When Moses lined his will with the will of God, God brought water out of the rock. When Joshua aligned his will with the will of God, the sun stood still in its orbit. When David aligned his will with the will of God, Goliath fell. That's what happens when we align our will with the will of God and intercede on behalf of people everywhere.
Thank you for listening to Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. He has faithfully followed God's call to passionately proclaim the uncompromising truth of the gospel for over 50 years. Okay, do you think the lives of Moses, Joshua, or even David would have been different if their prayers only had occurred when disaster or tragedy was looming? Of course, their commitment to prayer was key, creating a powerful sync with God and God's will to accomplish eternity impacting things during their lives. Today on Leading the Way, Dr. Youssef asks the question, who will intercede?
Sure, Moses, Joshua, and David did, but will you? Listen as Dr. Youssef begins. Every report that I look at, it indicates that the level of stress in our culture is rising fast. In fact, there is the percentages of people who have been medicated just for stress is on the increase literally every single day. Now apart from the physical and the psychological consequence of this stress, there is the toll that it can take on families, on all relationships. And it appears to me at least, and that's my personal view, that there is a direct correlation between stress and the time spent on our knees in prayer. That there is a direct correlation between stress and time spent communing with God. There is a direct correlation between stress and living our lives in God's priority and by His priority. Between stress and seeking to align our will with His will. Between stress and unfaithfulness to God.
Between stress and living for self. Hudson Taylor, a great missionary statesman of the yester years said the following, he said, It doesn't matter how great the stress is, what really matters is where the stress leads you, whether it comes between you and God or whether it crushes you nearer to the heart of God. It is my testimony that stress in life can be a wonderful opportunity for God to bring us closer to Him. It can be a wonderful opportunity for us to spend quality time with God.
It's a wonderful time to understand and comprehend what it means to be communing with God. Because when you spend time with God and His word, He will reveal to you His will. He will reveal to you His plan for your life. And when you take that plan and the will of God in your life and you obey it and you begin to align your will with His will, not the other way around.
You're going to find relief from stress and that's a permanent release. The problem with so many people, I have seen it and you have seen it, is that they pray the wrong way. You say, Michael is there a wrong way to pray?
Absolutely. Read the book of James. He tells you about all the wrong way to pray. People pray the wrong way by thinking that prayer is basically a recitation of your wish list.
Give me this God, give me this God, give me this God, give me this God, and then they hang up on God and go on. There are others who pray and think that in praying they're basically twisting the arm of God to get Him to do what they want. In fact, some people think that prayer is wishing something so hard and they think that's faith. There are some people who pray the wrong way by thinking that prayer is overcoming God's reluctance to do what they want Him to do. That's a false understanding of prayer.
I want you to listen to me. Listen very carefully, please, because I am convinced after these years in ministry that if we begin to comprehend what prayer is all about from God's perspective, not from our perspective, we would pack out the sanctuary on Wednesday nights. I am convinced of that. If we understand that prayer is a matter of the will, not a matter of emotions or a matter of even the intellect, when we understand it is a matter of the will, we would be united in prayer every opportunity. If we understand the power of agreement in prayer, if we understand the power of faith that God can release to us as we pray, if we understand God's longing heart to see His children unite in prayer, if we can comprehend how prayer is aligning our will with His will, not the other way around, then we'll ignite a prayer movement that will literally turn our city upside down, our nation upside down, and the world upside down.
I'm convinced of that. Listen, there are so many politicians running around talking about change. They want to bring a change. We've heard them before, and they never can bring about the change. They tell you that what we need is a change, but listen to me.
You know, and I know, if you know Jesus, you know that real change is not going to come from the government, that real change is not going to come from politicians, that real change is not going to come from politics, that real change is not going to come from legislation, that the only change that we desperately need in this country is the changed hearts of men and women who can turn this country around for Jesus Christ. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that we need to sit back and do nothing and just pray. I am not saying that.
Don't get me wrong. I'm an activist. I pray daily for the people who stand up and make a difference in the political life. But, but with all of that, it is only when God's people begin to get on their knees and align their will with the will of God, will we see faith set forth as it is in the Scripture like we have never seen before. Only then we can really watch out and see how God's power being released to will and to do. But as long as we think that we can change things, that we can bring about change, God says, okay, go for it.
Go to it to your heart's content. Beloved, I'm going to tell you that the only kind of change that we bring about, it can only bring disastrous consequences, not only on this generation, but future generations. Let me give you an example, biblical illustration of what I'm trying to say. When the people of God got out of the slavery of Egypt and they got into the wilderness, God was training them to get out of this pagan lifestyle that they've been in for so long, 400 years. And he began to train them what it means to ask forgiveness, what it means to offer sacrifice.
