# The need is great

Category: Obedience to God’s Will
Key Passage: Nehemiah 1
Speaker: Paul Chisgar
Date: August 10, 2022

Praise the Lord for it. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. As soon as he got saved, he got up and gave his wife a big, huge hug, a bear hug. Amen. It was awesome. It was awesome. Great day. Praise the Lord. It’s wonderful.

Turn, as you would, to Nehemiah chapter number one. Nehemiah chapter number one. We’re going to start just a short series on how to study the Bible. We’re not going to start that tonight.

We’ll be over here in just a minute or two. I thought I’d take just a little bit and talk about our trip. And then I’ll tie it in a little bit with the message, but I thought I’d just share a little bit about it. And I really do appreciate all those that prayed for us on the trip. It was a trip of a lifetime. We really just had a great trip. One of our best trips, I don’t know how long.

The Lord kept us safe. We made it where we wanted to go, and if you keep going for the Lord, he’ll take care of you. And then one of the last pictures—Brother Tim, you keep going there a little bit—right here, you see this little slot. This is on the front of the motorcycle. It’s for your cell phone. You slide your cell phone in, and it’s a very tight fit. I mean, it just fits real tight. It had no problems at all with it. And the second to last day…

Sunday afternoon, one of those days—maybe it wasn’t Sunday afternoon—but we were riding. And the interstates out there, you can go 80 miles an hour speed limit. You can say amen there, you know? And then actually, the two lanes in the middle of nowhere, usually there’s 70. And we’re riding down the interstate going 80 miles an hour. That phone had been fined the whole time.

And just to show you how God really did take care of us. I got a fairly new cell phone. And that thing—I just was riding along and I felt something hit my leg. I’m riding 80 miles an hour. It wasn’t me. But just happened, that cell phone just fell right between my leg and that motorcycle. And I thought, wasn’t it? And I was able to reach down and grab that phone. And the Lord took care of our phones, even riding down the interstate going 80 miles an hour. That’s all the Lord, friend.

And I was so thankful I didn’t lose my phone. The Lord took care of us. And I had a great trip. And I appreciate your prayers. And I wanted you to just kind of share a little bit. We’ll tie it into a message here in just a moment. But I wanted to tell you a little bit about it. Thank you so much for just listening in and kind of seeing our pictures. We had a great trip. And I appreciate Ms. Tammy putting up with me on the trip. We had a great, wonderful time and enjoyed every minute of it. But glad to be back home.

Nehemiah chapter number one. You know the story of Nehemiah. I’m just going to briefly say it. We try to just fine-tune, get focused for the fall coming up. But Nehemiah—some of God’s people, just a very small amount of the people—had gone back to Jerusalem. More could have, but only a few went back. And they rebuilt the temple. That’s the book of Ezra, basically.

And then a little while later, Nehemiah takes a small group of people back, and they rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. Now, there’s a lot of opposition in that. The book of Nehemiah is just awesome how it talks about all the different angles. The enemies of God went at trying to stop them from building that. They always say it came to a point: if you can’t stop them, join them. Sanballat and Tobiah tried to do that. That didn’t work.

I said, “No, no, you’ve got no part in this.” And then I just kept the attitude: “Look, we’re doing a great work. We’re not coming down off the wall.” A lot of wisdom in that right there, in staying on the wall. And eventually, God blessed; they rebuilt the walls in 52 days. And even their enemies had to say, “That is a work wrought of God.” Everybody knew God did that because there’s no way they could do it. And it’s just amazing.

But I’m going to take just a little bit at the beginning of this book of Nehemiah and just briefly talk about it—the way God really just started this thing happening of rebuilding the wall, just very briefly tonight. Nehemiah chapter number one, we’re going to start in verse number one. Would you please stand? Would you please stand? And thank you for just being gracious as I showed some of the pictures and whatnot of our trip. Nehemiah 1, verse number one, the Bible says, “The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hachaliah. It came to pass in the month of Chislev”—now that month would be equivalent on our calendar to December, all right?—“in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace, that Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah, and I asked him concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem.”

And they said it to me, “The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire.” It’s just horrible conditions. Notice how Nehemiah—how he takes it. What does it say? Verse before.

