Bobby Chandler - Prayer Works
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I have to tell you I am ready to preach. I have come prepared. I'm ready to start a brand-new series titled "Communicating with God." Communicating with God because we need to grow in hearing the Father's voice right now more than ever. Because, like we just talked about, let’s be honest, you may be feeling weak and tired just from this week. It is a sad thing to look at the division that’s happening right now within our country. It can be scary to a lot of people. Maybe you have felt fear. Maybe you have felt anger. Maybe you just don't know what to do.
A lot of people are asking, especially within ministry, and asking pastors, "What is the future for America? What is the future for our country? What is God going to do? What do we do as believers in a time such as this?" Because even though we believe in the glory of Christ, it is very easy to give in to our own flesh. It is very easy to listen to all the voices around you, and when you listen to everybody else, what happens? You feel tired. You feel drained. You feel like you’ve got nothing left in the tank.
What I’m noticing right now is that many believers are just sick and tired. They’re tired of a chaotic election and not knowing who to trust. They’re tired of losing loved ones and feeling like they can't be around loved ones, and they just don't know what to do when they’re praying for other people and they’re seeing good friends maybe pass away or in the hospital right now, and you just don't know what steps to take. Sometimes I feel like right now the culture condemns you no matter what you do and no matter what you decide because people don't know what is right. They don’t know what to do. Even as believers we feel like the enemy is attacking in such a way that everybody is divided.
What I’ve seen right now is that there are people so fearful because we are seeing biblical signs take place right before our eyes. And though I get excited about the return of Jesus, a lot of people—I get it—are scared to death of that. "Are we getting close to that time, pastor? What do we do? I don't know. I feel scared. I feel like I never know what the right decision is. I don't know who to trust. I don't know where to go."
No matter what is happening in our country, in our world, or in your environment, you can always trust God. I’m telling you right now, you need to realize that because He is the one that will set us free. He is the only one that will bring salvation. And on that special day, on that day, every knee shall bow and every eye shall see the glory of the Lord. And guess what? We’re on His team! We’re on His team!
So I want to encourage you with this: We do not know what tomorrow will bring, but God will never be surprised. We do not know what tomorrow will bring, but God will never be surprised. Let’s look at Isaiah chapter 42: Isaiah 42:8-9. I love how He declares this. God says, “I am the Lord; that is my name. I will not give my glory to anyone else, nor share my praise with carved idols.” There is no man or idol that can compare. There is no leader that can compare. There is no pastor that can compare. There is no politician that can compare to the glory of Jesus Christ because He is the only one that can save us and bring true hope into our lives today.
And God says everything that I have prophesied will come true. And now I prophesy again. I love this. God says, “I will tell you the future before it even happens.” See, God knows the future because He planned the future. God knows what tomorrow will bring because He’s already written it out. Meaning we don’t know what’s going to happen, but we know we can trust the Lord because He is in complete control. And there’s peace there. And when you start to understand that, then the worries of the world start to go away.
See, I told one of our leaders this morning, “I don’t want to fear the world. I want to fear God, and I want to trust Him because I’ve seen Him do miraculous things before. And even now He will direct His people and He will guide us in everything we face.” But a lot of people right now are saying this phrase, and I’ve caught myself too: “Man, Satan must be attacking harder. It seems like everywhere I go, things just happen.” Maybe it’s personal right now. Your car just broke down, and there’s another bill that you didn’t see coming, and something’s happening in your job, and it’s like one thing after another. Man, Satan is really attacking me right now.
For some of us, we’re looking at the country, and we’re looking at the events unfolding right before our eyes, and we’re saying, “Man, Satan is really attacking us all right now. Something is taking place.” But a pastor brought this statement, and he challenged his congregation. He said, “When did Satan ever slow down?” He got me there! When did Satan never slow down? Because when we look at God’s word from the very beginning with Adam and Eve, Satan was always relentless in his attacks against the children of God. Day and night he is seeking new ways to torment you and make you believe that there is no hope. Every single day he’s trying to get inside of your head, which means that we are facing a spiritual war around us, and a lot of us don’t know how to fight the true battle. We don’t know what to do.
