House of Prayer for All Nations-1

House of Prayer for All Nations

Text: Isaiah 56:1-8 (esp. Vs.1-2)

Warning A Nation

This past week we had scheduled a week of prayer and fasting.

The devil doesn’t like it when we pray.

So he unleashed an attack on us.

I hope you prayed anyway.

Sick or well, I hope you prayed

If you did pray, I don’t know if you followed along with the Prayer Guides this past week.

They were available online.

There are printed copies in the foyer that you can take home today.

But yesterday’s Prayer Guide, taken from the devotional Missionary God, Missionary Bible, and based on Jeremiah 26-29 was pretty intense.

Maybe most of these devotions are.

But, this devotion, by missionary Dick Brogden, addressed this country in particular. He said:

As it has ever been and will be, one way or another, God will message the nations through us—either through blessing or cursing.

When we speak the truth of the Lord without diminishing a word, the normal result is the establishment thinks our words of life warrant our death.

Brogden said:

… Prophetic voices call us to greater concern about God’s glory among the nations than to the national glory of our political home. Proclaiming God as globally glorious is the missionary assignment, and that’s hard to do if you’re [only] focused on making your own country great again.

No godly citizen delights in the decline of his own nation, yet no godly Christian puts the fame of his nation above the glory of God among all peoples.

Jeremiah’s message to his own nation is pertinent to America today. America is not a Christian nation; our laws and morality are shameful. America is not blessed above other nations and America is on a slide towards judgment. Outside widespread repentance, America will face the wrath of God—sooner rather than later.

God will cause an American exile where our best and brightest serve His purposes overseas among the unreached because as a collective we have refused Him honor at home. ...

Are you disturbed by the godless trajectory of America? Perhaps God’s will for you is to use your vocation overseas, to live among the unreached as God’s ambassador, to settle there, to bring your children into the world in a foreign land, to be God’s prophetic example that He will not be held hostage by any nation, that He will be glorified everywhere by every people. Perhaps God’s good future for you and your family is that you spend the decades ahead exiled from your beloved nation, enveloped enthusiastically in His loving plan for the redemption of all the nations beloved to Him.

So, are you ready to leave this nation to live among the unreached nations of the world?

To raise your children in unreached nations?

The judgment of God is already upon us.

It’s not coming — it’s here.

The Biblical evidence of God’s judgment is all around us.

Why would God do that? Why would He judge the USA.

Jesus said in: Luke 12:48 (NASB 2020)

… From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.

This nation was entrusted not just with tremendous physical wealth, but with great spiritual wealth.

But it has not counted that spiritual wealth, its Christian heritage, as precious.

It has not guarded it.

Instead this nation ridicules its Christian heritage, turns its back on it and works as hard as possible to be as evil as possible.

God does not turn a blind eye to such things.

He didn’t in Isaiah and Jeremiah’s time.

He won’t now.

God has called His remnant, those of us who hold to the Word of God and salvation through Jesus Christ, to intercede in prayer.

To pray for an awakening in this country.

An awakening to sin and the consequences of that sin.

God has called us to pray. Specifically, prophetically, God has called tiny New Life Famiily Church in tiny Blairsville, GA to be a house of prayer for all nations.

Prophetic Utterance

A few weeks ago, on July 18, 2021, Dr. Adrian Thomason spoke a prophetic word over this church. He said:

Pastor, as you were praying, I felt compelled to release this word over the house. It’s from Isaiah, chapter 56, starting at verse 7. The Lord says, “Even them I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in the house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on My altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

The Lord is saying to this house that this place will be known as a multi-dimensional, multi-ethnic house of prayer for all nations. And you say, “Well, we’re just this little thing; we’re just this little mountain group of people.”

The Lord says, “ In this house, this house will become known as a house of prayer for all nations. That every ethnicity, every ethnos, every people group will feel welcome coming into the house of prayer, because the house of prayer that God is going to build in this place will know no skin color; no ethnic [divisions]. It will only know the Bride of Christ and the precious blood of Jesus.

Father, we thank you for what you’re doing in this place. There’s something special about the 25th year. I don’t know what it is, but when you said that this morning that you’re celebrating that, there’s something…Father, we just pray now that the next years will be more fruitful than all the 25 years put together. Father, we speak blessing, we speak hope, we speak anointing on this house of prayer.

Though Dr. Thomason started at verse 7, I would like for us to start reading Isaiah 56 at the first verse, down through the 8th.

Read TEXT

Prayer

Text Backdrop

To understand this passage we have to understand Isaiah and his prophecy.

Isaiah prophesied to the nation of Judah beginning when King Uzziah died and continuing during the reigns of Kings Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah.

We know little about Isaiah

We don’t know his family or educational background.

It seems he was well-educated for his time.

He writes well.

But the main thing about Isaiah’s prophetic ministry was that it was birthed in a glorious revelation of God’s majestic holiness.

Isaiah saw the Lord:

Sitting on a lofty throne

Exalted

With His robe filling the Temple

And mighty seraphim crying out:

New Living Translation Chapter 6

Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Heaven’s Armies!

The whole earth is filled with his glory!

