Come Out of Babylon: Revelation 17–18

but i'm excited to be here today are you excited to be here today come on i'm going to go out on a limb just for a second and assume that if you've been trekking along with us since we've been studying the book of revelation that you've been blessed i'm gonna i'm just gonna and i can say it pretty confidently because pastor john who wrote the book of revelation at the very beginning says blessed is the one who reason allowed the words of this prophecy and so because he said it it's good enough for me amen hey i'm david i'm one of the pastors here at journey and i'm so glad you've chosen to spend part of your weekend with us today i gotta be honest uh you could be out on a lake somewhere and it's gorgeous today and you guys are here and so i just i believe god has something specific for us today and i'm

excited to see what god wants to do in our hearts i want to dive right in revelation 1 19 jesus gives john an outline to the book that we've been studying since the beginning of the year and he says this right there for the things that you have seen those that are and those that are to take place after this now if i go back to my baseball days i did play baseball eons ago uh i feel like today we're rounding third base it's been three sections so far and we're getting close running third base we're almost home in revelation chapter one the pitch was given the ball across the plate and uh uh john mc swings makes contact and this one's going deep and it does it really does uh and he

says write the things that you have seen that's jesus he just saw jesus the resurrected kings lord of lords and that's what happened at the beginning in chapter one he makes contact starts heading towards first base and he begins to write about the things that are that's the church revelation chapter two and three he rounds first base begins to head towards second as he begins to write about the things that will take place after this that greek word minitalta and we see pictures around god's throne in chapter four and five and in that moment whenever uh john is ushered into the throne of god we see a scroll and no one can open the scroll except the lamb that

comes which is jesus and the scroll is open the seven seals on the scroll are open and that begins the judgment of god from chapters uh six through the end of today really but we're coming around third base today we in the process we meet people like the dragon that's lovely the false prophet the antichrist or the beast his mark and we see pictures of worship around god's thrones we see the elders and and saints and and wondrous creatures and angels worshiping god around his throne and that brings us to where we have today chapters 17 and 18 and i stand here today as a third base coach they have one job really in this moment let's just do this keep going come on you might at the end

you'll have to slide a little bit to get down it might be a struggle to get all the way there but keep going we're almost home and on one day i guarantee you keep going you and i will all hear from the umpire of eternity well done my good and faithful servant we're almost home people let's go here we go chapter 17 starting with verse one then one of the seven angels who had the seven bulls came and said to me come i will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality and with the warning of essential immorality the doors on the earth have become drunk and he carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness and i saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names and it had seven heads and ten horns the

woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet adorned with gold and jewels and pearls holding in her hand a golden cup full of the abominations and the impurities of sexual immorality and on her forehead was written a name of mystery babylon the great mother of prostitutes and of earth abominations and i saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and one of the mars of jesus when i saw her i marveled great let's pray god thank you that your word is true your word is active your word is sharper than any two-edged sword and it pierces to our hearts but i pray today that you would speak to us even through these uh passages that might seem obscure at first but god i pray that your word will come alive in our hearts and it would accomplish that which it was sent forth to accomplish

in its original intent have your way i pray in our hearts we will be soft towards your lord i pray in jesus name amen so john the revelator they call him is writing to seven churches who are enduring possibly the worst persecution that ever happened on the planet it's the last part of the first century and probably about the year 96 a.d give or take the greatest source of pain for the believer in those days would have been rome period rome was causing pain after pain trauma and torture that was where they were living and they would have interpreted all this stuff from john that this book of revelation has their letters through their current reality of rome in control just like we would do

right you read god's word hopefully and and the question is how can i apply it to my life and my current context and so when john writes about babylon they would have known what babylon was but they would have interpreted it through the lens of their own reality rome evil and treacherous and so john hears the angels say come i will show you the judgment of the great process who see there are many waters between the kings of earth have committed social morality and the one of uh the one of the samurai the doors on earth have become drunk the prostitute on many waters we see later in verse 15 the waters that you saw the prostitute is seated are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages she says an authority

