And He Prayed Again — Carter Conlon

Elijah and the Power of Persistent Prayer

James chapter 5, please if you go there in the New Testament James chapter 5 and it's a message which I've entitled any. And he prayed again and He prayed again. Now father, I thank you God with all my heart For the anointing of your Holy Spirit.

I thank you God for the grace and The strength that you give to all of us Lord as we make the choice To live for you. Thank you God for your word, which is a lamp for our feet and a light for our path.

Your word clears up confusion misunderstanding Even a lack of understanding about who you are and how you answer prayer. So God I'm asking you Lord to kindle our hearts today. Give us faith deeper than we've had before.

Help me Lord God to be able to convey your heart and your thoughts To everyone who's listening today and those that will be listening in the future. This is a an important moment to understand these things.

And I thank you for giving this word and I praise you for it in Jesus name. James chapter 5 For those that don't know it what we're about to read. It's about a great man of God in the Old Testament. He was a prophet.

His name was Elijah and he was a man that God used To turn the hearts of the people of Israel back to the worship of the true God again. Their hearts had been captivated By the prosperity of their nation the blessing of the nation had somehow adulterated their spiritual walk.

They'd opened their hearts to false teachers that were leading them into thinking that As long as your cupboard was full as long as you appeared to be successful and happy then. That is all that God required in the true worship of his people and it actually drew their hearts away From the worship of the true God and so God raised up this man Elijah.

Elijah Led the people back again for a season to the worship of the true God now. Apostle James Says in chapter 5 and verse 17 That Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. In other words, he was not a superman was not a superhuman being.

He was an ordinary man who believed God an ordinary person who Undertook the calling that God placed on his life with sincerity for a very unique purpose that God would be honored again and the people's hearts would turn back to him and He prayed earnestly that it would not rain seems to be a strange prayer, doesn't it?

And it did not rain on the land for three years and six months and He prayed again and the heaven gave rain and the earth produced its fruit and that's the title of my message. And he prayed again. Now in the New Testament Jesus gave us a teaching in Luke chapter 18.

Jesus' Teaching on Praying Without Losing Heart

It's a parable. He said that Men are always to pray and not lose heart. So he was teaching a story to the people to get the principle across. That you may not see the answer to your prayer immediately the way you and I want to see it.

We become an instant society. We want to push a button and we want a picture to appear. We want to put a dollar in a vending machine and we want our whatever it is. We want we want it right away, but that's not the way the kingdom of God works.

His ways are not our ways. The prophet Isaiah said his thoughts are not our thoughts. He will answer our prayer. But he taught the people this particular story so that we don't give up. I know there are people here today that you're close if to losing heart if you haven't lost heart already.

You've prayed for a specific situation a family member something in your own character perhaps that you've been asking God to take out of your life and You're so close to losing heart. In this parable there was a widow who continuously came to a judge looking for help and We can infer from this illustration that Jesus gave that The judge had the power to make a difference now.

She came to him and said help me. Something is opposing there. Someone is opposing me. I need you to help me and I need you to help me now. He had the power. But the answer didn't seem to be coming. In fact the longer she appeared before him the situation most likely started to get worse and Jesus said and Shall not God avenge his own elect though he bears long with them.

In other words this this judge didn't answer right away. But finally he said because of her continual coming to me. Lest she weary me. I'm gonna get up now and I'm going to answer her now. It's only a story.

It's not a factual thing. It's just an illustration. He's making for you and I today and he makes a conclusion at the end of the story. Shall not God avenge his own elect. In other words. Can't you deduce that God will fight for you if you call out to him.

God will answer you if you pray in faith. He's not going to draw back. Even though even though it's as though he bears long. In other words though the answers don't often come the way we think they should.

We want God to answer on our timetable. We want our children saved now. We want this thing in our character done with yesterday. We want that Person in our office that we've been praying that God remove them gone by morning.

