Wednesday, March 29, 2006 Bible Study
What an amazing refreshing in prayer! As one lady last night declared, "The presence of God was so powerful and the peace that is here is amazing."
Yes God met with us again.
We looked at Ephesians 6 again. Specially, we focused on verse 18 & 19. In the The Living Bible it says.... "Pray all the time. Ask God for anything in line with the Holy Spirit's wishes. Plead with him, reminding him of your needs, and keep praying earnestly for all Christians everywhere.19 Pray for me, too, and ask God to give me the right words as I boldly tell others about the Lord and as I explain to them that his salvation is for the Gentiles too.(TLB)?
The emphasis by Paul seems to be on "all" - all the time, on all occasions, for all the other Christians (all the saints everywhere)
As we discussed this what a powerful thought that is. Prayer for each other - supportive prayer - encouraging prayer - releasing prayer - prayer that makes a difference in fellow Christian's life.
So often when we ask for prayer requests folks will ask for their children and their own families - asking for whatever need they have at the moment. Nothing wrong with that - but when it is all that we ask prayer for and perhaps all that we pray for - that isn't what Paul is encouraging the Christian soldier to do. He is saying pray past yourself and your own world - pray for others.
When looking through our simple archives at Northview Church I discovered documents that laid out the planning for the building of Northview Pentecostal Church. In the documents there were records included that showed the financial conditions of the church when these plans were being brought together. In 1977 the total income for that year was about $89,000. By 1980 that income had increased to $145,000. The Dublin Street church was growing.
Something else in the archive box along with these documents was a projection that in order for the new church to be successful it would need to increase by 10% each year. A 10% increase in finances, in attendance and in ministries. That increase was expected and encouraged and prayed for - to be able to build a new church. People of faith then took powerful steps to launch out and build.
How big were the steps? Very, very big is the answer from what we see! With an annual income of $145,000 and deep faith in what God was going to do - these people built a $1,350,000 church in the next year. I believe - they believed - that God was going to do something powerful here. They actually believed that as they prayed for each other and the church that God would do something to draw people to himself. Building a 1100 seat auditorium was a huge step of faith.
As a sideline to this faith - some stopped praying for each other. Some became angry and were sidelined - even taken off the team. Oh yes... there is much in the archive boxes that tells a very large story of getting off track.
That may be too negative to dwell on too long. What we do dwell on is the fact that God was there last night - not anger - not violence - but Peace that passes all understanding.
When people pray for each other - things happen.
By the way - we prayed last evening that one section of the church might be set aside by God and made to be Carol's section. Carol is a lady that has a gift of God to approach people with His love and make a difference. (You had to be there to understand... :-) But we also prayed that Evelyn would be able to win all the seniors in her complex to Christ.
"Come on"... you say... "it can't happen that way!" No - you are probably right when we stop praying for each other.
Some powerful evidence is drawn from the life of D.L. Moody - a preacher in the later part of the 19th Century. As we continue to look at the Revivals over these past years his life stands out as a powerful example to what happens when someone prays for an individual. Moody was not a typical great leader in his day. He was from a humble background and was not well spoken. As you read the following article about D.L. Moody it may encourage you to pray for other Moodys today in our church and community.
The following is a Handout that we looked at last evening....
D.L. Moody 1837 -1899
As Finney dominated American evangelism in the middle third of the 19th century, the stout, simple, and sincerely affectionate D.L. Moody did so for the final third, more than forty years after the initial awakening, until 1904 and the outbreak of World War I. His Sunday School, started in 1858 in a vacant saloon, became the largest in Chicago, and eventually a church. By 1860, he had given up shoe business ($5,000 a year) to "live by faith"($150 for the first year!).
Moody's Second Blessing
In 1864, with his own building on Illinois St., he was elected Chicago President of the Y.M.C.A. There, he met two little old ladies, Mrs. Sarah Cooke and Mrs. Hawxhurst, who joyfully interceded for his spiritual lack: "We have been praying for you. . .You need power!" "I need power! Why I thought I had power. . . .They poured out their hearts that I might receive the anointing of the Holy Ghost. There came a great hunger in my soul. I knew not what it was. I began to cry as never before. The hunger increased. I really felt that I did not want to live any longer if I could not have this power for service" (Edman, They Found The Secret, p. 83).
In 1871 (a night he did not finish with an invitation), a $200,000,000 tragedy struck; the great fire of Chicago burned fifty churches to ashes, laid to waste a third of the city, killed nearly 200 people, and left approximately 18,000 homeless. The fire had also destroyed the new Y.M.C.A. which Farwell Hall had built at the cost of $200,000 three years earlier. Heartsick, Moody set out to raise funds for the homeless. While visiting New York in 1871 to fund-raise, and "crying all the time God would fill me with His Spirit," he had "such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand" (Edman, They Found The Secret, p. 84).
