Polish (2) — George Verwer

The Church as a Praying Church

But, that's a very big but, but prayer was made without ceasing by the church unto God. One man of God said, if your church is not a praying church, then you can be sure it is a straying church, a church that's going off the road.

And we see that God answered their prayers. Peter was wonderfully delivered from prison, verse 7 tells us about that. Billy Graham has written a book on the subject of angels that every Christian needs to read.

We have a lot of people now in some countries who are emphasizing demons. They're always talking about demons. I would warn you about thinking too much and paying too much attention to demons. And then we get people who they want to always lay hands on you and quickly cast out some demon that may be in you.

Somebody gave a sneeze in a meeting. And someone wanted to immediately come and lay hands and cast out this evil spirit of cold. Pretty soon you are looking for demons behind every bush. And actually that kind of thinking causes many psychological problems and then people think that is a demon.

So in the midst of all the talk about demons, Billy Graham wrote a book about angels. Have you ever heard a message about angels? Yet there are dozens and dozens of references in the Word of God about angels.

People sort of smile, don't they? The intelligentsia that's beyond these ancient beliefs of the 16th century. Yet if you study this subject, you will discover many proofs that there is angelic activity on the behalf of God's people.

I don't understand all these things. With an atheist grandfather, I'm a natural doubting Thomas. I doubt everything at times. I've not only doubted the existence of angels, I've doubted my own existence.

And if you've studied existentialism, you know what I mean. So an angel released Peter from prison. I don't know whether this angel had government permission for this activity. It's a difficult task. But anyway, there was the deliverance from prison.

And look at verse 12. When he had considered a thing, he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John. Just read verse 12. Does it say where many were gathered together? Prayers. This is the picture of the New Testament church.

Corporate Prayer and Intercession

People praying. This is not some activity just for super-spiritual people. Someone said prayer is the Christian's final breath. I wonder if there are any of you this morning who are not breathing. If you're not breathing, could you raise your hand?

Everybody is breathing. And if we are God's children, we will be learning how to pray. And it will not just be private prayer. It will be group prayer. At the end of our meeting this morning, we're going to form little groups of five or six, and we're just going to pray here in this great tent.

And I hope that small group prayer will become one of the regular practices of your life. When I was running through the woods the other morning, there was a little group up there who were just praying together.

So there's no need for me to come here and tell you these things. You already know. And I hope you will follow that example. Many were gathered together praying. God is calling us to a ministry of intercessory prayer.

We have talked about adoration. We've talked about confession. We've talked about thanksgiving. We have talked about supplication. Now, intercession. Praying for world situations. Praying for the leaders of our nations.

That's very important. Look what it says in 1 Timothy. Turn quickly to 1 Timothy, chapter 2. Very strong word from God. I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplication, prayer, intercession, giving of thanks.

Right there, it's all in that one verse. Be made for all men. Did you read verse 2? Read verse 2. Verse 2 is a verse of tremendous balance. Some people don't like that verse. It has been a great controversy in the Church.

Because it gives the idea that, you know, we should just be willing, whatever our government situation is, to pray for the one in authority and to get on and live a quiet and peaceable, godly, honest life.

I'm not going to get into this particular controversy. But whatever we believe, we cannot exclude 1 Timothy 2 .2. I do not have simple, easy answers to some of the complicated problems people are finding in their own country.

And sometimes we need a lot more reading and a lot more study before we open our mouths. That's certainly true of me. I hope you will write the leaders of your nation on a piece of paper and pray for them specifically.

And we need to pray for the leaders in the Church. Sometimes it's easy to criticize. But very few people understand sometimes the complexity, even within the Church, of carrying on the work of God. In my own ministry of intercessory prayer, I have about ten different practical methods to pray for people, for nations, for situations.

Practical Methods of Intercessory Prayer

Number one, I use maps of the world. I have a map of the world. I pray for almost every nation in the world. I have then a set of little cards with about sixty nations. Sixty nations, one nation on each card.

The front of the card is information about the country. The back of the card are prayer requests for that country. The third method, I use all correspondence that comes to me as a source of information for prayer.

Even when I'm here, you may see me sitting there in the back of my bus. Not my bus. It doesn't belong to me. But often I'm reading letters and praying as I read for the prayer request that person is giving in the letter.

