Psalms 55:3-7
Because of the voice of the enemy,
Because of the pressure of the wicked;
For they bring down trouble upon me
And in anger they bear a grudge against me.
My heart is in anguish within me,
Fear and trembling come upon me,
And horror has overwhelmed me.
I said, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest.
“Behold, I would wander far away,
I would lodge in the wilderness.

Sometimes the desire to go to some secluded cabin in the woods where there is no cell coverage, take enough food for a month and just stay there is so strong. I know of several places that I could use for free. I would take Patty with me of course, and we would have a very nice time. I am sure it would be incredibly refreshing.

But for the last several days I have been experiencing even better than that. We are in the middle of our 5 days of prayer, we pray for 10 hours each day, and I have been in the prayer room most of the time. It so totally consumes my thinking that I truly don’t have a single thought about covid, impeachments, masks, or taxes.

Sitting in God’s manifest presence with others who are believing in God’s love and presence as much as I am is incredibly exhilarating, relaxing, and renewing.

The first day of our “Five Days of Prayer” was terrific. There was such a powerful sense of God’s presence in the prayer room that even an old stoic like me could sense His presence. Psalms 16:11 says, “in your presence is fullness of joy,” and there was a very positive sense that life was good despite circumstances and that God was in control. We indeed were the “Army of God” today, and we stomped the devil under our feet. When we pray, God commissions angels, and He energizes them; the more we pray, the more angels are set loose, and the more power they get. The devil and his demons aren’t going to know what hit them after this week. They will be restricted from blinding people’s spiritual eyes and binding their wills, and people will be set free. It doesn’t get much better than that knowing that I have been part of an activity that results in people being transferred from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of His beloved Son.

We are praying the rest of this week 5 to 10 morning an evening. Give it a try.

There are so many people who need help that I could help. There are so many ministry opportunities that I could start or do that would have amazing results. There are so many opportunities to go fishing. There are so many car projects and home projects that I would love to do. I need to ride my stationary bike every day for an hour and lift weights to keep my Parkinson’s under control. I really need to start running again. I have so many really good goals that I haven’t started yet.

I read my goals everyday and write a daily todo list to put pressure on myself to work smart and fast all day long, but even still there are so many things that I don’t get done.

I have a goal of getting about 80% on my todo list done everyday. If I get less done I shorten the list and if I get everything crossed off my list I make it longer. When I write the list for the day I have to choose what is on the list and what gets left off. It is a daily choosing priorities and the amount of pressure I want on me so that I make those most of my time,

I only have one thing on my todo list tomorrow besides my daily disciples and that is to pray in the ‘upper room” for ten hours.

There are some interesting balancing acts that I work at maintaining in my own life. I want very much to “walk humbly with my God”, and not become proud or arrogant, and I also want to accurately assess what I am good at and where I am strong. I want to press on and grow in my character so I need to acknowledge my weak areas and where I consistently fail, but I don’t want to make myself feel like a loser so that I give up. I want to do more, accomplish more, bear more fruit, and I am always disappointed with what I actually accomplished in any given week, or month, or even year. I am always way below what I set as goals in almost every area of my life. I want to have huge dreams and desires, but on the other hand I don’t want my goals to bury me and become an anchor around my neck. So many guys my age (72) have lost their passion and desire to accomplish something great with their life and they are unmotivated because they are realistic about their abilities and energy level at this stage in their life.

The key for me is to work really hard at being faithful and consistent in my Bible time and prayer life. A person can’t walk humbly with their God if they don’t walk with Him much at all. Spend time with God, seek God, draw near to God, work at pleasing Him, listen to my thoughts and discern those that are from God. The closer I am to God the easier it is for me to feel good about who I am without being prideful. The closer I am to God the more outlandish my goals can be without making me feel like a total loser.

I like me. I like who I am. I feel good about what I have accomplished with my life. But at the same time I am very much disappointed with who I am and want to become so much more, I am so discontent with my present level of accomplishment and dream of so much more in the days ahead.

It is a tricky balancing act but worth working to achieve.

A major secret to my success in this area of life is my devotion to prayer, especially corporate prayer, praying with others. It is supernaturally powerful to keep me balanced as I fail, fall, sin, and mess up, but at the same time dream really big dreams, and live inside of my own skin comfortably.

Monday through Friday is one of JBC’s “Five Days of Prayer” events. 5 to 10 am and pm. I look forward to praying with you.

Revelation 13:1-2 And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names. And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority.

The dragon is the devil, Satan. The beast is the antichrist. Though he is called the beast in Revelation it is clear that he is a man. He has risen in power and has become the ruler of the world. He starts out nice and becomes a beast, he starts out the one who is able to bring peace to the entire world and ends up leading the word into the worst war of all history the battle of Armageddon. All that he is able to do and accomplish he does by the power and authority of the devil, the spirit of the antichrist.