“And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.” We won’t take time to read it, but basically verse 5 through the rest of the chapter is his prayer. And then chapter 2, he begins to do something about it.

But let’s just start with that, just briefly tonight, if you would. Would you pray with me that God would speak to our hearts tonight? Lord, we thank you for your goodness. Thank you, Lord, for a great church, great people, your goodness to us all, Lord. We’re so grateful for it. Lord, thank you for bringing us all together tonight. Lord, these thoughts I believe you have laid on my mind. I pray you to use them to help us to be the church you want us to be, Lord. Father, it does seem so often there are pulls and winds this way and the other. Help us to be the church you want us to be, Lord, please. And Father, we’ll thank you and praise you, brag on you for what you do. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

Thank you so much for standing. You may be seated. The title for the message for the internet would be, “The Need is Great.”

I want you to just look back at verse number four real quickly here and see how Nehemiah responded. We just read it. It says there, “And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.” When Nehemiah really saw and heard—I should say, heard—the condition of the land, it broke our heart.

We live in a wonderful country, and I don’t think we ought to be depressed all the time, but there ought to be times and aspects of what’s going on in our day and time that ought to just break our heart. So many sad things that you hear of sometimes see, and it ought to impact someone. I’m not talking about us losing our joy, but there ought to be an aspect of it that just breaks our heart.

On our trip, I’m trying to tie it together a little bit. There were times—I think specifically of Wednesday night—I value, when I’m on vacation, I love to go to church. Now, if I have to, I watch it online, but I want to go to church. The Bible says to assemble, and I want to do my best to assemble with God’s people. And we really did a lot of research. We had asked people even here that have been there about good churches in the area and whatnot. We had looked on the internet. And we called—I called some people—and we rode by some places. I’ll be honest, where we were at, the location we were at on Wednesday night, we could not find a gospel church open on a Wednesday night.

And I’m talking about within about an hour radius of where we were. It is just amazing. In fact, some were online, and I would call up—nobody answered. One looked like it was going to be open; I rode by. Two—excuse me, three—we took time to drive by to make sure. And it’s just a sad thing. We could not find a church open in that area on Wednesday night.

There was one that was a startup church type thing, and so I thought, “Man, this would be great.” And we rode by, and the church was gone. I don’t know any details about it, but it looked by just outward appearance that maybe whoever was starting that church just gave up. And hey, Ms. Tammy said, “I wonder how many people like us were going to go to that church. We’re looking forward to going to that church,” and they just closed up before those people made it there.

And it was a sad deal. And it bothered me. I tried to pray many times. I sent somebody here to this place and sent them—it looked like it would be a good church here. By the way, it’s amazing how often that has happened. Now, we watched online Wednesday night, Sunday morning, Sunday night; we found churches. But we always will watch online and nothing else. But we’ve had it often on vacation: it’s hard to find a good church in America.

Last year, we were in Virginia, South Carolina, and typically, it’s so often just Sunday morning only. In a day and time when the Bible says, “As you see the day approaching, so much the more you’re going to need it,” and yet they’re closing up on Sunday night and Wednesday night. Wow, we wonder why our country’s in the condition it’s in. And it just seems so obvious. These things should burden us. It should, like Nehemiah just got shook up about it, it should burden us.

It’s interesting: a 2021 study from Lifeway Research found that 4,500 churches closed in 2019. Now, that’s before COVID—2019. Some—some will accept 10,000 per year—but if you study, it doesn’t seem like quite that many. Now, there were some starting.

But there are more closing their doors than opening their doors. In 2019, about 4,500 closed, and about 3,000 started. By the way, congratulations, you’ve had a part. If you’ve been here just a couple of years, you’ve had a part in helping several churches start up. That’s always a blessing. That study found that the average attendance dropped from 137 to 65 people in the past two decades.

Fox News had a report saying this: American churches closing faster than new ones can open. Some say one in five churches are facing closure after COVID-19. And I’m not a doomsday kind of guy. I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to lose our faith. But sometimes it all just burdens you, like Nehemiah.

