Reminding God — Jim Cymbala

I just want to say some things quickly, and then lead us to pray about a specific matter that I think would be good for all of us. I could just say, hearing Brother Sammy speak, and then my precious sister Nancy, and Brother Byron, these are, along with the other speakers, Brother Roberts and others, who I don't know so well, these are very precious people that you're blessed by hearing from.

Amen? Amen. You just notice the three that spoke here, their sincerity, their, the reality, the fruit that God has given them, just excellent. In a day of so much acting and hype, it's so refreshing and good to be around people who just love the Lord from their heart.

Amen? And inspires all of us to just be real and follow after God. I could just say two things here that I just feel impressed for whatever reason to say. Number one is, you know what Brother Sammy was saying, what they're all saying is, to sum it up from the book of James, draw near to God, and He will draw near to us.

Drawing Near to God Through Prayer and Humility

The condition is draw near to God, and then He'll draw near to us. How many want Him to draw near to our churches and our ministry? Well then, draw near to God in prayer and humbling ourselves and always walking in the light of His presence.

Draw near to God. For those pastors that are here, you know that prayer, like Spurgeon said, is the engine that drives any church. Charles Spurgeon, the great preacher, as great an orator as he was, said that his prayer meeting was the engine that drove his church.

Today, there are very few churches that have a prayer meeting, a meeting devoted just to prayer. Maybe that's one of the causes of the spiritual apathy that we have. For those of you who do not have a prayer meeting, you need to pray and ask God about that.

One of the battles is that, I know this from a thousand conversations with pastors, is that nobody will come, which tells a lot about the spiritual temperature of that church, whoever that pastor might be.

With all the oratory and with all the good doctrine and all the church activities, when they just call people to be alone with God and to pray, nobody has an appetite for that, which is very revealing.

But, you know, you can't curse the darkness, you've got to light a candle. So what's the solution? May I suggest, besides God leading you to start a day, a night, a meeting, for the whole church, something accessible to the whole church, not at six in the morning that sounds very ascetic and very, you know, wow, we're getting serious with God, and then hardly anybody can come, mothers with kids and so on and so forth, especially in the inner city, people can't, half our congregation doesn't have cars, so that wouldn't be very practical.

They work. The point is, a night, a time that's accessible to everyone where people can get serious about calling on God. If pastors sometimes start that and nobody comes and now there's a double whammy, because the thing dies out after a couple months because no one comes, which means a lot of work has to be done.

Making Sunday Services More Prayer-Centered

I would just like to suggest to someone, and this is, you know, I just feel impressed to say this, you know, you ought to think about changing your Sunday services. Less preaching and more time given to prayer.

What is an altar service, calling people forward to wait and pray? What is an altar service? It's nothing but a mini prayer meeting or a prayer meeting. Oh, but people got to spend two hours with God if you're really serious.

Listen, that talk is going to go nowhere. Paul knew that when people couldn't eat meat, he gave them milk. You meet people where they are. You don't live in some mountain far away. Jesus told parables to people.

Jesus met people where they were. We have to meet people where they are and take them to the next step. All in favor, say aye. So to say, well, the people aren't serious about God. Okay, so what are we going to do about it?

Just to stand there and say, oh, the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket, that's not going to change anything. And it could reek of self-righteousness and spiritual pride. So we meet people where they are.

And sometimes you might want to change your Sunday service and preach a little shorter and leave more time for people to pray. Because then when God starts answering prayer and a spirit of prayer comes upon the people.

Well, remember, prayer is really a spirit of prayer. Without the Holy Spirit, you can't pray. For we know not how we ought to pray. And Paul says, first person plural, we, including him who wrote the New Testament, most of it.

We, I, Paul, don't know how to pray without the help of the Holy Spirit. We don't have the fervency. We don't have the faith. We don't have the utterance that we need. So we need the Holy Spirit. That doesn't come overnight.

You don't have instant God. You got to wait on God, look to God, as we're going to see here in a second. So I just want to suggest, why don't you start bringing prayer in as more as an element in your Sunday services.

The Church as a House of Prayer

For God's house is not a house of preaching, nor a house of teaching, nor a house of singing. But it is called a house of what? So I would make an argument to anyone here, and I think I would be fairly well defended by the Bible.