It may even be a letter from a relative. Any piece of paper that comes across my desk, usually, there's something to pray about. Number four, I use photographs. Wherever I go, I take pictures of people.

For my prayer book, I have my prayer photo book. And I go through that book and I find it so helpful to remember the person's faith as I am praying. Number five, I collect people's business cards. I have a little business card.

I don't have it with me right now. Mine is a little calendar on the back and my address and some gospel verses on the other side. I'm sure some of you business people, maybe some of your parents have a little card.

Just use that business card. I have 25 years of business cards. And in the course of six months, I generally pray through all of those cards. The ministry of prayer is the ministry for people. Another method I use, I forget which number we're at.

I make use of magazines and the newspaper. Well, I read a lot of different magazines. Somebody once asked me, he said, when are you preparing for your next sermon? When do you do your preparation? Let me tell you my secret.

My whole life is preparation for the next message. Always reading, always praying, always looking for new truths, new ways to present the Word of God. And so I read many magazines, many books. And the littlest item can challenge me to pray.

I may read something about Clint Eastwood becoming the mayor of his town. I always wonder if people have heard of some of these characters like Clint Eastwood. Doesn't matter. You read in your own newspapers.

You read about one of your favorite singers. You can pray for him. You can even write him a letter. The ministry of prayer and the ministry of letter writing can go hand in hand. In England, everybody's always talking about Princess Diana and Prince Charles.

Some years ago, she was going to have a baby. They were making such a big thing, she was going to have a baby. Everybody's talking about babies. So I wrote the princess a letter. I sent her a little letter.

And I sent her a book. A Christian baby book. How to have a Christian baby. We have a lot of funny books in English. I pray some of them will never be translated into Polish. Anyway, I got a nice letter back.

Here am I, an unknown nobody. I can get a letter and a book right into the palace? So a year later, I sent a letter to Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister. And I sent her a copy of Loving God by Charles Colson, a great book.

And I sent her a copy of my own book. It's called No Turning Back. And I got a nice letter back from her. So you can pray for people. And as you pray, the Lord may lead you to do something. So that's a great thing that helps me in my practical intercessory ministry.

Number seven, I pray for people just as I see them. Sometimes I'm just walking down the street. Somebody catches my attention on the other side of the street. I don't have to kneel down and have a special prayer.

I can just sort of shoot a prayer at that person. Of course, I don't shoot it at the person. I talk to God. And I ask God to do something. And I have seen God do something. So many possibilities for praying and interceding for other people.

Interceding Through News and Daily Reading

Television is another way, or the radio. We hear something. We see something. When the program is over, go and spend some time in prayer. Pray for Nicaragua. Pray for Kampuchea. Pray for Northern Ireland.

Whatever you hear on the news. Pray for the Goodwill Sports Games going on in Moscow. Did you know that there are hundreds of sportsmen coming to know Christ as their Savior? One of the great moves of the Spirit of God today in the world is among athletes.

The next Goodwill Games, they said on Radio Moscow last night, will be in the United States. And as these different sportsmen mix together, some are coming to know the Lord Jesus. So that's another way we can intercede through what we hear on the radio, what we see on the television, on the news especially.

Then, of course, when we're reading God's Word, we can ask God to bring directly to our minds things He wants us to pray for. I'm reading a new book right now called The Healing of Memories. Some of the present struggles we have in our Christian life are because of difficult experiences we have had when we were children.

And God is able to bring healing to our memories. And memory is a powerful thing. So as we are waiting upon God, and that is a whole aspect of prayer that I want to mention. And when you get to that, that's the next slice of this little pie.

As we're waiting upon God, He brings burdens for prayer. It was when I was on a day of prayer in the mountains in southern Germany, God gave me that burden and that vision to see something big and wonderful happen in Europe.

It was when we were waiting upon God in prayer, that God gave us the idea of getting an ocean-going ship for world evangelists. Intercessory prayer is one of the greatest ministries and adventures in the world.

Intercessory prayer is one of the greatest ministries and adventures in the Christian life. Now there's something we need to be honest about. Many of our prayers don't seem to get answered. I am committed to honesty.