What did he do? He sat down and he wept and he mourned and he fasted. I don’t fast like I should, but I’ve kind of got out of sync because of vacation. I’ve got to get back to fasting some. I thought that out—it’s part of it. We ought to do some of that. It’s different for everybody. I don’t know all your health concerns and all that. But we ought to be burdened about the condition of our land from time to time. Even Montana, as beautiful as it is…

And it’s amazing; it’s almost like two sides of Montana: the country, the ranch part, the beautiful part, and then some of the cities—it’s a very sad condition. Marijuana is legal out there. Well, that has an effect. Casinos are illegal out there, and you see casinos everywhere. I mean, I would say half or more of the gas stations will have a casino on the outside. You walk inside, and over on the side, there are some…

There are some slot machines and different things, even in the gas station—casinos everywhere. And those places that have a lot of that, just very run-down bars everywhere, liquor stores everywhere. It ought to burden you. It ought to burden you. I mean, the guy that really did something about the condition of Jerusalem, he mourned and he fasted and he prayed, and it burdened him over that.

Can I say this? It ought to make us appreciate the church God’s given us. God’s been very good to us to give us just a soul-winning, King James, just a friendly church. God’s been so good to us. Brother Kevin Baldazar—having you say that last day—Brother Kevin preached for us a couple Sunday nights ago. He said this over a men’s prayer meeting before service. He was talking. He said, “Man, if everybody had a church like this in their area.” Some of you men were in that prayer meeting. He’s talking about how there are about 10,000 counties in the United States, and if every county had a church like this in it, he said, “Man, it would make a difference.” And we’re blessed. We really are. We’re blessed. It’s all right to see that. Now, we’re burdened, and we ought to be burdened. We’re also very, very blessed. God’s been so good to our church; he gave us great people in him. But at all times, it just calls us to weep and mourn and fast and pray.

Folks, really that’s the answer to it. Amen. I’m for us getting involved in politics, and if we have a revival, part of that will be we’ll get more involved—Christians will get more involved in politics. But the honest truth is that the start of it all is us getting right with God and seeking God, asking God’s blessing, and it’s working in our churches.

That’s really the issue. We sometimes have just very sad politicians because we’re not pleasing God; we’re getting what we deserve in many ways across our land. It ought to burden us. Nehemiah was so burdened about the condition of Jerusalem. Now I want you to see this. Look over in chapter number two. Nehemiah in chapter number two. Nehemiah in chapter number two—just talk with you a little bit tonight.

Trying to head somewhere on these last two points. Chapter 2, verse number 17: He is there in Jerusalem. He surveyed the land without telling anyone what was going on. Now he begins to talk to them, verse number 17: “Then said I unto them, Ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire: come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach.”

Then I told them. That’s interesting. Then I told them of the hand of my God, which is good upon me, as also the king’s word had spoken unto me. And they said, “Let us arise up and build.” So they strengthened their hands for this good work. But I want you to notice, he told them what God had done in his life.

We ought to be busy telling others what God has done. Yes, answering prayer, yes, all that. But I’m talking about salvation for a moment today. Just telling them of Jesus and salvation. He told them. He didn’t keep it a secret. He told them. There’s something about us telling the good news of the gospel.

More than living it, but telling it to people. Now, you’ve got to live it, or they won’t listen to you when you tell it. Your living it will give you validation—what’s the word I’m looking for? Validation, thank you, brother. Validation when you tell them, but we’re supposed to tell people. On our trip, we tried to witness to several different people. Tammy tried some. I tried some. Nobody really wanted to listen, but we kept trying.

And at the very end, we turned that bike in. It’s a little app; you rent it from individuals. And we had rented it. It was a neighborhood right by the airport. Praise the Lord for that. Just probably five minutes from the airport, in a little subdivision, maybe the thirties—a young married man in his 30s had a little baby. And the baby’s four months old. That baby had been born premature, weighed about three pounds when it was born, was life-flighted.

And you could tell that was a tender part, that kind of getting. He was raised as a Mormon, didn’t go to the Mormon church; his wife was a Catholic, and he just really didn’t go anywhere. And I’m just like you; sometimes it’s hard to tell when we ought to tell. And so we got the bike all turned in. You have to do all those phone apps and take pictures of it and all this stuff, you know. Once we got all that done, we were going to get a Lyft ride over to the airport, you know. And as we were done with everything, I’m just like you, I had to build my nerve up a little bit. But I started telling him, and I told him—this way I started it all; everybody’s a little different. I’m not as smooth as many, but I said, “Hey, I’m a Baptist preacher. And I said, I believe there’s a heaven and a hell. And if I really believe that, I believe Jesus is the way to go to heaven, I ought to tell people if I really love them and care for them.” I started witnessing to the guy.