How could we have a New Testament meeting without a strong element of prayer? If the Bible says that the whole purpose of Christ's coming was, therefore let us come boldly to the throne of grace, how could you have a meeting like these insipid meetings that are now developing, where there's announcements and songs, and then a lecture, like Mormons, a lecture, and then praise God, amen, go home, and no one's changed.

No one makes contact with God. So brothers, I just challenge you, you be led by God. I don't have any formula. I'm certainly, in our church, there's no paradigm for anything. But everyone's got to find their own way, and God is going to show you the temperature of your church so that you can take it to the next level, from glory to glory, and from faith to faith.

It's not going to happen overnight. It didn't get that way overnight, but we got to just start moving in the right direction. Come on, do I hear an amen? So I just want to say that. Think about changing your Sunday services as the Lord leads you.

Less preaching, because if our sermons would have done it, it would have happened a long time ago. Oh my, we're not short on sermons. But a lot of pastors get nervous to give up the microphone. They have to control, and they're afraid, you know, what might happen.

Someone might start to cry, or get loud, or whatever. So let everything be done to edification, and if mistakes are made, so... They're always, why is 1 Corinthians written to us? Because mistakes can be made, but you don't throw out the baby again with the bathwater.

You say, God lead us, and show us how to draw near to you. Oh, I want to draw near to God. So remember that. My house shall be called the house of prayer. Not just for the prayer meeting night, and that might be something God leads you to do.

Centering Worship on Jesus

Number two, it's very good to sing songs that have the name of Jesus in it. I'm very disturbed by whole song services that go on with eight songs. Somewhere I was preaching, eight songs all from the Psalter with no mention of the name of Jesus.

You would think you were living in the Old Testament, and, you know, we're going to go over to Ezekiel's house after the meeting to have a meal. We're living in the New Testament, and the name that the demons tremble at is the name of Jesus.

We're supposed to be singing better songs than the Psalter has. Let's sing the songs of the Psalms. Those are good songs. But David couldn't write a song about Jesus because Jesus hadn't come yet. He couldn't write about the blood, and the cross, and the power of the Holy Spirit because they hadn't happened yet in the New Testament covenant sense, right?

So I love, in fact, let's do it right now. Everybody stand up. Watch how better you feel.

Everybody sing with me. All hail the Christ. Bring forth the royal diadem. Oh, and crown. Lord.

Rise and sing it again loud. All hail. You may be seated. I was very nervous in that meeting because I had to preach, and there were eight songs, most of which I never knew, but that's okay. But that's another thing.

Be careful of this new cutting edge. We got to sing the newest chorus that no one knows. And the worship leaders were not even watching if the people were singing and entering in because they had their agenda already prepackaged and programmed of what they were going to sing, no matter what the atmosphere was.

Not a good way to run a meeting, by the way. If God could lead the Israelites for 40 years, I think He can lead us spontaneously through one service. How many say amen? And nobody was watching whether the people were singing.

I never heard the name of Jesus. That's very strange. We cast out demons in Jesus' name. We pray in Jesus' name. Isn't that strange that we would not mention His name? When a girl full of the devil came on a Tuesday night years ago to our church, and we didn't know she was full of these demons until they brought her forward, and then she exploded as they brought her forward in front of me, in front of the whole prayer meeting, and grabbed me and threw me against the front of the platform, at which point I grabbed her and threw her down on the ground, and these voices started speaking out, Let her alone!

Let her alone! She's ours! And just like in a movie, I mean, not her head spinning around, but her eyes just going weird on me, and this horrible voice coming out of her. And we didn't pray over her in the name of the Creator, or Lord God, or any of these fathers.

We prayed in the name of Jesus. There is power in the name of Jesus. And when you honor the name of Jesus, you draw the presence of the Holy Spirit, because Jesus said, He will glorify me. Wherever Jesus is being glorified, the Holy Spirit is beckoned and drawn.

If you glorify your church, or your message, or your vision, there will be a withdrawal of the Spirit. He has come to glorify Christ. Could I get a loud Amen here? Okay, I just want to memorize a verse with you, okay?

