The Making of an Intercessor

This is the third time in almost a year of meeting together that I'm going to teach on prayer. Last week was the second time, and April 26 was the first time. And somebody has my tape, by the way, so if you snuck into the office and grabbed that tape, God knows who you are. I don't know who you are. Pass it around anyhow. But it's a. Every time I consider teaching about something like prayer, I find it. I go through a struggle, beloved. I really do. Because I feel that for many of us, it's a hard thing to receive teaching on prayer. It's a hard thing to receive teaching on things that for us are not immediate where we are. And I said. And I wrestled with the Lord. I said, lord, these people, they want to know about the how to's. They want to be equipped for their families and their jobs, and they really want the cutting edge kind of things. And I resisted this thing of teaching on prayer. And the Lord said to me, because they're that kind of people. That's what I want you to teach about. That's exactly what I want you to teach about. And I know in my little library in my office, I have a stack of books that come halfway up this podium about prayer. I probably have, I don't know, several dozen tapes on the subject at least. I've been to seminars, I've got notebooks. I've been on retreats for prayer. Probably many of you have done all those things, too. I've talked about it, thought about it. I've been given all kinds of incentives to pray, from getting a lapel pin for being a prayer partner to getting hors d' oeuvres and going to lunch if I'm willing to sit through an hour's prayer. We have all these things, don't we? Just please come and pray and I'll give you a little tea sandwich. Despite all the books and all the 10 steps to glorious Victorious Prayer, despite all the lapel pins and all the seminars and all the retreats, I'm just like you. I find it hard to pray. I find it difficult to take time outside of my activity to get before God. I find that I'm fought every moment by the enemy until I get there. It was John Wesley who said I believe. It was John Wesley who said that the greatest thing that any man can do for God is to pray. And somehow we have all these reasons why it's difficult to pray, don't we? I'm going to give you four, and you tell me which one you like the best today. All right, first one is, I'm too busy. I've got my job, I have to leave at 7 o' clock in the morning. I've got my children, I've got to get them ready, and so on and so on. I've got all my family responsibilities. I've got all the needs and all the things that I'm involved in. In the evenings, I'm just too busy. I'm not saying this is glibly like that. I know that for you it's a real problem. How many of you find it's a real problem? You're too busy to pray. Another person says, well, when I pray, I just warm the air. Nothing happens. I don't see these answers to prayer that people talk about when I pray. Not real answers. I mean, sure, so and so's attitude gets better, but that's not really an answer to prayer. I haven't seen cancer cured and I haven't seen marriages put together. So really, when you get right down to it, you just think that basically prayer is. It just doesn't really work. Like everyone said, it works and you have struggle with. And basically it's a matter of belief. Anyone feel that way? Sometimes I praise God for the three or four honest ones. Another reason is it's too complex. I don't understand God's will in prayer. I don't know how to pray according to God's will so that he'll honor it. And I find, well, if I understood what I was supposed to pray for, then maybe I could pray with faith. But since I don't know what his will is and I don't have faith to pray and I might as well not pray at all. And so it's a matter of. It's complex. Doesn't the Bible say that I need to forgive in order to get my prayers received? Doesn't the Bible say that my marriage needs to be right before my prayers are going to be heard? Yes, well, that's complex. Anyone struggle with that? And then we have a struggle with, well, when I get down to praying and I finally get the time free and I get beyond those other things, I find that I can't concentrate. Oh, and I got all these things in my mind and I lay prostrate on the floor and I realize that I'm getting my clothes smashed. There's a million and one things that go through our minds and it's a struggle. And 15 minutes later you look at your watch and say, oh my God, I have 45 minutes to go. That happened to me this week. That's why I'm saying it. See, I'm just like you. I struggle and the enemy struggles with me. And yet, beloved, this week I prayed in my own relative balance of things much more than I normally do. And I found myself before God much more than I normally am. And it wasn't because I read a book or listened to a tape that got me excited about prayer. And it wasn't because somebody challenged me to agree with them for an hour that I'd pray three days a week. It wasn't because I gritted my teeth before God and said, I'm going to try harder this week, Lord, to pray. Something this week happened that compelled me to pray. You know what it was? It was you people. It was you people. You drove me to prayer this week and didn't. God taught