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The BIG Picture
"Collected
wisdom from the journey."
from Doug
Perry - www.FellowshipOfTheMartyrs.com
- May, 2007
Chapter
Twenty-Six – 24/7
Prayer
(Nothing written
yet, but here is a video response to this topic.)
(Transcript of
the Video)
This chapter is
about 24/7 prayer rooms and the problem that I have with it, and some
of the movements that are happening particularly International House
of Prayer (IHOP).
There is a page on
our website addressed to Mike Bickle and the call to repentance found
here ( www.fellowshipofthemartyrs.com/mike_bickle_international_house_of_prayer.htm
) addressing the areas where he's missed the mark, particularly
in restoring the City Church which is something God gave him to do,
and he gave up on about 20 years ago.
But I want you to
understand, my problem is not with prayer, prayer IS the way to bring
revival, my problem is with MAN telling you what to do instead of
GOD. My problem is with somebody charging you $250 to teach you
how to pray. My problem is with scheduling, structuring and
programming God. It's bad enough on a Sunday morning when we
tell everybody to come in at 10:30, and we'll make sure the Holy
Spirit's there, and we'll make sure He leaves by noon, so that we can
go home and have lunch.
He doesn't like
being put in a box; He doesn't like to be programmed. He
doesn't like you to arrange your schedule and then stick Him in where
you think He can go. He REALLY, REALLY doesn't like it.
It's bad enough
that we've been scheduling God on Sundays and Wednesday nights, but 24/7
prayer where you have a plaque on a wall that says who's singing,
what time slot, and they're paid to be interns, and they have to be
there, and it has to happen in a certain way, and at a certain time
we're going to pray for this, all you have done is take
"programming God" to an extreme. You have
continuously programmed God all week long.
I'm not against
prayer. I'm not against repentance. I know that that's
the path to bring revival. But if you think that by your many
words, or by your singing and dancing you're going to bring revival,
then you do not accurately understand the Word of God. In Joel 2:12
says, "Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me
with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with
mourning" (King James). In Isaiah 58 it says declare a
Holy Fast. In Isaiah 58, there are 2 types of Fasts, one where
they hang their head, and go without food, and another where they
feed the hungry and clothe the naked&ldots; and that's the kind of
fast the Lord wants.
To extend your
soul out to the thirsty soul, THEN your light will rise out of the
darkness. If you just hang your head, and you're thinking,
"Well, how come He doesn't hear us?" And He says,
"You act like a nation obeying Me, but you don't&ldots;. like
you want Me to listen, but you don't really want to listen to ME."
If we're just
praying AT the Lord 24/7, that's just vain babbling, that's just lots
and lots of useless words, and no listening. And if we program
it and schedule it, and we have a chart where somebody's going to
volunteer every hour, to be praying all the time because we need to
be continuously praying so that we can get God to do whatever it is
that we want Him to do, that's witchcraft, that's manipulation and
control. You're trying to get God to act.
The Word says that
we should be continually in prayer; that we should be praying without
ceasing. This is an INDIVIDUAL command, not a group
command. YOU need to pray without ceasing. We have people
here that are praying without ceasing&ldots;. I pray without
ceasing&ldots;. 24/7 prayer all by myself, ALL the time.
Why? Because my life is a prayer, because I'm under His
Headship, directed by Him. Lots of other people are too.
And He has said: "You are a prayer. YOU are a prayer.
Because everything that you are doing is according to My Will, and
everything that I want you to do&ldots; and when I tell you to pray,
you pray, and when My Spirit wants to pray through you, it does.
Even when I'm sleeping.
Your life needs to
be a prayer. All the time. You don't need a place to go
do it&ldots;. You don't need music to go do it&ldots;. You don't need
20 minute long hypnotic songs. You need Him. You
need to be totally sold out, ALL means ALL, give it over to Him, and
He will make your life a prayer and He will fix it so that you'll be
praying without ceasing whether you know it or not. If
you try to do it in your own power, if you try to put up a check
list, a sign up sheet, and have them all agree on when they're
going to be there so that you can feel good about having filled out
the schedule and say we're successful because we haven't stopped
praying for 7 years&ldots;. Well, what if God wanted you to shut up,
and go feed the widow across the street? What if God wanted you
to stop, just stop! To go spend that time at the Homeless
shelter. "Well we can't do that, we're on a roll&ldots; we
have a webcast, the whole world is watching&ldots;we gotta keep this
thing going! We've got a streak going here!"
Do you see the
problem? God is more creative than this. God doesn't need
us to help Him provide a place for people to come pray. You should be
praying all the time, no matter where you are. We are teaching
people to depend on a prayer room to come and pray. It was bad
enough when we taught just Sunday & Wednesday nights to
pray&ldots;. Now we're teaching them "all the time" We're
putting Him in a box, all the time.
I know that there
are lots of people with sincere hearts who go to prayer rooms to pray
and seek God. And it's really pretty to go to a prayer room in
the middle of the night and see 50 kids praying, but I'm telling you,
the premise is wrong. If you think you're going to get Him to
act by the number of your words, or the number of people praying, or
by the fullness of your sign up sheet - you're wrong. He wants
YOU to pray without ceasing. He wants YOU to be a 24/7 prayer
room all by yourself, everywhere you go.
He doesn't need
our help. I learned this at the Fellowship of the Martyrs on
our discussion boards online, where we wanted to have a sign up sheet
where people could be praying all the time. We thought it would
be cool to have prayer 24/7, that it would be great! And the
Lord killed it within a couple of days! He said, "You
think I need your help, to get them to pray? If I want them to
wake up at 1am to pray, I'll make them wake up. I don't want
them to commit to 3pm every day. I've got other things on their
schedule. I'm more creative than that. I may not want
them to pray at that moment. I will make sure that someone is
praying for you, if I want you prayed for. I don't need your
help." So we pulled it down, and we repented, and we said,
Lord, do it however You like. And I know that there are
thousands of intercessors praying for me at any given moment, praying
for the ministry that God is doing here. I don't even know
them! I don't send them a list of what to pray for. I
just figure that the Holy Spirit is going to make them pray for
whatever I need. Because He's bigger than me, and it's just a
lot easier.
I don't know if
this has connected with you, but take the scriptures, seek the
Lord. Ask Him if the Tabernacle of David is the way to bring
revival. Is this the way to turn when the locusts have
come? Do you set up a Tabernacle of David? When the
Middianites have taken over the land, do you set up the Tabernacle of
David, and sing and dance? Is that really the recipe when
everything hits the fan? I mean, during the millennium reign of
Christ, or when we are standing around the throne, that's great, sing
and dance all you like! But if you're going to be
singing and dancing, even when destruction is coming down our ears,
even during the tribulation, even as the anti-christ is setting up
his kingdom&ldots;. I don't think you're listening to God, because He
wants repenting and weeping and mourning. That's the only safe
place. Read Ezekiel 9, only people with the seal of God on
their foreheads, because they're crying about the state of things are
safe. Everybody else is dead meat.
Please go to the
Word. Go to the Lord. See if the recipe for revival, for
restoration, see if you can find anywhere in the Bible, that says
when the locusts have come and devoured everything because of your
disobedience, singing and dancing is the way to fix it&ldots; it's
not. There's only one solution, and that's REPENT.
Don't repent for
abortions or homosexuals, or the atheists or the liberals or
whatever&ldots;. Repent because the Church did this. Repent
because we brought this on ourselves, by disobeying God. Those
things are the consequences or the symptoms of us having disobeyed.
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