Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #164 Watchmen on the Wall (3 - Standing Our Post Faithfully)

Transcript

#164 Watchmen on the Wall (3 - Standing Our Post Faithfully) · The OneCry Podcast

• 0:02
  God invites us to take promises from His Word and bring them into His presence through prayer.
• 0:11
  Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
• 0:17
  The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
• 0:27
  Welcome to the One Cry Podcast. I'm Bill Eliff and the inimitable,
• 0:32
  I think I said that right, Kyle Reno.
• 0:36
  Am I insulted or do I feel insulted? I don't really know. I don't know what that means.
• 0:42
  But Kyle Reno's with us. And Kyle, we've been talking about taking our place
• 0:48
  on the wall in prayer and just incredible.
• 0:52
  Incredible and today uh you're going
• 0:55
  to call us up one step further uh and
• 0:59
  we're excited about it you know i i
• 1:02
  i thought about something i told you
• 1:05
  last week that i peaked in the
• 1:07
  ninth grade uh as an athlete i was
• 1:10
  all city in basketball and just to put it out there just to yeah i just throw
• 1:16
  it out there but i that was the end of it but i i ran track i didn't want to
• 1:20
  run track and And I went out at the last minute and our team was so bad that
• 1:25
  I ran all the sprints and all the relays. That's how bad we were.
• 1:30
  So we came to a regional meet and I just didn't track was just I didn't like it.
• 1:37
  And I and I it was just a game to me, you know, and I didn't have the heart of a champion.
• 1:45
  So we were running the mile relay and I was running the first leg and I was sick.
• 1:52
  I'd been throwing up all day and he said, you got to go. Are you a tiger?
• 1:56
  Yeah, coach, I'm a tiger.
• 1:58
  And so we got down in the blocks and took off and I just thought I'll just pace myself.
• 2:06
  And I paced our team right out of the race, just right.
• 2:11
  They killed themselves and finally got back into the race.
• 2:15
  But my coach, I kind of strolled back over to the side after it was over.
• 2:20
  And he had some words for me. He had things to say. Yeah.
• 2:25
  And he did that while he was holding on to my ear, actually.
• 2:30
  But, you know, it's sad when a guy just doesn't finish well.
• 2:35
  You know, and particularly when there's a whole team around him and they're
• 2:39
  counting on him and he just doesn't do his part with fervency and urgency.
• 2:44
  And that's probably why I didn't go to the Olympics, other than that inability.
• 2:52
  You're going to talk to us about that in a far more important race today, I know. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:58
  Well, that's a great thought and picture to paint. And now take it and apply
• 3:04
  it to the God of the universe, as we've talked about.
• 3:07
  If you haven't listened last two weeks, brief snapshot that the God of the universe
• 3:12
  shows us how prayer really works and gives us a physical picture in Isaiah 62
• 3:17
  of how spiritually and in principle prayer works.
• 3:21
  And the God of the universe has placed his people on the wall of prayer in such
• 3:28
  a way that they're watchmen.
• 3:30
  And that the way that they pray brings about the work of the kingdom here on earth.
• 3:37
  And I talked to you last week a little bit about how to pray like a watchman
• 3:41
  from protective ways to provisional ways, to praying for the purity of God's
• 3:47
  people, your own heart, your own home, etc.
• 3:50
  And to pray with perspective.
• 3:52
  Now today I want to say, man, listen, assuming your post is the first thing and then staying there.
• 3:59
  Assuming your post as a person of prayer, that your vantage point matters in
• 4:05
  prayer, that it truly matters how many of us are praying, and then to pray in light of.
• 4:13
  Being a watchman in ways that bring about protection, purity,
• 4:17
  provision, and perspective. But here's the thing.
• 4:22
  This is not a flash in the pan. I love what you said years ago,
• 4:25
  Bill, that just stuck with me, that there's few things that are as important
• 4:29
  as the cumulative work of God in the life of a person.
• 4:33
  And I would take that and express it in prayer. There's few things that are
• 4:37
  more important than cumulative prayers of a person.
• 4:40
  Like there's something about the cumulative nature of following Christ and the work of the kingdom.
• 4:46
  And that's why he says in Isaiah 62, to the end of verse 6, and I'll read verse 7.
• 4:53
  It says, All the day and all the night they shall never be silent.
• 4:57
  So on your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen.
• 5:01
  All the day, all the night, they shall never be silent.
• 5:07
  You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest and give him no rest until
• 5:14
  he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.
