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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Restoration 2025: Revelation Speaks Life

Anthony Baca

Worship Him

Revelation’s Good News

Aidan Martell

Prevailing in Prayer: Lessons from Bold Prayers with Dramatic Answers

The Fear of The Lord

Give Him the Glory

The Hour of His Judgment

Babylon is Fallen

The Fire of His Love

No Turning Back

Well, it's an honor to be invited to speak here.

Like Kat said, I was here the first time probably like 9 years old.

And I remember seeing people like the Clutis come up and direct the service and that made a big impression on me.

And I remember also going to restoration meetings every year in February.

And like Kat said, Anthony Baca's message from unbeliever to great achiever actually encouraged me a couple years later to start reading the Bible again after a period when I had grown a little bit disillusioned with religion.

And if reading the Bible was able to take him all the way to med school, I knew that God could probably do something in my life through reading the Bible, so I gave it a try.

So now I'm standing here speaking during a restoration series myself.

Today's sermon is called Prevailing Prayer, lessons from bold prayers with dramatic answers.

And before I say anything else, I'd like to ask for God's presence 1 more time.

Dear Father in heaven, we thank you so much for the opportunity that we have to be here in this room, hearing your word, for the opportunity that we have to remember you on this day and what you want to do in our lives.

I want to ask that you may please speak to each 1 of us, Lord, that you may remind us of what you need us to know during this next week, when we need it most, and that you may please be with my mouth, that you may please clean it up, and that whatever is spoken may honor you and be helpful to others.

Thank you so much for answering our prayer in Jesus name I ask, amen.

Almost a year ago, almost a year ago I was faced with a big decision to make.

I almost don't want to ask this question because I know that there's people in this audience that have had much bigger decisions to make than anything I've ever had to face.

But at that time, a year ago, I had a big decision to make.

I'd been accepted to med school a few months before, but had been planning to defer my application to spend a year as a student missionary in Central Asia.

Since my brother and I were really little, my dad used to tell us stories of the time he spent in Indonesia as a student missionary.

And understandably, I was looking forward to the experiences I would make and the stories I would get to tell from a year abroad myself.

Those of you who have taken a student missionary year could probably attest to the fact that this was 1 of the most priceless experiences of your lives.

So as a freshman I planned my college courses so I could have a year off to do mission service and remain with my cohort.

I began learning the lingua franca of the country that I wanted to go to, which incidentally happened to be quite commonly spoken in the place where I was studying at the time.

And I also applied to a well-known Adventist missionary organization that operates in the country and works with student missionaries.

And after a two-hour long interview that was far more grueling than anything I ever had to go through to get into med school, I was accepted and received a personal invitation to serve as a student missionary from the main recruiter of the organization.

At the same time all this was going on, I was, some circumstances changed in my life.

I was offered a significant scholarship to begin med school if I would begin that July.

And there were quite a few people in my life that I greatly respect that were discouraging me from taking a year off and were giving me plenty of good reasons why I should not do so.

Perhaps you should say I shouldn't have listened to them, but they weren't giving me bad advice, and it behooved me to take a listen to what they had to say.

So understandably, I had a big decision to make and an approaching deadline to make that commitment.

So I took a significant amount of time to seek God in prayer.

I didn't want to make a mistake, but I was growing increasingly impatient with God's seeming delay.

Despite the time I was inverting in prayer and seeking God, I somehow struggled to make a connection with him that would enable me to gain guidance about the next steps I was supposed to take.

So on 29 of March of last year, God actually provided me some guidance with the decision I was supposed to make.

And he did this by directing me to the following prayers in the Bible, which we're gonna take a look at today.

These are prayers that received dramatic answers.

A whole army slain by God's hand without the shot of a single arrow, and the descent of the Holy Spirit in such a way that an entire building trembled.

The lessons I learned from studying these prayers have helped me to draw even closer to God when I'm in deep trouble or feel inadequate or when I have a tough decision.

So this is what I'd like to talk about this morning.

When Jerusalem was surrounded by the Moabites and Jehoshaphat had to face the invading army.

And we can find this story in 2 Chronicles 20, verses 1 through 30.

It happened after this that the people of Moab, with the people of Ammon and others with them besides the Ammonites, came to battle against Jehoshaphat.

Then some came and told Jehoshaphat, saying, a great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea from Syria and they're in Hazason Tamar, which is in Gedi.

We can see here that Jehoshaphat and the Jewish nation was in great trouble.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with this story and the way it ended.

And we can see that they were outnumbered by a Confederate army of people that incidentally God had told the Israelites years earlier not to exterminate because they were related to them.

It's, you know, we have the Ammonites, we have the Moabites and the Edomites.

And these were all kindred people to the Israelites and the Jews.

And then they ganged up on the Jewish kingdom and now they were invading.

And they were, God somehow stepped in, unless God somehow stepped in, the nation was done for.

So what do you do when you end up in such a tough spot?

The Bible tells us that Jehoshaphat chose to pray.

The Bible tells us, and Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaim the fast throughout all Judah.