1 John 4:3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.

The spirit of the antichrist is already in the world meaning satan is working in government rulers now, today. He gives them abilities, charisma, and power to lead and rule. They start out nice, but they soon turn into a beast. The spirit of antichrist is characterized by an obsession with control and those who are under such leaders increasingly feel restricted and lose more and more personal freedom. It is clear in the Bible that this is what is coming and it will get increasingly worse until Jesus wins the battle of Armageddon.

So what shall I do and how then shall I live with this growing dictatorial leadership? It is clear that my primary goal ought to be to influence people and attract people to faith in Jesus Christ. That purpose should control my life and I should be obsessed with succeeding at it.

My primary tool given to reach many people and to see them receive freedom in Christ given to me by God is prayer, especially corporate prayer. Warfare praying is against the kingdom of darkness for the purpose of freeing those who are held captive by the devil and blinded by him so that they can’t understand the gospel and hate Jesus. Warfare praying is best done by an army not an individual. The church is the army of God and is at it’s best when it is praying against the kingdom of darkness.

Jefferson Baptist Church is praying 10 hours each day next week, Monday through Friday, as the army of God against the Kingdom of darkness so that many are transferred from the domain of darkness to the Kindom of God’s beloved Son. It is a great experience being part of that army.

When all eight of our kids were home they were all going to school, playing sports, taking piano lessons, involved in church, and busy at home with chores. In the midst of all the business of a large family our family was close, everyone got along well, and even though there were a few disagreements we were a unified, loving family. Those were the best years of my life, the most enjoyable and rewarding, and now are the source of many good memories.

Jefferson Baptist church is not perfect but we are a good church. We are a church that I enjoy being part of because of the unity and love that is in it. We are a spiritual family that cares for one another, encourages one another and accepts one another. The reason that we are a blessed church is because we are a praying church. The more a church prays together, the more love will be in that church; it is a law of God. Occasionally there are people who don’t seem to be able to fit into the body and most of the time it is because they are too busy to join us for prayer. When we pray together, God joins us; He manifests His presence, and the result is an incredible feeling of joy.

Starting on Monday we will be having a major prayer event. We call it our “Five Days of Prayer, ” we have four of them each year. We pray 10 hours every day, 5 to 10 morning and evening, five hours in the morning and five hours in the evening. I will pray for about 30 hours during the five days and there are many who will pray much more than I will and a number who will pray for all 50 hours.

You could join us if you live in the area, I invite you to discover the experience of supernatural joy that comes from being in God’s presence.

In 1970 when half of my dairy herd died of a disease I prayed for an hour a day that God would intervene and save my business. A friend of mine said to me, maybe you should stop praying for God to save them and start praying for God to give you the wisdom to know why He is killing them. That statement seemed absurd to me, God wouldn’t kill my cows, would He? Well it turns out that it looks like he may have done just that in order to get me off of the farm, the love of my life and into ministry. At this point in my life after 44 years in ministry it seems like a good thing, but it didn’t seem like it at the time.

Another thing that came from the experience over 50 years ago is that I don’t pray and ask God to change circumstances anymore; I pray and ask for wisdom to know why He is doing what He is doing. He promises to give insight to those who ask, so I do; I ask a lot, almost every day. When I get wisdom and understanding from God I am much more able to cooperate with God resulting in much more growth in my character and opportunities to witness for Him.

Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

If I believe God causes all things to work together for good, why would I pray and ask Him to change it? The reason that I would is that I don’t like what He is doing, and I think I know better than He does what is best for my life or the life of others.

Over the years of my life I am pretty sure that most of the wisdom that I have came into my mind while I was in a corporate prayer event sitting with other believers from our church. It is amazing how much God works in me during those times of sitting in a room listening to other people pray. Now at 72 years of age, I am not the wisest person around for sure, but I do have an insight and an understanding of why things happen the way they do and why God is doing something in a particular way. Again most of what I have in the form of Godly wisdom, I am sure, came into my head while I was praying and listening to others pray in a corporate prayer time.

Jbc is having a corporate prayer time this next week. We will be praying from 5:00 to 10:00 am and 5:00 to 10:00 pm Monday through Friday this next week. Come and join us and marvelously experience God.

A number of years ago I cut and pasted every Bible verse that I could find that was a prayer or a teaching about prayer and put them all together. Once you have them all together in one place you can read them consecutively and draw some accurate conclusions about prayer, and see the emphasis that the Bible puts on prayer. It was easy to rearrange the verses so that they were together in emphasis and what was being prayed for or about.

One of the first conclusions that I wrote down after a number of readings through my collected verses on prayer was that there were very few verses that suggested that we should pray to change the circumstances of our life or that of another person. The Apostle Paul prayed three times that God would remove his thorn in the flesh whatever that was, and God refused. The few references that were about praying to change circumstances, had a particular purpose and that was to glorify God so that unbelievers would be converted to Him.