• 5:18
  So just imagine this picture of prayer that God is painting through Isaiah to his people,
• 5:24
  which is true for us even as a new covenant people as well, that there's something
• 5:29
  about the nature of prayer that calls for a consistent cry.
• 5:33
  Cry, that it's not just one-off.
• 5:37
  I'm grateful, and I think each one of us should set specific times to pray,
• 5:42
  but every time is a time to pray.
• 5:45
  We should have moments when we pray,
• 5:49
  but life is an opportunity to pray, that there's no moment that you're not spiritually
• 5:54
  positioned in a post that a cry can't come out, that if you're a follower of
• 6:00
  Christ, there's something about the cumulative nature of our prayer.
• 6:03
  I had this thought and I've actually asked God to make this true for our church.
• 6:09
  I'm believing for a day whereas it pertains to your local church,
• 6:14
  imagine the local church I'm in right now,
• 6:16
  is that there'd not only be a cry that comes up from this church every day,
• 6:21
  that there would be a cry that comes up from this church every day all the time.
• 6:26
  That God would allow us to be a people that pray both night and day.
• 6:31
  Meaning that wake up in the middle of the night might be a sovereign prompt
• 6:36
  from God saying, I need somebody crying out from the wall right now.
• 6:40
  I need somebody praying for what might happen right now.
• 6:44
  And so I just want to encourage you in light of prayer that there is this desire
• 6:50
  for unceasing prayer from God and that it comes from a people is a beautiful thing.
• 6:57
  So God has hardwired in his plan for prayer that he's placed people across the
• 7:02
  whole wall that can pray all the time.
• 7:04
  That some of us get to take the night shift at times.
• 7:08
  That some of us get the early morning hours. Some of us get the midday moment.
• 7:13
  Some of us get that afternoon time to talk to God on behalf of people.
• 7:18
  So, make time every day to pray would be my encouragement.
• 7:23
  It's for us to imagine that all of the day is an opportunity to evaluate how
• 7:29
  we pray. But then here's something really important.
• 7:30
  It says, you who put the Lord in remembrance take no rest. And as I studied
• 7:35
  that, what were they remembering?
• 7:38
  He's saying to the people of God, specifically in Jerusalem,
• 7:41
  put the Lord to remembrance. will remember what God promised for them specifically.
• 7:48
  God had promised specific things to them as a people, and he had promised specific
• 7:53
  things to that specific place, Jerusalem.
• 7:59
  And so what Isaiah is encouraging the people of God is to remember what God
• 8:05
  has promised us as a people.
• 8:08
  Remember what God has promised, and take no rest. Here's the thought, man.
• 8:14
  Don't hear more than what I'm saying. That God invites us to wear him out with his word.
• 8:23
  That God invites us to take promises from his word and bring them into his presence
• 8:30
  through prayer to continually day and night and say, God, you have promised
• 8:35
  us that you'd never leave us or forsake us.
• 8:37
  You promised if we humble ourselves and repent, if we cry out,
• 8:41
  God, you promised us if we draw near to God, you draw near to us.
• 8:45
  God, you promised us in moments of persecution, God, that you would give us
• 8:49
  power. You promised us we stand before officials.
• 8:52
  You would give us words, Father God. You promised, you promised, you promised.
• 8:57
  And so I'm bringing that promise and making it a prayer. God,
• 9:01
  would you answer what you promised you would do?
• 9:05
  So there's something about being on the post in prayer, taking a promise and
• 9:10
  saying, God, would you please make it so even now, even now?
• 9:14
  I've got promises for every one of my kids. I know Bill does. us.
• 9:19
  Grandkids. I've got promises that I, listen to me, that's not one-off.
• 9:24
  That's something to be continually prayed for.
• 9:28
  There's 7,000 promises in the Bible.
• 9:31
  I'm from Alabama. I'm not great at math, but my Bible has about a thousand pages
• 9:36
  in it. So that means there's seven promises on each page.
• 9:40
  I love what Mark Batterson said. He said, the Bible isn't meant to be read reactively,
• 9:46
  but prayed proactively.
• 9:49
  Say that again. The Bible isn't meant to be read reactively but prayed proactively.
• 9:55
  I mean this, if God's promised it, why would we not pray it?
• 10:01
  God's promised it. Why would we not bring it back into his presence?