But God answers on his timetable and in his way not ours. In verse 8 he says he will avenge them Speedily. In other words the decision to answer and to help us when we pray will be made quickly. That he was talking about his own Character when you call out to me, I will answer you and I will Do it quickly however.

You might not see The answer with your natural eye for a season. Even though the answer has come. Even though God has decreed that your prayer will be answered you may not see it and there are reasons for that.

And he finishes the story about this woman by saying but will there still be Faith on the earth. Will there still be the kind of faith on the earth that believes it has the answer and doesn't give up.

Until it is fully seen. Will we have become such an instant society I wanted now. Will we have become like that to the point where when the Son of Man when Christ actually returns to the earth there would be a Shortage of people who actually believe and persist in that belief.

God has answered me and I'm gonna keep coming. I'm gonna keep pressing in until I see the answer to my prayer. He's going to open my prison door. He's going to give sight to my blinded eyes. He's going to heal my wounded heart.

He's going to touch my family. He's going to make a difference in my neighborhood. I believe that with all my heart. Now a textbook case of this is found in Exodus chapter 2. Where the scripture tells us in verse 23 to 25.

Israel's Cry and God's Hidden Answer in the Exodus

The children of Israel were in a place called Egypt for a season. I don't have time to get into the reasons for that but suffice to say they were there. It happened in chapter 2 verse 23 says it happened in the process of time.

That the king of Egypt died then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage. They cried out and their cry came up to God because of the bondage so God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant with Abraham with Isaac and with Jacob and God looked upon the children of Israel and God Acknowledged them.

In other words the people cried God help us God Almighty, don't you see what's happening to us? We are your people. We're being corralled like cattle. We're being oppressed ridiculed mocked controlled.

We're not free. The way you said we should be free didn't you say God that we would be blessed and become a blessing to those who are upon the earth and. So they began to cry and it's a collective cry and it came because of the oppression it Came because of the bondage.

It came because the society all around them was marginalizing them and using them for their own good and vilifying them as believers in the Living God and God heard their cry and the scripture says he acknowledged them.

In other words, it technically means that he accepted them as his own people and he answered their cry. He answered it. Now we go to chapter 3. In verse 7 says and the Lord said I've surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt and I've heard their cry Because of their taskmasters for I know their sorrows so I've come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and To bring them up from that land to a good and large land to a land flowing with milk and honey.

To the place of the Canaanites the Hittites the Amorites the Perizzites the Hivites and the Jebusites. Now therefore behold the cry of the children of Israel has come to me. I've also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them.

Come now. This is to Moses. He's speaking come now therefore and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people the children of Israel out of Egypt now I want you to just Take a journey with me in your mind.

God heard the cry and He looked down and he said I'm going to answer you. I'm going to deliver you your answer has come. Now here are the people of Israel over here crying out to God. Perhaps every day maybe once an hour.

I don't know how often I think it was a constant cry. And so God could have snapped his fingers and opened the borders. He could have created chariots and horses. He could have created an army out of nothing.

He could have sent angels could have just caused all of Egypt to die right on the spot. He could have done it so many ways. But he chooses a way that maybe wouldn't be our first choice when we pray. This is not the way we want God to do things.

He goes way over into another place into a desert he finds an old man who's 80 years old and says and calls him and While he's calling him while he's doing all this the cry is still going on the point is God has answered.

But the people over here are not seeing the answer yet. But over here the answer is already starting to manifest. He's called a man called Moses and He has to deal with Moses. He has to get Moses through his own unbelief.

I don't know how long the season took but he has to get him through his unbelief that. That God could actually use his life for any kind of a divine or a supernatural purpose. Then once Moses gets through that.

Then he has to go to his father-in-law and ask for permission to leave. Then he's got to get his brother Convinced that he needs to go with him. Then he's got to load up a donkey with his family and such like and start on foot from where he was into the land of Egypt and On that journey the scripture says his tells us his heart was not fully engaged yet with the work that he was called to do.