Revelation chapter 12, verse 10 says, “For the accuser,” talking about Satan, “the accuser of our brothers and our sisters has been thrown down to earth.” First of all, he has no power against God; he was thrown down, okay? He didn’t choose that, but he accuses them; he accuses us before God day and night. So it’s not that Satan isn’t attacking harder; it’s not that he is attacking harder, but that the attacks are hitting targets because the church has forgotten how to communicate with God. The church has forgotten how to communicate with God. Or maybe a lot of us with good hearts just don’t know. “I don’t know the voice of the Father. I don’t know when I should hear from Him. I don’t even know how to pray.” There are a lot of people that say, “Hello, I don’t like prayer because I don’t know what to say.”
And we’re looking at it like it’s a competition, and we’re looking at other people and think, “Man, they just say those really nice words and they get all into it, and they raise their hands, and I’m over here like, ‘God, thank you for this food. Amen.’ You know, was that good? Was that powerful?” I’ve noticed that a lot of people just don’t know how to talk to God. And so if we don’t know how to talk to God, then how are we going to hear from God?
And in moments like this, when we see chaos after chaos after chaos, a lot of us are fearful because we don’t know what steps to take because we are not dwelling in the presence of God. And if I were to ask you right now, how many of you believe in the power of prayer? I believe the entire church would raise their hands, and I believe all of us would shout, at least I would hope so. But at the same time, a lot of us are having trouble finding the time just to pray, just to be in the presence of God. We’re so busy with life. We’re so busy with work. We’re so busy with where we gotta go and what we gotta post and what people have to see in us that by the time we get home, instead of filling our minds with His peace, we fill it with chaos from the world. And we scroll and we flip channels and we ignore what God actually wants to speak within our own life.
And people are asking right now, “Pastor, what is going to happen to the church? You know if we’re really getting to the end days or if we’re getting closer to that time, what is going to happen to the church?” Because I’m really fearful of this. And let me tell you right now, there’s nothing to be afraid of. From the very beginning of time, the church has always faced opposition. The church has faced attacks, and we will continue to fight opposition and attacks on the glory of Christ. But listen to this: as long as the church is here, the plans of Satan will never be fully accomplished. Let me say that again: as long as the church is here, the plans of Satan will never be fully accomplished.
Why? Because Satan has no power over the church. He can attack it, but he can’t stop it. He can bring opposition. He can try to divide it, but he’s not going to be able to take us out. Why? Because we serve God, and there’s a purpose in that. And God will reveal His glory no matter what Satan tries to do against us. Look at this; this is fascinating to me—2 Thessalonians 2:6-7. And you know what is holding him back. Now with this passage, it’s talking about the Antichrist or Satan, “for he can be revealed only when his time comes.” For this lawlessness is already at work secretly, and it will remain secret until guess what? Until the one who is holding it back steps out of the way.
Now, who is the one holding back the Antichrist? Who is the one holding back the power of Satan? So in the Greek, the word one here actually means the people of God. In other words, the church—the people of God. The church is the one holding back Satan from fulfilling his plans, from revealing the Antichrist. And here’s where it gets good: the only way the church is going to be removed is by the rapture of going into the presence of God—the rapture.
Now it’s funny when I say the rapture; sometimes people are like, “Yes!” and some people are like, “I don’t know if I’m ready for that. You know, I’ve got some things to work out.” Listen, whether you’re ready or not, when is the time? It’s going to happen. So where is your heart today? Where is God leading you? This is good news. This is not something to be afraid of. What God is saying is, “I’m going to rescue you. You are my child. Be a light in the darkness, and when that time comes, whoo, I’m coming in.” Because nobody else can save you like I can, and I’m here for you.
In fact, the power of the church holds back Satan and his plans. That’s powerful stuff. 1 Thessalonians 4:17, “We who are still alive and remain on this earth will be caught up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. No more tears, no more pain, no more division, but brothers and sisters in Christ completely.”
