Piercing Prayer!

Sermon Text: Numbers 11:32 - All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers...

Sermon Title: Piercing Prayer

Context of Numbers 11:  After 400 years of slavery, God delivers the Israelites out of Egypt. But it’s much harder getting “Egypt out of the Israelites” than getting “the Israelites out of Egypt.” Despite the memories of slavery and miracles of deliverance, the Israelites want to go back to Egypt.

The people of Israel began to complain, “Oh, for some meat!” they exclaimed. “We remember all the fish we ate used to eat for free in Egypt. And we had all the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic that we wanted. They forget the food was free because they weren’t. But now our appetites are gone, and day after day we have nothing to eat but this manna!”  Moses had to pray some pretty powerful prayers to overcome their murmuring.

Point 1:  Prayer that Produces Results- vs. 21…Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot and you say, “I will give you meat to eat for a whole month!” 22 Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?

Moses tells God about the problem.

Application: What is the “step of faith” that you need to take in order for God to produce results? Moses had to pray and believe.  Write it down.  It could be a phone call…
Story: Hello, I am Marylyn Vogel. I submitted my story about being a single parent and earning my Master's of Science in Education and Cultural Diversity degree.  Since then I have faced a few impossible type obstacles...BUT GOD!! I was given incorrect counsel by the SIUE financial aid department. The person told me I could take some courses and later the office told me that I did not qualify for the funding that I received and that they would be taking the money back from my account. This left me with a balance of $10,000! This meant I would not be able to get my degree I worked so hard for, or get my transcripts for employment.  I was informed of all this in February 2012. I told God that I needed him to handle it because there was no way I could handle or pay that money on my own. Today April 2012 my account is clear and I also received a refund!! Praise God!!

Point 2:  Prayer that Penetrates Problems – vs. 14, 15  I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. 15 If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin.”

How many of you would say Moses has a problem on his hands.  The problem is so large he said God just take me out, “just kill me.”

Application:  Is there a problem you need penetrated? Maybe you need your...

Point 3: Prophetic Prayers for Life vs. 24 – 26, 29 ²⁴  So Moses went out and told the people what the LORD had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the tent. ²⁵ Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took some of the power of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied—but did not do so again.  ²⁶ However, two men, whose names were Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp. ²⁹ But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!”

Here you have Moses praying and God speaking prophetically through the lives of the Israelites.

God asks Moses a question. Your answer to this question, will determine the size of your prayer circles.  Vs 23 - ²³ The LORD answered Moses, “Is the LORD’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.”

How big is your God? Is He big enough to heal your marriage or heal your child? Is He bigger than a positive MRI or a negative evaluation? Is He bigger than your secret sin or secret dream?

My Story: One cold December night my mother called me into her room and told me we had to pray for one of my brothers.  I was no more than thirteen at the time.  I had given my life to Christ at age 12 and started preaching the next year.  My brother was in his early twenties.  My immediate thought was how could I pray for my brother.  I remember thinking I was too young and why was my mother including me in this prayer?  She had never done that before.  When she told me what we were going to pray about, I became even more afraid and began to feel completely powerless.  My brother had a heroin habit that was fast becoming an addiction.  He worked in Washington, DC, and was late returning to work from the holidays.  He told my mother he needed bus money.  At that time, the Greyhound was the main mode of travel between Goldsboro, NC and Washington, DC.  He also told my mother he feared when he got back, he would lose his job.  He was desperate.  My mother, as usual, seemed to think prayer could solve everything.  I wasn’t so sure, since I had seen my brother, through the crack in the bathroom door, shoot heroin into his veins a few months earlier and there was no sign he had stopped.  My mother was not discouraged.  She said, “Son, lay your hands on your brother. We are going to pray.”  She got some consecrated olive oil and anointed my brother’s forehead.  She began to pray.  I tried to pray.  My mother prayed like I’d never heard her pray before.  My brother began to jump and shout in my parents’ small bedroom…p 65 Prayer Answers Guaranteed, Bishop Dudley  

1.  Continue what you started last week (21 days of prayer, Wednesday Prayer Call, Life Changing @ Another Level class, prayer journal, figure out what you want Jesus to do for you)

2.  Make a prayer appointment with God and refuse to miss it

3.  Measure your problem to God not your God to your problem

4.  Pick your biggest problem and draw a circle around it

5.  Pray plain language prophetic prayers for life