After this baptism in the Holy Spirit, he began powerful evangelistic meetings with Ira D. Sankey, whom he had met the year before. "The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths; and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world!" (Edman, Deeper Experiences Of Famous Christians, pp. 83-84).
Spiritual Fervor
The next year, he visited Britain again and was startled to hear the Australian, Henry Varley, say, "Moody, the world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to Him" (J.C. Pollock, Moody, p. 99). Moody went back to Chicago for Sankey, and in June, 1873, both families moved to Liverpool to "win 10,000 souls" by invitation of the Anglican clergyman, William Pennefather. When they arrived, Pennefather was dead; they began anyway. Crowds gradually increased from place to place, until by Edinburg they not only had the people's enthusiastic approval but "after careful study, the minister's unreserved backing."
He introduced the noon-day prayer meeting of the 1857 Revival again; evening meetings were jammed, crowding the largest auditoriums. From there they preached in Dundee, Glasgow thousands were converted). Belfast in the fall of 1874 again several thousand converted); and in Manchester Sheffield, and Birmingham, each with growing success. Finally, they preached in London, climaxing with 20,000 people nightly in the Agricultural Hall at Islington. William Taylor of California continued these meetings while Moody moved on to preach to the poor in Bow by day and the rich in the Haymart Opera House each evening. These meetings lasted twenty weeks and attracted 2,500,000 people.
Confounding The Wise
Out of Moody's 1882 Cambridge University meetings, of which Moody said, "There never was a place I approached with greater anxiety. . . .Never having had the privilege of a University education, I was nervous about meeting University men," came wonderful results from what initially seemed a disaster (Pollock, Moody, pp. 228-229).
Seventeen hundred people noisily crowded into a hall that first evening to hear the hick American evangelist who could somehow say "Jerusalem" in only two syllables, and, funnier still, didn't know any different. They "drowned out 70 brave undergraduates who tried to join in the hymns with vulgar songs." They yelled, "Hear, hear" to Vicar John Barton's opening prayer, shouting derisive “Encore!" to Sankey's solo, and greeted Moody's one-syllable pronunciation of "Daniel" by "bringing down the house with cheering, jeering, clapping and stamping" (Orr, Campus Aflame, p. 90).
Yet, Moody bravely hung in there. Only a hundred came the next night, but one was Gerald Under of Trinity College who (so embarrassed by he "civilized" behavior of his colleagues the previous night) apologized to Moody. God deeply touched Lander; he later became Bishop of Hong Kong. Over half of the audience responded to Moody's appeal that night. The next night, a hundred or more waited behind for counsel. The final meeting drew 1,800 and launched a worldwide interdenominational movement. Handley Moule, kneeling beside Moody on the platform, heard him say, "My God this is enough to live for" (Pollock, Moody, p. 239).
C.T. Studd was the toast of the nation, captain of their champion cricket team, England's top sportsman, and inheritor of a small fortune. His brothers wrote to him about Moody's challenge, and out of this eventually came the "Cambridge Seven." This group consisted of either Moody's helpers or his converts, who toured universities and challenged students for missions. Studd gave up his cricket and gave away his fortune; large sums to Booth, Moody, and George Mueller's orphanages. His wife, not to be outdone by her husband's devotion, sold all their wedding presents! Together with other "holy madmen," they launched out to redeem another generation of spiritual warriors from the ranks of what he called the "Chocolate Soldiers." who melted and ran when the heat was on. Studd took as his motto: "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, no sacrifice I make can be too great for Him" (McDonald, True Discipleship, p. 60).
Lessons In Reform
What do we learn from this third great awakening in the U.S. and Britain? Surely this: true revival changes the "moral climate of a community;" when God finds someone with the courage to pray, preach, and live a life before Him of holiness and compassion, He can literally change the face of a nation. What was needed was neither the recognition nor ordination of man. What really counted was the touch and the hand of God on ordinary people who were "wholly consecrated to Him."
(Taken from Revival - Principles to Change the World – By Winkie Pratney)
Also look at
Biography by http://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/biorpmoody.html
The Life and Work of D.L. Moody http://www.biblebelievers.com/moody/index.html
Check out http://www.wholesomewords.org/echoes/moody.html and then forward and back to read of other great men. From http://www.wholesomewords.org/ (very good resource!)
Yes God met with us again.
