and blessed in giving but God took and God blessed when he took her as well.

And I said, man, if he has that kind of faith, who am I to be upset with God? So, you know, I told God, you own the cattle on a thousand hills, you know what you're doing, you know, I'm going to trust you.

Sunday morning, I got up and I was inspired. I remember that the antique dealer said, Dan, bring it back and we'll be happy to buy it from you if you ever want. It had been modified some. So, it really wasn't the same antique but I took it, I put it in the back of my car.

It was a hutch, an armoire that could be split down into individual pieces. Took it there, reminded the lady, said, oh, yes, yes, I want your antique. Her son came out and said, shouldn't we set it up to see that it's the same?

She said, no, I want this one. Well, I wasn't going to argue with her, you know, it was fine. She led me back to her office and she pulled out eight $100 bills. It's almost like God said, you didn't learn the first time but now I'll give what you need.

Anyway, I knew from what was going on that God was doing something. F .B. Meyer, a great preacher from England said, you can always count on the man of falling if you're living under the cloud. You can always count on the man of falling if you're living in the cloud.

And the man who wasn't falling in my life, it was like, God, what are you trying to do? And I sensed that maybe God was going to be moving me and I thought to myself, you ought to sell your house so that if God chooses to move you, you'll be ready to move.

And I tried to sell it twice before but to no success, I'd used really good realtors. But I thought to myself, I need the money more than the realtor and I'm going to sell it myself. I'll just put a little notice in the paper and I'll put a sign at the door at the end of the road and we'll see what happens.

And I prayed and said, God, please have this sell in such a way that there'll be no mistaking that you're the one that sold this house. Well, the ad appeared Sunday morning. By Sunday night, this house that I'd never been able to even get one person to look at, a beautiful house, several hectares with a creek running through it, Sunday evening it was sold at full price and the next day someone else wanted it.

They were arguing between themselves over who would get it. It was like when God was in charge, things happen really quick. Well, I praise the Lord for that. I praise the Lord for that. Well, I was reading through this book by Andrew Murray and whatever I read, I kind of followed because it was very biblical and one of the things that he mentioned in the book that I read was you shouldn't waste time with God asking for something that he doesn't want to answer.

And I was living at the time in Pennsylvania and for many years I'd been praying about a project having to do with Berrien Springs, Michigan where my folks lived. Has anyone ever heard of the program Your Story Hour?

Is that familiar to you at all? It's a children's program. Uncle Dan was a good friend of mine. He was a prayer partner of mine while he was still alive. Anyway, we had dreamed together of a special program and so I'd been praying about it but hadn't seen anything come of it.