Experiencing the Power of God
When I think of great men of prayer, men who accomplished great things for God, I think of Elijah. Here is a man who called down fire from heaven, brought a widow’s son back to life, ran faster than a horse, traveled 40 days and 40 nights on the strength of one meal. When he came to the widow’s house he told her to feed him and when she did, here jar of flour and oil did not run dry until the famine was over. He personally and boldly stood up to the wicked King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. This man didn’t even die. When it was his time to go, a chariot of fire came down and took him up to heaven in a whirlwind.
We know that Moses parted the Red Sea so that the millions of people of Israel could pass through and escape Pharaoh’s army. We know that Joshua parted the Jordan River so that the Israelite armies could cross over, together with the people, to conquer the Promised Land. But we are less familiar, I think, with a third example of parting water in the Bible. Did you know there was a third? It’s recorded in 2 Kings 2. This time the water didn’t part so that millions of people could escape a fierce army. This time the water didn’t part so that the Armies of Israel could possess the Promised Land. This time, Elijah parted the water of the Jordan River just so he and Elisha, just two men, could go across and meet with god. That amazes me. There wasn’t a crisis like before where the water had to parted or there would be terrible consequences. It was simply that the Man of God had to go to the other side of the river. Now that is a powerful life. If ever a man moved in and understood the power of God, it must have been Elijah.
Now, I intentionally didn’t mention one of Elijah’s greatest miracles before, because I want to look in depth at that miracle. In 1 Kings 17, Scripture records that Elijah went before King Ahab and prophesied that it would not rain in Israel for several years, until Elijah said so. The Israelites had turned to worshipping Baal instead of Jehovah. Now Baal was a storm god or a fertility god. The idea was that Baal sent rain so that there would be a bountiful harvest. And Elijah just went to the king and basically said, “You have defied the Lord and turned to this rain god, so God is going to take away your rain.” What authority he spoke with, what confidence. You don’t go before a king and tell him something like that unless you’re absolutely certain that it’s going to happen.
Now, you may be thinking that all of these miracles are grated, “Praise God,” but what does it have to do with us? We are not Elijah. And, in fact, that is how a lot of people think. E sang a song when I was a kid, “Lord, send some more Elijah’s to pray the fire down.” And someone once said, “Oh where is the Lord God of Elijah?”
But let me share with you a secret about Elijah, from
James 5:17,18 17 Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for the next three and a half years! 18 Then he prayed for rain, and down it poured. The grass turned green, and the crops began to grow again.
Did you hear that? Elijah was not special. He didn’t have something that the rest of us don’t have. He was just an ordinary man who was a servant a most extraordinary God. He was a man who understood prayer. He understood just what James had said in the pervious verses,
James 5:13-16 13 Are any among you suffering? They should keep on praying about it. And those who have reason to be thankful should continually sing praises to the Lord. 14 Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And their prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make them well. And anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. 16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results.
Now, I’m not suggesting that you take this discovery and say, “Well I’m the same as Elijah, so let me go split the Neponset River.” First, we have bridges now, so I’m not sure God would split the river for you. Second, I’m not saying that there was not a process involved that brought Elijah to where he was. Power like that doesn’t just come overnight. However, what we can see clearly here is that there was nothing inherently special about Elijah. He was just as human as the rest of us. And if we as individuals, and we as a church, want to experience the kind of power that Elijah had, I believe there are some principles that we can glean from the life of Elijah.
Now, I’m not talking about power for the sake of power. And I’m not talking about miracles for the sake of fame. If someone had the kind of power today that Elijah had, they would start a huge televangelism program. They would want everyone to see the great miracles that they can perform. But let me be honest with you. I think the world has seen enough magic shows on TV. The world is not impressed by magicians and showmen. What I’m talking about is Kingdom Power. I’m talking about taking a stand, and unpopular stand, for Jesus Christ in a world that hates everything godly. I’m talking about waging an all-out war on the Kingdom of Darkness. And I’m talking about recognizing that if the church is ever going to make a difference in our world, it isn’t going to be only through our fantastic programs, and our large missionary budgets. It isn’t going to be by our great education or attracting the most skilled orators. It’s going to be nothing less than us as a body walking daily in the power of God. Knowing that we are treading in waters that we cannot survive in on our own. I’m talking about Kingdom Power.