The prayer by Elijah referenced by James 5:16 that brought about famine and then rain was not driven by someone’s crop needing rain, it was to demonstrate God’s power so that those who were rebelling from God would repent. The emphasis in James 5 where sick people were encouraged to be prayed for was that “sinners would turn from the error of their ways.”

Many believers and churches main emphasis on prayer is to ask God to fix our problems, to give us a comfortable life, to allow us to live to be 120 years old, and that is simply not the emphasis in the Bible though there is no place that forbids such praying.

The emphasis in the Bible on prayer is that we would ask God to give us His strength to live a life of victory and accomplishment, that we could manage trials and difficulties well, and that we would be overcomers in life. That we would pray and ask that God would give us great peace so that we would not be overcome by anxiety, stress, and fear, and that God would fill us with joy in spite of the awfulness of our life circumstances. It is God’s plan that our strength, peace, and joy in spite of our circumstances would attract lost people to us who have no hope and they would seek answers from us.

The emphasis in the Bible is that we ask for wisdom so that we would make right choices and live in the center of God’s will for our life so that we can bear much fruit for Him. Wisdom so we would say just the right words when someone asks us why we are not all uptight like the rest of the world in regards to COVID.

The emphasis in the Bible is that we pray for lost people, that we pray for their health and healing, that we pray for their physical needs, and that we would pray that they would get jobs. We have power from God to pray for lost people to understand the gospel, to be convicted for sins so they would seek forgiveness, and to be delivered from the control of the devil.

We as the church have been given an impossible assignment of making disciples, followers of Jesus of the whole world. God has given us some tools to accomplish this incredibly important task and one of the most powerful is prayer. But we use our prayer time mostly to pray for each other to have a comfortable life free of trials and problems.

Isn’t it strange that we who are going to live for all eternity with Jesus in amazing glory are so concerned about this life in our prayer time, and neglect praying for those who are going to spend all eternity in hell in torment.

In the week of February 8th to the 12th JBC is going to be praying for our Missions ministry around the world so that many people come to saving faith in Jesus and are given the gift of eternal life with Jesus. We will be praying in the old sanctuary for ten hours each day. Maybe you could fit in one hour for the five days, or maybe even an hour a day or maybe even more.

I lift weights a couple times a week and the days I don’t lift I ride my stationary bike for an hour. It is called exercise and the purpose is to get stronger physically.

Matthew 17:20 Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

The phrase “nothing will be impossible to you” is one of my favorites in the Bible. I believe it is a true statement that Jesus made, that if I can grow my faith I will get to a point that I can accomplish anything no matter how hard and big it might be. The question is, “what can I do to grow my faith?” What exercise can I regularly do that will move me from being a man of small faith to great faith?

I truly believe that the exercise that will accomplish that miracle in my heart and mind is prayer. Prayer is an act of faith, we are praying to a God we can’t see believing that He is there, we are praying to a God we can’t hear believing that He hears us, and then we believe that He is big enough and powerful enough to accomplish whatever we ask. As we pray our faith is growing and the more we pray the more and the faster our faith grows. The more faith we have the more powerful our prayers become so we pray more and more and as a result our faith grows tremendously and because of our faith and our praying we move the hand of God to do extraordinary things.

In one week Jefferson Baptist Church’s five days of prayer is going to start, February 8th through the 12th. We will be praying for ten hours every day. You can pray one of those hours for one day for a one hour total for the prayer event. You could pray one hour each day for a five hour total for the prayer week, all the way up to praying 10 hours every day. We had a number of people who did that in the last prayer event. Let me encourage you to add one hour to whatever you did last time during the five days of prayer.

The Antichrist is written about in the book of Daniel and in Revelation. He will rise to power and will become the President of the world, the ruler of the world, the dictator of the world. He will require people to worship him just as the Roman Emperors did, and he will require that every one get some kind of mark on their forehead or hand before they can buy and sell. What is that mark about? It is about power, control, and keeping track.

Revelation 13:16-17 And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name.

Some basic signs that the day that Jesus comes and takes all true believers and followers of His to heaven is getting close; (1) the rapid move toward globalism, one world ruler, one world religion, and one world economy. (2) Government leaders style of leadership moving rapidly to “lording it over people”, power to control for power’s sake. Government telling us what we can’t do, what we can do, when we can do it, when we can’t do it, all under the guise of protecting us from ourselves. (3) The name of Jesus becoming more and more hated by people in the world, especially government rulers. The word “antichrist” doesn’t mean “in place of Christ” it means “against Christ”. (4) The nation of Israel becoming more and more hated by people and governments in the world.

Mark 10:42-45 Calling them to Himself, Jesus said to them, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them. But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

In the midst of the craziness of our day I am rejoicing more every day because the day I am going to hear the trumpet of Jesus is getting close.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-18
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.