A Cry For Prayer

It is an honor to stand before you and to stand with you, on this day, the Day of Mourning, as we come together as brothers and sisters in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ!

The Bible is clear, as the Apostle Paul mentions, that the Body of Christ is made up of many individual parts, and yet these individual parts collectively make one unified, working body!

This is, after all, the designed plan of our Lord, as Jesus prayed over us in ,

John 17:21–23 NLT

21 I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. 22 “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.

We were never meant to be separate, fragmented pieces, but rather, one unstoppable unit, known as the “ekklesia”, (those called out to serve and be a part of the Body of Christ!)

And as the Body of Christ, it is our responsibility to take the gospel message and spread it to all peoples and all nations of the world, in authority and power!

Jesus called us out of the world and named us, the “salt and the light”.

That wherever we go, we are to enhance the world around us by the message of the good news that we carry and to all that this message come in contact with, just as salt enhances the food that it comes in contact with.

And everywhere we are, the light of Jesus Christ within us, is to shine brighter than even the deepest darkness of our enemy!

Having said that, I speak to you today, not as individuals “in” Christ, but as the unified body “of” Christ!

And yet, when we leave here today, we will carry the responsibility, individually, of fulfilling our role in the “Great Commission” of Jesus Christ!

It is the individual parts of the body that MUST function, for the whole body to be healthy and strong!

And I say this to you today, about our need for strong unity in the body and of our individual roles as living parts of that body, for one very important reason.

If the enemy can weaken the individual parts of the body and begin to silence them, then the collective whole of the body, becomes weak and ineffective!

And that is not to say that we are the power of God and that we can weaken His arm, through our decisions, as God is omnipotent and His power is not affected by our weaknesses.

And yet, it is through our weaknesses that God’s power is made perfect. As long as we are allowing Him to work His perfect will in and through our lives!

And so, today, here and in other cities and states all this nation, we have come together, as one body and as one voice to cry out to God and to repent for an atrocity that has spread like a cancer.

Abortion is wrong, PERIOD! And to the people that say that the Bible is silent on this issue and that it is open for the moralistic interpretation of mankind, they have evidently never read the Bible.

God, from the beginnings of His word, has said and has never changed on the stance of MURDER, (that is, taking another’s life from them), as being tolerated or acceptable!

For God and His word are immutable and will never change!

God openly stated within His word, “do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked”, and I am here to tell you today, that there is none more innocent than an infant and an unborn baby!

The reason that we have assembled together today, in this city and in others across this nation, is because the Body of Christ has become too silent for too long and the agenda of the enemy has made great progress from this silence!

As great and as awesome as this is today, to see our brothers and sisters from all over this great nation coming together, as a unified body, to make a resounding cry before God first and the leaders of this nation also, there remains one very important point that must be stressed as a closing thought.

We must not leave here today, with a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment over this event! In fact, what we are saying here today, is only the beginning!

If you and I leave here today, feeling like we have done what we set out to do and go back to doing things the way that we have been doing them, then the enemy will be pleased!

He doesn’t care if we come together for a meeting such as this, because the issue is not this ONE MEETING!

What he does care about, is if we are truly repentant for what this nation has done and if we resolve in our hearts to begin to go before God DAILY, from this day on and seek His will and His forgiveness over this nation and seek His name being glorified in this nation!

There is a historical legend that comes from the time of WW2, and right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. This legend says that upon the seemingly victorious strike upon the US fleets in Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, made the following statement about their attack.

He said, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

That is what the enemy needs to feel from this assembling today, all across this nation, that the sleeping giant, known as the Body of Christ, has been awoken and filled with the resolve of righteous anger and repentance!

God is not drawn to complacency and apathy and comfort, but rather the Bible says, “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

He is drawn towards us when our hearts are humble and broken!’

That must be the condition of our hearts in leaving here today; contrite and humble before God and seeking His forgiveness and favor!

And if there is something that we take away from this today, it is this. Today must be only the beginning of our cry to God.

When I said that the Body of Christ has become too silent, I didn’t mean that in the sense that we have never openly said that we oppose abortion, because many of us have verbalized our opinions and voted for our beliefs!

What I mean is that the church has become too silent, for too long in our effectual and continual praying to God and seeking His will and His directives in this war we are in!

The Bible tells us that the earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

Well, if the prayer of a righteous “person”, has great power and produces wonderful results, how much more do you think the prayers of millions of righteous “persons” can accomplish?!

People humbled before God in prayer, all day, every day!

This what the enemy does not want to see happen; God’s children unified in prayer, daily!

He wants us happy and content with our one time assemblies. But not filled with the power of Holy Spirit and ignited with His fire to run boldly towards the battle lines!

In , we read of King Hezekiah and the attacking of the Assyrians upon Judah, under King Sennacherib.

Hezekiah went before God and wept and prayed and asked for God to intervene.

God sent an angel that night and killed 185,000 soldiers of the Assyrian army and drove the King of Assyria away and ultimately to his death!

In , we read of the armies of the Moabites and Ammonites, and with them some of the Meunites, who were coming to attack Israel.

King Jehoshaphat and ALL of the people of Judah, came before the Lord and prayed and cried out to Him.

God’s Spirit came upon one man who spoke up and declared that God had heard and that He would deliver them.

In fact, God said to the people, “ You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the LORD on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.’ Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the LORD will be with you.”

Jehoshaphat and all of the people bowed their heads to the ground and worshipped the Lord and then rose early the next morning!

And as they made their way towards the advancing armies of these nations, Jehoshaphat sent singers before the people to begin to sing and praise God!

Listen to what the Bible records for us, “And when they began to sing and praise, the LORD set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed. When Judah came to the watchtower of the wilderness, they looked toward the horde, and behold, there were dead bodies lying on the ground; none had escaped!”

This is what I am saying to you today. Make today the beginning of our praying and fasting from now on and not the ending of this one day event!

Prayer is what God is waiting on us to do, because God moves on behalf of His faithful servants, through their prayers to Him!

Let’s make Jesus the “everything” in our lives and pray and seek the Father through Him and abandon the “everything else” that has kept us preoccupied for so long!

Charles Spurgeon said, “If Christ is not all to you He is nothing to you. He will never go into partnership as a part Savior of men. If He be something He must be everything, and if He be not everything He is nothing to you.”

He also said this, “Christians can never sin cheaply; they pay a heavy price for iniquity. Transgression destroys peace of mind, obscures fellowship with Jesus, hinders prayer, brings darkness over the soul; therefore be not the serf and bondman of sin.”

“Christians can never sin cheaply; they pay a heavy price for iniquity. Transgression destroys peace of mind, obscures fellowship with Jesus, hinders prayer, brings darkness over the soul; therefore be not the serf and bondman of sin.”

We have kept quiet in our prayers about the sin and the iniquities of this nation, for far too long!

It is time, NOW, to rise up and reclaim lost territory that the enemy has taken and to push back the darkness into obscurity!

It was the poet Dylan Thomas who said, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night; Rage, rage against the dying of the light!”

In other words, we must fight against the darkness, we must rage against its existence in our cities and counties and church buildings!

And we do this through our PRAYING and wielding the Sword of the Spirit, God’s eternal Word!

It’s crunch time saints! What will you do? Will you fight, or will you run back to what is comfortable and easy?

WE MUST BEGIN TO PRAY!