• 10:05
  I believe that we're leaving way too much on the table as it pertains to the
• 10:09
  advancement of God's kingdom, the good of our own families,
• 10:13
  our own cities, these places, the churches that we're a part of,
• 10:18
  the nation that we're believing for revival and awakening.
• 10:21
  One of the ways that we can position is saying, God, here's the promise.
• 10:25
  I'm making it a prayer. Please do this for your glory's sake.
• 10:30
  Please do this for the good of our community and our society.
• 10:34
  And I love what it says, verse 7, and give him no rest. That's all.
• 10:40
  This is God inspiring Isaiah, which becomes scripture for us.
• 10:45
  So this is God saying, give me no rest.
• 10:47
  Give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.
• 10:57
  This is God asking us to keep asking Him.
• 11:01
  This is God pleading for us to keep praying to Him.
• 11:07
  Here's the truth. You're not going to wear Him out with your request.
• 11:12
  The question is, will you keep asking it? Will you keep with persistence that
• 11:17
  there's something about the continual nature of praying?
• 11:21
  There's something about it truly matters that more people are praying,
• 11:25
  and it truly matters that we keep on praying, that we keep on asking,
• 11:30
  that there's something that's chipping away in the spiritual realm.
• 11:33
  There's something that happens in that work. And it's not just like a parrot repeating.
• 11:39
  Something about that prayer keeps coming before him and that there's things
• 11:43
  that are happening that we cannot see that God does know.
• 11:47
  So keep asking. I'm going to give you an illustration of this personally that
• 11:52
  God's allowed me to see recently.
• 11:54
  That built my faith. So when we moved here to Brandon, Mississippi area,
• 12:00
  there was an area of town that was run down.
• 12:04
  It was moving toward ruins. And I believe that every generation has responsibility
• 12:09
  what they'll do with what they've been entrusted to.
• 12:13
  They'll either allow those things to move toward ruin or they'll renew them.
• 12:17
  Well, this shopping center area was moving toward were brewing.
• 12:21
  And I just so happened to get a little membership working out in a gym that
• 12:25
  was right over there in that section.
• 12:26
  So there's the gym, and then there was this whole other shopping center.
• 12:31
  Vacant place, vacant place, Mexican restaurant, a pool place whose sign was broke.
• 12:38
  And it just looked like, man, this is going to become a ruin in our city.
• 12:46
  And as I was sitting there looking at it, I remember it was a dreary day,
• 12:49
  sprinkling, and God just put in my spirit to reach my hands out and to just
• 12:55
  pray a blessing over those facilities, over that whole area and say,
• 12:59
  God, would you bless this area?
• 13:01
  Would you bring things to this neighborhood that would be good for people,
• 13:06
  that would be good for our society, that creates jobs, that creates opportunities
• 13:10
  for this community to continue to grow, that we might reach more people.
• 13:15
  And so it became, it just, God gave me faith for it.
• 13:18
  And it became a practice that I was much like this until he established something.
• 13:25
  And so I'd work out and I'd pray it. And it actually created a habit of me praying
• 13:29
  other things in our city, just kept praying it.
• 13:31
  So let me tell you who the happiest person was that the day I saw some fencing
• 13:36
  go up in that vacant parking lot.
• 13:38
  And I thought, what are they about to do right there? and when
• 13:42
  i saw the coming soon chipotle well
• 13:46
  hey guess what i love chipotle and i got to be a part of praying it was a shock
• 13:51
  and a surprise to everybody but for me it was it was a place of faith going
• 13:57
  like god you heard my cry right right out of that here comes this new coffee shop,
• 14:03
  that everybody's like blown away that is coming to this part of it this whole
• 14:06
  coffee place that everybody's desires to have the pool place that had the broke
• 14:12
  down sign guess what they did they restored their part of it and renewed their sign.
• 14:17
  Like the sign that I saw that was the lapidator. And here's the cherry on top. You ready?
• 14:23
  So when I knew that the Lord had heard my cry in the biggest vacant part of it, sign pops up.
• 14:30
  This all happens over the last year. Sign pops up.
• 14:33
  Tractor supply coming soon. And I was like, our God hears us. Our God hears us.
• 14:38
  And that's an operating tractor supplier right here in our area.
• 14:42
  So I say all that to say, God has posted you in places to believe for things
• 14:48
  that are a representation of the kingdom of God here on earth that helps societies and cultures.
• 14:55
  That's what Jeremiah says, that I placed you there in exile to pray, to pray.
