Pray and save the world.

INTRODUCTION:

What’s the game plan?

“The tragedy of this late hour is that we have too many dead men in the pulpits giving out too many dead sermons to too many dead people.”

“It seemed to me as if he had gone straight into heaven, and lost himself in God; but often when he had done praying he was white as the wall” (A friend after meeting Tersteegen).

“Prayer is to the believer what money is to the businessman.”

“The brutal, soul shaking truth, is that we are so earthly minded that we are of no heavenly use.”

LESSON:

Pray (5.13-16)

Persecuted, sick (and good spirits)

“Keep on praying about it...” (persistence) - “keep on singing” (5.13)

Pray for perspective, wisdom to endure (1:15, 5:7, 11)

We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile. (Tolkien)

Life is hard. If you can often avoid this, you are very rich.

Certain healing (5:15)?

The cases of illness mentioned in the epistles are unhealed.

2 Timothy 4:20 “Erastus remained at Corinth, and I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus.”

Philippians 2:25–27 “I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.”

Paul’s thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12.7-10)

[Background anointing] (5:14)

Cultural acts (holy kiss, lifting up holy hands, laying on of hands, anointing with oil)

Medicinal or consecration

The anointing with oil symbolizes the sick person being set apart for God’s special attention (2 Corinthians 1:21).

The power is in the prayer (5:15).

Prayer is the focus here.

“Prayer of faith”

Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.

“If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven” (5:15).

Confess your sins and pray for one another (5.16).

Be healed.

“How great is the power of a good man’s prayer prompted by the Spirit of God” (5.16)

Plan divine plans, then pray (5.17-18)

The example of Elijah

A human with our limitations and weaknesses (5:17)

He simply prayed.

But for what did he pray? To alter the storms.

Rain ceased 3.5 years (Luke 4:25).

1 Kings 18:1 “After many days the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, “Go, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth.””

1 Kings 18:42 “So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. And he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees.”

We have been taught to pray by Jesus.

[Children in flooded room, hearing their father]

1 John 5:14–15 “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.”

In this way, save the world (5.19-20)

Matthew 9:37–38 “Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.””

Ephesians 6:18–19 “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel,”

Colossians 4:3 “At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—”

The Greeks had an old saying - “the works of the young, the counsels of the middle-aged, and the prayers of the older.”

CONCLUSION:

2 Corinthians 10:4 “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.”

The world does not need a new movement or a new marketing strategy from us, they need to see a church set ablaze by the power of God.

It needs wild-eyed prophets.

“Preachers deal with possibilities, prophets with impossibilities.”

Ezekiel did as God commanded and spoke to a valley full of dead men’s bones.

The administrator would have questioned the wisdom in doing such.

Be Ezekiel.

Pray and believe.

When you don’t see it.

When you can’t dream it.

For the impossible.

“The Gospel is not an old, old story freshly told. It is a fire in the Spirit, fed by Immortal Love, and woe unto us, if through our negligence to stir up the gift of God which is within us, that fire burns low” (Gautrey).