Hundreds of my prayers have been answered. I told you about what happened in my high school when we started prayer. And I could keep you here all day just sharing one answer to prayer after the other.

But to be honest, many of my prayers have not been answered. This is a whole separate message. James says, you have not because you ask not, or you ask just to satisfy your own selfish will. We have people now, they're just claiming, they don't like their old car, they're just claiming a new car in the name of Jesus.

God is leading different people in different ways. I don't think we should all start praying the same prayers. Now we have a very, very funny thing in some of the countries I visit. We always like people to give their testimony who have a great success story.

We have businessmen's meetings. And we get the businessman in, and he gives his testimony. Almost always, it's a successful businessman. I will tell you, many people in business in England, America, Germany, many people are not successful.

And eventually they lose all their money, and they lose their business. That's very common. But when we have these meetings, we get the successful man to give his testimony. I'm not totally against that.

But it needs to be brought into balance. The story usually goes something like this. Ten years ago, I gave my business to God. The pastor came over to my house. And we had prayer. I dedicated my business to God.

I promised to give 10 of it to him. For the church. And we prayed. And God just blessed my business.

Now I'm a millionaire.

And I've got, there's my Rolls Royce, and there's my Jaguar. And the Lord, I find it very hard, but God just gave me all this money. And the other businessmen sitting in the meeting, wow! Boy, I'm going to give my business to God.

So, a lot of people do that. And a lot of their businesses, nothing happens. I'm still waiting for that testimony. And a businessman comes up. Ten years ago, I gave my business to God. Today, I don't have any business at all.

Healing, Suffering, and the Mystery of God's Will

Sometimes we have the same thing when it comes to healing. Miraculous healing. And we get people give their testimony sometimes in these big tent meetings. They maybe had cancer, or they had some illness.

And they prayed. And hands were laid on them. And they were healed. Sometimes God does that. I've been studying this little subject for thirty years. I sometimes pray for the sick.

After my meetings. I sometimes visit hospitals.

I don't have any great special gift. But I know God heals. We have seen people healed in our ministry. But for everyone that is healed, we usually see several who are not at least miraculously instantly healed.

There's a lot of dishonesty in this area of ministry. Right now in England, we have a lot of people that are really hurt because they have got into extremism in this area. Where they insist, God always wants to heal everybody, all the time, every situation.

Many foolish things take place. We have had it in our own fellowship. We have had people come on OM, on our fellowship, who are epileptics. They take this medicine. They have no problems. One church taught that.

Sixty people dead in that one church. Very big church. They believe all doctors were from the devil. No one should go to the doctor. Just pray. Bang! A miracle! Sixty to seventy people dead, mainly children.

And this was in the newspaper all over the nation. Then the parents of these children took them to court. Took them to their court. Do you know what just happened to that pastor? He was not very old. They also teach you cannot and you do not need to die until you are seventy years of age.

But in the midst of this legal proceeding, this extremist pastor suddenly died. I think that church now is coming into slowly a little balance. You know, as we follow Jesus Christ, there are mysteries.

There are things we do not understand. Why God heals one and does not heal another is a mystery that we must leave with God Himself and trust Him. Peter was miraculously delivered from prison. But what about Stephen?

He was preaching in the open air. Surely when the stones came people started praying. Yet God allowed that young servant to be stoned to death in the street. And if you want more proof, you read the last verses in Hebrews chapter 11.

We have much to learn subject to prayer. But we will not be discouraged. We will still have brokenness. We will still pray. We will pray for people to be saved. We will pray for people to be set free.

We will pray for the gospel to penetrate every part of the world. We will pray for the church to be established in every nation and in every people's group. We will pray for our parents, pray for our relatives, pray for our government.

Somebody once asked me, why do you spend whole nights in prayer? I said, because there is so much to pray about. When we finish our nights of prayer, we are more conscious of what we have not prayed for than what we have prayed for.

So ten minutes for intercessory prayer is not very much. So I want to ask you a hard question. Before you came here five days ago, how many of you had at least ten minutes a day in prayer for others? That's my question.

Intercessory prayer. Even just ten minutes for others. How many already had that? Before you came here. I want you to raise your hands. Nobody can see. I can just get an idea. It is about ten percent of the people.