He was not fully separated to God and he almost died because of it. So we don't know how long that took. Was he sick for three weeks? Was he sick for a month? We don't really know. I Just know from the time that God said I've heard you and I've answered you to over here to here to here to here to Here it took a long time between those two points, but it doesn't change the fact that God answered the prayer.

Then Moses in chapter 4 and verse 31 shows up in the camp of Israel. And he tells them the story of God appearing to him in a burning bush. Tells him that he's going to stand before Pharaoh and somehow Pharaoh is going to let the people go.

It says in verse 31. So the people believed and when they heard the Lord had visited the children of Israel that he'd looked on their affliction. They bowed their heads and they worshiped they believed.

It's like those of you come out to pray Tuesday night and you hear us pray for this country that for this city and faith. Enders your heart and you say God. I believe God I believe in spite of what my eyes see on the street.

I believe Lord because we've cried out to you and we're crying out not just for ourselves. We're crying out for the testimony of your name. We're crying out for children are being told that you don't exist.

We're crying out because perversion is starting to manifest itself and multiply itself in our streets and on our airways. We're crying out for you to be God To this generation and you told us whatever things we prayed for believing.

We shall receive and so we bow our heads and we worship and believe God that you have heard our cry. Even though your initial response looks quite feeble you imagine if you're in that crowd and you're being oppressed by this society and they've got a One of the most powerful armies on the face of the earth and God's answer.

To set you free as an 80 year old man and his 83 year old brother. Come into town with a stick in their hand and a one-line sermon and Moses is so weak He can't even deliver it himself. He needs his brother to give the one line before Pharaoh.

When God's Promise Seems to Make Things Worse

Oh God our thoughts. But even after they believed things got worse in chapter 5 in verse 21. You remember Pharaoh said You're only wanting to go out in the wilderness to worship because you're lazy and you have not enough to do so I'm not we're not giving you straw to make your bricks anymore.

You have to go out and gather straw and you have to and don't let the tally of bricks diminish. And they said to them let the Lord look on you this is not a Moses and Aaron the children of Israel are speaking in verse 21 and Judge because you've made us abhorrent in the sight of Pharaoh and then the sight of his servants to put a sword in their hand to kill us.

So Moses returned to the Lord and said Lord. Why have you brought trouble on this people? Why is it that you sent me for since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name? He's done evil to this people and neither have you delivered your people at all now.

All this has happened since the day that they cried and God said I hear you. I acknowledge you. I answer you. I'm going to set you free. All this has happened in sequence. Things are getting worse. Hopelessness is setting in deeper than before.

It's my personal opinion that God Needed to make sure that everybody wanted to get out of Egypt. He was making it so abhorrent. He was making it so vile. He was making it so oppressive that anybody who's in that crowd is kind of divided.

Well, it hasn't been that bad here and we've had lots to eat and we've made some nice pyramids for these good people and Anybody who's of that opinion is gonna change their mind. The Lord's gonna make it so hard.

He's gonna make it so abhorrent to be part of Egypt that everyone's gonna want to get out. But right before the moment of the great deliverance that we know to be called the Exodus. Faith was in danger of failing.

The people's faith was beginning to fail and even Moses is coming back to God and accusing him. Why did you send me here? You gave me a promise, but your promise is not being manifested. That's why Jesus says when he comes back will he really find faith in the earth?

Will there be anybody left that believes that God still is? The same yesterday today and forever. Will there be anybody still left who believes that the same Christ who brought a spiritual awakening to New York City in? 1857 that swept thousands and thousands into God's kingdom can do the same thing again.

Paul's Deliverance in the Storm

Will there be any body left? Who believes God in Acts chapter 27 the Apostle Paul? Had a word that saved 276 people. Who had embarked on a perilous journey? The word that God gave him is Paul. You're going to be taken as a prisoner before Caesar and You're going to stand before Caesar and you're going to testify to him that he is not God.

There's only one God. His name is Jesus Christ. Now Paul had this word and the word was that I'm going to deliver you Paul and Not only you but the 276 people that are sailing with you are also all going to be spared.