And at first, he kind of didn’t want to hear it. It seemed like a whole lot. But I didn’t have a New Testament with me. You’re limited how much luggage you can carry on a motorcycle. And I had my Bible—full of my Bible—but it was tucked in everything, you know, about to get on the plane and whatnot. And so I was just telling the gospel. And sometimes I’ll use that “do or done.” How many of you talk about “do or done”?

I was using that, you know, and he had been in a lot of different religions. So, so, so, you know, you can boil down every religion, no matter the name—and I put Baptist in the first, Mormons, Catholics, all that—it’s either you do something by that religion, you have to do a certain system thing, or it was done. Jesus, he had done it, if you will. And you put your faith in what he’d done instead of what you do.

Ms. Tammy said later on. She said, it just seemed like when we talked about that, it just seemed like the light came on. And he said, “Most of them are always about you do these ten things.” And he said, “I’ve never heard it like that.” And we really talked for a little bit about, you know, you’ve got to put your faith in what was done. You’ve got to put all your belief on what was done—more than believing about, stronger than believing on and all those things. And about that time, the Lyft driver pulled up out front.

I’m like, “Man, this guy’s listening,” you know. And Ms. Tammy went out there; she knew what was going on. She went out there trying to keep that driver pacified for a little bit. In the meantime, in his garage, we prayed, and he prayed and asked the Lord Jesus Christ to be his Savior. Right at the last minute, God answered her prayers, and I didn’t really have time to get his name or anything, as far as address and all that. I did get his name after that. He was so thankful, and his heart had just been tender—God had been preparing his heart by that little baby.

He was just tender, boy. He was talking about tearing up when he talked to my little boy. We had seen him pick up a flag. And here’s what I’m saying: telling still works. Is it old-fashioned? Yeah, praise the Lord, it’s old-fashioned. I like old-fashioned, by the way. It still works.

And we cannot lose this saying of winning souls and telling them Jesus saves, telling of his good hand. If you’re a born-again Christian, you’ve got his good hand on you. And we cannot get away from that. There’s always a pull to get away from that. Let’s do this real quickly here. Some of you have heard this. If you know this, don’t stop.

Spoil my story, all right. But many of you have been around here for a long time; you’ve heard this. But we’re going to start—we’re going to start the Rutherford County Baptist Fire Station. All right, all right, all right, we’re starting a fire station here. And let’s see here, let’s assign some jobs for this fire station. I’ll tell you what, let’s see. Brother Bill, he’s good at automobiles, mechanics and all that. He’s a diesel mechanic for sure now, you know.

He’s in charge of keeping the fire trucks running. All right, that’s your job. Make sure they’re maintained, ready to go. Fire trucks are all right, Brother Bill, that’s your job. Let’s see here. Oh, let’s see here.

Brother Patrick, you’re right over there in that same negative woods. How about we put you in charge of the maintenance of the lawn, all right? No, I’ll tell you what. You’re in charge of our GPS. Man, you’ve got to be up to date. You’ve got to know where that fire is. He’s the IT guy. That’s your job right there. He’ll be good at that one, all right. Brother Steve Page back there, he cuts the grass around here often. I appreciate it. You’re in charge of our lawn, keeping it up with the fire station, all right? And Rutherford County Baptist fire station. All right.

Now let’s see. Brother Bill, what’s your job? What’s your main job? Brother Patrick, what’s your main job? This is a fire station, brother. Come on now. Let’s just bypass this guy right here; he’s messing with it. Brother Steve Page, what’s your main job? If the guys would cooperate, this is what we’re trying to say: Putting out fires—that’s it. All those jobs are important, but your main job is to put out fires. And the church has so many jobs that are important we must do, but we cannot get away from putting out fires.

Can I say this, and I mean this: If we just build a big building over there and fill it up and have a school and a Bible institute and all that, and we never get anybody out of hell, something’s not right. We’d be better off to just stay in a small building and get somebody out of hell, because when it’s all said and done, that’s what matters for eternity. We have to stay focused on that.