me a very beautiful lesson about what makes an intercessor? And I want to share some of those thoughts with you today. How does God make an intercessor? I want you to turn with me to Nehemiah, Chapter one. Now, I could ask you to turn with me to Exodus, where the life of Moses is recounted, to Genesis, where Abraham is seen. I could ask you to turn with me to Daniel, to Ezekiel, to Habakkuk, to Malachi, to the Gospels, to the letters of Paul, to Hebrews, because in all of those, you see illustrations of what it means to be an intercessor, because all of those men of God were intercessors. But I want you to turn to see Nehemiah. And I chose Nehemiah because the Lord led me there. And when he led me there, I saw why he did that. He had three things happening in his life that are very similar to us, beloved. The first one is he faced a tremendous opportunity. He was in a dire situation. How many of you believe that God's placed Northway Christian community here because we are, as a nation and as a people, in a dire situation? I believe that. I'll tell you a little bit more why about that later. Secondly, I'm looking at Nehemiah because he was a very responsible person. And I look around this fellowship and realize that there are men and women here who are very responsible people and varying levels of responsibility in the community. Nehemiah was a cupbearer to the king. Now, to you, that may sound like sort of just a slavish, inconsequential position, but you know what the cupbearer did? He was responsible to taste every drink and every bit of food that was given to the king before he had the chance to drink it or eat it. Why? To see if it tasted good? Partially. But more so than in case somebody stuck a mickey in there. If somebody tried to kill the king, the cupbearer would go down first. So you see, the king and the cupbearer were very close. And the cupbearer would frequently slip some money by people who wanted to get close to the king because they knew that the cupbearer had an ear to the king. They were together all the time. Very influential position. Nehemiah was a man of responsibility. And the third reason why the Lord led us there was because Nehemiah, to our knowledge, had no particular spiritual pedigree. He was not seen somewhere else as a tremendous, deep, spiritual, godly person that. You know what I'm saying. What we know about Nehemiah, we find out after he prays. And I want you to just be at ease with that. You don't need to be a spiritual giant that has written six books about prayer in order to know how to pray. Now, what is an intercessor? Let me give you a definition. An intercessor. There's simply one who prays on behalf of another. That's as simple as I know how to put it. An intercessor is one who stands between God and another person, whether it be for judgment or pain or hurt. Whatever it is the intercessor stands between. I can remember not too long ago, I was playing around with my family. And Jonathan happens to be very protective of Carol. I don't know why he is. And I don't remember what I did. And I'm afraid to even share this because I'm going to get letters or something about poking at my wife. But I was doing something to, you know, playfully engaged myself with my wife in the kitchen. And Jonathan read that as an attack of some sort. And he jumped in front. He said, don't hurt my mommy, which he happens to do a lot. And he was an intercessor. A short one, but he was an intercessor. He stood between what he thought was judgment, but really was just love. But an intercessor. Some people have said, and I've heard many of you say this stands in the gap, the gap between what God should righteously deal out or what God may be meting out in terms of judgment or what is happening in a circumstantial way and the person who's receiving it. An intercessor pleads on behalf of that other person. It's as simple as that. One who prays. Now you say, well, I can't even get my own prayers answered. How can I pray for somebody else? I'll show you how God makes an intercessor. Let's read together the words of Nehemiah the son, Hakaliah. Now, it happened in the month of chislev, in the 20th year, as I was in Susa, the capital, that Hananiai, one of my brethren came with certain men out of Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews that survived who had escaped exile and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, the survivors there in the province who escaped exile are in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire. The first thing that God uses to make an intercessor is the willingness to know the need. Look at that. Nehemiah asked. He asked what the condition of his people was now in our culture. Beloved, you know as I, that everything gravitates against being known. We find it not uncommon for our highways to go right around our ghettos. In Southern California, everywhere you go you see these tremendous six and eight lane highways. If there was a ghetto there, instead of going into the ghetto where you'd have to look over the side and see the people in their poverty, they planned for the freeway to go around the ghetto so you never have to see it. Our prisons are far away and removed so that you don't necessarily ever see a prison. But there are men