Remembering God's Word and Promise

I don't need to open my Bible for it, because I want to teach it to you. It's become one of my favorite verses. Psalm 119, verse 49. You don't need to turn to it. You're going to memorize it with me. Remember, you're going to memorize it from the NIV, whether you like it or not, okay?

I know how some of you feel about that, but so be it. Remember, listen, remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope. Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope. Come on, louder.

Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope. One more time, so that we memorize. Psalm 119, verse 49. Remember, that tells us three things about God that I want to leave you with here briefly, and then let's pray about something.

Number one, it suggests to us that before God does almost anything, He speaks about it before He does it. The psalmist here is praying, and he's saying, Remember your word, remember some promise that you made to me.

Remember that thing you either spoke to me by your spirit or some promise that you made alive, which was applied by the Spirit to me in a unique way. Remember that word, for you have given me hope through that word.

In other words, before you did it, it hasn't happened yet, remember your word that you spoke about that you would do. We see this always everywhere in the Bible, Old and New Testaments. Before God does something, He speaks about it.

Before the first coming of Christ, He speaks about it. Before the Holy Spirit is poured out, it's promised, it's spoken about, Old and New. In the last days, God will pour out His Spirit. It didn't happen yet, but it was promised.

The second coming of the Lord, promised. So many things in the Bible. Paul, on his missionary journeys, you know, Don't be afraid, while he was in Corinth, Don't be afraid, no one's going to touch you.

I have many people in this city. And a prophetic intimation, sometimes a stronger promise from the Word of God. My wife was 14 or 15 years old, worshipping God one day, making the bed with her mother.

Her mother left the room, she was just making the bed, helping her mother. And as she was worshipping God and doing that, suddenly she got a vision in her heart, and she saw herself as an adult, standing in front of hundreds of people of mixed colors, leading them in worship, and leading them in singing.

Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope. God was giving her a prophetic intimation of a ministry that He would have for her. And during hard times, and when the devil attacks and says, you can't do it, remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope.

Nancy had this desire to do this, she just said, when she was a child. Where does she get that? Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope. Byron, the same thing. Brother Sammy, the same thing.

So, before God does something, Behold, I do a new thing, but I announce it to you before it happens, God says in one of the prophets. So, we have to be always, as we read the Bible, ready for God, to make that alive to us, in a way.

It's not just ink on a page. It's not just truth. Sometimes God takes a verse, and applies it to our life in a deeply spiritual way. How many have ever had that happen? Say Amen. How many have ever read the Bible, and you read a verse like a hundred times, and suddenly you read it the hundred and first time, and it just jumps up at you, and it's like God saying, Yes, now, for you, this.

Right? So, remember your word. Now, the psalmist is, you know, a lot of Psalm 119, which is the longest chapter in the Bible, a lot of it is just declarations about God's word, but a lot of those verses are, and they're so deep, they're so rich, they're so wonderful.

I never appreciated them the way I should, because of my own lack of maturity and carnality. You know, in recent days, I've been appreciating them more. God's doing deeper work with these verses in my life.

I can declare that. But this, a lot of these verses are prayers. You know, he's calling on God. It's a prayer, and this is part of a prayer. He's not talking to us, declaring something about God's word.

Your word is this, a light, a lamp. He's now saying, Remember your word to your servant. You don't hear people pray that often that way, do you? Remember your word to your servant, for you've given me hope.

Remember that thing you made real to me about Iran, for you have given me hope. It hasn't happened yet, but you've given me hope. So before God does almost anything, he speaks about it so that when it happens, we'll give him all the glory, and no one will say, Oh, that's an accident.

Isn't that funny how that happened? No, no, God spoke about it before, so he'll get all the honor and praise and glory. Isn't he wonderful that way? Notice number two. There is a waiting time between the speaking of the word and the fulfillment of the word.

In fact, that's why the psalmist is praying. It hasn't happened yet. Remember your word. Remember your promise. Remember that intimation that you gave, for you have given me hope. You've built up my expectations.

You've encouraged me along the way when things have looked dark. Now, remember your word to your servant. Now, so that's the hardest part of faith, brothers and sisters, isn't it? The hardest part of faith is the weight of faith.

God puts a desire for people for revival, for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and they begin to pray. And it not only doesn't come, things get worse. How many have ever prayed for something and almost immediately after really praying about it, it got worse instead of getting better?