in a global sphere and she leads the world into deeper and deeper evil and john would have immediately assumed rome you hear babylon assume wrong because that's where they were living and it really matches the description in every way john is spiritually carried away into a wilderness and he sees a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names and it had seven heads and ten horns and it says that she's holding a cup full of evil and impurity in verse five and on her forehead was written he's seen that forehead thing before haven't we on her forehead was written the name of mystery babylon the great mother of prostitutes and of the earth's abominations and i saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and

the blood of the martyrs of jesus she sounds like a winner don't you think now instead of rome the name was given to her babylon and right here we see two chapters of this letter this book are given over to babylon now if you look through scripture babylon is the second most mentioned city in all the bible second only to jerusalem and roughly 10 of this whole book is about babylon and so it's pretty important we figure out what babylon means in one sense the bible could be seen as a tale of two cities jerusalem which means literally city of

peace and babylon which means city of confusion now so because it's so apparent we get this i want to go back and cover really quick 5 000 years of babylonian history in about three minutes it's doable i promise but today babylon is merely the site of ruins it's south of baghdad in iraq but it wasn't always that way going back to the very beginning in genesis chapter 10 verse 8 and 9 meet a man named nimrod now when i was a kid nimrod was the name you called somebody anybody else it was like one of those great terms you called somebody well it's real person come to find out but nimrod was the grandson of noah the arc guy and here's what it says kush noah father nimrod he was the first on earth to be a mighty man he was a mighty

hunter before the lord therefore it is said like nimrod a mighty hunter before the lord so nimrod must be a good guy he was mighty before god the problem is that the word used here for before in the hebrew literally means in the face of or opposed to and so when nimrod is mentioned as being a mighty hunter before god it's actually like this in the face of god and we know from historian flavius josephus that nimrod was a tyrant who turned people away from god and in efforts to turn people away from god nimrod and the people genesis 11 said this 11 4 come let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens let us make a name for ourselves

like a name for ourselves it reminds me so eerily of what satan the devil said as a serpent in genesis chapter 3 with adam and eve you will be like god you won't you certainly won't die you'll be like god it even reminds me even of what what satan said dennis in isaiah 14 when he was cast out of heaven says you said in your heart i will ascend to the heavens above the stars of god i will set my phone high i will set amount of assembly in the far reaches of the north i will ascend above the height of the clouds i'll make myself like the most high right before god gave him the boot from heaven if you ever hear somebody say i'm making a name for myself you might want to run making

a name for my side you might want to just back up just a little bit because our heart really wants to be making a name for god amen come on well we really see in this passage in genesis that nimrod is demonically inspired talking about what it's the devil trying to be like god to build a tower to the heavens and god brought confusion it says on their language to keep them from the current path they were on genesis 11 9 says therefore its name the tower's name was called babel because the lord confused the language of all the earth and this tower of babel was located at the very heart of babylon and that was the beginning of what we come to find out later to be babylon fast forward a millennium and a half and israel has become a nation they've gone through

egypt captivity and slavery they ignore years of warnings from the prophets and they rebelled against god and they end up in captivity again any guesses on place babylon they end up in babylon in captivity during the height of the babylonian empire under king nebuchadnezzar i'm going to call him neb today for sure and so for king neb he even made those same kind of claims hey i'm building an idol 90 feet tall worship me worship my idol same kinds of god-like things that king nebuchadnezzar did and it's during that 70-year exile period that we meet prophets like jeremiah and daniel now we think about daniel we might think about him and his three friends

shadrach meshach and abednego who uh you know they wouldn't worship that idol that king nebuchadnezzar had raised up and they refused to worship and bow down and they were tossed into the fiery furnace only to be saved by the fourth man there was another in the fire that was god and he showed up and he spread the life we might think about daniel and his refusal to uh to stop praying and he was cast into the lion's den only to find out that the lion's mouths were shut by an angel and he was set free again that's the daniel story side but daniel the book that he wrote was also a companion to the book that we're in right now revelation daniel really is the revelation in the old testament

it's the pre-jesus revelation so many of the same stories same images same ideas are in daniel that we see every week now in revelation he sees mirror images of visions that that john records as well and so uh that's the course that we're in the place that we find ourselves but babylon and nebuchadnezzar eventually fall the king cyrus to the middle persian empire which later fell to outside of the great and the grecian empire which was later split into four parts which was again foretold by daniel that fell and rome shows up now i say that because the readers that john would have been writing to knew this this was their history