and women in those prisons all the time. Our hospitals are more and more difficult to get in to visit unless you have a pastor's pass. There's certain hours that they limit you to, and our institutions are less and less accessible. But you know that apart from all those kinds of things, our culture encourages us to be independent. How many of you know, if you're looking for a home, two identical houses, one that sits in a plan, will be $10,000 less than one that sits out in the country. Because isolation, being on your own, that's a valued commodity in our culture and independence. And the whole idea of being free to be me and I'll make my own decisions and I don't want to be interrupted. And the whole thing of independence is lauded. It's a virtue of men and women, our culture. So we're taught. The main thing that keeps us, though, from seeing the needs of others is that we're just frankly preoccupied. We are very busy people. We are always running, always running. And when we have a day off, we run to get the things done that we didn't do when we were running during our days on. And so we're always running and there's needs that we never get to know because we're so busy. And the last thing that we want to do is to ask, ask our neighbor what their needs are. I was convicted as I was before the Lord for this time about our next door neighbor. I'm so busy that I don't have time to spend time with my next door neighbor. And he's about 78 years old and barely can get around. And he loves my children who are home and get to go over there, but I don't get the opportunity. I don't take the opportunity and I don't ask him what his needs are. Do you know that it's very possible that if Nehemiah had not asked what the situation was with his people, he never would have known and consequently this whole story never would have unfolded. David never would have known who Goliath was. Paul wouldn't have known the condition of many of his churches. And beloved, we too must see that an intercessor, first of all, is made by someone, by God, that is, through someone who's willing to ask, what are your needs? Bob Flower, who works full time with Youth Guidance and was for 25 years a marketing director for one of the major companies in Pittsburgh, told me the other day over lunch. He said, you know, I find it so easy to share the gospel because all I do is ask questions. And I pick up when somebody's open, I just ask them a question and they just start talking and I ask them another question and then I don't make it. I never preach to them. I just ask him a question. And how many of you would admit that you don't like to ask questions? Because one of the things is you don't like to get involved. And it's just part of us. It's ingrained in us because we've got to get home by 5:30, We need to ask questions. Let's start in our home. How many of you know what your teenagers have been doing the last week and a half? How many of you know what's been important to your wife or your husband? And in your home groups? Do you meet in your home groups and you study the word and so on? But do you take the time to know what your brother or your sister is really going through? Those home groups need to be a place where we ask questions. Beloved don't have all the answers. How about your office? How about your schoolroom? Do you know how your secretary is doing. If you want to be an intercessor, you've got to ask the question. And secondly, I want to say this. Not only do we need to ask the questions where we are normally, but we need to be where the questions are being asked. We need to be there where things are happening. We need to be willing to get out and find where the people are hurting. We put out a request for the last two and a half weeks for tutors to help kids who are in seventh and eighth grade and don't know how to read. And we were allowed to teach them with the word of God to read. How many people we had respond to that? To my knowledge, three people. Now, there's a lot of you that don't do anything specifically for an hour or two in the afternoon. And this may not have been the thing for you, but unless we get out and start saying, I'm willing to meet a need, then we'll not ever become an intercessor because we've got to be willing to be where those needs are. I'm going to use an illustration of a brother here. I know he'll allow me to do that. I've talked with him before about it. But Al Mossberg has a responsibility of playing in clubs, and he sees people there all the time for whom the closest they get to some sort of fellowship is by hugging their glass of beer. And I know without knowing Al that well, yet I know that when he walks out of those clubs, he hurts for the people because all they have to keep him company is a glass of beer. And I don't know what it does to him at night, but I have a feeling that when he prays, he prays for the hearts of those lonely people. I'm not making a plea that we all go out and go into the bars, but I am saying that we need to be willing to be where the needs are, beloved. Because if you want to isolate yourself from them, you probably can, right? Except that they're going to be right there in your own family. We need to be willing to be out there. Now, look what happened with Nehemiah. Nehemiah