This is the first principle that we can learn from Elijah’s life. The power that Elijah experienced through prayer was for a purpose. The purpose was always related to the ministry of Elijah. If Elijah didn’t go before King Ahab and Queen Jezebel to make his claims about the Lord being God, he never would have stopped the rain. What good would it have done. He never would have called down fire on the Mt. Carmel, if he hadn’t first proclaimed that the Lord was God. God doesn’t give us his power to play around. God doesn’t give us his power for our own benefit, although sometimes he does use his power for our benefit, like when he heals us. But he doesn’t give us his power for us. He gives us his power to be his witnesses.
Acts 1:8, But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me everywhere – in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
I’m not talking about the kind of power that says, “Hey, everybody look at me. I can move a mountain with my faith.” Who cares? We can all move mountains… we call it dynamite. Or we can watch David Copperfield on TV make the Statue of Liberty disappear. That’s good for nothing but entertainment. I’m talking about the kind of power that says, “I am on Kingdom business. Mountain get out of my way!” This is just what Elijah did with the Jordan River. He didn’t call a huge crowd over to see this great feat. It was just a part of life. God wanted him on the other side of the river. The river was in the way, so he parted it.
Matthew 17:20 Jesus told them. "I assure you, even if you had faith as small as a mustard seed you could say to this mountain, ’Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible."
Now a lot of people, even Pentecostals, don’t really believe this. They may point out that we have no historical record of anybody moving a mountain into the sea by their faith. But my response to that is simple: “Jesus said it!” If we believe that Jesus speaks the truth, then the fact that nobody has ever had enough faith (or maybe the need) to do it shouldn’t bother us. This is something I learned a long time ago. A lot of people misunderstand and even twist some things that the Bible says, but we cannot abandon the truth, simply because nobody else has gotten it right. Now, I’m not going to leave here today and go up to New Hampshire and tell Mt. Washington to move. I’m not suggesting that you do it either. Mt. Washington isn’t in the way of God’s work, and don’t forget God’s power isn’t about miracles just to show off the power. The point here is that if we’re seeking for God to do something big and miraculous for show, we shouldn’t hold our breath. But when we are doing God’s work, when we are doing Kingdom Work, I believe that we can expect the supernatural.
We need to realize this. What are we doing here in Boston? If we’re just here to sing a few songs, hear some sermons, and see some powerful signs, then we’re useless. We are here to build God’s kingdom. Right now, Boston is a stronghold of the Kingdom of Darkness. WE ARE WAGING WAR ON SATAN’S KINGDOM IN BOSTON. And in order to win that war, we are going to need to move not only in the natural realm, but in the supernatural realm as well.
#2, While we don’t actually have a glowing report of just how righteous Elijah was in Kings, we do know that he stood for God when nobody else did. We also know that
James 5:16 says, “The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results.
The greatest miracle of all is the new life that we live in Jesus Christ – a life of righteousness. Even greater than moving a mountain into the sea,
Psalm 103:12, He has removed our rebellious acts as far away from us as the east is from the west.
We are not righteous because we are strong enough or good enough to do it, but because God promises that with the help of the Holy Spirit we can do it. Now, it stands to reason that if you haven’t been able to apply of the power of God to your own life, you probably haven’t learned how to apply it to mountains yet either.
I’m not saying that you have to be perfect before you can accomplish powerful things for God. If that were the case then only Jesus Christ could have accomplished anything. But at the same time you can’t just live your life any old way you please all week long and then come Sunday you expect the power of God to just flow through you. Oh, you may say a little confessional prayer to God, but in your heart you know that tomorrow morning you’re going right back to where you were.
It’s like the kid the week before Christmas. He thinks that if he’s bad, Santa Claus won’t bring him anything. So he starts to act real good for a week. He makes his bed. He doesn’t hit his little brother or sister. He does all the things a good little boy should do. But that boy has no intention of remaining good. He knows that come December 26, he can be as bad as he wants to, because Santa already left the presents. He doesn’t have to be good again until about the week before Easter. His goal is not to become good, but instead it’s to act good until… Usually he’s already thinking ahead to the time when he can go back to normal.