It’s very interesting. They say churches three years old, on an average, lead ten people to Christ per year per every hundred members. Now, that’s the young churches. Ten people to Christ per year per every hundred members.

Then they say churches three to five years old, a little bit older, on average win five people—five people to the Lord per year per hundred.

Then they say churches 15 years or older, on an average, win three people to Christ per year per 100 members. You notice the decline. That’s just how we were wired. When you’re young, man, in a storefront or somewhere, man, we’ve got to win souls. We’ve got to reach somebody. But it’s easy to lose that fervor for souls.

It’s easy to do that. I don’t want to be part of that statistic. I’d like to stay after souls because, when it’s all said and done, that’s what really matters for him.

Our fall soul-winning campaign is about to start. The first Saturday in September, we’ll get back to the 9:30 breakfast. Somebody say amen right there? Man, I loved it. I loved for our shuttle bus to fill that thing up with soul winners. I remember we went to Nolensville up there in that neighborhood—as far as us, we hadn’t been there the whole 22 years. Man, we thought, “Let’s go to it.” And, boy, that bus was packed out. That was awesome.

A nicer neighborhood than typical for us, but people got saved there. And Brother Chip had someone. They were in that neighborhood, and they were, I think, asleep when somebody knocked on their door, but they woke up and said, “Who in the world was out there?” And they found the tract on the door. And they—I don’t know if they were fully dressed; they had pajamas or something on—and they got out, and I hope I’m getting it right, but they went and they found Brother Chip, and they just said, "We had to get up and tell you, thank you. Our neighborhood needed this. Somebody to get out and get the gospel to them, friend. We can’t get away from that. So many churches, good churches, but they’ve lost—they’ve lost the zeal for putting the fire out, friend. When it’s all said and done, a thousand years from now, that’s what matters.

It was an amazing story. John Rice went to the Holy Land over in Israel, and he was taking a tour. I cannot remember the part or where the tomb was, or whatever part it was in the Holy Land. But he was taking a tour, and many Christians have been through this thing—thousands. And this guy, when it was all said and done, John Rice stopped and started witnessing to the guide. And the guide said, “Wow, I never heard that.”

And all those thousands of Christians that had been through that tour of the Holy Land were there, and not one of those Christians had stopped and took the time to tell that man what it was really all about. And they got saved. But they were there for good reasons—to see the Holy Land—but it’s just so easy to bypass telling him. Telling.

Years ago, we were up in Laverne, and Brother Chad—I remember Brother Chad. He was a good guy, and he was good about telling people about the Lord Jesus Christ. He had led a young man, probably in his 20s, to the Lord—a young married man—but he led him to the Lord, and he came for just a bit, a couple Sundays, and then he dropped out. We missed him, and we tried to visit him. He moved, and I hadn’t seen him for maybe a year or so. And I heard of Speedway.

Speedway, by the way, their little deli is pretty good sometimes. You notice how I know where all the good food spots are? I know the important stuff, you know. And I went over there to that deli, and sure enough, behind the counter was that young man that Brother Chad had led to the Lord a year or so before. He said, “Hey, we’ve been missing church.” Let me see him back in there and all that. And he said, "Well, you know, my wife, she’s a different race.

And he said, “Your people were very friendly to us. And I’ve got no complaints, but she just didn’t feel fully comfortable. She’s a different race. She’s nothing against your people that are friendly, but when you’re the only one of that race in a church…” And so we’re going to a church where she feels a little bit more comfortable. But he told me this—I’ll never forget it. He said, “But you know that day that guy—Brother Chad—came by my house.” And this was his words. He said, “That changed my life.” He said, “I’m in church—it’s not yours—but it changed. He said, it changed my mind.” Friend, we’ve got to keep telling.

I wish everyone got saved by getting in church, getting into this church, and, you know, getting baptized next week, getting a haircut next week, starting tithing. I wish it worked like that, but friend, it doesn’t work like that. If you’ve got a system that works like that, I’d like to see it, amen. Instead of hearing about it, I’d like to see it. You show them it in our day and time. The system is: you go out and win souls, and God builds his church in his time, his way. That’s the system right there. Matthew 16:18. Hey.