Now when I look at the that voyage and I realized that Paul was a man of prayer. It's my opinion alone. But it's quite possible that he received this word early into the voyage because you remember he said to the ship master He said to those that were in charge Don't undertake this journey because this journey is going to result in the loss of a lot of your goods and It's going to also result in the loss of lives and it could be at that moment that Paul Prayed and God said Paul You're going to be spared and because you're on that ship all the people who sail with you are going to be spared as well.

But he had to persevere in prayer as things got worse. Until the answer was actually seen he had to go into the storm and he had to Hear perhaps on the deck above him the commotion the confusion the mass being blown the mast being blown over in the wind.

People throwing over the tackling of the boat over the sides the confusion the chaos the storm that it was in and Everything of hell would be against Paul to rob him of faith of that word that was planted by God in his heart.

Everything would be standing against faith. Just like it had stood against Moses and Aaron and the people of God in Egypt everything everything just like in some that are here. You're believing God for your families you're believing God for something you've been praying about for years and you're right at the moment of Receiving the answer and everything of hell now is coming against you.

Everything every thought that hell can produce is bombarding your mind. What is the use? Where is God? I prayed. Why is he not answering me and you can be sure as that ship rode up and down from swell to deep as the thing Began to fall apart that doubt would try to find a lodging place in Paul's heart.

Did you really hear from God. Did God really give you that kind of a word? Is your life really going to make a difference. Are these people really going to be spared because of you? Isn't it enough Paul that you survived it?

Do you have to continue believing for these people after all just look at what they've done to you look at the harm. Look how they've wounded you they don't deserve to live. You can you can feel how? Right beside this man of God trying to take away his confidence in the Lord.

Elijah's Prayer for Rain and the Timing of God's Answer

Which brings us now back to James chapter 5. The scripture says Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain and It did not rain on the land for three years and six months.

Now first Kings chapter 18 shows us that he prayed this way for a reason. He was praying in it in essence this Lord, whatever it takes. Turn the people back to you again. Whatever it takes. Now God can say when he prays that done.

But there's a season between when the prayer is answered in the manifestation of that answer appears. Do you understand? You can pray and God could say done your son and your son is going to come home.

Your daughter is going to come home. But first they've got a they've got to be abandoned. There's got to be a famine. They've got to be abandoned by their friends. They've got to go down into a pig's field and they've got to experience everything that hell has to offer without God and Then they're going to come home.

The prayer was answered here, but it takes a while to get to here. So don't give up. Whatever it takes. Elijah said turn the people's hearts now you and I know God could snap his fingers you and I know he could come down like a pillar of fire.

In a moment of time, but he simply doesn't choose and when we get to heaven, we'll we'll fully understand it. Then we don't understand it all now. Much of it. We just have to receive by faith and So for three and a half years all false comfort was taken away.

See the people were satisfied as long as their cupboard was full. As long as everything looked good as long as the checks in the mailbox and all the rest of it. They were satisfied. And so what did God do to get the people back?

He took it away. He took the bread out of the cupboard. He took the crops out of the field and all of these false prophets that were telling them that the evidence of Baalism as it is in your midst is all these things will always be here and they will always abound and suddenly they're gone.

Just like in Matthew chapter 21 When they're heading to the temple and Jesus Came up to a fig tree that had an evidence of offering satisfaction, but it was actually barren. There was no fruit there was nothing to satisfy in it and The fig tree he cursed that fig tree and the fig tree had to wither first.

In other words, it's deceptive covering had to be revealed its falseness had to be exposed. So it loses its further power to deceive. The fig tree had to die before he started talking about moving the mountain.

We want to move the mountain, but we don't want the process that has to take place before. Moving the mountain starts to become a reality in America today there's a there's a whole fig tree over this society a Fig tree of deception that we are a righteous people when when the nation as a whole is no longer.