just like you and i know george washington and abraham lincoln and rosa parks and paul revere we know those stories in the same way the jews the hebrews would have known what isaiah wrote they would have known what daniel wrote they would have known about nimrod and about king nebuchadnezzar that would have been their history so when john says and sees the prostitute on the beast and hears the name babylon attached to it he would have known babylon and he would have also connected rome their current context babylon rome rome babylon now before you check out on me because there's a lot of stuff before you leave before you just your

mind goes to where you have what i have for lunch and amazon stuff you want to buy before you go there in the end it's going to come back home i promise this background's gonna stay for a reason something's sitting just below the surface that we haven't seen yet let's keep going verse chapter seven but the angel said to me why do you marvel i will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast the seven heads and ten horns that carries her the beast that you saw was and is not and is about to rise from the bottom of his pit and glitter destruction and the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life for the financial of the world will marvel to see the beast because it was and is not and is to come this calls for a mind with wisdom the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated they are also seven kings

five of whom have fallen one is the other has not yet come and when he does come he must remain only a little while as for the beast that was and is not it is an eight that belongs to the seven and it goes to destruction the ten horrors that you saw are ten kings who had not received royal power but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour together with the beast these are of one mind and they hand over their power and authority to the beast now i don't know about you but that makes total sense to me anybody else i mean it's just so clear right honestly this is one of the most challenging passages probably in all scripture but for sure in this book as well and uh thanks pastor keith for giving me the challenge let's do this

it's gonna be awesome but john even tells us in verse nine this calls for a mind with wisdom thanks a lot bob yeah we need some wisdom in this house today he's talking about beast a woman heads horns sick let's go here we go what do we know we know that the beast with seven heads and ten horns is the antichrist that we know the beast is the antichrist the antichrist is the beast there are seven heads we'll get there in a minute ten horns yeah that too we know that the woman the prostitute riding on the beast or the antichrist is named babylon the woman is named babylon she's on the beast the antichrist we know that in verse eight the beast was and is not about to rise against the

bottomless pit angular destruction that means the beast was alive is now dead we'll come back to life again only to be killed again that's the process it's going to happen and that points us back to revelation 13 3 where it says one of its heads of the beast same beast same seven heads ten horns seem to have a mortal wound mortal means deadly okay its mortal wound was healed raised to life and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast now to understand what it means we have to put ourselves in the church of the first century again undergoing immense persecution from the roman empire and through it all there has to be a tie a connection between rome

and babylon is it figurative is it literal is it physical is it spiritual yes no yes we'll see of the beast john says the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated they are also seven kings five of whom have fallen one is and the other has not yet come welcome to ten horns in a minute but when john says there are seven hills or seven mountains depending on the version you're reading john's readers would have immediately thought of rome because rome was and is still known as the city of seven hills if you were to look up seven hills you'll find rome it just comes it's right there city of seven hills so it's rome yes

and no i think it's bigger than that john says those seven heads which are seven hills are also seven kings five of them have fallen one of them is and one's on its way cool it has to be the seven kings of rome it has to be if you google some of you will right now don't is the answer and you type in how many kings were in rome the answer any guesses seven like ding has to be it it's rome seven kings yeah yeah the problem is those are the seven original monarchs of the roman empire and so roman kings were between the 8th century and century bc now john's writing

and he says five of them are dead one's here one's coming and what that tells me is that they have to be living during number six of those seven kings the problem is that was several hundred years earlier it doesn't work okay back up maybe the kings mean the emperors of the more modern era of rome the empire side so like from jesus to john maybe it's that period let's look there okay so all together now augustus i'm kidding augustus no one knows this stuff somebody does someone's gonna comment online i know this stuff uh augustus tiberius caligula claudius nero i know that one galba has six

other vitellius vespasian titus domitian eleven we need seven something working and so that doesn't fit either but riddle me this what do kings represent kingdoms right kings represent kingdoms and who do we start talking about today babylon a kingdom an empire it's my belief that these seven kings seven hills and seven heads five of which have come one is on its way are the kingdoms and empires that directly correlate to the historical life