It is my sincere prayer that by this time next year we can reverse that statistic. And that ninety percent sitting here in the morning will know something about intercessory prayer as the Bible teaches.

Intercession, Self-Examination, and Forgiveness

And you know one of the side benefits of intercessory prayer ministry is a lot of your own problems become much smaller. Many people that I have been in touch with they're involved in what I call operation introspection.

Always looking into themselves. Oh, I'm such a wicked fellow! Oh, I'm having these evil thoughts. Oh, and they're going deeper and deeper like going out into the cemetery and digging up the old bodies.

Sometimes people actually are doing that in their minds. They're digging up old memories, old failures, old sins from a year ago. Many of God's people are living in the syndrome of vain regret. Vain regret.

They're sorry that they did that a year ago, two years ago. That's especially true in sexual sense. It's not easy to blot out the memory of a sexual failure. Especially women find it very hard. We have such high ideals of how we're going to live as Christians.

And when we fail we do not easily recover. And I would just pray if some past sin has bringing you into regret. Regret is one of the most subtle forms of self-love. That's right, it's a subtle form of self-love.

Let that go under the blood of Christ once and for all even at this very moment. And as you start to forget those things that are past as we are commanded in Philippians move toward those things that are ahead.

Go for those things that are ahead. Let us go on to the next ten minutes meditation and listening. Ten minutes. Now this means going back into the Word of God. This is the time for memorizing. This is the time to take one passage of Scripture and meditate on that and listen to the voice of God to your own heart based on His Word.

Meditation on Scripture and Testing Revelation

Now don't make the mistake of thinking that everything that pops into your head when you're reading the Bible is necessarily some special revelation from God. In some of our churches in other countries we have a lot of prophets.

It is amazing people jumping up in the meeting. God has told me I have a revelation from the Lord. I believe we must change all the chairs in the tent. I get a vision of the chairs being in a different form.

We should not be looking up here at the platform. We need to look at one another. God is wanting us to bring us together. So we will change the chairs so we can look at each other. Now that might be a good idea in some situations.

But this idea that we get a revelation God gives us a revelation directly from Him that we must change the chairs in the church. Now what happens when this man shares his great revelation with the elders?

The elders have been having those chairs in that direction for 100 years. They are not interested in this young man's revelation. And pretty soon there will be a boxing meeting in the elders' meeting.

And pretty soon there will be two different groups in the church. There will be the Change the Chairs group. And they will start the Change the Chairs crusade. And there will be the We Will Not Change the Chairs group.

And pretty soon you will have two churches where you had one church.

We can all smile. These kind of things are happening all the time.

When we are in prayer before the living God we are still weak vulnerable human beings. And we can make mistakes. And our own thoughts can get mixed with God's thoughts. And so we need a lot of wisdom.

And we need to learn what it is at times just to be quiet before God. We know that there is a great need for meditation. We know that God can give a vision. God can give a burden. But then we have to talk about that and pray about that with the other believers in an open and honest way.

And we have to be careful because our own ego gets very much involved in our particular vision. God gave me that vision to get an ocean going ship. The next thing I had to do wait upon God. For two years I waited upon God.

I talked to people about it. I wrote a paper explaining the sense and the logic of the project. I did a lot of research by visiting different ships. And then God gave us unity as a fellowship. But I discovered my own ego got a little bit involved.

So when people criticized the idea.

Sometimes I overreacted in my answer to them.

And that hindered what God wanted to do. It's not an easy thing. Only after the two years did God give us some other men including a ship captain to help carry the vision. Only after four years more of prayer and nights of prayer God gave us the ship.

And all during that period God's great burden was not the ship. His burden was our spirituality. He was crucifying George Burwell. He was teaching me that his work.

Was people not projects.

I was completely willing to forget about any ship. In fact I was soon praying God take this vision away. And often it's when we're willing to let something go, something we're grabbing, we're clinging to, we let it go that God can come in and do what he wants to do.

Waiting on God and Spiritual Maturity

As you grow in spiritual maturity you will not just be having ten minutes of meditation and listening. You will have whole hours. You will go away for whole days, half days at least, to wait upon God and to be brought into the power and the energy of what God is doing.