Might have been at one point marginally so but not so today. No more evident than last week when Congress called for a moment of silence just a moment of silence for the the victims of the terror attack in Orlando and Members of Congress shouted it down some walked out.

They can't even observe a moment of silence. We've become so uncivil so anti God in this nation. The fig tree has to wither first. Oh Hope Suddenly is gone of getting out of this in our own strength of somehow producing some new hidden righteousness.

That's still there. We have to look within and find out we are bankrupt as a people. There's no other way We'll humble ourselves before God. We'll take if the situation turned around tomorrow. Everybody would be standing there to take the glory for it.

But God in his mercy brings the ship to a point where there's no chance that anybody in it is going to survive. God in His mercy empties every cupboard in Israel so nobody can boast that their crops are growing better than somebody else's.

God in his mercy. God in his mercy. Then once the fig tree dies the promise of moving the mountain and the last part of that particular verse of scripture in Matthew 21 22 It says and whatsoever you ask in prayer believing you shall receive.

When it's finally come to the end when finally people's hearts are open. You see it's important to know the season and you can't know the season. Apart from the Holy Spirit. But there is a season there is a moment when people's hearts Open to truth again.

There is a moment when people are just so sick of the news. They can't listen to it anymore. There's a moment when people become weary with evil being paraded as good and good being cast down as evil.

There's a moment where People are tired of the confusion that's being foisted upon their children. There is a moment where people begin to realize. Where has statesmanship gone? Where where are the leaders?

What have we become? It's as if God has peeled away the leaves of this false tree and suddenly we're open and exposed. To consider what we really are and I'm talking collectively now as a nation this is when Elijah prayed again.

Elijah prayed again after the drought. Elijah prayed again after the people knew that what they were trusting in Was of no lasting value and was going to offer no security and he prayed again. And he prayed and the heaven gave fruit gave rain and the earth produced its fruit.

This time Elijah prayed for the blessing of God to come down upon the people because he saw their hearts had begun to turn towards the Lord God again and the first Kings chapter 18 Bible tells us that he prayed seven times.

Remember we started with the parable about the widow who just kept coming to the judge just kept coming. Jesus said when the Son of Man returns will he find this kind of faith on the earth? This kind of faith that says Oh God send the rain of heaven.

Oh God give us an awakening one more time. Oh God, send your Holy Spirit God Almighty. Let the earth produce its fruit. Let New York City have a harvest of people coming to Christ that is too numerous to be even counted.

Let the earth produce its fruit again. He fell on his face. Put his face between his knees and seven times prayed and seven times. Sent a servant to say go take a look at the horizon and tell me what you see.

He was not willing to give up the first time or the second or the third or the fourth or the fifth or the sixth. It was the seventh time the servant came back said I see a cloud. The size of a man's hand coming over the horizon and Elijah could say here comes the rain.

Here comes the rain of God. Here comes the presence of God. Here comes the blessing of God. Here comes the glory of God into our borders one more time. Here comes what only God could do for what man cannot do what religion cannot do.

God has promised to do this and God will do it. Do you to the Lamb of God? Glory to the name of Jesus. That's why I feel in my heart. This is the time to press in. I think the nation is going to get worse.

I honestly do but this is the time to press in. This is the time and he prayed again. Oh God send the rain. Oh God, lest the people die along the way. Oh God, lest our children perish in our streets. Oh God.

Oh God. Lest our city start to experience unprecedented violence. God send the rain send the rain. Open the heavens upon us. But when the Son of Man comes. Will he find this kind of faith on the earth?

Pressing In for Revival and Personal Transformation

Have we become such an instant society that we've lost an understanding of that old-fashioned concept? That was part of the church for 2 ,000 years of pressing in till you get the answer. Not so much that you get it pressing in till it's manifested.

You may have gotten it way a long time ago, but it takes a while. It takes a while, but will he find that kind of faith on the earth? That kind of faith that believes him for situations that are impossible to the net in the natural that kind of faith for family.