And I started to pray about this because church, don’t you see that right now is a time not to look like the rest of the world? It’s a time not to condemn but to show the love of Christ. And if you follow us on social media, you saw that just this week I wrote some words that in this time right now we have to understand who the real enemy is because otherwise we’re always going to fight people, and that’s the wrong person. See, Satan is always trying to bring distractions into your life. You’ll notice that when the biggest miracle is about to come and God’s about to do something, he starts to attack your family. He starts to attack personal relationships.
Now, all of a sudden, I’m so involved in this that I’m distracted about what God is really trying to get me to do, right? And so we see this a lot. It’s the same way; Satan wants to distract us from what he’s doing behind the scenes. But here’s what’s powerful: God will always reveal His truth to His people. We had a series a while back, and I think one of the titles of the message was “You’re Not in the Dark.” You will never be in the dark, for God is the light. Amos 3:7 says, “Indeed, the Sovereign Lord never does anything until He reveals His plans to His servants the prophets.” God will speak to you. He will bring you peace. Whatever it is that you’re worried about right now, you better believe God will reach you, and it will tug on your heart.
But a lot of us are so distracted in life, we just go, we just go, we just go, we just go, we just go. “I believe in the power of prayer,” but I’m not seeing it because I’m not doing it. It’s convicting for us all, even me. It’s hard sometimes in life with just busyness to not get caught up in the flesh. But who do you serve? What is the purpose of you being here today? God wants to use you, and that’s powerful and that’s good news. It doesn’t matter what you’ve been through; God wants to use you today.
So I believe that right now with this series, we desperately need to grow in our communication with God. It’s going to be a deep series. Today we’re going to cover prayer, but over the next few weeks we’re going to cover visions, we’re going to cover dreams, and we’re going to talk about the Holy Spirit, and we’re going to talk about the power of God and how He reveals to us what is coming and how to act. And for that, we will always rejoice in the goodness of our Lord. My title for today’s sermon is this: It’s simple but it’s powerful—“Prayer Works.” Prayer Works.
I want to answer two questions for us today: How powerful is prayer, and what will it accomplish in my life? How powerful is prayer, and what will it accomplish in my life? And so today it’s going to be good. I want to talk about two miraculous stories out of the Bible, and we’re going to turn to Mark chapter five, and then afterwards we’re going to look at Daniel chapter ten. Okay? So Mark chapter five and Daniel chapter ten—both of these are powerful, miraculous stories of the authority of God.
In Mark chapter five, in this passage, Jesus has just traveled to Gadara. And as He arrives—Gadara is one of the top ten cities of Greece in the times of Christ—okay? So this is a big city; it’s a well-known city. Jesus just arrived, and as soon as He steps into Gadara, all of a sudden, He encounters a demon-possessed man. Now, this may be a story you’ve heard before. I’ve preached on it before.
But I want to show you something new out of this today. So again, this is out of Mark chapter five, and it will also be on the screen. We’re going to look at verses two through five, New Living Translation. This is what it states: “When Jesus climbed out of the boat, a man possessed by an evil spirit came out from the tombs to meet Him. Now, this man lived in the burial caves and could no longer be restrained. Whenever he was put into chains from his wrists, he would smash the chains and break the shackles upon his wrists."
So just imagine how fearful people were of this man, right? Imagine how you would look at him and say, “Okay, something is wrong with him. I don’t want to be near him. He’s done something wrong in his life. This is a problem.” And the scripture tells us he literally had almost superhuman strength because he was so possessed he was terrifying.
Listen to the details: “Day and night he wandered among the burial caves and in the hills, howling and cutting himself with sharp stones.” Now pay attention to this. It is always a demonic strategy for you to hurt yourself. Okay? Let me make that clear. It is always a demonic strategy for you to hurt yourself.
And I feel like we’ve all fallen under this trap. No matter what we’ve gone through, sometimes it’s how you think about yourself and how you speak about yourself. If you’re constantly saying that nothing’s going to change, you’re nobody, God doesn’t love you, who is that from? Because that’s not what God’s word says about you. And so it’s a demonic influence; he wants you to believe that there is no hope and that you can’t keep moving forward.
But also, especially cutting your wrists—it is influenced by demons. It was a pagan practice out of the Old Testament, and we see it today. Why? Because the enemy always wants to attack the blood, because the blood represents life. All right? And the enemy wants to attack yourself; he wants you to take yourself out of the game and say it’s over and say it’s done.