• 15:00
  God is saying, you're there in captivity, but I'm praying, I placed you that
• 15:06
  you might be a blessing, that you might pray for the city I put you in,
• 15:10
  that you might see it flourish.
• 15:12
  Why? So ultimately, people come to understand that there's a God in heaven.
• 15:16
  And I've testified to that truth in this.
• 15:19
  So Bill, I know that you know this about prayer does more than we can imagine or fathom.
• 15:24
  And prayer is a non-negotiable for the establishing of God's kingdom.
• 15:28
  But it's not something that's a flash in the pan.
• 15:30
  That is us staying at the work continually, taking promises back into his presence
• 15:36
  and believing that we'll stand our post until we see it established here on
• 15:40
  earth or we just step into heaven.
• 15:43
  So Bill, I'd love to know, man, some ways that we can encourage our listeners
• 15:47
  even now to continue to lean into these truths.
• 15:50
  Well, you know, Kyle, you've been teaching us the last few weeks that it matters
• 15:57
  about us taking our post and it matters how many of us take our post.
• 16:06
  And you're saying to us and the Lord's saying to us today, it matters how faithfully
• 16:11
  I fulfill that post, you know, day and night.
• 16:16
  So you just, I, I, I, as you were talking, I envisioned a guy actually up on
• 16:22
  a wall, you know, and, and, and, and the enemy's not there and it's no problem.
• 16:29
  And he attempted to fall off to sleep.
• 16:33
  And then he says, man, I'm going to run down and get something to eat. And he's on his watch.
• 16:40
  He's not supposed to do that. And he leaves in just that moment.
• 16:45
  And here comes the enemy like a flood.
• 16:47
  So that thing that you said of, of just consistently day and night staying after,
• 16:55
  you know, and I, I think of, I was, I was watching a craftsman. And he was a woodworker.
• 17:03
  Not too long ago. And I just thought, man, you know, I love and am blessed by
• 17:10
  men and women who learn their craft and they do it when nobody's watching.
• 17:17
  They just keep doing it and doing it and doing it.
• 17:21
  And they create these beautiful things or they make wonderful machinery or,
• 17:26
  you know, or they build a home or whatever it is, but it's, it's, uh,
• 17:32
  like Eugene's Peterson, a long obedience in the right direction,
• 17:37
  you know, they just keep going.
• 17:39
  And like the widow who just kept persevering, you know, and God answered the prayer.
• 17:45
  And so, uh, and, and the thing about it is Kyle, it's not like there aren't
• 17:51
  resources to pray at one cry.
• 17:54
  If, if our listeners will go to onecry.com, you will be shocked at how many
• 18:01
  resources there are for you to learn how to pray.
• 18:05
  And I'll tell you another thing that will help you stay on the wall is to pray with people.
• 18:11
  That's right. Get some buddies and say, hey, we're just going to,
• 18:15
  you know, I got a group of men that have started praying here in our church,
• 18:19
  and every Thursday morning, they're praying, it.
• 18:23
  And they've been doing it for years and years and years.
• 18:27
  Who knows what has happened in this church because of their prayers.
• 18:34
  But I know this, what has happened in this church is because of their prayers. That's exactly right.
• 18:40
  And that they've been at it day and night. They just stay at it day and night.
• 18:44
  God make us faithful. Amen.
• 18:48
  As he calls us this task, You know, what you'd hate to see is we get all kind
• 18:56
  of roused up because of the encouragement of this passage and say, man, let's go.
• 19:03
  And then and then, you know, a little rabbit runs by and we dart off that way.
• 19:08
  You know, some spiritual ADD. We just stay at it.
• 19:13
  If we're going to if we're going to advance the kingdom, we need to really stay
• 19:17
  at it. and stay at it hard and long until the Lord calls you home.
• 19:22
  Yeah, until he staffs you. I got a text, just God's sense of humor.
• 19:28
  I got a text as we're doing this and it pops up and I seen it over here.
• 19:32
  We just walked into these truths and we called our people to 50 days of prayer
• 19:37
  in light of the 50 years as a church.
• 19:40
  And I said, I just want five people to sign up to pray today.
• 19:45
  Every day for 50 days. And just so we'll cover it. I want us all to pray,
• 19:50
  but I want us to take a day.
• 19:51
  You know, do it. I just got a text that we just filled all 250 spots. Wow.
• 19:58
  So, I mean, just think about this, though, this part.
• 20:02
  The next 50 days as a church, 250 people said, I got to post.
