Tuesday, 06 September 2011 06:15 Written by Jim Denison

These are tough days for our nation. In fact, it's been a tough decade since 9/11. The good news is that God redeems all he allows. How could he redeem the challenges we face?

In this week leading to the tenth anniversary of 9/11, we are focusing on this statement in God's word: "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:13-14).

On Sunday we looked at the drought, locusts, and plague of our day, agreeing that we need a mighty movement of God's Spirit on our land. On Monday we learned that humility is the first step to this renewal, as we make God our King and position ourselves to receive all his grace intends to give.

Now we are called to "pray." The Hebrew word, palal, means to intercede in the collective. It describes a commitment by a group of people to pray for a group or nation. It is God's call to pray for America. God doesn't call his humbled people first to preach or program, but to pray. Jesus did not say his house would be a house of preaching or of programs, but a "house of prayer" (Matthew 21:13).

Why is prayer the most effective way to change the world? Why is it the most powerful thing you can do in confronting the problems you face today? For the answer, let's turn to another of Jesus' parables.

Why pray?

Jesus told his disciples this parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches" (Matthew 13:31-32).

The mustard seed is the smallest of all the seeds used in Jesus' day (about the size of a period at the end of a sentence today). Would anyone believe that a tree some ten feet tall could grow from it? But the farmer has faith. He plants it, and waters it, and waits for it. It takes time, several years in fact.

Eventually that tiny seed becomes a tree so large that birds come from all over to settle on its branches. They eat some of the seeds it produces. And that tree multiplies itself, until it makes more and more trees. All from one seed so small you must strain even to see it in your hand.

That, says Jesus, is how God builds his Kingdom on earth. Here we have the mustard seed movement: God uses small things to do great things. He uses what seems insignificant to do what is life-changing.

This principle is never more true than with prayer. David knew that prayer was powerful: "You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry" (Psalm 10:17). Why does an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God need us to pray?

Prayer does not inform our omniscient God of your need, since "your Father knows what you need before you ask him" (Matthew 6:8). It does not coerce our all-powerful Lord to do something he would not otherwise have done, as "nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37). It does not convince our all-loving Father to do what he would not have done, for he promises, "I have loved you with an everlasting love" (Jeremiah 31:3).

Prayer does not inform, coerce, or convince God. Rather, as with humility, it positions us to receive what grace intends to give. God honors the freedom he has given to us. He will not give us what we will not receive. But when we ask, we receive whatever we ask or whatever is best: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened" (Luke 11:9-10).

E. M. Bounds believed that "God shapes the world by prayer. Prayers are deathless. They outlive the lives of those who uttered them." Leonard Ravenhill insisted, "Preaching affects people; prayer [praying] affects God." John Wallace claimed, "Prayer moves the hand which moves the world."

Why pray for America?

We've learned why we need to pray. Why do we need to pray for America?

According to the FBI's "Crime Clock," a person is assaulted every 7.2 seconds in our country; a home is victimized by theft every 2.3 seconds; a person becomes the victim of identity theft every 8.7 seconds; a person is killed in an alcohol-related crash every 29 minutes; a person is murdered every 31 minutes.

Thirty thousand Americans commit suicide every year. 1.3 million abortions are performed annually in our country. Some 16 million Americans use illegal drugs; pornography is a $10 billion annual business in our nation. Do we need for God to "heal our land"?

And radical Islam constitutes the greatest threat our nation has ever faced.

Radical Muslims are motivated by two tenets. First: America and the West has been attacking Islam since the Crusades. Since the Qur'an requires Muslims to defend Islam, they believe they are obeying the Qur'an in attacking us. Second, there are no innocent civilians in the West. Since we are a democracy, electing our leaders and supporting our military, we are all complicit in this perceived attack on Islam. Muslims see us the same way we view Germans who supported Hitler or Japanese who supported the Emperor.

How many Muslims agree with these two tenets? A Gallup survey, the largest ever conducted in the Muslim world, found that 7% of Muslims support 9/11 and affirm the tenets of radical Islam. Seven percent of 1.6 billion Muslims is 112 million radicals. That's a larger force than we faced in World War II and the Cold War, combined.

It gets worse. Half of the 112 million radicalized Muslims say that dying in their cause is justified. The math would indicate that 56 million people are ready to be suicide bombers against the West. Even if that number is 10 times too large, there would still be five million suicide bombers waiting to attack us. As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 draws near, terrorists have announced plans to attack us with renewed fervor.

Does America need us to pray? I agree with Abraham Lincoln: "I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me seemed insufficient for the day."

How do we pray for America?

Pray for our nation's leaders: "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone—for kings and all those in authority" (1 Timothy 2:1-2). Have you prayed for President Obama today? For his cabinet? For the leaders of our nation, state, and city?

Pray for spiritual awakening to come to our people: "Then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14).

And pray for your relationship with God. Where do you need his power and provision? Where do you need his leadership and strength? Give God your need: "You do not have, because you do not ask God" (James 4:2). Is he waiting on you?

The first Great Awakening began with the prayer meetings of Theodore Frelingheusen. The Second Great Awakening was sparked by Isaac Backus' call to prayer. The Third Great Awakening was birthed in Jeremiah Lamphier's prayer meeting at Old North Dutch Church in New York City on September 23, 1857. The Fourth Great Awakening began in a prayer meeting led by Evan Roberts.

A church of six meeting on May 15, 1958 is today a congregation of 1.2 million under the leadership of Pastor David Yonggi Cho. Jim Cymbala's Brooklyn Tabernacle was down to 30 when it resolved to make its Tuesday night prayer meeting the engine that drives the church, and now their ministries span the globe.

Conclusion

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was right: "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." Have you prayed for America today? Will you?

God is moving in our world as his people pray. For example, more Muslims are coming to Christ than ever before in history, many through visions and dreams which are God's answers to the prayers of his people. I met one such person when I was in Bangladesh earlier this year.

Shortly after her father died he appeared to her in a dream, instructing her to go to a specific house in their village where a man had a message she needed to hear. Her father showed her the face of this person, an American she had never met.

The next morning she made her way to the house and was shocked to find the very man in her dream speaking to a group of people. His name is Harold Sadler, a well-known Christian businessman in the Dallas area and frequent traveler to Bangladesh. After he finished, she introduced herself and asked what message he had for her. Harold had no idea what she was talking about. After she explained her dream, he shared the Christian gospel with her and she became a follower of Jesus. She ran home to bring her daughter and son, who became Christians that day as well. I was introduced to her when we visited her village and found her faith to be vibrant and joyful.

Who will come to Christ because of your prayers today?

 

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