Why? Listen to me, because you’re a threat! You’re a threat to the enemy. You’re a threat! It is through you that God wants to use you to save people and rejoice in His goodness. But also, this—the ideas of suicide—it is all demonic to take you out. And sometimes it’s really hard; we look at our situation, we look at our life, and we feel hopeless. It feels like, “What are we doing? We’re wasting time.” No, there’s a reason you’re here; there’s a reason that you have made it this far.
Do not be troubled today because you don’t have all the answers, all right? God loves you, and He is with you. It is a demonic strategy for you to hurt yourself. This man, like I said, okay, from our eyes, we would say, “All right, something is wrong with him. He is scary.” But from the eyes of Christ, all right—from the eyes of God, this man was a victim. He was a victim! He was being controlled by the enemy completely, like many of us. We face these attacks: the enemy is always trying to control your mind and what you do and what decisions you make.
But he was fully possessed, and in verse 7 it says, “As he saw Jesus, he screamed at Him and said, ‘Why are you interfering with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?’” Now what I love about this part is because right before you heard about his superhuman strength, but all of a sudden when he sees Jesus, these so-called tough demons start pleading to Jesus. “Hey, please don’t hurt us! I beg you. Do not torture me!” Because they know the authority of God.
And that alone should give you confidence to trust God no matter what you’re facing, no matter how scary or how big. In Mark chapter 5, verses 9 and 10, Jesus demanded, “What is your name?” I want to know your name. And he replied, “My name is Legion, because there are many of us inside this man.”
Now we’ve gone over the definition of Legion. It means that it actually could mean about 6,000 soldiers, demonic soldiers in this case, or even more. All right? So it doesn’t stop at 6,000; it can keep going. So, 6,000, which also means it tells us this: that there was a leader over these 6,000 demonic soldiers living inside of this man, and this is what Jesus has encountered.
Now again, think about that: an army of 6,000 pleading to Jesus—“Hey! Be merciful with us! Don’t torture us!” And then something in verse 10 really caught my attention, and I want to show you something new today if you’ve never seen this before. But in verse 10, the evil spirits begged Him again and again and said, “Do not send us to some distant place.”
Now, I’ve read that before, and I’ve kept going; because I think as a child hearing this story, I always imagined somewhere small, maybe out in the country, and it made no difference. Okay? But when you actually look at the text and realize this is one of the major cities of Greece in this time, all right, that this is a big problem.
And then I looked at other translations, and other translations make this a little more clear of what they were begging from Jesus, okay? And it shows us why as a church we need to pray more. Let me show you two versions. The Amplified Version states it like this: that the demons pleaded to Jesus and said, “Do not send us out of the region.” Okay? So not just the area, but do not send us out of the region.
In the King James Version, the demons told Jesus, “Please do not send us out of the country.” Now, why? One of the major cities of Greece—don’t send us out of the country! Don’t send us out of the region! Why? What does this reveal to us? That Satan has a demonic army that wants to run cities, regions, and areas, even countries.
See, here’s what’s good about that, though—Satan is not God! He can’t be everywhere at once. He doesn’t have that power, okay? So he needs a demonic army, this hierarchy of demons helping him. And he’s got certain ones with more power over control over countries and cities, and then he’s got his other demons just doing the works that attack us personally. Okay? Bringing temptation into your life, making you doubt who you are.
He has all these tricks, but none of his tricks have changed since the very beginning because that’s all he has. And God has always given us the answer. See, again, this is good news: God will direct us when we pray; when we hear from the Lord, He is doing something powerful.
So this is revealing to us right now that Satan had an army running this city—one of the major cities of Greece. And he set up a stronghold until Jesus showed up, and then it was broken. And then this big bad army pleaded with Jesus, “Don’t send us out of here; we have a stronghold here! We have an army here! We are trying to run this place!” But they had no authority when Jesus showed up.
And so grasping this, I want you to understand that biblically, demons want control over regions and countries. This is something that they desire. This is something that the enemy wants to do. This is part of his spiritual warfare strategy against us.
