How to Pray: God Help Them Remember Who You Are!

When it seems like everyone is falling away or backsliding, how do you pray for them? How do you pray when you are standing alone? As follower of Jesus Christ, we are always outnumbered, but never outmanned because we serve the one who was 100% God and 100% man and He alone is more than the sum of everything else! Stay on the prayer journey to learn this prayer strategy and remember to PRESS because PRAYER REACHES EVERY SINGLE SITUATION!

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Transcript

how-to-pray-god-help-them-remember-who-you-are

Press means to apply force. When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through.

And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us. Greetings, everybody. Welcome to the Press Podcast.

As we are setting up today, we're going to be in 1 Kings chapter 18, which is an extremely interesting story, but while you're grabbing it, I was just thinking about our country. We are facing a big election and our country needs prayer. I don't care which candidate you're for or against, or which party you belong to, if any.

Our country needs the Lord right now. And it is imperative that we are praying for the leaders, whomever God allows them to be, because what they do affects us all. And in America, sometimes I think we take for granted that we have the freedom to do things like this, like a podcast and talk about God, or go to church on Sundays, or wear a shirt even that has a cross on it.

There are many countries and many places where you don't have the liberty to serve God aloud. And America is still one of those that does have that. And it's important that we are praying for our leaders because there is such a great opposition to truth and to the things of God in this hour.

And I believe the goal of it is deceit, that we are to slowly as a church and as those who love the Lord, fall into a state of being lethargic, where we're not paying attention to what's happening, where we're not awakened to what's happening around us. But church, let's pray. Saints, friends, let's pray for our nation and even pray for the world.

Pray for those believers all over the world that are following God, because just as I stated, some don't have the same freedoms we have, but they're following him anyway. If you look it up, at least at one point, Christianity was the most persecuted religion in the world. We'd like to think it was something else, but that's not true.

When I looked a few years back, it was Christianity. We cannot take for granted that we have the ability to raise our voice. And yes, we can raise it before governments, but when you raise it before God, you get strategy first, a strategy that God will use and be in alongside you.

So today I encourage you to pray for all of your leaders. As we're going to 1 Kings chapter 18, we get to see Elijah's interaction with the leader, King Ahab. King Ahab, if you were listening last week, I did tell you he really, really hated Elijah.

Elijah never prophesied anything that was good for King Ahab, and this is no exception. Elijah is so hated by King Ahab, but the Lord tells Elijah, I'm going to send rain upon the earth. Go show yourself to Ahab.

Okay, go show myself to the person who wants me dead. Elijah does not even question it. He makes his way to go see Ahab.

On his way to Ahab, he meets a man named Obadiah. This Obadiah is believed to be the same person who later wrote the book of Obadiah. The Bible says that Obadiah was a God-fearing man and that though he was the governor of the house of Ahab, when Ahab's wife, Jezebel, was cutting off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took and hid a hundred prophets and he fed them bread and water.

He fears God greatly, and so he does things that will follow God, even though he's in the king's house. Anyway, Elijah encounters Obadiah, and when this happens, Obadiah knows immediately who he is. Now, mind you, in this time, there wasn't internet or pictures to be posted around.

There weren't newspapers. It was a little harder to know people by face, but Obadiah knew him, and he fell to the ground and said, Art thou my lord Elijah? And Elijah said to him in verse 8, I am. Go tell thy lord.

Behold, Elijah is here. He's like, my lord, you mean Ahab? Obadiah is a little stunned by the request. He's like, wait a minute.

What have I sinned that thou wouldst deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab to slay me? Why would you send me to Ahab so he can kill me for telling him you're here? And then Obadiah takes it a step further. He says, And as the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom within my lord hath not sent to seek thee. And when they said he is not there, he took an oath of the kingdom nation that they found thee not.

In other words, he has been looking everywhere for you. He's been looking to kill you. And if they said you weren't there, he made them promise they had no affiliation with you.

He said, Now you're telling me. Go tell him Elijah's here. He said, And as soon as I do this, as soon as I tell him you're here, watch, the spirit of the Lord is going to carry thee, whither I know not.

And so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me. This is verse 12. He's saying, Yeah, you're going to have me do this.

And then God's just going to take you away. And I'm going to be dead. In other words, he believed the Lord would make a way for him to escape the hand of Ahab.

But in other words, he believed the Lord would make a way for Elijah to escape the hand of Ahab. But he's like, No, this is going to get me killed. But Elijah tells them, and he goes on to share his resume.

Look, I know you may never heard, but I'm a servant who's feared the Lord for my youth. And I hid a hundred prophets and I fed them bread and water. Elijah says, As the Lord of hosts liveth before whom I stand, I will surely show myself unto him today.

So Obadiah went to Ahab and he said, Elijah's here. And of course Ahab comes. He's been looking for him.

And when they meet, Ahab says to Elijah, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? Elijah answered and said, I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house, and that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Balaam. Elijah did not back down or stutter just because he heard this man's been looking to kill me everywhere. He's like, You're saying I'm causing trouble, sir? No, it's you because you're not following God.

He said, Now therefore send and gather to me all Israel. This is Elijah talking to the king, telling him what to do. And now therefore send and gather to me all Israel unto Mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal 450, and the prophets of the groves 400, which eat at Jezebel's table.

So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel and gathered the prophets together to Mount Carmel. And Elijah came unto all the people and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him.

And the people answered him not a word. In the king's house, they had all kinds of things going on. This is supposed to be the Lord's people.

And yet now you've got these prophets of Baal, 850 of them surrounding you. Elijah said, No, get everybody together. Get the children of Israel together.