And God, on his part, sends fire to take that sacrifice in order to assure them that he has answered their prayers, that he has forgiven their sins. And God said to Moses, appoint your brother Aaron and his sons the Levites to become priests. You see, that's in the Old Testament, the Levites were the priests who interceded between man and God. They stood in between, but thank God in the New Testament, we don't need such priests, because the Bible said every child of the living God, if you are in Christ, you are a priest. Every boy and every girl who's in Christ, every man and every woman, we are priests.
And we have equal access to the Father right now. That's what the Bible called the priesthood of all believers. But nonetheless, those Levites, the sons of Aaron, who went to offer God a sacrifice one day, but God did not send the fire.
Do you know why? Because there was a sin in the camp. So instead of going in there and examining their life, instead of going on their knees, instead of going on their faces, they lit their own fire. They lit their own fire. Well, God is not sending a fire, so we light our own.
And God was ticked off, to say the least. And there was death in the camp, because they were lighting their own fire. Beloved, listen to me, when we start lighting our own fire in our homes, when we try to start our own fires in our churches, when we start our own fires in the nation, we are inviting death.
And this is what we're seeing happening all over the place. There are some people who are praying the wrong way, and when God does not respond, they start their own fire and call it a revival. There are some people who are starting their own fire and answering their own prayers.
There are people who are lighting their own fire and resorting to bizarre behavior and mass hysteria, and they call it miracles. Beloved friends, listen to me, when Moses lined his will with the will of God, God brought water out of the rock. When Joshua aligned his will with the will of God, the sun stood still in its orbit. When David aligned his will with the will of God, Goliath fell.
When Elijah aligned his will with the will of God, fire came from heaven on Mount Carmel, licked up everything including the water. And when Daniel aligned his will with the will of God, mouths of lions were zipped. And when Paul and Silas aligned their will with the will of God, even though they were in a prison, the earth shook and the prison door opened. When the first church aligned itself with the will of God, Peter and John were released from prison. That's what happens when we align our will with the will of God and intercede on behalf of people everywhere. And that's what we desperately need. And yet that's the one thing that God's people are not doing.
Isn't that a tragedy? I think Satan is laughing in his sleeve. It's the one thing that God asks and that's the one thing God's people don't do. And what God is asking for Jesus' people to begin to humble themselves, begin to pray, aligning their will with the will of God, not the other way around. I keep repeating that because I've heard it.
I've seen it. God, I want you to do this. God, I want you to do that. Now say, God, what is your will so I can pray your will and have my will aligned with yours.
That's the right way to pray. Listen to me, homes are ambushed by the devil, even Christian homes. Marriages are in disarray. Families are falling apart. The nation is running away from God as far as it could. Only when God's people stop playing church and will see the power of God manifested to set the captives free, to save the lost and to transform hearts and minds for Jesus Christ and transform our culture and turn our society upside down.
Do you believe that? In the book of Ezekiel chapter 22 verse 30, there is a verse that always, always, every time I read it, it gets to me. Ezekiel 22 verse 30, God is crying through his prophet Ezekiel and here's what he said. He said, I sought for a man among them that should stand in the gap and repair the breach, but I found none. That tears me up.
I found none. What is he talking about here? What is that gap that he's talking about here? Well, Ezekiel was living in a time very similar to ours.
Very similar to ours. A time when God's people were busy with their own lives. A time when God's people were slowly but surely departing from the truth. It was a time when God's people were watering down the truth so much that it became unrecognizable. It was a time when they had religion but no righteousness. It was a time when they had form but no substance. It was a time when the shepherds were feeding themselves instead of feeding the flock of God from the word of God.
It was a time when the priests literally rewriting the truth. It was a time when the prophets were saying, don't worry God doesn't care which lifestyle you live in. It doesn't matter, God doesn't care.
Just go and live any which way you want to. And my beloved friends, listen to me, you don't have to have a seminary degree to realize that this kind of attitude creates a gap between God and his people. The sin and the tolerance of sin always creates a gap between God and his people. Idolatry and the running after false idols always creates a gap between God and his people. Worshiping at the shrine of materialism always creates a gap between God and his people. Unfaithfulness to God creates a gap between God and his people. Indifference towards lost people, indifference towards spiritual condition of our neighborhoods and of our cities and of our homes and of our nation. Indifference towards spiritual decaying that is happening before our own eyes. Indifference towards eternal future of your neighbors and of your friends and of your family members. All of these indifference create a gap between God and his people.