And now understanding this, turn to Daniel chapter 10. Daniel chapter 10 is where it gets good. It’s already been good, but it gets better. Okay? This explains to me and the church why we need to pray harder and why we need to trust the Lord, okay?
When you turn here, or as you turn here, also listen to this: Ephesians chapter 6, verse 12. Let me remind you who we fight against. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. I’m going to say that again: We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Have you noticed something about this passage? All of it’s plural—all of it’s plural. Principalities, powers, rulers—all in plural form. Again, because Satan can’t be everywhere at once.
But in Daniel chapter 10, it’s one of my favorite stories because Daniel has been praying, and he’s been fasting for 21 days. If you’ve ever heard of the Daniel fast, this is where they get it from. And he’s been asking the Lord about a revelation that he received. He needs answers. And so he’s humbling himself before God.
But also imagine, right? Imagine waiting 21 days, and it still feels like no answer. Because a lot of us get mad when it’s the next day. “My God, I’ve been praying! I prayed like once yesterday, and that was even before my meal. I’m doing better. Why aren’t you answering me?” Right? It’s been a week! Come on, God! I still don’t know what to do! But by two weeks in, a lot of us just give up. “Where’s your faith? Believe the impossible!”
And I’m going to show you the spiritual war that takes place around us that we don’t see all the time and we don’t know that is happening, okay? So in Daniel chapter 10, like I said, he’s praying and fasting for 21 days. The archangel Gabriel shows up. Now, Gabriel visits Daniel, and he explains some amazing details about the unseen war around us.
But first, let’s ask this question: Have you ever wondered what Gabriel looks like? Go ahead and raise your hand if you’ve ever wondered what the archangel Gabriel looks like. Because in this passage, it actually gives us a description, and I want to go over this with you because I thought it was really cool.
And I’m going to read the Amplified Version of this: Daniel chapter 10, verse 6. “His body was like beryl.” Okay? Now, this is a stone. I do have a picture of beryl, if we could put that on the screen. This is beryl. So it says, “His body was like the stone beryl.” Also, this stone represents power. Okay? It’s been used in good ways in the ancient world; it’s also been used for pagan witchcraft as well because they know that it represents power, and it also doesn’t have to be blue. Okay? It could be many different colors; it could even be colorless.
Now, out of this passage, it tells us that the beryl had a golden luster, which means that Gabriel had this type of appearance but yet a golden shine around him. All right? And so it’s really powerful to see this. So picture this in your head.
And then he continues. Now, when I give you this description, you’re going to understand why Gabriel had to say so many times, “Hey, don’t be afraid. It’s okay. I’m from the Lord.” Okay? Don’t be afraid! “His face had the appearance of lightning, and his eyes were like flaming torches. His arms and his feet gleamed like burnished bronze, and the sound of his words—this is what was fascinating to me—was like the noise of a multitude of people.”
Now imagine the power and the authority as he speaks—a multitude of people—or it says like the roaring of the sea. That is how powerful the archangel Gabriel is. But again, he serves the Lord! So imagine how powerful our Lord really is. Because a lot of us have seen those pictures in those paintings where Jesus has like the feathered hair and he’s on the cross and he looks so gentle and he loves us and he humbled himself to be here, but do not forget the power of Christ!
This is one angel, and Jesus said, “If I wanted to, I could call down a thousand to protect me and fight for me.” One archangel. According to the scripture, we know about three. You’re actually going to hear about another one out of this passage of scripture, but then he explains to Daniel about this invisible war. See, this is what’s so powerful as well because a lot of us—we’re praying, and we’re praying, and we’re praying. We’re asking God, “Why aren’t you answering me? Why am I not hearing from you?” Right?
And Gabriel was explaining what took place. Daniel 10:12 says, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day you began to pray for understanding and to humble yourself before God, your request has been heard in heaven.” Think about that! The very first day—21 days—the very first day your prayer was heard! God heard you! Your prayer didn’t get overlooked, right? God didn’t see it and be like, “Okay, whatever. It’s not important enough.” No, He heard you on the very first day!
