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Livingston SDA Church

Christian Martin

The Necessity of Intercessory Prayer

You know, as the day of the Lord approaches, that which we know as the great appearing, the coming of Christ, the great controversy will intensify.

As we look around in our world today, we see that the contractions that Jesus spoke about are becoming more frequent and more intense.

And as the spiritual warfare intensifies, so must the prayers of the saints of the Most High.

My message today is entitled, The Necessity of Intercessory Prayer in the Last Days.

Let's bow our heads together as we acknowledge God.

Father in heaven, we've come here to worship you and you alone, to be in your presence, to receive everything you have for us.

We didn't merely come Lord to to be entertained, to be in fellowship, to see 1 another.

No, no, we came here Lord, we came here to worship you and to give you of our hearts, and of our time, and of our attention.

And so now we ask that you would please come and speak, speak to our hearts, in that strong yet still small voice and we thank you for answering our prayer in Jesus name, amen.

It was Thomas Dorsey, known as the father of gospel music, who wrote, if we ever needed the Lord before, my Lord, we sure do need him now.

If we ever needed the Lord before, my Lord, We sure do need Him now.

Can you agree that there is a time, we live in a time right now, That is unlike the days that our ancestors experienced.

We live in very unique times, very strange times.

If we ever needed the Lord, we surely need him now.

Please come with me to the book of Hebrews.

And here in Hebrews chapter 4, we're going to read verses 14 to 16.

The author of Hebrews tells us this, seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Verse 16, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

And I am fully convinced, I know, I know, that there's someone here today who needs mercy.

There's someone here today who is looking for grace, looking for grace.

It says, for we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Somebody, somebody's looking for mercy today.

You're looking for grace, which none of us deserve.

And woe to any 1 of us if we no longer sense our need of mercy or grace.

The need for prayer will often come unexpectedly, as it did for me this morning.

I was in my office, getting things together, collecting my thoughts, and Heidi just runs in literally and says, Honey, we need to pray now.

She had just gotten the message via text that our friend Scott Michael Bennett had gotten up at 3.30 in the morning to get to a church where he was gonna have a concert.

And he was being carried by helicopter to a nearby hospital.

His wife did not know whether he was alive or not.

And so right there and then, it was rather ironic that as I was meditating on intercession I find myself literally in the very act interceding for our friend Scott.

In times like these, we need to turn to the Lord in intercessory prayer, intercessory prayer.

If we're church-going, Bible-believing people, we often hear intercessory prayer.

But do we understand really what that is?

Intercession is prayer that pleads with God on behalf of another.

See intercession involves taking hold of God's will and refusing to let go until his will comes to pass.

Taking hold of God's will and refusing to let go until his will comes to pass.

But of course an intercessor then must discern the will of God, must discern the will of God, lest you ask amiss.

First John chapter 5 verse 14 tells us that this is the confidence that we can have in Him.

That if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him according to his will.

So the intercessor must be in tune with the will of God.

And how can 1 be in tune with the will of God?

Well, 1 must be sure that their life is a life of absolute surrender, humbly surrendered to his will.

You cannot be an intercessor if you do not discern the will of God.

And you can only discern the will of God if you know something about absolute surrender.

In fact, worship and intercession must go together.

When we pray we must not lose sight of God.

We must get into the mind of Christ about the 1 for whom we pray.

As we wrestle with God in prayer, we're in an act of worship because we are getting into the mind of God.

And the only way to get into the mind of God for The person that we're praying for is to be in a state of humility and absolute surrender in the spirit of worship.

Because in the presence of a holy, holy, holy God, we worship.

Worship is a state of mind, a state of heart.

And to intercede we must discern the will of God, therefore we worship Him.

That is to say we we must be entirely identified with God's interest in other lives.

And so as we get into the mind of Christ, to know his will, if we're going to intercede for somebody, we must be so in tune with God's will that we discern, we discern the mind of Christ in the interest of another.

That is to say, we must be entirely identified with God's will and interest in other lives.

You know, discernment is God's call to intercession.

Discernment is God's call to intercession, never to fault finding.

We must discern the will of God and His will towards another if we are interceded for them.

If we do not discern the will of God for them, and are not discerning of His will, it often results in fault finding.

And we can only seek to form the mind of Christ as we worship him, to live in a holy relationship to God.

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The Necessity of Intercessory Prayer

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