Many times we act the same way with God. I know, because I’ve done it before. We want something from God, so we try to act righteous for a while. Our heart really wants to do something that’s wrong, but we’re afraid that if we do it, we won’t get what we want from God. So, we don’t do it, but really in our hearts, we’re thinking, “Okay, after the Sunday service, or after prayer and fasting, or after this trial passes, I can do what I want to again.”
Well, God doesn’t work that way. I know that living a righteous life is difficult. And
1 John 1:9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.
If you sincerely repent before God, he will forgive you. But God isn’t interested in lip service. He isn’t interested in us “acting” righteous. He’s interested in making us to BECOME righteous.
#3 Okay, now we’ve seen the purpose for the miraculous. We’ve seen the necessity of righteousness. Now, the question is, how do we get results? Is there some formula that we use? If we say some particular words a certain number of times will we get results? NO. Christianity isn’t witchcraft. The principle that I think we can get from Elijah’s life, the rest of Scripture, and from historical proof is PERSISTENCE.
When I was in high school, I heard all kinds of stories about the great revivals that took place in America. I heard all about the great things God had done in the past. And I even believed that God could still do the same things. However, I didn’t see any of those things happening in the church. We would pray for people and they wouldn’t get healed. I wondered why? Then one day we had a testimony service in the church. I thought the really old people, the over 60 crowd, would tell us all kinds of amazing stories. I was amazed that most of the testimonies came from people who were about 30 or 40. One story really hit home with me and helped me to answer my question. A man in the church, who I had known for years, told his story. I’m going to tell it as best as I can remember. The small details may be different, but the main points are still the same. When he was a kid he was hit by a car. His head was so badly damaged that they thought he would be a vegetable, or at least mentally retarded, the rest of his life. That night, and here’s the secret, the believers gathered together in the church and prayed all night for him. And he was healed. Today he is the missions director at the church. I’m not picking on that particular church. It’s a great church. But as far as the church in general of today, I think that the reason we see less of the power of God is that we pray less for the power of God. Nowadays our response to hearing about someone in a car accident is that we may say a line or two in our prayer about it. If we think about it in passing we may mention it. Would you believe that there have been some preachers who have said that if you pray more than once for something, you don’t have faith. That’s ridiculous. Let’s read about Elijah’s prayer for the rain to return.
1 Kings 18:41-45 41 Then Elijah said to Ahab, "Go and enjoy a good meal! For I hear a mighty rainstorm coming!" 42 So Ahab prepared a feast. But Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel and fell to the ground and prayed. 43 Then he said to his servant, "Go and look out toward the sea." The servant went and looked, but he returned to Elijah and said, "I didn’t see anything." Seven times Elijah told him to go and look, and seven times he went. 44 Finally the seventh time, his servant told him, "I saw a little cloud about the size of a hand rising from the sea." Then Elijah shouted, "Hurry to Ahab and tell him, ’Climb into your chariot and go back home. If you don’t hurry, the rain will stop you!’" 45 And sure enough, the sky was soon black with clouds. A heavy wind brought a terrific rainstorm, and Ahab left quickly for Jezreel.
We could look so many places in Scripture and see the same principle. Now, while the number seven does have significance at times in the Bible, and it may here, that’s not the secret. It’s not that you pray seven times for everything and then it will come. The principle here is that Elijah kept praying until the results came. He didn’t pray one time and then when his servant didn’t see the clouds, quit praying and say, “Oh well it must not have been God’s will.” He got back on his face before God and he prayed again. And again. And again. He prayed until the answer came. I think that if on the seventh try, the servant still saw no rain, Elijah would have prayed an eighth time. And a ninth if necessary. Elijah knew how to keep praying until the answer came.
I don’t pretend to know everything. And one thing I don’t know is that if God is all-powerful, why doesn’t he answer our prayer the first time? Or if it’s God’s will anyway, why doesn’t he just do it? Those are questions I may never know the answer too. But this one thing I do know. I can read the Bible and see when people persisted in bringing their requests before God, they got results. Thankfully, we don’t have to have complete intellectual understanding of everything to put it to work for us. I don’t have to know why or how. I just have to know that if I keep knocking on heaven’s door, I will get an answer.