of israel here's what i mean egypt captivity assyria captivity babylon captivity persia captured babylon so captivity greece those are the quiet years we don't know they're still in control that's five that have fallen in john's day one that was rome number six and the final the seventh head of the antichrist is not yet here but it is in the future and looking at the images of the beast of revelation we can't separate them from the images in the old testament because the old testament is the root of john's theology see he grew up he's a hebrew he knew it all he knew all the stories he knew daniel isaiah the psalms he knew all those

things who's the beast again the antichrist now john says in another letter though first john 4 3 every spirit that does not confess jesus is not from god this is the spirit of the antichrist because you heard was coming and now is in the world already so what john's saying in this passage is that the energy isn't a future thing it's a now thing the antichrist has been active and actively at work since the beginning of time now the end is coming but the current doesn't mean the that it's not happening now anti simply means to be opposed or against so the spirit of the antichrist will be the spiritual source behind anything against the kingdom of god

so from john or for john genesis chapter 1 to his current context in 96 a.d he would have seen the antichrist spirit as the backbone or the undercurrent behind anything against god's people and god's plan originally israel and now also the church so if the beast in revelation is a picture and description of the antichrist the same picture ought to be found in the old testament as well because they have had other enemies other empires in opposition to them in the past there will be a fair assessment or jump i would think so speaking about the exodus remember the israelites were in captivity in egypt under pharaoh they couldn't leave

and moses came to deliver them out of egypt and telling the story in song form psalm 74 starting with verse 13 about exodus and egypt it says this you god divided the sea by your might you broke the heads of the sea monster on the water you crushed the head of leviathan you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness that's the same pictures i see this beast idea in the psalms let's move on isaiah 27 in that day the lord will haunt with his hard and great and strong sword will punish leviathan the fleeing serpent leviathan twisting serpent and he will say the dragon is in the sea and in verse 13 same chapter we see this

is talking about again egypt and assyria so the same images showing pictures of the enemies of god as monsters beasts dragons and the sorts the beast the spirit of the antichrist empowered by satan himself has had various heads throughout the last six thousand years starting clear back with nimrod who wanted to ascend to the heavens to be like god and now in this passage the prostitute named babylon here is the puppet master religious system can holding the strings of evil throughout the time let me give you this picture to tie all these together

in our neck of the woods in central oregon if you drive down any highway any direction you will see dozens and dozens of little buttes pilot butte lava butte horse butte that about killed me the other day powell butte there's lots of them lots of unnamed little rise little well those were all formed a while back at least a while back as the newberry crater newberry volcano exploded and sent lava tubes all throughout the community and underneath these lava rivers would flow all across our valley and they would rise occasionally to the surface and make a butte as this lava would flow off they're all tied together they're all tied back

to the volcano at newberry some might stay in mazama and create a lake it doesn't matter it's all still there it would flow underground and then at some point they would just do this and make a beaut and think about down and now we have these great caves that are awesome in the same way just beneath the surface of 6 000 years of history the enemy of our souls the devil has been working like a lava flow set on fire by hell and occasionally he'll come to the surface and show his ugly head and that's a picture of these heads throughout time in this beast that we see in revelation 13 and 17 of it as well and paul says the same thing different words ephesians chapter 6 for we do not

wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers against the authorities against the constant powers over the present darkness against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places and i feel like we could camp here for a few minutes just to keep kind of running around the horn a little bit you know we got to keep moving though but the bottom line is it's all tied together there's an enemy of your souls that started from the beginning of time was kicked out of heaven and he has one job one purpose one hope one goal has to lie to you and to steal to kill and to destroy your future that's his one objective don't be deceived or fool thinking and watering it down but it might be it's okay it's not that big of a deal

it's a big deal so rome was the sixth head of the antichrist and dominant world empire in the future we'll see the seventh and worst and final head of the antichrist it'll be killed raised from the dead and it seemed like an eighth but it's part of the seven it says because it's tied to that same undercurrent and same power from satan beneath the surface verse 12 the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who had not yet received with royal power but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour together with the beast these are of one mind and they have uh they will hand over their power and authority to the beast now john describes the beast as having ten horns okay i have 10 fingers what's that mean