Oh, yes. And God's watching and waiting to see what we'll do. My friend Dave Wilkerson once told me, Jim, the hardest part of faith is waiting, and the hardest part of waiting is the last half hour. That's a good sentence.

It's to wait to the end and keep believing. You know, I believe, yes, I read this morning in my devotions, Isaiah 30. I think it's a verse. Let me just turn to it real quick because I wasn't sure if I'd share this with you.

And then a man prayed for me before this meeting, Brother Jerrion, and the only verse he quoted as he prayed for me is this verse. I tell you what, God obviously wants me to give you this verse. Oh, my.

I mean, he had that whole Bible to pick from, and he picks the one verse that I asked the Lord about. Yes. Yeah, Isaiah 30 .18. You can look at it later. Yet the Lord longs or waits to be gracious to you.

He rises to show you compassion, for the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him. The Lord waits to be gracious to you. Blessed are all... It's a double waiting game. The Lord waits and longs and yearns to be gracious and show you mercy.

He's a God of justice. How happy and spiritually prosperous are those who wait for Him, who don't give up and quit, who keep on believing. Remember your word to your servant. For you have given me hope.

In other words, it hasn't happened yet, but I'm waiting, God. I am waiting for you to fulfill this. You made that real to me. There is going to be a spirit of revival in my church. You are going to turn things around.

You have made that real in me. Now I'm not letting you go until you bless me, and I will wait for you, God. What a blessed thing it is to wait, and a lot of us are so impatient. You know, Joseph waited all those years to see the fulfillment.

Imagine him in prison in Egypt, after Potiphar's wife lied about him, and now he's walking around in there. I can imagine the devil just saying to him, what a joke, where's your dream, about everybody bowing down to you.

You're a joke. Ah, remember your word. Remember your word to your servant. For you have given me hope. How many know God is always going to have the last word? Come on, is God going to have the last word?

Yes, He will. Blessed are those who wait for Him, who hope expectantly, who are watching at the doors of their heart to see He's coming. Yes, He will. God is going to come. I don't care how it looks. I don't care how bad it looks.

Interceding for Prodigal Children

Now, nowhere is this more true than with our children, or people that we are praying for, that we love, who need to be turned around. The tendency is to quit and give up. I am amazed as I travel around the country how many parents and grandparents have made a treaty with the unbelief of their children.

Nobody's standing in the gap. Nobody's laying hold of God. Nobody's reminding God. Remember your word. I dedicated that child. That child is going to get away from God over my dead body. Remember your word to your servant.

Those of you who might or might not know, a lot of years ago, my daughter's oldest girl is 35. But when she was 17, 16, 17, into almost 18, she got away from us, got away from God. And my wife and I went through a two-and-a-half-year-long nightmare of agonizing and praying.

And I tried everything. Talking, screaming, crying, manipulation. Tried everything, a lot of things I should have never done. But it's hard when you're pastoring a church, starting other new churches, overseeing things.

Carol's doing albums. We're renting Radio City Music Hall and Carnegie Hall doing outreaches to see people reach with the gospel. And then your oldest girl, the joy of your heart, is away from God. You don't even, out of the house, eventually, you don't know where she is.

I would cry from the time I left my house until I got to church. Too many Sundays and Tuesdays and other days to even number them. And I would have to cry out to God in the car as a car approached the building.

Oh, God, pull me together. This Sunday service, these services today, two, three, four eventually, we had in this other building that we were in. God, the service can't be about me and my problems. I got to minister to your people.

They need to be fed your word. So God, hold me together. It was hard. He would many times just come by His grace and just hold me together within a block of the church where I could function. Nobody knew or a lot of people didn't know.

And how many times in my own words would I say to God, God, remember your word to your servant for you has given me hope because when Chrissy was dedicated, there were prophetic intimations made that God's hand was upon her.

And now she's the mother of three children. Her husband is a pastor. She's directing a choir just like her mom, just like her mom can't read or write music, but perfect pitch, writes songs, directs the choir.

The old joke in our church about my wife is she doesn't know what she's doing. She just keeps doing it every week. And Chrissy's the same, cut out of the same cloth, but it didn't look that way when she was away, rebellious, up was down, down was up.