We looked at Ephesians 6 again. Specially, we focused on verse 18 & 19. In the The Living Bible it says.... "Pray all the time. Ask God for anything in line with the Holy Spirit's wishes. Plead with him, reminding him of your needs, and keep praying earnestly for all Christians everywhere.19 Pray for me, too, and ask God to give me the right words as I boldly tell others about the Lord and as I explain to them that his salvation is for the Gentiles too.(TLB)?
The emphasis by Paul seems to be on "all" - all the time, on all occasions, for all the other Christians (all the saints everywhere)
As we discussed this what a powerful thought that is. Prayer for each other - supportive prayer - encouraging prayer - releasing prayer - prayer that makes a difference in fellow Christian's life.
So often when we ask for prayer requests folks will ask for their children and their own families - asking for whatever need they have at the moment. Nothing wrong with that - but when it is all that we ask prayer for and perhaps all that we pray for - that isn't what Paul is encouraging the Christian soldier to do. He is saying pray past yourself and your own world - pray for others.
When looking through our simple archives at Northview Church I discovered documents that laid out the planning for the building of Northview Pentecostal Church. In the documents there were records included that showed the financial conditions of the church when these plans were being brought together. In 1977 the total income for that year was about $89,000. By 1980 that income had increased to $145,000. The Dublin Street church was growing.
Something else in the archive box along with these documents was a projection that in order for the new church to be successful it would need to increase by 10% each year. A 10% increase in finances, in attendance and in ministries. That increase was expected and encouraged and prayed for - to be able to build a new church. People of faith then took powerful steps to launch out and build.
How big were the steps? Very, very big is the answer from what we see! With an annual income of $145,000 and deep faith in what God was going to do - these people built a $1,350,000 church in the next year. I believe - they believed - that God was going to do something powerful here. They actually believed that as they prayed for each other and the church that God would do something to draw people to himself. Building a 1100 seat auditorium was a huge step of faith.
As a sideline to this faith - some stopped praying for each other. Some became angry and were sidelined - even taken off the team. Oh yes... there is much in the archive boxes that tells a very large story of getting off track.
That may be too negative to dwell on too long. What we do dwell on is the fact that God was there last night - not anger - not violence - but Peace that passes all understanding.
When people pray for each other - things happen.
By the way - we prayed last evening that one section of the church might be set aside by God and made to be Carol's section. Carol is a lady that has a gift of God to approach people with His love and make a difference. (You had to be there to understand... :-) But we also prayed that Evelyn would be able to win all the seniors in her complex to Christ.
"Come on"... you say... "it can't happen that way!" No - you are probably right when we stop praying for each other.
Some powerful evidence is drawn from the life of D.L. Moody - a preacher in the later part of the 19th Century. As we continue to look at the Revivals over these past years his life stands out as a powerful example to what happens when someone prays for an individual. Moody was not a typical great leader in his day. He was from a humble background and was not well spoken. As you read the following article about D.L. Moody it may encourage you to pray for other Moodys today in our church and community.
The following is a Handout that we looked at last evening....
D.L. Moody 1837 -1899
As Finney dominated American evangelism in the middle third of the 19th century, the stout, simple, and sincerely affectionate D.L. Moody did so for the final third, more than forty years after the initial awakening, until 1904 and the outbreak of World War I. His Sunday School, started in 1858 in a vacant saloon, became the largest in Chicago, and eventually a church. By 1860, he had given up shoe business ($5,000 a year) to "live by faith"($150 for the first year!).
Moody's Second Blessing
In 1864, with his own building on Illinois St., he was elected Chicago President of the Y.M.C.A. There, he met two little old ladies, Mrs. Sarah Cooke and Mrs. Hawxhurst, who joyfully interceded for his spiritual lack: "We have been praying for you. . .You need power!" "I need power! Why I thought I had power. . . .They poured out their hearts that I might receive the anointing of the Holy Ghost. There came a great hunger in my soul. I knew not what it was. I began to cry as never before. The hunger increased. I really felt that I did not want to live any longer if I could not have this power for service" (Edman, They Found The Secret, p. 83).
In 1871 (a night he did not finish with an invitation), a $200,000,000 tragedy struck; the great fire of Chicago burned fifty churches to ashes, laid to waste a third of the city, killed nearly 200 people, and left approximately 18,000 homeless. The fire had also destroyed the new Y.M.C.A. which Farwell Hall had built at the cost of $200,000 three years earlier. Heartsick, Moody set out to raise funds for the homeless. While visiting New York in 1871 to fund-raise, and "crying all the time God would fill me with His Spirit," he had "such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand" (Edman, They Found The Secret, p. 84).