the cool thing is this is something john knew john had already seen this same beast before because daniel saw the same beast before and daniel wrote about a beast that has seven heads and the beast that has ten horns it wasn't new john's revelation just defined what was already seen before by daniel okay so what are the horns well in scripture horns always symbolize strength and authority always good or bad they always simplify strength and authority and these ten horns are ten powers or leaders who receive a short-lived momentary and united power okay so what are they okay god you asked in 58 to go back before i was born something was formed anybody know it's the european u union was formed in 1958 and it expanded in 73

and then again 81 and in 81 there were any guesses 10 nations involved in the eu and so the christian world was like hey it's the eu they're the demonic last beast it's them it's gonna be there and uh well now they have 27 nations involved so it doesn't quite work anymore in the way that it currently says but what we do know is this there will be some point in the future a 10 part united entity as a governmental power and its ultimate purpose in verse 14 they will make war on the land that's jesus and the land that's jesus will conquer them for he is the lord come on lord of lords and the king of kings and those with him are called chosen and faithful so jesus is going to

destroy finally the works you know let me go to the next verse because it says the same thing first john 3 8 whoever makes the practice sinning is of the devil ouch the devil's been saying from the beginning we know that but the reason the son of god appeared was to destroy the works of the devil period there's no ifs no ands and no but jesus came to destroy once and for all every not just par every work of the devil now these ten horns and the beast will hate the prostitute babylon has been in control and they will destroy babylon because god is dealing with evil and that brings us to the end of chapter 17 and the beginning of

18 deep breath shoulder back a little bit let's keep going this will be fashionable i promise verse 1 18 i saw another angel coming down from heaven having great authority and the earth was made bright with his glory and he caught with a mighty voice fallen fallen is babylon the great now when babylon falls what does the world do what does the the nations do verse 9 this is just a piece of it the kings of the earth who committed social immorality and lived in luxury with her will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning they will stand far off in fear of her torment and say alas alas the gate that you great said you mighty city babylon for in a single hour your judgment has come

that's the kings of the earth will weep and mourn do they care about babylon what were they mourning for why what was the point of of being sad or sorry verse 19 they threw dust on their heads as they wept and mourned crying out alas alas for the great city where all who had ships at sea grew rich by her wealth for in a single hour she has been laid waste they didn't care about babylon they hear about their stuff it's about stuff they've been made rich off of babylon babylon was destroyed and the the source of their luxuries had been dried up that's why they mourned they didn't care about batman now if this is the response of the world what should our response be

when babylon is destroyed something evil is destroyed what should our response be should we also weep over babylon look at verse four then i heard another voice from heaven saying come out of her babylon my people unless you take part in her sins lest you share in her place for her sins are heaped high as heaven and god has remembered her iniquities down in verse 20 rejoice over her o heaven and you saints and apostles and prophets for god has given judgment for you against her he isn't saying to mourn he's saying to rejoice just because the world mourns doesn't mean that's the right response

just because the world rejoices doesn't make that the right response either dear ones loved so deeply by god don't ever confuse the will of the majority with the will of god don't ever confuse the will of the majority as the will of god they don't always go together just because everybody else is doing doesn't mean you have to or you should you don't want the blessing of the people of god in your life you don't want the approval of men you want gods [Music] when the world mourns over destruction of babylon we're called to rejoice now in my childhood i i watched

arguably one of the greatest movies of all time i was eight i think it's part of the star wars trilogy the the final of the first set number six eternal jedi [Music] and i watched this show and i remember i remember being as giddy as i could be whenever darth vader the father on your father of luke picks up the emperor if you remember from the scene picks the emperor up and throws the emperor off the rail down into the bottomless pit and everybody's like yeah i cheered and nobody felt bad for them no no nobody bad for the emperor because the emperor was the embodiment of evil and when evil