sat down. When I heard these words in verse four, I sat down. Now I want to stop right there. He sat down. What does that mean? He just plopped down. Okay, there's the physical, literal thing of he sat down physically. But also there's the sense in which he contemplated the need that was voiced to him, the simple need, the expression of his people and their situation. He began to ponder that in his mind he contemplated it. He thought about it. And then some inexplicable thing happened. Because. Because God added some seasoning of his own compassion and his own care and God's own heart toward his people, whose walls. And I need to tell you that the walls of Jerusalem, the walls of a city in that culture, stood for protection and identity. And when the walls of a city were down, the people were unprotected and shameful. It was a disgraceful thing to be in an unwalled city. And it meant that the people had no sense of identity, that they were no longer a people that could be seen as God's people. And what took place in the gates of those walls, beloved praise. And so when the walls were down, the gates were down. And when the gates were down, there was no praise. Nehemiah sat and contemplated that. And God poured his measure of love into it. And then what happened? Nehemiah wept. And the need became a burden. That's what's happening here. The need has become a burden. Beloved. All of God's prophets had a burden. You look at Habakkuk one one and Malachi one one, they start out the burden of the word of the Lord to the prophet. A burden, you see, is the only true motivation for serving Jesus Christ. That's what really will get us out where we need to be. Wherever that arena is for you. The definition of a burden in Vine's Dictionary of New Testament Theology is it's a weight that makes a demand on one's resources. You can say, yeah, I'm burdened for the lost in India. But if it doesn't make a demand on your resources, sir, it's not a burden. It's a thought that you have. Because when you're really burdened, you give. What did Nehemiah give? Look what he did. Look at the rest of that verse. He mourned for days. I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. You see, he was burdened to the point where he gave us his time. He gave his physical pleasure, he gave of himself. Nehemiah was a burdened man. I want to ask you something today in love, have you ever cared so much for a person that you've wept a single tear for their salvation? Have you ever been so burdened for the bondage of another that you found yourself in tears on your face before God for that person? Have you ever been so caught up in anguish and suffering of a parent whose child has rejected them or a child whose parent doesn't care about them that you've wept with them and put your arms around them and held them and cried with them and prayed for them. You see, beloved, that's what a burden does and that's what makes an intercessor. Then you'll pray. Then you'll have a concern and a care that will wake you up at night. Have you grieved over the sins of this nation? Have you grieved over the death that stalks so many of the institutional churches? Have you wept over that? You see, Nehemiah wept. He mourned and fasted. He didn't just throw up a one liner. Bless all these people, Lord, and bless those down the street and all our dear friends in the covenant and all this stuff. He wept. And God makes an intercessor by giving them a burden. What do you think it is that drew Hudson Taylor to China and C T stud to spend his life in India and Africa and China? It was a burden. It was a burden that set David Wilkerson in New York City to care for those lost young people. It was a burden that sent Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision, into India to give his life to the lost. It was a burden that sends Father Bruce Ritter into the lost and the homeless, runaway children in New York City. It was a burden that caused Pat Robertson to get the 700 Club on the air. It was a burden that sent Bill Bright onto the campuses all around this country. It was a burden. It wasn't just some glorious vision that God gave them for ministry. It was a burden. It was a weight. It was a thing that they could not help but do because they were burdened over the lost. And I'll tell you something, beloved. A burden must come to the point of crushing and breaking your heart. A real burden from God will break your heart. That's what happened to Nehemiah here. Because when you're burdened from God, it's so much a part of you that you feel it. You literally feel it happening. David Brainerd said, lord, give me these Indians or I'll die. He didn't just pray a two line prayer once a week for the Indians. Now does that mean I can't pray for Indians or whatever? No, it just means that that's not the same thing as a burden. It's not going to make you someone who seeks the face of God a burden. Beloved is the kind of thing that Paul had in Romans 9. Why don't you hold your finger in Nehemiah 1 and flip over there and look at it. Romans 9. Paul says, I am speaking the Truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. That's a burden, beloved. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen, by race. And there he refers to the Jews. You see, beloved, that's a burden. And a burden, ultimately is a weight that causes you to identify the third thing that God does to make an intercessor. He gives a need. The need becomes a burden. The burden leads you to the third thing, and that's identification. Alan Redpath, who wrote the book the Victorious Christian Life, he's a great man of God, said this. Let us learn this lesson. You never lighten the load unless you first have felt the pressure in your own soul. You are never used of God to bring blessing until God has opened your eyes and made you see things as you are. You'll never lighten the load until you feel the pressure. I love that, because that's what it takes. You've got to feel that pressure. Nehemiah, just like we would. I expected he was probably tempted because of his influential position to say, the walls are down and the people are in bad shape. Let's get a group of people together and send them out there and get those walls built and get the lazy people out of the way. You know, we are like that, aren't we? We're a do kind of people. But Nehemiah, instead of doing that, look back at verse 6 and 7 in Nehemiah. Now look what he does. Because of his bur. Let thy ear be attentive and thy eyes open to hear the prayer of thy servant, which I now pray before thee day and night for the people of Israel. Thy servants confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which underline it in your Bible, beloved. We, not they, we. Was he in their sinning? No, but he identified with their sin, which we. Have sinned against thee. Yea, I and my father's house have sinned. That's the kind of thing that happens when you're given a burden. You feel with the very people that you're praying for that you're part of what's happening to them. A ministry that's not well known these days and most of our evangelical circles, but it's coming increasingly, so. It's called World Impact. And a man that I had a chance of meeting a number of years ago, named Keith Phillips, founded this ministry. And what it is is a Ministry to the inner city, ghettos and world impact goes into a city and establishes a residence right there. They're in St. Louis, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Newark, places that have major ghettos, Chicago. And they live there with the people and they identify with the people. And times they're rejected and thrown out, but most times the people believe them because they're there. And their prayer burden became an identification. And God has mightily blessed that ministry. Billy Graham calls it one of the most significant ministries that he's ever seen because of the life changing that's going on as a result of that. And really, identification leads me to the fourth thing that God does to make an intercessor. He involves you. He gives you a need. He seasons that need with his own heart. And compassion becomes a burden. The burden then so brings you in to the situation that you become identified with the people. And that identity then ultimately, by the grace of God, leads to involvement. You yearn to be there. Remember David Wilkerson's story? How many of you read Cross in the Switchblade remember what he was doing? He was in prayer, and he heard about these kids in New York City. And the more he prayed about it, the more he felt he had to go. And he finally went. And when he got there, he realized that God had sent him. And that burden that he had in prayer led to identification, which ultimately led to his involvement with those people, those young people, those gangs. And you know, that's the beautiful thing about a burden God gives, beloved, that the more you get involved, the more of a burden you have. And the more of a burden you have, the more you get involved and you find yourself literally laying your life right in there. So the prison ministry is more than just, lord, bless all the prisoners and help them to be happy today that you go and visit them because you're praying for them and your heart's broken for their situation. Do you want to see what an intercessor does? Turn to number 16. This is right after the experience, the Bible of Korah's rebellion, when thousands of the Israelites were slain by God for their rebelliousness against his leadership. I won't read that story, but look at 41 and following. But on the morrow, all the congregation of the people of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, you have killed the people of the Lord. Can you believe that they just had seen thousands of their kinsmen fall into this giant earthquake crevice in the ground? I can't believe that kind of hardness, but that's bizarre. And they went and murmured again. And when the congregation had assembled against Moses and against Aaron, they turned toward the tent of meeting. Behold, the cloud covered it. And the glory of the Lord appeared. And Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of meeting. And the Lord said to Moses, get away from the midst of this congregation that I may consume them in a moment. And I love this. They fell on their faces. It's like, I don't know about you, but if God said that to me, I'd probably be. You know what I mean? You can just imagine there's a tone in what God says here. Get away from him so I can consume them in a moment. He's