That kind of faith that says I will not let go of my sons and my daughter. My daughters, I will not let go of my grandchildren. I will not let go of my marriage. I I will not let go. Even though it looks hopeless.

I will not let go God. I cry out to you Lord God. I cry out to you for the only one who can make a difference. I cry out to God for issues of my own character that I can't change. Your word says a leopard can't change its spots.

I can't change this about my character, but Oh God I cry out to you Lord to send the answer into my heart. Send the answer into my life and sovereignly and supernaturally God. Glorify your name by giving me victory in this area of my life.

Oh God I've carried this wound around in my life for too long. I walked the streets mourning like a dove day in and day out. Oh God. You're the only one who can heal my heart because you promised that you would come and heal those that have been bruised in heart.

So I cry out to you God and I ask you Lord for the healing that you promised. You say that out of weakness we are made strong you say in your word. You take the foolish things of this world to confound the wise.

Oh God. Help me now to do something that will glorify your name fill me with your Holy Spirit. Oh God, give me the strength that can only come from you and make a difference through my life. I Lift up the people that I know the people in my community the people in my office the people I see on the street every day who seem so Indifferent to truth, but you know their heart and there's something arising in this generation.

There's a cry now coming into. I can hear it now. There's a cry in this generation. There are so many people who cry themselves to sleep at night, they don't know God they have no way out. They feel such a hopelessness.

I went to get my hair cut the other day and a lady about my age was cutting my hair and she said something is Wrong in this world. I'm afraid. Many of my friends are afraid we feel that something is wrong and something is about to happen.

We need to pray because hearts are open hearts are crying. Hearts are wanting a living relationship with a living God. We need to press in and pray. Casual prayer will not meet the need of this hour. We need to press in and pray like we've never prayed before.

When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on the earth? Will he find somebody here who still believes that God can send revival to the United States of America? Is there still somebody who believes that he can send an awakening?

He is still God. Remind you that in Elijah's day. It's when it became hopeless. When its religion could no longer satisfy it proved itself to be powerless. That one man just rebuilt an altar and when he rebuilt the altar the way it should be built.

An altar of sacrifice an altar that honored the ways of God. And when he rebuilt it, what did he do? He stood back and he prayed. I've done this God at your word. I've done this for your glory. I've done it Lord for only one reason that the people's hearts may turn back to you again.

And they may know you to be God. And when he finished praying the fire of God came down. When he finished praying the fire of God came down when he finished praying the fire of God came down. And it was at that point.

He went to his knees and said Lord. I see the people's hearts beginning to turn back to you. I see that moment of conscience has come upon the nation and then he pressed in and didn't give up. Thank God he didn't give up the third time or the fourth time or how different history would be.

And You and I as the people of God must not give up now. We must pray like we've never prayed before. We must press in saying Lord. I see it in your word. I believe God with all my heart that whatever I ask believing I shall receive.

I believe it God. I don't doubt it. I stand on your word. I stand on the knowledge of your character God. You went Jesus you went to a cross so that all might be forgiven. So it's your will that all be forgiven.

So I know I'm standing on solid ground. So I ask you for an outpouring of forgiveness in my city. I'm asking you for an outpouring of forgiveness in my home. My family among my friends the places I work.

I'm asking you God to do what only you can do. Will he find faith on the earth? I Say yes. He will when he comes to New York City. Will he find faith? I say yes, he will. Yes, he will. Yes, he will. He will find a group of people in this church and other ones like it that are not spiritually lazy.

That are not looking for instant results. But somehow understand the character of God that when I call out to him, he will answer. I might not see with my eyes, but he will answer and I know I will live to see.

The day when God answers my cry. The scripture says in the Psalms that he goes forth weeping and bearing precious seed will doubtless come against with rejoicing. Bringing his sheaves with him. That's the cry of my heart.

I said God. I want to dance out on brought not in Broadway, but on Broadway. I want to dance out on the street. I Want to go out on the street and clap my hands. I want to cry. I want to shout. I want to say only God could have done this.