“Upon this rock”—what’s the rock? Jesus saves. He’s the Messiah. He’s the Christ. He’s the one. “Upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” What’s the gate? A gate never attacked anybody. A gate doesn’t attack anyone. I’ve never seen a gate attack me. I walk by a gate, and a gate just attacks it? No, you attack a gate. It’s talking about it. It’s talking about it.

And he builds the church. Now, I want to do my best to get them in here. I’ll do my best. I’ll try it. And by the way, those over the years, I’ve watched them have fruit that remains. Usually God kind of brings them in the back door, that way he gets the glory instead of us, you know. But just staying after it, winning souls. By the way, God takes care of a soul-winning church. And I’ve got to get off these—I’m planning on telling all these. But I will just say this, especially with our building coming up over here and the land and building and all that, but the finances.

I remember years ago—I don’t know how many years, maybe 10 years ago, maybe longer than that—but we went through the worst financial crunch this church had ever been through. We couldn’t pay our bills. It was just a tough time. I did not say this until years later, and God took care of us the whole time, but I didn’t get paid on time one time that year. I didn’t tell anybody. God took care of us.

God took care of the church, man. We were just in the toughest financial spot. Really, we started the church, but even tougher—that’s the toughest we’ve ever seen. I remember one man saying, “Man, we’ve got to get quality families in here that can tithe.” And he was a good man; he meant good things about it, but honestly, it’s the Lord. And I never forget, we were going through a series where we were just knocking every door in Smyrna, you know—the poor neighborhoods, the rich neighborhoods, everything. And, boy, some of those richer neighborhoods can be tough.

We came out of that, and we thought it would take a year; it took us two years. We came out of that, and we said, “We’re going to go to every good fishing hole we can find.” We went to trailer parks. We went to—honestly—we went to projects that were in Europe and Nashville. We went everywhere we could just to get people saved. We were like, “We’ve been to all the nice neighborhoods. Let’s just go do our best to get somebody saved.” We went to parks, just trying to get somebody saved. And typically, the good fishing holes are the lower income.

Jesus said it’s hard to reach those rich people, you know them talking about. But I’ll be honest, when we just started going after anybody we could get saved, man, our finances took off. You couldn’t explain it. It wasn’t like we got to make the church—I mean, besides Brother Patterson, but he won’t give up any of you, you know.

But our finances just took off. And ever since, God’s been good to our finances. You remember over there, he said, “Hey, he needs some money to pay the tax,” and what should he do? He said, “Go get a fish. Follow me, I’ll make you fishers of men. Look inside that fish’s mouth; there’ll be some money in there.” I’m just saying, God takes care of soul-winning churches. We’ve got to stay after that in so many different ways—stay after churches after souls.

We’ve just got to get this last thing in real quickly; we’re running out of time. Look back over in chapter number one, Nehemiah 1. Nehemiah 1. I already showed it, but let’s just briefly: Verse number one, “The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hachaliah.” It came to pass in the month of Chislev—that’s December. He heard about the conditions of the land, and he was so burdened. He prayed. Verse 5, verse 11, he prayed. Look in chapter number 2. “And it came to pass in the month of Nisan”—Nisan. Have you going to say it?

That would be equivalent to April. That’s four months later. He went to the king and he risked his life doing it. He said, “King, you’ve got to help me out. I’ve got to do something about it.” The king said, “All right, we’ll do something about it.” Here’s what I’m getting at. We’ve got just a few minutes here. Here’s what I’m getting at: He prayed for four months. Four months. Over there, chapter 1, verse 4, he sat down, he wept and he mourned and he fasted and he prayed.

I don’t know how long that went on, but four months later, after really just seeking the Lord and begging God, “God, you’ve got to do something,” that’s when he said, “I’m going to put some action to the same.” Friend, it starts with prayer. God’s people pray. I listened to Unshackled. You didn’t get it all; I got part of it. Unshackled. How many ever listen to Unshackled?

Man, those things are so encouraging. I’ve got bits and pieces of one today. And this young man just—you know, the typical—just had a wild life, didn’t want anything to do with God. And eventually, he got saved. I caught it after he was saved. I started at the beginning, got mixed up in the middle of it, and then I caught the end of it. And his grandmother had been praying for him to get saved all those years. More often than not, when you see a life just saved and somebody totally changed, somebody had been praying for them.