is judged when sin is confronted when justice is delivered if i have a hard time seeing that as a positive thing then my spiritual compass is probably tolerating a little more than it should you know in fact hollywood has done a masterful job at shifting the moral compass of our society [Music] they did it on this one simple principle if you can laugh at it you can live with it and starting 40 and 50 years ago stuff began to weasel its way into our hearts and things that at one time were so taboo and contrary to god's word is the point have become laughable and then in so doing livable

and we said yes to things that god doesn't say yes to and really our response should be the opposite of the people who were mourning over that it's to god change our hearts draw us back to you i know i'm probably stepping on some toes tonight and i'm preaching to myself first but there are things that we have tolerated that i don't think jesus would love and he's saying just like he said to them come out of her my people lest you take part in her sins lest you share in her plaques come out he's saying don't go there again come out for the follower of christ if you have your toes in sin come out come out

come out i want to close by going back to daniel i heard the story of daniel with you know the three guys and the fire and the lions then and you all know that when the band comes out you know we're almost done so it's almost time for lunch it's gonna be a good day but this same daniel who wrote the revelation of the old testament has a vision and doesn't understand what the vision means he's just stumped he doesn't get it in his 10th chapter of his of his letter and he begins to pray so he set his heart to prayer and for 21 days daniel morris in prayer seeking god for an answer to the mystery of the vision

and when the answer comes we see a glimpse into a heavenly reality unlike we see anywhere else in scripture we see this in one place just like this because he's been praying for 21 days god i want an answer to the question i just don't have it yet that's like minute number one and then again god i want an ant he's mourning in prayer and fasting 21 21 not like 21 minutes days now i don't know about you i pray i'm like five minutes and i'm like i'm good i just god you got this one now we go on days he prays and after 21 days this is what happens verse 12.

the angel comes and says fear not daniel for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your god your words have been heard and i have come because of your words now the prince of the kingdom of persia that's evil with me 21 days but michael one of the chief princes that's the archangel came to help me for i was left there with the kings of persia and he came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days for the vision is for days yet to come see so here's the in a nutshell god gives daniel a revelation a vision okay what does it mean he asked was it mean god from an angel go tell daniel what it means he's got

this go ahead the angel from the minute he prays the angel comes the angel in daniel from heaven is waylaid by the the prince of persia now it's not a far stretch to think that just perhaps this prince of persia is the fourth head of the antichrist remember that persia thing the prince of persia gets in the way boom of that angel oh they're wrestling for 21 days no you can't i have to you can't i have to god okay fine michael go help him out so the archangel mike comes and helps out the other angel his carrot business and the first angel who has the answer gets to daniel and tells him what happens the fight was taking place

while daniel mourned in prayer now jesus said my house we call the house of prayer for all nations now in my childhood as a kid growing up in church they would have called what daniel did praying through praying through you have a need you prayed through yet he prayed through what are you talking about praying through praying through was the term that was given when you would pray until the answer was in hand or until the answer was assured in your heart you knew it was coming i was praying through it whenever you prayed to the degree that you knew god was an answer or you know what the answer already

showed up and the cancer was removed the check was in the mail you already had the mortgage payment taken care of the job already came the healing already happened your marriage was restored whatever it was something changed and you prayed through until the answer came he didn't stop at day one day three day seven or even twenty it was twenty one in this case but until it does until it comes pray through and it reminds us of the story of daniel to point us to the fact that in revelation we see the last battle between god and and the enemy of our souls but john tells us that that battle's been raging since the beginning of time you and i are in the middle of personal battles today right now there is an enemy waging war over your soul and mine my family your family

your mind my mind your purity my purity there's the enemy waging war for every part of you and he wants to nothing but lie and steal and kill and destroy he's been doing it for 6 000 years so what do we do we figure out what it means to pray through we figure out what it means to to lay our life on the altar and say god i'm not going to get up until you come i'm not going to get off this place it's just like jacob when you wrestle with the angels i'm not going to let you go until you what bless me i'm not going to stop until the answer is in hand dear one i i have in my heart this firm conviction that if we as the church don't remember or figure out what it means to pray