So Judah gathered together to ask help from the Lord.

And from all the cities of Judah, they came to seek the Lord.

Prayer changes things, but I'd like to argue this morning that the fact that Jehoshaphat prayed isn't the only thing that made the difference in his spiritual experience, but the way he went about it.

There's 5 key elements I'd like everyone to notice about Jehoshaphat's prayer.

So we'll take a look at the prayer now, and we can find it in verses 6 through 12 of the same chapter.

The Bible continues, then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court and said, O Lord God of our fathers, Are you not God in heaven and do you not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations?

And in your hand is there not power and might so that no 1 is able to withstand you?

Are you not our God who drove out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and gave it to the descendants of Abraham your friend forever and They dwell in it and they have built you a sanctuary in it for your name saying if disaster comes upon us sword judgment pestilence or famine we will stand before this temple and in your presence, for your name is in this temple, and cry out to you in your affliction, and you will hear and save.

And now, here are the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, Whom you would not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but turn they turned from them and did not destroy them Here they are rewarding us by coming to throw us out of your possession, which you have given us to inherit.

Oh Our God Will you not judge them for we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us Nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon you So the first lesson that we can learn from Jehoshaphat's prayer is to gather others to pray with us.

I'm not saying that there's no place for private wrestling with God.

The prayer lives of Samuel, Daniel, and Jesus make it abundantly clear that our alone time with God is critical to spiritual growth.

Jesus himself said, but you when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your father who is in the secret place, and your father who sees in secret, himself will reward you openly.

But in times of crisis, We must not neglect corporate prayer.

The Christian classic Steps to Christ states the following regarding the importance of corporate prayer.

We sustain a loss when we neglect the privilege of associating together to strengthen and encourage 1 another in the service of God.

The truths of his word lose their vividness and importance in our minds.

Our hearts cease to be enlightened and aroused by their sanctifying influence and we decline in spirituality.

In our association as Christians, we lose much by lack of sympathy with each other.

He who shuts himself up to himself is not filling the position that God designed he should.

The proper cultivation of the social elements in our nature brings us into sympathy with others and is a means of development and strength to us in the service of God.

If Christians would associate together, speaking to each other of the love of God and of the precious truths of redemption, their own hearts would be refreshed and they would refresh 1 another.

We may daily be learning more of our heavenly Father, gaining a fresh experience of his grace.

Then we shall desire to speak of his love, and as we do this, our own hearts will be warmed and encouraged.

If we thought and talked more of Jesus and less of self, we would have far more of his presence.

So during this time when I had this tough decision to make, I definitely was taking time to pray alone about my decision.

And it was during those moments when God actually led me to take a look at this prayer.

But I was also praying with my friends every Saturday morning.

And not necessarily about my decision, but just for guidance during that Sabbath and during the coming week in general.

And I remember having a very interesting experience when we got together to pray 1 morning, and someone happened to pray that God would fill us with his spirit such that when we left, people would be able to tell by looking at us that we'd been in his presence.

And I remember hearing him say that and thinking, that has never happened to me ever before.

That probably will never happen to me ever, wouldn't that be so nice?

Incidentally, that morning after teaching Sabbath school at my church, I decided to go to Sacramento to another church that I was attending.

And I was concerned that I was gonna miss the service because I was running late, but I had a limited opportunity to go to that church since I was graduating in 5 weeks, Russian speaking church.

And so I decided to go And I said, God, if there's something that you want me to do this Sabbath, if you have some plan for this interaction, this church service, maybe someone will invite me to their house for lunch.

You have to understand in that culture, it's very uncommon for people to invite random strangers for lunch.

So I sat down in the back row, and I sat down next to a lady who noticed my Bible and started whispering in my ear in Spanish, do you speak in Spanish?

It's very surprising for me to hear my native language spoken in a Russian church.

And she said, well, actually, we lived in Spain for 6 years before moving here to Sacramento.

And at the end of the service, she said, do you have any lunch plans?

Series

Restoration 2025: Revelation Speaks Life

Prevailing in Prayer: Lessons from Bold Prayers with Dramatic Answers

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Prayer’s Blessing

42m

David Guerrero Weekend

01 As It Was so Shall It Be: What Is A Christian Suppose To Do?

51m

GYC 2011 Seminar: The Movings of the Spirit

The Result of the Spirit, Part 2

1h

AMEN 2013: Plenary Sessions

Healing the Right Arm

25m

Anticipation

Pt 2-The Holy Spirit and the Cross

1h 13m

What is Grace?

33m

Ignite Your Spiritual Experience!

Experiencing God Through Prayer

1h 9m

Christ in You: The Hope of Glory

1h

Morning Devotional: It's War Time

It’s Wartime - Part 4: War in a Garden

50m

"Tell It Again"

God’s Love Language

56m

SWYC 2007 Plenary Sessions

Revelation’s Sanctuary Pattern

51m

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Neophyte and the Great Controversy

05-The Neophyte and The Great Controversy, Part 5

1h

Sound Doctrine