But what took so long? And Gabriel explains in verse 13, “But for 21 days the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia blocked my way.” Now, you would read this and be like, “What is that?” The spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia is a demonic prince. Okay? This is one of Satan’s fallen angels, and he’s fighting over Persia. Right? Why? Because the enemy is relentless! He wants to take over countries and cities! He wants to attack the people of God! He wants to attack the church!
The very term principalities actually means “prince over a city.” That’s what principalities means! So in this case, he’s telling us about this prince of the kingdom of darkness that wants to be over Persia. And Gabriel has been fighting him, battling against him for 21 days.
And then he says, “Then Michael, one of the archangels, comes in and roundhouse kicked him in the face!” That’s my interpretation, okay? I would love to have seen that. I’m sure it looked something like that; I don’t know! All right? But one of the other archangels that we know of is Michael, and Michael shows up to help in the fight. Okay?
And then he says, “Once he came to help me, I left him there with the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia.” And Gabriel then comes to Daniel to reveal what he has seen within his own vision. But listen to this: Gabriel also told him at the end in Daniel 10:20 that soon I must return to fight against the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia. The battle is not over because after that, guess what? It just keeps coming. The spirit prince of the kingdom of Greece will come next!
Satan is relentless! He keeps attacking! But now knowing this, this is how this has to reveal to you your purpose! Because we know what it’s like to get up every single day and feel attacked over and over and over again because that’s what Satan does! But do you understand that God is fighting for you and that He has these angels ready to send them to fight a spiritual war that you don’t even see going on around you? In fact, you have no clue! When you’re having a good day, and it looks normal, you have no idea—you have no idea what God has done for you to keep you healthy, to keep you safe, to keep you okay.
And we’re looking at it like, “All right, it’s a boring day. It’s fine. Nothing happened today.” No! It’s every day! Every day, God is fighting for you! Every single day! And He says this: “No one helps me against these spirit princes, these fallen angels, except Michael, your spirit prince.” And what He’s telling Daniel right now is that you have an angel that God is fighting for you, and that you have a purpose!
And what I’m telling you right now is that you have an angel that God is fighting for you, and you have a purpose! And it’s when you feel spiritually weak, and you feel it, and it’s heavy, and you don’t have the answers that the best thing you can do is get on your knees and pray to God and encounter His presence and His love for you!
They called them a prince, but we know the Prince of Peace, and we know the King of all kings! And nobody will compare to Jesus Christ! And He loves you! And He knows you by name!
I’ve given you guys a lot of info today—a lot of depth. I hope you think it’s interesting because I love this kind of stuff. I’m a nerd at heart, okay? So just bear with me! But now I want to help you, and I want to help make sense of this in your life.
So with all this info, what can we learn about prayer? What do we need to know before we leave this place today that can help us in communicating with God? Point number one is this: There is more going on around us than we know. There is more going on around us than we know. And our way of fighting back will always be through the power of prayer.
Felix is going to punch a punching bag for a little bit today; I hope that’s okay. He’s not. Don’t worry! Thank you, Felix! I brought this up here because Christmas morning, as you can see, this is not my size, okay? So this is not for me; I’m not trying to look hard on stage or anything. This is my child’s, and on Christmas morning, my son Titus got this as a present.
And I saw him punching it over and over again and just having fun, and I noticed that my older son Micah was watching. And they’ve both been doing karate lately, and so as a dad, I’m really proud, and I can’t wait to show them like Rocky and all that kind of stuff. Now we’re finally getting in those days!
And I watched Micah look at it, and I could tell he wanted to come up and hit it as hard as he could. All right? And what’s so funny—because I was expecting this—he hit it as hard as he could, but he did not expect it to hit back. And you know he’s about this tall, so it came and hit him straight back in the face! As hard as he hit it, it came back and hit him back, and he was laughing hysterically.
And I thought it was so funny; I wish I got it on camera. Because I did have my phone out, but I started to think about that the other day. And Pastor Felix, he had my glove because a lot of us—thank you, sir; that helps a lot—a lot of us, this is what we do within the church world. We look the part. We show up to church on a Sunday. We maybe look at a Bible verse a little bit here and there. Pastor says something good, we’ll share it on social media, and we think that’s our part.
