#2: If My People Will Humble Themselves Series

The Bible doesn’t say, “Preach without ceasing.” It doesn’t say sing without ceasing.” It says “Pray without ceasing.” I think when the disciples said to Jesus, “Teach us to pray”, notice they didn’t just say, “Teach us what to pray.” In think what they were saying was, “Teach us to have you passion for prayer. We understand from being with you that what drives you and motivates you is your prayer life with God. Teach us to have a passion to pray like you do. And right out that grew to the two parables on prayer. About the guy who wanted bread in the middle of the night. I’ll sum up that parable in three words: DON’T GIVE UP!

The main thing Jesus taught about prayer was this: Don’t Give Up! Keep praying. We need to be like Jacob. Remember? He saw an angel of the Lord at the brook Jabbok. And he wrestled with him all night. And do you remember the angel in the morning said, “Let me go.” And what did Jacob say in Gen. 32:26, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Church, I challenge you to pray that way. I challenge for you to pray for God to come powerfully to Puerto Rico to touch the lives of the people in this community and say, “God, I’m not going to give up until it comes.” Bombard heaven until the answer comes.

III. THIRD: TURN FROM YOUR EVIL WAYS

STORY: Wife goes with husband to doctor. Not good, husband has but one week to live. Extend time by cooking, rubbing feet, back, take to baseball games, fishing, etc. Be as affectionate as when you were first married. This might extend his life. “Honey, what did doctor say?” He said you’ve got one week to live.

You see many people do not get healed, not because their condition is incurable, but their not healed because they do not want to follow the doctors orders. And I want to suggest to you that many nations are not healed for the same reason. God is his word has said clearly, “I am the Great Physician and I can heal the land.” The question really is do we want to follow the doctors orders. Because here’ what they are 2 Chronicles 7:14. READ.

The issue is not whether or not God can heal a land. The issue is whether the people will swallow the prescription and the last pill is the hardest of all. The first piece of medicine wasn’t easy: humbling ourselves is not something we do readily. The second was no easier to swallow: Pray and earnestly seek the face of God. But the third pill is the hardest of all to get down: We must turn from our wicked ways, and God says “Then, after you turn, then will I hear.”

We arrogantly assume we can turn our backs on God and it will not affect our communication with him. And what we forget is that when we choose sin God turns his back on us. God will not look at sin. That’s why on the cross his own son, as the sky went dark, screamed, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” What Jesus feared most about the cross was not the pain of the nails or the taunts and insults of the crowd. What made him tremble was the thought that when sin was on him, God would turn his back. God will not look at sin, even when it is on his own son. And until America, and until you and I come to grips with that basic truth, we won’t have revival. Because we won’t have revival until God comes & God is going to turn back when we turn around.