through that we will have personal battles that you and i lose before we even know we're in a fight we have to figure out what it means to become a place of prayer because the answers are not one in the courtroom the answers are not one in the argument the answers are not one except for in the place of prayer and i've seen way too much to doubt that god's in control i've seen way too many cancer results be reversed i've seen guys get up out of the wheelchair and walk and jump and hop across the stage i've seen way too much to doubt that god is in the business of answering prayer i've seen minds restored i've seen marriages restored i've seen my own life changed and

god wants to do that for you and you and you and you he he's not he's not going to say well that person is good they got hey he doesn't work that way he's a good guy who loves his kids you ask he'll give now it isn't like we get like okay god bottle genie okay no no as i pray my heart is shifted and i begin to want what he wants so those things that weren't god's ideas they go away but then i began to ask god for what he wants to do in my life and through my life and things begin to shift and answers begin to come and you and i will see the goodness of god in this place in your family so today i want you to stand go ahead right now stand up for some of you this will be a stretch

for some of you it won't be that's okay we're just gonna do church for just a little bit because jesus said my house the church will be a house of prayer right and if we don't learn what it means to travail in prayer we're going to miss the victories god wants to give you know we love romans 8. i love this verse all things work together for good those who are called according to purpose it's good it's like great verse 28. the next verse is great too verse 29. it tells me the reason behind stuff is hard yeah it's going to be great it's going to be good and the purpose is you look like jesus okay cool we missed the verses before that verse 26 27 where it describes the picture

of prayer that you and i cannot control it's where my eyes are watering my my nose is snotting and i'm laying all that i have before god on the offend god i am desperate for you god my kids need you god my marriage needs you god i'm addicted god i'm stuck in depression god i'm suicidal god where are you today that's battling in prayer where where are the warriors stand up it's like i'll stand in prayer i'll stand for somebody else today in prayer where are you at we're the warriors today i'm looking for warriors today give me the battle of prayer go to the mountain

prayer for deliverance for healing for victory i'm getting a little messed up it's okay today we're going to pray together as a group out loud i mean out loud not like dear jesus no out loud meet it we're gonna pray all together for the mental health crisis in our country we're gonna pray against depression and anxiety demonic strongholds of suicide that god will begin to change the culture you know what was said this week on national tv it was said that the next pandemic will be the mental health crisis in our country i'm going to pray for a reversal that god's hope is infused that joy is infused that life comes that change happens

and that only god gets the glory amen i'm going to ask you right now you want to raise your hands you can we're just going to pray like so tomorrow because we believe that as to somebody else let's pray about the mental health crisis in our country right now let's go god i thank you right now that you are the king god that you alone have the keys that god right now in this moment you are infusing hope in your people god i pray that you would replace the garment the the spirit of heaviness with the garment of praise that you would lift and break the yoke of suicide that you would destroy the yoke of depression and anxiety if you want to use medicine then god feel free but if you want to do it for at least god do that too have your way may

help resound in this place in jesus name i pray i want to pray about one more thing and you pray with me don't just leave me this is our faith together one more thing families families families families families i don't know if it's marriages out of his husband's wives kids you have families older and younger we're gonna pray now together for family let's pray dear god i thank you that you are the source of the family you designed marriage you designed the kids you bless the kids that i pray for unity in the family and i pray there will be wholeness that husbands would love their wives that wives would love their husbands

that children would be honorable there will be just a sense of unity and community and the god you will be the king once again of the family in america god i pray against divorce i pray against pornography i pray against adultery that you have caused repentance and freedom and victory and delivers god come and do what only you can do i pray in jesus name we declare hope for the family in america we declare victory for the family of jesus we need you we are desperate my friends in your name [Music] amen one last comment let's get off stage

[Music] my prayer for us is that as you drive north south east or west everywhere you go from this place you can see multiple little buttes all over our community pilot but in the middle of town i pray that every beaut you see is a reminder to your spirit from gods to pray it's a reminder to pray to pray to pray because underneath it all the enemy still wants it but god's going to get amen so when you see a beaut lava beauty pilot view i don't care what beauty it is you drive past pray a little bit a lot pray god

move my family moving my kids moving my church in my workplace whatever you're doing or you're going pray maybe a reminder so prayer doesn't just happen here but it happens wherever you as the people of god go amen amen amen