And so we look the part, and a lot of us are coming in, and we’re ready to swing at the enemy, right? But then we don’t expect him to hit back! And a lot of us don’t know what to do at this point in life! “God, I did everything right!” I’ve heard people say this, “I did everything right! I actually did something that I’ve never been able to do before. Where are you? Why aren’t you changing my life?”
And I’m telling people, “Look, this is a relationship with Christ! He’s molding you! He’s not just some genie that if you do one thing, ‘I prayed today!’ Yeah, get a golden star. No, there’s more than that! Because He wants to change your heart! It’s on the inside!”
See, in the beginning, a lot of us have said, “Okay, I gotta pray. I gotta pray.” No! God starts to mature you and mold you, that there comes a time where you’re like, “I have to pray because I’ve got nothing left! And if I don’t pray now, I know every time I punch, the enemy is going to punch back! But I gotta be ready every single time! Every time he comes at me, I’ve been prayed up, ready to go, because I know it’s not my strength!”
I could look the part. It’s funny! I was excited too, and I got these gloves, and I was playing around, hitting the air. My wife looked at me and says, “You know, you look like a little kid on Halloween that just got his costume!” I said, “Thanks for believing in me! It’s all good!”
But I don’t want to pretend, and I don’t want to say fancy prayers just to sound good. We need to be prayed up because the enemy already has a strategy after another strategy after another strategy. He’s ready to attack after an attack after an attack! But what I’m telling you today is God is already ten steps ahead of him! And it’s when we pray—it’s when we see that—okay, God, I feel it! I feel this spiritual warfare! It’s heavy! And I’m carrying it around with me! God, I’m ready to release it! And God is saying, “Okay, listen to my voice!”
And something that I’ve done before is, as I was praying, I would write it down, what I’m hearing from God, and I would keep meditating on that! And I’d keep praying, “God, just give me confirmation!” And God would show up throughout the week and tell me, “This is really what I spoke to you, and this is what I have for you.” And you know what? It gave me such strength and confidence! Man, God really listens to my prayers!
I’ll tell you one more thing too before I get back into the word. But it’s really cool. As I was writing this, when I first got into my office, for some reason I just kind of had a headache, and I couldn’t think. And it’s like I was trying to write and I didn’t know what to do, so I just stopped and I prayed! And I believed—just like we’ve been talking about—believe the impossible!
When I said, “God, in Jesus’ name, my head will feel better and I’ll be able to think clearly,” and I promise you, right after that, all of a sudden, I was like, “Oh, that worked!” It kind of shocked me—it worked! And it almost made me teary-eyed because I realized, God does listen to me, and He listens to you! And if He listens to you over the small things, then imagine what He’s doing for you over the big things! Imagine the fight that’s going on around us!
And here’s what’s good about Christ! When we look at the example of Christ, right—when Jesus was mocked, He did not mock back. When Jesus was physically hit, He did not hit back, right? He could have called a thousand angels to come rescue Him and attack them. And everything that Jesus did, whenever He corrected somebody, He also offered repentance and salvation every single time. Because He knew the people weren’t His enemies. He died for the same people that crucified Him!
He died for them too! But this is what He did—Colossians chapter 2, verse 15: “In this way, He disarmed these spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly.” How? By the victory over them upon the cross! On that moment on the cross, His markers were yelling at him, making fun of him, saying, “Thought you were the King of the Jews? Where’s your God now?” But the spiritual warfare going on—He shamed the devil, and He shamed his demonic army.
And Jesus declared, “You have no authority, and you will not win this fight! Believe that! Believe that Christ has already brought you victory within your life!” Point number two is this: No response from God is not an immediate no. Okay? Just because you don’t hear God right away or the next day or even the next week and get the answer you want, it does not mean it’s an immediate no.
All right? But it’s easy to believe the lie! It’s easy to believe that my prayers are just—I’m just wasting time! I feel like I’m never heard! I keep praying over my situation that’s not changing! I’m praying over my child or opportunities in my life and they never seem to get better! I’m praying over this country, and everybody’s looking at that right now like, “God, in my prayers, do they mean anything? Is anything happening?”