God turned that around finally and brought deliverance through a prayer meeting that we had in the church where let me just change this and do what I feel impressed to do here. While we were praying about Acts 4, the place was shaken where they prayed and they were all refilled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.

While we went to pray and call and cry out to God, as a church, a woman who was sensitive, brother, if you, somebody come and just play something here, we'll go to prayer. As we were all calling on God, a woman who heard from God was sensitive, sent up a note and said, I believe we should stop the prayer meeting and pray and agree about your daughter.

And I hadn't talked to my daughter in four months because God made real to me, no more talking to her. You talk just to me. But when you, when I do this, when I bring her back, you will tell everyone, everywhere where I send you, when I impress you, you will tell everyone that I'm able to bring, recover stolen property.

So, I stopped the meeting. I turned it to my associate, one of my associates. I said, lead in prayer. The people stood and turned into, by the grace of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, into a labor room.

And that building there, it was filled on a Tuesday night prayer meeting, maybe 14, 13, 1400 people. They began to cry out like a woman giving birth for my daughter. I told them my daughter thinks up is down, down is up.

She ran around the wrong people that she met in my church. That's one of the things about, in the inner city, you have to be just so careful, just, and Satan knew that my, that was a vulnerability with me.

I love my wife. By the grace of God, I don't want to be rich and famous, but very vulnerable at that moment with my daughter. I thought I would go crazy at times. That's the truth. It's hard to preach when your spirit, one time I was preaching and it's like my spirit went to the throne of grace and I started interceding for Chrissy while I was preaching.

Now that's hard. I had to ask God, God help me because how can I pray and preach at the same time? I got to need to preach. Well anyway, we interceded for Chrissy. Oh my goodness. It overwhelmed me. My tear ducts were dry because I had cried and cried and cried, but God heard the cry of those people that night.

It was just about the next morning. I was shaving and my wife bursts in my bathroom door and says, Chrissy's here. I haven't seen her in four or five months. She's downstairs, but you better go. She wants you.

I went down and there she was crawling on the kitchen floor on her hands and knees. So broken, so repentant. When I went there, she grabbed a hold of my pants leg. I pulled her up to myself. I could see that her visage had changed and she said, Daddy, Daddy, I've sinned against God.

I've sinned against you. I've sinned against myself. Oh God, God's forgiven me, but God woke me up last night in a dream and he showed me where I was heading at 100 miles an hour toward an abyss that had no bottom.

But Daddy, he stopped me at the edge and instead of yelling at me, he put his arms around me and he loved me and he told me he loved me. And Daddy, who did you have praying last night for me? That's the truth.

Who did you have praying for you? I said, What do you mean, Christy? Who did you have praying? I said, Well, a meeting went and we prayed and she said, Daddy, that's the night he woke me up. Remember your word to your servant for you have given me hope.

God loves to be reminded. Notice the audacity of the psalmist. People forget things. How could God, who's perfect, forget anything? And yet the psalmist is saying, Remember, as if God could forget. Remember your word to your servant for you have given me hope.

Are you going to frustrate me? Are you going to make promises to me and then not do them? Now that has to have application for our ministries, for revival, for visitation, for Nancy's ministry, for what Brother Sam is doing, for the great work Byron is doing.

But I want to focus in on our children. Would you close your eyes with me? If you have a son or a daughter who's not serving God, is not in relationship with the Lord, or if you have a grandson or a granddaughter that you have loved, prayed over their crib, dedicated to the Lord, whatever, and they are not where they need to be, and you know it, and there's no, why deny it?

Why go into denial? And only God can bring them back, and you have prayed for them, you have dedicated them, and you want to stand in the gap today and say, Lord, remember your word to your servant for you have given me hope concerning my daughter and my son.

And now the enemy is making a move against them. I want you to stand and come up here to the front if you have a son or a daughter, or a grandson or a granddaughter. Just come up out of your seat and come.

Brother Byron is going to come up on the platform. Come right up here close in the middle. Come right to the middle too. Slide over here so we all can get as many here. Amen. That's the right song, brother.

Come on, lift your voice and sing. Lord, bring them back, Lord.

Lift your hand and just sing that chorus again. Savior, sing. Brother, just place it. Pray with all your heart where you are. Tell God, remember your word to your servant. Remember your word to your servant.