so upset with them. And Moses and Aaron fall on their faces. That's the picture of an intercessor. They fall on their faces. And in that moment, look what happens. Moses said to Aaron, take your censer and put fire therein from the altar and lay incense on it and carry it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them. For wrath has gone forth from the Lord. The plague is begun. So Aaron took it, as Moses said, and strolled into the midst of the assembly. No, he ran because people's lives were at stake. And behold, the plague had already begun among the people. And he put on the incense and made atonement for the people. That's the only place in the Old Testament where the word atonement appears. Tremendous theological truth in that which we don't have time to get into. Only place in the Old Testament, you see it. And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped. Beloved, there is an intercessor, his own life on the line, standing between the dead and the living, or the living and the dead. Do you see that? Realizing that he may go down, but willing to do it if he could spare the wrath of God. That's the heart of an intercessor. And that only comes as God gives you a burden and you identify and you get involved. Beloved, is that happening in us today? I want to ask you that. Do you have a burden for anything today? Has God brought tears to your eyes for someone or some group or something in his kingdom or out of his kingdom, for whom you can become an intercessor, for whom you can walk between the living and the dead. That's what needs to happen today. That's what God wants to raise up in our fellowship. Some say, well, I'm not really a prayerful kind of person. I'm an activity person. I like to do things. Anyone feel that way? There are some who I know are good prayers and bless them. I really need them. But I'm not a prayer. I'm a doer. SD Gordon, who wrote a beautiful book called Quiet Talks and Prayer, said a man can do much after he prays, but he can do nothing until he prays. And that's true. And I want to call us as an assembly of God's people to become intercessors and to seek the face of the Lord. To ask God to lead us to needs and to throw our hearts open to people who are crying out. And they are crying out. Beloved, how many people want to see an outpouring of Holy Spirit anointed revival? I know people have been praying for revival. Beloved, it will only come. I'm telling you, it will only come as we pray for it together. It will not come because we want it to. Just. Boy, it would be great to have revival. It will come because we have a burden. And that burden leads us to identify and to be involved so that God can pour out his blessing. Would you pray with me, O Father? Lord, I think in my own heart how grateful I am for these men of God that you've preserved in this scripture for us. And Lord, I pray today. And we join our hearts to pray today, Lord, that it would never be said of this people at Northway Christian Community what was said to Ezekiel that I searched and searched for one among them to stand in the gap, but lo, I found none. Oh Lord, I pray that you sovereignly would raise people up who see needs and who ask to see needs. And Lord, who let that need become a burden to them, knowing, Lord, that you will carry them through that burden because your burden is light. And Lord, that burden will become an identification and that identification will become an involvement of their own soul. Lord. Oh, I praise you, Lord, that there are people here with that kind of a heart. I thank you for the precious ones who do pray, Lord, and I ask you to multiply them with grace upon grace and all the rest, Lord, who would follow your heart in this ministry. And I ask it in the name of Jesus. Praise the lord. I want to say to you this morning too. This is. You're in prayerful waiting a moment. I specifically did not mention Jesus Christ as an intercessor because I wanted you to hear this. Now do you see that Jesus Christ, God in the flesh was because he came because first of all, God saw the situation his people. Listen to me, those of you who don't know about your relationship to God, God saw your situation. He saw the need. And that need became a tremendous burden to him. So much of a burden that he divested himself of his only son. And Jesus came and he identified with the people. He was one among us. Philippians says he became like us. And then not only did he identify, but he involved himself to the point of death. Death on a cross. And beloved Hebrews says, 7:25, behold, he now ever lives to make intercession. Do you know Jesus today? Do you have a heart for God? Today I'm going to ask you, have you opened up your life to Jesus Christ and made a commitment to him and responded to his love? If you haven't done that, you can do it right now. Right now. You can pray and say, God, I want Jesus Christ to come into my life. As a beginning point of that decision. I want to agree with you that that's what you're going to do. Father, forgive my sin. Let Jesus come into my life. Would you do this for me? Because it's for you. In scripture, the Bible says if two or more of us agree on earth is touching anything we ask, it will be given by our Father, who is in heaven. If you wan