Think about this! Twenty-one days, Daniel fasted and prayed. Gabriel told him on the first day, “God heard you! On the first day, God heard you!” But there was an epic battle going on! And Gabriel was fighting this demonic prince over Persia— that’s a big deal! Okay? That’s a really big deal! But yet it was still so important enough that Michael showed up just to answer the prayer of the servant of God!
Think about that! It took 21 days! But he still left that crazy battle and he had to get back to it just to tell Daniel, “Hey! Your prayer is being heard! Don’t give up!” Daniel admits he was weak at this point. He felt like he lost strength, especially from fasting. He says, “I don’t even know if I can stand in your presence!” And the angel says—and Gabriel tells him—this is what the Lord has revealed! And what it means to us is that we need to keep praying! We need to keep believing! And we need to keep walking in faith! Because every time we do, we are weakening the dark forces of the enemy!
Every time you pray, even when you feel like it’s not being heard! Because the enemy is ready to attack! But when you pray, you’re ready to fight back! You already know his moves!
My last point is this: Prayer will break strongholds and heal hearts! Prayer will break strongholds and heal hearts! Prayer is not getting God to do your will, but prayer allows God to accomplish His will through you! You’re not telling God what to do! You can’t demand God to give you everything you want!
But when you pray, just like Daniel, when he fasted, he prayed, the scripture tells us that he was humbled! We humbled ourselves before the Lord, and we realize that everything that God does are things that we can’t even comprehend!
But His ways are always better! Why? Because He wrote the future! He knows what tomorrow will bring! He is never surprised, and He wants you to enjoy His presence so that He can give you real strength!
In Mark chapter five, the demon-possessed man suffered every day, and everybody saw him as dangerous. But Christ saw him as a victim—being controlled! And again, the enemy wants to manipulate us and have us divided and go against each other—church against church, lost, confused.
But if we all lift our eyes upon Jesus and realize He is the only way and that we have a common enemy, and his name is Satan, we’re going to fight him back with prayer! Because I get it! A lot of times we look at life when people say things, you imagine that this is their face!
But I need you to change that perspective. See, sometimes the person you feel like you hate the most is just a victim to the enemy! A victim! And it’s our job to be different and show the world is love!
Here is what’s good, though! Jesus spoke, and what happened? The demons had to flee! He proved His authority through the Holy Spirit! Jesus glorified His authority upon this earth, and when we speak and when we pray in the name of Jesus, His authority still stands!
That means when I speak in the name of Jesus, His authority is still here! Demons have to flee! Miracles can still happen! People can still be saved! Romans chapter 8, verse 9: “You are not controlled by your sinful nature, but you are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living inside of you!”
Let me ask you to stand right here! Go ahead and actually stand; we’re about to close! But remember I told you Daniel was feeling weak and tired, a lot of you right now would say you feel the same. Maybe after this week, maybe even when you leave here, going home—more problems to face! Still, things are scary! Maybe God’s telling you to take a faith risk, and you don’t really know why!
In Daniel chapter 10, verses 17 and 19, Daniel said, “How can someone like me, your servant, talk to you, my Lord? My strength is gone, and I can hardly breathe!” I’m going to ask our pastoral care team to come up front at this moment. I’m asking you guys to be ready. “My strength is gone! I can barely breathe!”
And in verse 19, “Don’t be afraid,” he said. Why? “Because you are very precious to God!” I’m telling you right now, do not be afraid! You are precious to God! Let peace be in your heart! Be encouraged and be strong!” And he spoke these words to me!
And Daniel said, “Suddenly, I felt stronger, and I said to him, ‘Please speak to me, my Lord, for you have strengthened me!’” What does this mean? It means that prayer works! Prayer works! Prayer works! Don’t you stop praying! The enemy wants to attack your mindset over and over again! Nothing’s going to happen! Nothing’s going to change!
He keeps trying to hit you back, but prayer works! And as long as we keep praying, lives will keep changing! And we will know the presence of God! But what I love about this verse is through prayer, in the presence of God, they will give you strength! And I'm telling you right now, if you feel weak, if you feel tired, if you feel done, then pray! Pray! Let's see it change together!