When I was in Bible College, I heard this story probably a hundred times. It came from the president of my school, and it happened when he was still a young preacher. He was holding crusades one time and on Saturday night they didn’t have a meeting, but there was a Salvation Army church with a meeting, so he went. As the service was about to end, he slipped out. When he went by the alley near the church, he heard someone crying. So he went into the alley, and he saw that there was a man there sobbing, who was obviously a little drunk. The pastor asked him what was wrong and the man told him his problems. The pastor suggested that he could go into the church with him and that Jesus could take care of his problems. But the man said that he had gone into the church on several occasions and had tried to find deliverance from alcohol. After a short time praying at the altar, each time someone would say something like, “Brahm, old boy, you’ve got it. Take it by faith.” But he said, I’ve never got it. The pastor told him to go in and pray with him and he would pray until he got it. So they went inside and the people started praying for him. Sure enough after a while someone said, “Brahm, old boy, you’ve got it, take it by faith.” But this time the pastor said, “No, he doesn’t have it. We need to keep praying.” Well the prayed for a while longer, and the man who locked up the building really needed to get home. So, the pastor asked if anyone had a house they could go to. They went to someone’s house and continued praying. It was about 2 a.m. when Brahm jumped up and said, “I’ve got it. I’ve got it.”
We call that “praying through.” So many times, Brahm had tried and tried to find deliverance, but so many times he quit praying before he got it. Then he had to go all the way back to square one. If only years earlier he had prayed through he could have avoided all that pain and misery and sin. I still don’t pretend to understand why. Why didn’t God set him free the instant he asked? I’m still not sure of the answer to this question. But I know that persevering in prayer until the answer came worked.
To shed a little light on the topic, let’s read
Daniel 10:12, 13 12 Then he said, "Don’t be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day you began to pray for understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your request has been heard in heaven. I have come in answer to your prayer. 13 But for twenty-one days the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the archangels, came to help me, and I left him there with the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia.
Daniel had prayed to God for understanding, and 21 days later he still hadn’t heard any results. There are many times when people prayed a long time for something, but this is the only time I think that we hear the reason for the delay. The messenger had to break through some strongholds to come with the answer. Now, when you look around this city, you can see a lot of wickedness. You can see that it is an enemy stronghold. We’re storming a center of enemy activity. Things may not come easy. But if we persist in seeking before God, we will prevail.
You know, a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking about this. I was thinking about how hard it is, evangelizing here in Boston. There are so many hindrances to the Gospel here. People are busy because it’s hard to take care of a family here. Young people are more interested in education and finding what they think is success than in the Gospel. And there are lots of spiritual problems too. I’ll be praying for someone and sharing the Gospel with them and I will find out all of these things, and I begin to see why it’s so difficult. And I thought about it, and I wondered, are we going to have to fight so hard for every one of them. Where are the easy fish to catch? And then the Lord revealed something to me. The ones that we have to fight so hard for, the one’s we have to literally wrestle from the grasp of the enemy; they’re the ones worth saving. The ones that are so entangled in this world, and sin, and problems, and confusion are the ones that Jesus came for. The Bible says that we are like sheep and the enemy is like a roaring lion. He goes around looking for one to devour. The lion is on the prowl; he’s already got a sheep in his mouth. We can rescue all the other sheep and bring them inside the pen, but that doesn’t help the poor sheep that’s in the lion’s mouth. “God is not willing that ANY should perish.” It is our responsibility as believers, to grab the lion by it’s mane and snatch that sheep right out of its jaws.”
Right now we’re small in number. We’re willing to fight hard for each individual. But even now I want to challenge all of us to resolve that even when we’re big, we won’t become comfortable. When we have hundreds of people, and then thousands of people coming every Sunday (I hope not still in this room), will we still be willing to grab the enemy by the horns and rescue one of God’s sheep from his mouth? I hope and I pray that we will.
Some wish to live within the sound of church or chapel bell;
I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell. C.T. Studd.
I hope that is our desire as well. I hope that we have a love for people that constrains us to rescue them from the pits of sin. But I have to tell you that if we want to do that, it’s going to take a lot more work than those within the sound of church or chapel bell. The good news is that when we engage in this kind of warfare against the enemy, God will be faithful and he will come through. We will see his power in ways that we have never imagined. The less-good news is that we’ll have to work hard to accomplish these results. We’ll have to spend many days and nights on our faces before God, praying for strongholds to be broken.
Matthew 17:18-21 18 And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" 20 So Jesus said to them, "Because of your unbelief; F82 for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ’Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. 21 However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting."
c. 2001