After this baptism in the Holy Spirit, he began powerful evangelistic meetings with Ira D. Sankey, whom he had met the year before. "The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths; and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world!" (Edman, Deeper Experiences Of Famous Christians, pp. 83-84).
Spiritual Fervor
The next year, he visited Britain again and was startled to hear the Australian, Henry Varley, say, "Moody, the world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to Him" (J.C. Pollock, Moody, p. 99). Moody went back to Chicago for Sankey, and in June, 1873, both families moved to Liverpool to "win 10,000 souls" by invitation of the Anglican clergyman, William Pennefather. When they arrived, Pennefather was dead; they began anyway. Crowds gradually increased from place to place, until by Edinburg they not only had the people's enthusiastic approval but "after careful study, the minister's unreserved backing."
He introduced the noon-day prayer meeting of the 1857 Revival again; evening meetings were jammed, crowding the largest auditoriums. From there they preached in Dundee, Glasgow thousands were converted). Belfast in the fall of 1874 again several thousand converted); and in Manchester Sheffield, and Birmingham, each with growing success. Finally, they preached in London, climaxing with 20,000 people nightly in the Agricultural Hall at Islington. William Taylor of California continued these meetings while Moody moved on to preach to the poor in Bow by day and the rich in the Haymart Opera House each evening. These meetings lasted twenty weeks and attracted 2,500,000 people.
Confounding The Wise
Out of Moody's 1882 Cambridge University meetings, of which Moody said, "There never was a place I approached with greater anxiety. . . .Never having had the privilege of a University education, I was nervous about meeting University men," came wonderful results from what initially seemed a disaster (Pollock, Moody, pp. 228-229).
Seventeen hundred people noisily crowded into a hall that first evening to hear the hick American evangelist who could somehow say "Jerusalem" in only two syllables, and, funnier still, didn't know any different. They "drowned out 70 brave undergraduates who tried to join in the hymns with vulgar songs." They yelled, "Hear, hear" to Vicar John Barton's opening prayer, shouting derisive “Encore!" to Sankey's solo, and greeted Moody's one-syllable pronunciation of "Daniel" by "bringing down the house with cheering, jeering, clapping and stamping" (Orr, Campus Aflame, p. 90).
Yet, Moody bravely hung in there. Only a hundred came the next night, but one was Gerald Under of Trinity College who (so embarrassed by he "civilized" behavior of his colleagues the previous night) apologized to Moody. God deeply touched Lander; he later became Bishop of Hong Kong. Over half of the audience responded to Moody's appeal that night. The next night, a hundred or more waited behind for counsel. The final meeting drew 1,800 and launched a worldwide interdenominational movement. Handley Moule, kneeling beside Moody on the platform, heard him say, "My God this is enough to live for" (Pollock, Moody, p. 239).
C.T. Studd was the toast of the nation, captain of their champion cricket team, England's top sportsman, and inheritor of a small fortune. His brothers wrote to him about Moody's challenge, and out of this eventually came the "Cambridge Seven." This group consisted of either Moody's helpers or his converts, who toured universities and challenged students for missions. Studd gave up his cricket and gave away his fortune; large sums to Booth, Moody, and George Mueller's orphanages. His wife, not to be outdone by her husband's devotion, sold all their wedding presents! Together with other "holy madmen," they launched out to redeem another generation of spiritual warriors from the ranks of what he called the "Chocolate Soldiers." who melted and ran when the heat was on. Studd took as his motto: "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, no sacrifice I make can be too great for Him" (McDonald, True Discipleship, p. 60).
Lessons In Reform
What do we learn from this third great awakening in the U.S. and Britain? Surely this: true revival changes the "moral climate of a community;" when God finds someone with the courage to pray, preach, and live a life before Him of holiness and compassion, He can literally change the face of a nation. What was needed was neither the recognition nor ordination of man. What really counted was the touch and the hand of God on ordinary people who were "wholly consecrated to Him."
(Taken from Revival - Principles to Change the World – By Winkie Pratney)
Also look at
Biography by http://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/biorpmoody.html
The Life and Work of D.L. Moody http://www.biblebelievers.com/moody/index.html
Check out http://www.wholesomewords.org/echoes/moody.html and then forward and back to read of other great men. From http://www.wholesomewords.org/ (very good resource!)
posted by Murray Lincoln at
Thursday, March 30, 2006
1 Comments:
I love Winkie Pratney!
I also love Keith Green's music. His music paralleled the things that Winkie talked about since they were friends with one another.
I am a musician and I would be honored if you would check out my music. All my music is free for download on my site. Anyway, I just thought that I'd share with you.
Thanks,
-Sean
______________________
www.SeanDietrich.com
"All my music is free for download."
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