It seems that ALL that Isaiah prophesies comes from that heavenly perspective.

When you’ve had an encounter with the glory of God it eclipses every other encounter you will ever have.

So, let US press into the presence of God.

Let His glory change you, call you to a higher place.

Like Isaiah, may we see that God is All-powerful

That His plans will proceed and succeed.

That in the glorious end, God triumphs over anyone and anything that tries to stop His wondrous future.

Isaiah constantly calls US to:

Keep our eyes on God

To look beyond the present

To see the Father’s Suffering Servant, who we know to be Jesus.

To be confident of what God is doing in the future.

For the many in our church who are struggling through sickness and hospitalization, I urge the same thing:

Keep your eyes on Jesus who, as the Apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 1:6, is the One who BEGAN a good work in you — do not fear, do not doubt — Jesus WILL complete it

If John the revelator was able to move into the presence of God on the Isle of Patmos, a harsh, cruel cruel penal colony, then may we press into the presence of God even in a hospital room.

And in the Presence of the Lord, look beyond the present, look beyond the sickness, look beyond the anxiety, look beyond the hospital room, the 4 walls of your house

Be confident of what the future holds — because you know the One who holds the future.

Never doubt that the future is a glorious place — whether in this body or in eternity.

And, may all of us hear God’s Word of Comfort that Isaiah prophesies in chapters 40-66

Read through those chapters and hear God’s comfort.

Especially hear what Isaiah prophesied about Jesus in:

Isaiah 53:1–5 (NASB 2020)

1 Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of dry ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we would look at Him, Nor an appearance that we would take pleasure in Him. 3 He was despised and abandoned by men, A man of great pain and familiar with sickness; And like one from whom people hide their faces, He was despised, and we had no regard for Him. 4 However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore, And our pains that He carried; Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted, Struck down by God, and humiliated. 5 But He was pierced for our offenses, He was crushed for our wrongdoings; The punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him, And by His wounds we are healed.

Here in our text in Isaiah 56, God is speaking to a certain group of people.

In previous chapters Isaiah has been speaking to those who would go into the captivity of conquering Babylon.

But beginning here Isaiah is talking to those who would remain in the land of Judah.

They would be subjugated, ruled over by other nations beginning with Babylon, but there would be many other other occupiers — including Rome in Jesus’ day.

Isaiah 56 tells us how people who live in a land occupied by idolatrous, wicked occupiers are supposed to live.

Be A Distinctive People

Such a people, and I believe that includes Jesus-followers in 2021, are to called to live distinctive lives.

Lives marked by the presence of God.

Marked by His priorities

Marked by His salvation

Such a people believe in the soon coming of their ultimate salvation, the coming of Jesus.

Their eyes on on the eastern sky.

People who live in a land occupied by evil long to hear the trumpet blast as spoken of in:

1 Thessalonians 4:16–18 NASB 2020

16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who remain, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore, comfort one another with these words.

They long to see God’s righteousness revealed.

Such a people take hold of their distinctiveness and live in blessing among the nations.

As a light to draw the nations to Jesus.

God’s distinctive people preserve justice and do righteousness.

True justice

True righteousness.

Living according to God’s definition of justice and righteousness — NOT this world’s twisted and wicked definitions.

Doesn’t this passage remind us of

Micah 6:8 NASB 2020

8 He has told you, mortal one, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?

May we promote God righteousness and justice in our world!

God’s people live in anticipation of the coming of the Lord.

2 Peter 3:11–13 NASB 2020

11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.

Titus 2:11–14 NASB 2020

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people, 12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and in a godly manner in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, 14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, eager for good deeds.

God’s distinctive people live in His blessings in the here and now:

Verse 2 How BLESSED is the person, the man, the woman, the teenager, the child, who does this!

The person who takes hold of this kind of life with BOTH hands — not trying to hold onto the world AND onto God.

God’s blessings are on the person who sets aside a sabbath for worship, for prayer, for the Word.

He blesses those who refuse to participate in the evil of the occupiers all around us.

Lord, please help us to BE what You want us to be.

As I close I would like to encourage everyone to listen to a new song by CeCe Winans called Believe For It

It especially speaks to those who are facing “impossible” situations today.

I love the lyrics:

They say this mountain can’t be moved They say these chains will never break But they don’t know You like we do There is power in Your name

We’ve heard that there is no way through We’ve heard the tide will never change They haven’t seen what You can do There is power in Your name So much power in Your name

Move the immovable Break the unbreakable God we believe God we believe for it

From the impossible We’ll see a miracle God we believe God we believe for it

Church let’s believe for God’s miracles

And, this morning, let’s press into the blessed life.

Let’s realize that we were made to be a light to the nations.

We were made to praise God in every circumstance in which we find ourselves.

THAT is the mark of godly distinctiveness.

We praise God even from the hospital room.

We lift up our eyes to the One who saves us.

Can you do that this morning?

If not we want to pray with you.

Here or through video attendance.

If you don’t know this salvation that Isaiah 56:1 speaks about, then let me know.

We will pray for you to repent of your sins and surrender to God’s control of your life.

Because God is calling us to be a house of prayer for all nations.