Get the prophets together. And I can see why Ahab would go for this because he's got a public stage on which he could probably try to embarrass Elijah, and he's not going to escape now. So he's like, Okay, fine.

They called them all together. And Elijah takes this chance on Mount Carmel to say to the people, Why are you still indecisive about who God is? It's funny how the leadership of the country reflects the state of the hearts of the people. Sometimes you'd like to think they were separate.

But here, they're torn too. He's rebuking the people for their tear. Even though it's Jezebel and Ahab who have the people at, even though it's Jezebel and Ahab who have the false prophets at their table, so to speak.

They couldn't get away with that if the hearts of the people were different. So the leadership is reflecting the hearts of the people and Elijah is rebuking the people for not knowing or remembering who their God is. But he says to them, Basically, let's have a showdown.

Let's build altars and put a sacrifice upon the altar. And the God that answers by fire will say he's the real God. Now, mind you, there's a whole bunch of prophets, whole bunch, to one.

The Bible says, Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves and dress it first. For you have many, and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under it. And they did that.

And they began to cry from morning even into noon. Oh, Baal, hear us. They said, but there was no voice, nor any that answered.

And they leaped upon the altar, which they made. And at noon, Elijah just starts taunting them. He says, you know, maybe he's talking, or maybe he's pursuing something, or he's on a journey, or maybe your God is asleep, and he needs to be waking up.

So they began crying and cutting themselves with knives and lancets, till blood gushed out upon them. And it came to pass when midday was passed, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening service, until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any answer, nor any that regarded. So they put on this whole show.

This is a mess. You've got hundreds of them, one bullock. They're cutting themselves.

They're crying. They're prophesying. I wish you guys could see my air quotes.

And they're talking to Baal, and nothing's happening. And Elijah, you can just kind of imagine him chilling, because he's definitely taunting them. Maybe he's asleep.

Maybe he's busy. Maybe your God's on vacation. So when it got to be time for the evening sacrifice, Elijah says, come near to me, to all the people.

And they did. And he prepared the altar of the Lord that was broken down. Man, that alone, I don't know why it hits my heart, but that altar being broken down, the place of sacrifice, they let it go to waste.

And that is so sad. We have to stay close to the altar, and we have to keep our altars intact, because that is what the altar is. It is a place of sacrifice.

It is a place of dedication unto God. And the people have lost that. In losing their conviction, they lost their ability.

They lost their seed of sacrifice. They let it fail. But he calls them close, and he repairs the altar.

And he begins to talk. He begins to take the 12 stones, according to the number of tribes. And with the stones, he built an altar.

And he put a trench around the altar. And he put the wood on it in order. And then the bullock.

And he laid it upon the wood. And he said, fill four barrels with water and pour it out on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood. He said, do it a second time.

Put more water, four more barrels. And they did it. And then he said, do it a third time.

And they did it. The Bible says the water ran round about the altar, and he filled the trench also with water. So he made sure this is not a dry sacrifice.

This is a wet sacrifice. Why was he doing this? He was showing off. In a lot of ways, he was proving to them, there's no tricks here.

What you're about to see, this fire that he believed God would answer with from heaven, is not falling on a dry sacrifice. He doesn't want there to be any confusion. He is wetting the sacrifice first, three times with four barrels of water.

And now water's just flowing. And it came to pass at the time of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near. And this is his prayer in verse 36.

He prayed according to the foundation. He went way back. God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.

You are still the God of this people, and you were the God of the people before today. But I'm asking you to remind them who they belong to. This is a prayer of waking people up.

God, remind them. It was a prayer of boldness to stand there before people who are so undecided, who should know better and don't. And say, God, I know you're going to prove yourself today.

It's not that God owed them proof. He had truly done enough where he doesn't have to prove anything. But it's an amazing thing to ask God to jog their memories.

And this is the way that Elijah was led to do it. He made sure that day they could see whatever they were serving in place of God, whatever they had allowed to creep in in God's place, had no strength to replace a God like this. Sometimes as you're praying for people who've gone astray or have lost their way, you need to ask God to show them their replacement is no good.

He's a great God who is willing to fight for his people. He loves us. He pursues us.

But you can't just replace him with anything. There is nothing that can fill his shoes. There's nothing that can do what he does.

And Elijah knew this coming in. He knew that no matter how many people were over, that no matter how many prophets were over there, no matter how many times they cried or cut themselves or whatever, when I put my God against what you're saying, he's going to show out every time. And that's exactly what God did.

The Bible records, I love that. They didn't just say he is God. They said he is the God.

They want you to know he is the only one all by himself, the owner of the category and the only one that feels it. He is the God. Today we have the opportunity to serve the God.

His name is Jesus and there's power in him and him alone. And no matter what is trying to stand against him or stand against you because of him, remember that one God can outnumber everything else. There can be millions against you.

There can be thousands of things against you, but one God is greater than everything else. In this respect, the math just doesn't make sense. How can you have one on this side and 850 on the other, and yet the one is greater than the 850? Well, when the one thing you have is God, you have enough.

Remember that today. Your one God is enough. Your one God can handle every situation.

Your one God is bigger. He's stronger and he's better. So today when you pray, you can be bold no matter what the opposition because your one is enough.

I remember that prayer reaches every single situation. Join the movement, join the community, like, share, and subscribe to this podcast. Visit us at PressToPray.com or find us on Instagram or Facebook.

Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God's ears? I know some of us have prayed and we're wondering how long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows? How will I know God is answering? And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice. It's too quiet in this world for troubles we have. You have to raise your voice and God wants to hear from you.

It's Too Quiet, a book about prayer. It's designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith. Visit PressToPray.com

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