• 20:08
  Wow. I got to post. And we gave them some specific things to pray for.
• 20:13
  Yeah. What might God do through that, through that, through that cry and just
• 20:19
  learning how to the best we can fumble and bumble to just keep asking, just keep seeking.
• 20:28
  And, you know, if if there are pastors or leaders that are listening or prayer
• 20:34
  leaders that are listening,
• 20:35
  I think you just illustrated something because not only have you called them
• 20:40
  up to their post, but you're putting some resources.
• 20:44
  I know you and you'll be putting some here's seven things to pray for.
• 20:49
  We have five things we pray. Yeah. And you pray for them again and again for 50 days.
• 20:54
  So helping our people know how to do that and providing tools.
• 20:58
  I know here we, on special seasons of prayer like that, we'll send them texts every day,
• 21:04
  you know, or we'll make a prayer card available or something you hang on your,
• 21:09
  you know, in your car so you can see it every day.
• 21:14
  So all those helps are available. I want to close this out with one final story
• 21:20
  that I just remembered as you're talking.
• 21:23
  And you know this story, Kyle, I think.
• 21:26
  So in 1972, at the end, kind of the tail end of the Jesus movement.
• 21:34
  Bill Bright with Campus Crusade and Billy Graham and others called the students
• 21:42
  of America to come to Dallas for a big Jesus rally.
• 21:47
  A hundred thousand students showed up. It was incredible. Never happened before that magnitude.
• 21:55
  One of the things that they did was they said, go back to your city,
• 22:00
  take your phone book. Somebody just mentioned this and pray through the phone book.
• 22:05
  Well, there was a little short little lady. Her name is Miss Kitty Longstruth
• 22:11
  from Little Rock, Arkansas.
• 22:13
  And Kitty heard that. She comes home.
• 22:19
  She pulls some ladies together. They take the Little Rock. If I'm lying, I'm dying.
• 22:26
  They take the Little Rock phone book. They tear it up and they say, here's your part.
• 22:31
  Here's your part. Here's your part. And they start praying literally through
• 22:36
  every name in the Little Rock phone book.
• 22:40
  They did it for years and years.
• 22:43
  There's a 1972 and years.
• 22:46
  Then they began to say, you know what? Our pastors are not praying.
• 22:50
  We need to start praying.
• 22:51
  They included that prayer. And the next year, a group of pastors in Little Rock,
• 22:57
  I know this because I was one of them, were called together by the mayor to pray.
• 23:04
  And we started praying, and it started a prayer meeting among pastors in the
• 23:11
  city that has lasted for 30 years. Wow.
• 23:14
  And Miss Kitty prayed every Monday night.
• 23:27
  She died, I think, at 97. Wow.
• 23:31
  And the Monday night before she died, she was with her prayer group at her post.
• 23:38
  Praise God. Praying for the city.
• 23:40
  Praise God. God, anything that God has done in Little Rock, and he's done a lot. Yeah.
• 23:46
  Goes back to that. Amen. That call that happened in 72 and a faithful woman who took her post.
• 23:56
  Amen. So, God, would you make us?
• 23:59
  Would you raise up?
• 24:03
  Hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands and millions.
• 24:07
  And thank you, Lord, that you are. We know around the world you are calling
• 24:12
  people up to their posts.
• 24:14
  And many, Lord, there's a great band of prayer warriors across this world.
• 24:21
  But, Father, we pray this.
• 24:23
  Don't let us miss our spot. I pray not one listener today,
• 24:28
  including Kyle and I, will miss our spot and play our part day and night for
• 24:37
  the glory of God and the movement of God in his kingdom.
• 24:44
  And we pray that in Jesus' precious name.
• 24:48
  Amen. Amen. Amen.
• 24:51
  Well, what a great series, Kyle. And I just want to encourage people,
• 24:56
  if you missed any one of these three parts on this series, go back and listen to all of it.
• 25:04
  Get the whole sweep of it. Do a little, you know, we love, what do you call
• 25:10
  it when you splurge on a TV?
• 25:12
  You binge, binge watch. Yeah, right.
• 25:15
  Binge watch One Cry Podcast.
• 25:18
  Amen. And get this whole series together because it will help you.
• 25:24
  It will help you and it'll help the kingdom.
• 25:26
  We're so glad you're here and that you joined us. And again,
• 25:30
  we wouldn't exist without you.
• 25:33
  And so we're so grateful and we hope to see you.
• 25:36
  Music.