That has been my regular practice since I was 17 years of age. Many times it was in those half days or days of prayer and fasting in the mountains, in the woods that God did a deeper work in my soul and in my spirit.

Now we're getting toward ten o 'clock and we have five more minutes of intercessory prayer. Because as a result of the meditation and the listening we will want to pray for different projects. We will want to pray for people that God has put upon our heart.

Then in the final five minutes we have just the time of considering the day that is ahead of us. God wants us as much as possible to plan our days. We should have a notebook when we have this time with God.

Especially that time of meditation and listening. When I was meditating and praying this morning God just gave me a whole outline of a message that I know I have to share with some of my Christian leaders that I work together with.

So you can write these things down. Give thought to the things you have to do during that day. They may be practical things.

Organizing the Christian Life

I wish I could speak to you for an hour on organizing.

Your private world. We have a new book in English on this subject. It is the greatest book I have seen in the last three or four years. Maybe you don't have this problem in Poland. But in our country so many Christian leaders they are disorganized.

They are never on top of their work. Their work is always on top of them. And they are living in frustration and confusion. They get somebody's address and they lose it by the next day. And some of them are driving their wives crazy.

The wife says, when you come home from the office today, please pick up the potatoes. No problem, no problem. He doesn't write it down. Or if he writes it down, he loses it. When he comes back from work of course, the wife says, did you bring the potatoes, darling?

Potatoes? And then, oh, when she tries to say anything sometimes the self-life really locks into action. In our countries, the male ego is stronger than the female ego. And so we get such statements.

Don't you know how busy I am in the work of God? Do I, the Lord's servant, need to buy the potatoes? That's for the women. I am called to the church. And I will tell you there's much confusion in the work of God.

So it's good to have those five minutes to write practical things down you need to do. On the top of the list love your mother and your father or love your brother or your sister or love your wife or your husband and do something practical to show that love.

Let us not separate the practical from the spiritual. We want a wedding of these two areas of life. The man of prayer is not the man who the rest of the day his head is in the clouds. In some of our countries I'm speaking just of many countries that I visit.

I don't stay in one particular country. In any of our countries pastors and Christian leaders are not good drivers. They're not good drivers. They're always thinking about spiritual things. And some of them are always in a hurry to get to the next person in the church, needs to be visited, in the next meeting he has to preach at.

They're driving down the road. And if you pray when you're driving it is not recommended that you close your eyes. Billy Graham wrote a booklet called Highway Safety A Spiritual Problem. And he said many a man who's an angel in the pulpit is a devil behind the wheel of a car.

And I tell you when you have to travel with some of these people you really do learn how to pray. So to be to be spiritual people does not mean we are super spiritual. God wants the balance. There is a time to pray and there's a time to work.

And God can give us grace in both. Well, you have that complete circle. You can change it. You can add to it. I pray that you will have a definite practical time each day with the living God. This is not the end.

This is the means to the end. End is knowing God. Living the Christian life. Being used of God and touching other people's lives. That's our goal. This is the means to the end. Though part of it, worshiping God Himself, that in a sense is the end.

That is the great calling of all Christians. When I was a young Christian I went through the whole New Testament I marked every single verse on the subject of prayer. And I was just amazed. Then I studied the prayer and life of Jesus Christ.

Do you know in Luke's Gospel Jesus spent a whole night in prayer? If the Son of God, God Himself, needed to spend a night in communion with His Father how much more we should be spending more time before God in prayer?

Do you have a New Testament? You can make the same study. And if the reality of prayer grips your heart you will never be the same again. We are the same. We are talking about reality. And I can share with you as a feeble, struggler, disciple of Jesus I have known reality in prayer every day for 31 years.

God is real. And we can talk to Him.

It's as simple as that. Let us pray.

Our God, we thank You for Your Holy Word. We believe many of us will never be the same because we have been exposed to Your Word this morning. Guide us now as we have some time in prayer together. Help us to open our mouths.

Maybe we have never prayed publicly in a small group before. Open our mouths by Your power this morning. Lord Jesus, we repent of our lack of love and passion for souls. We want to seek Your face together.

We acknowledge our sins and our transgressions our laziness, our unbelief. And we believe You accept us. You forgive us, You cleanse us, You renew us and You are sending us forth. We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.