2 Chronicles 20:1-12 - Jehoshaphat

1. Later the Moabites and Ammonites, along with some of the Meunites, attacked Jehoshaphat.
2. Messengers arrived and reported to Jehoshaphat, “A huge army is attacking you from the other side of the Dead Sea, from the direction of Edom. Look, they are in Hazezon Tamar (that is, En Gedi).”
3. Jehoshaphat was afraid, so he decided to seek the Lord’s advice. He decreed that all Judah should observe a fast.
4. The people of Judah assembled to ask for the Lord’s help; they came from all the cities of Judah to ask for the Lord’s help.
5. Jehoshaphat stood before the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem at the Lord’s temple, in front of the new courtyard.
6. He prayed: “O Lord God of our ancestors, you are the God who lives in heaven and rules over all the kingdoms of the nations. You possess strength and power; no one can stand against you.
7. Our God, you drove out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and gave it as a permanent possession to the descendants of your friend Abraham.
8. They settled down in it and built in it a temple to honour you, saying,
9. ‘If disaster comes on us in the form of military attack, judgment, plague, or famine, we will stand in front of this temple before you, for you are present in this temple. We will cry out to you for help in our distress, so that you will hear and deliver us.’
10. Now the Ammonites, Moabites, and men from Mount Seir are coming! When Israel came from the land of Egypt, you did not allow them to invade these lands. They bypassed them and did not destroy them.
11. Look how they are repaying us! They come to drive us out of our allotted land which you assigned to us!
12. Our God, will you not judge them? For we are powerless against this huge army that attacks us! We don’t know what we should do; we look to you for help.”

• We are powerless
• You have promised and we want to plead your promises
• You are our only hope and we are depending on you
• God won an amazing supernatural victory for them

Repentance: Daniel 9 & Luke 18

Daniel 9

3. So I turned my attention to the Lord God to implore him by prayer and requests, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.
4. I prayed to the Lord my God, confessing in this way:
   “O Lord, great and awesome God who is faithful to his covenant with those who love him and keep his commandments,
5. we have sinned! We have done what is wrong and wicked; we have rebelled by turning away from your commandments and standards.
6. We have not paid attention to your servants the prophets, who spoke by your authority to our kings, our leaders, and our ancestors, and to all the inhabitants of the land as well.
7. “You are righteous, O Lord, but we are humiliated this day—the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far away in all the countries in which you have scattered them, because they have behaved unfaithfully toward you.
8. O Lord, we have been humiliated—our kings, our leaders, and our ancestors—because we have sinned against you.
9. Yet the Lord our God is compassionate and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him.

Luke 18

9. Jesus also told this parable to some who were confident that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else.
10. “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11. The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself like this: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: extortionists, unrighteous people, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.
12. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get.’
13. The tax collector, however, stood far off and would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, be merciful to me, sinner that I am!’
14. I tell you that this man went down to his home justified rather than the Pharisee. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

God’s Honour and Kingdom: 1 Kings 18 & Acts 4

1 Kings 18

36. When it was time for the evening offering, Elijah the prophet approached the altar and prayed: “O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.
37. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord, are the true God and that you are winning back their allegiance.”
38. Then fire from the Lord fell from the sky. It consumed the offering, the wood, the stones, and the dirt, and licked up the water in the trench.
39. When all the people saw this, they threw themselves down with their faces to the ground and said, “The Lord is the true God! The Lord is the true God!”

Acts 4

23. When they were released, Peter and John went to their fellow believers and reported everything the high priests and the elders had said to them.
24. When they heard this, they raised their voices to God with one mind and said, “Master of all, you who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them,
25. who said by the Holy Spirit through your servant David our forefather,
    ‘Why do the nations rage,
    and the peoples plot foolish things?
26. The kings of the earth stood together,
    and the rulers assembled together,
    against the Lord and against his Christ.’
27. “For indeed both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, assembled together in this city against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed,
28. to do as much as your power and your plan had decided beforehand would happen.
29. And now, Lord, pay attention to their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your message with great courage,
30. while you extend your hand to heal, and to bring about miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
31. When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God courageously.

Faith: Mark 11

Mark 11

13. After noticing in the distance a fig tree with leaves, he went to see if he could find any fruit on it. When he came to it he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.
14. He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.
15. Then they came to Jerusalem…
    …

19. When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.
20. In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots.
21. Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered.”
22. Jesus said to them, “Have faith in God.
23. I tell you the truth, if someone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.
24. For this reason I tell you, whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Stories of Answered Prayer

Discouraged Pastor in Illinois

We knew a preacher, still living, who was appointed to the charge of a church in Springfield, Ill. The church seemed very much depressed. It’s life was at a low ebb. It was in the midst of the harvest, in the hot weather, when things seemed most depressed. The pastor, a holy man of God, announced on Sabbath evening to a small congregation of a score or two of persons, “There will be a prayer-meeting in this church to-morrow morning at sunrise for the revival of the work of God and for the conversion of sinners.” The people wondered at the notice, and went home. The pastor went up into his study, which was in the parsonage by the side of the church, and gave that night to prayer. Just as the East began to lighten up a little with the coming day he had the assurance that his prayer was answered, and casts himself down on a sofa for a little rest. Presently he awoke suddenly to see the sun shining on the wall over his head. He sprang up and hooked out of the window to see how late it was, when he saw the sun just rising above the horizon. Looking down into the yard by the church, he was overjoyed to see the church crowded with people, and the yard foul, and teams crowding into the street for a long distance. God had heard his prayer, and had sent out his Spirit into the community, and there had been no sleeping in Springfield that night. People in the country who knew nothing of the appointment got up in the night, hitched up their teams, and drove into town and to the church to find out what the matter was. A good man had taken hold of God. The prayer-meeting began, and was closed that night at eleven o’clock. Several souls were converted. A gracious work broke out, and the community was greatly blessed. The foregoing we certify to on the highest authority, having it from the lips of the man himself, whom every body knowing him believes as soon as any thing outside of the Bible.

the Hebrides Revival of 1949

Off the west coast of Scotland is a small group of islands called the Hebrides.

In a small cottage by the roadside in the village of Barvas lived two elderly women, Peggy and Christine Smith. They were eighty-four and eighty-two years old. Peggy was blind and her sister almost bent double with arthritis. Unable to attend public worship, their humble cottage became a sanctuary where they met with God. To them came the promise: “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground,” they pleaded this day and night in prayer. One night Peggy had a revelation, revival was coming and the church of her fathers would be crowded again with young people!

In the same district a group of men praying in a barn experienced a foretaste of coming blessing. One night as they waited upon God a young deacon rose and read part of the twenty-fourth Psalm: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord.” Turning to the others he said: “Brethren, it seems to me just so much humbug to be waiting and praying as we are, if we ourselves are not rightly related to God.” Then lifting his hands toward heaven he cried: “Oh God, are my hands clean? Is my heart pure?” He got no further, but fell prostrate to the floor. An awareness of God filled the barn and a stream of supernatural power was let lose in their lives. They had moved into a new sphere of God realization, believing implicitly in the promise of revival.

The preacher, Duncan Campbell was invited to come and preach for two weeks. The flood of people being saved was so great that it was two years before he could leave. Between 1949 and 1952 this wide spread revival swept through these islands in answer to the prayers of God’s people.

Updated on 2011-07-17 by Andrew Fountain