That's the gap he's talking about. And God looked down and he was looking for one, one, just one who was standing in the gap. He said to Ezekiel, Ezekiel, is there one person who cares enough about lost neighbors to stand in the gap and intercede on their behalf? Is there a person among my people who is willing to sacrifice one afternoon or two or five or ten or a hundred for my sake?
Is there one person among my people who is willing to sacrifice their comfort and sacrifice their convenience and sacrifice their schedule and sacrifice their money and sacrifice their time and sacrifice their energy? Is there one, just one, one person who can foresee the consequences of the nation's departure from the truth? One person who can discern and see how the Holy Spirit is departing our shores. One person who can see how our nation is turning away from the God of the founding fathers. One person who can see the disaster that is lurking in the dark. One person who can perceive how godless judges and godless politicians are turning over the will of the people. Is there one person, as I told you in the very beginning, that our stress in our culture is in direct proportion for our departure from the truth and direct proportion for our interceding and taking our intercessory and our priestly role seriously.
And God is looking just for one. Many years ago there was a very prominent foreign scholar who traveled throughout the United States and he said that he found there are four varieties of perceptions across the United States without mentioning names or places. He said in one part of the country the question, the important question is, how much does a man know? He said in another part of the country the question is, who is this man's father? In another part of the country he said the question was, where does the person come from?
And then fourthly he said in the fourth part of the country the question is, how much money does a person have? And I couldn't help but think that God doesn't judge a person by his or her origin. He doesn't judge us by our wealth.
He doesn't judge us by the string of degrees that we have. He is saying I am looking for one person who is willing to push himself between me and a sinful fallen culture and world. He is saying I am looking just for one person who would pray, who would intercede, who is willing to come between me and a sinful society. One person who is willing to place my kingdom and my righteousness above everything else in life. He is saying I am just looking for one person who cares enough not to just attend a prayer meeting once in a while but to invest his and her life in prayer. He said I am looking for one person God said whose whole life is going to be a life of surrender and a life of commitment.
I am looking for one. Of course Ezekiel's cry in the Old Testament was the cry of God. And God kept crying that cry and it ultimately was fulfilled in answer by one person. Only one person who could bridge the real gap between God the Father and humanity's sin.
Sin that every one of us have in our DNA, sin of which we all inherited in our genes from Adam and Eve. And when God the Father called for someone who would stand in the gap between him and a sinful humanity, God the Son answered that call. Knowing full will the enormity of the cost of having to lay aside the glory and the splendor of heaven and living like the poorest of the poor. The Bible said he did not have anywhere to lay his head. He knew that ultimate price is going to be stretching his arms and there on that cross.
He was going to be separated from the Father even though briefly as it was for the first time ever since eternity. In order that he might bear the sin of everyone who would come to him. God the Son said I will pay the price in full. I'll stand in the gap and Jesus stood in the gap when he hung on that cross. And that's the only way you and I can come to him.
There is no other way. He's the one who said I will pay the wages of the sins of everyone who would repent and turn to me. And that's why Jesus after the resurrection, after the resurrection in every one of the four gospels and in the book of Acts. He said as the Father sent me I send you.
He said you go and tell. You be my witnesses. You go and make disciples.
Train them. Go and stand in the gap and bring me men and women. Will you answer the call? Will you intercede on their behalf so that God can look from heaven and give us mercy again.
That we have mercy on our world one more time. A passionate challenge to stand in the gap. Thank you for allowing Leading the Way and Dr. Yusef to be part of your day.
Listen to this message again through the Leading the Way app, the podcast or with your smart speaker. Learn more about all of these at ltw.org. Now as we've often shared, Dr. Yusef was born and raised in Egypt. Ultimately immigrating to the United States and fulfilling a long time dream of becoming a United States citizen. His experience and his background provide unique opportunities to reach people in areas of the world where the gospel isn't always welcome. And through these experiences many lives are changed for eternity. We really think you'll be encouraged by knowing some of these stories. And that is why each month the Leading the Way team produces a magazine. It's called My Journal. In My Journal, Dr. Yusef shares about the victorious life changes at home and around the world. So get your free trial subscription right now to My Journal. Give us a call.
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Hello, friends. You know, God is opening incredible doors for Leading the Way all around the world. Thank you so much for your generosity, for your faithful support. And because of your partnership, we are reaching millions with the gospel, advancing the kingdom of God. I just came back a couple of months ago from overseas where we saw enormous harvest.
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