And here’s the thing: He wanted his girlfriend and his best friend to get saved. He kept witnessing to them, witnessing to them, and it was just driving them farther away. He had his best friend split up, and his girlfriend was about to split up, and he didn’t want that. And he got discouraged. At one point, he said, “Well, they’re never going to get saved.” And she said, “Don’t you quit.”

“Nobody thought you’d get saved, but I kept praying for you. You keep praying for this.” She said this—I loved it. I heard it the other day on the road. She said, “The victory will be won on your knees.”

And he kept praying. Eventually his best friend and his girlfriend got saved. And later on down the line, they had a double wedding—all four of them born-again Christians getting saved. Was that grandmother encouraged to keep praying? Friend, I’m telling you, the victory is won on our knees.

Nehemiah—this thing is an awesome book. We don’t have time to read it all, but it’ll be one on irony. How foolish it is for us to think we can do God’s work in our own power. Foolish. We’ve got to have God moving, not us moving. Um, praise God for the prayer warriors at Rutherford County Baptist Church now. I mean that. Those are the unsung heroes. Nobody knows about it; heaven knows about it. Well, those prayer warriors—that is awesome.

Spurgeon, was it? The Metropolitan Tabernacle over in England, London? And everybody knows the Prince of Preachers, Spurgeon. And they couldn’t build a building at that time basically big enough; they just couldn’t seat the people.

A lot of different stories about how that worked and how they tried to get the lost in there. And sometimes the church people would take different times when they would come to give up their seats for other people—just amazing work. And they say one service—I think it was more like an evening service; I’m not sure about that—but they say the story goes that a group of ministerial students, young preacher boys, went and visited. And Spurgeon, he just had a little bit of time before that; he met with them and talked with them a little bit.

And he said, “I tell you what, you young men, you want to see the powerhouse, the power room of this church?” They thought, “Well, sure.” They’re thinking like, you know, where all the lectures come in there, you know, and the utilities are the boiler room for the heat of that time and all that. And they say he went over to a room—and if I remember stories, kind of down in this room here—and he opened the door, and they looked in.

Before service started, there were hundreds of people down there on their knees praying. And he said, “This is the power room of this church right here, where God’s people pray.” And I’m saying our fall is right around the corner, about to start a Christian school, about to start a Bible Institute. Boy, I’d love to make it just to see some lives changed. It starts with prayer.

Before Nehemiah really started putting things into action, he spent four months just begging God, pleading with God. I’m going to do a little different here tonight as far as our invitation. It’s just our people tonight. And I’m going to ask you to divide up here just a minute. And I’m going to ask you to find someone else to pray with—groups of two, no more than three.

Fellowship’s wonderful. We’re not talking about fellowship right now. We’re talking about prayer right now. Men with men, ladies with ladies—unless a husband and wife want to pray together. I’m going to ask you to find someone, and I’m going to ask you if you would to pray for a couple things. I’m going to ask you to pray for four things. Would you pray? Would you pray for souls to be saved? Would you pray for some family trees to be changed? I’m talking about when my parents got saved, our family tree was changed.

Some of you, when you got saved, your family tree was changed. Would you pray for souls to be saved? Would you pray that some family trees would be changed this fall? Would you pray for young couples? I love to see more young couples. They need to get their marriage settled in the Word of God and raise their children—more young couples. And would you pray for more baptisms?

Let’s just seek after those. I heard someone recently say, “I want to pray for the sick,” but sometimes if we’re not careful, we’ll keep people out of heaven and won’t keep people out of hell. I’m for praying for the sick, but sometimes let’s just say: souls to be saved, family trees to be changed, young couples to be added, and more baptisms. Would you do that? Would you pray about those? We won’t have a regular invitation. I’m going to pray.

And when we get done praying, would you just find someone? And you pray with them, just spread out across the auditorium. We’ve done this before, and it’s always a wonderful sight for me to see God’s people all across the auditorium, just wherever. You can come down to the altar, and they find a little corner here and there—just God’s people kind of just hearing a little mumbling and praying. It’s wonderful. His house is called a house of prayer. It’s God’s people praying.

Would you do that? I’m going to pray, and then you’ll be dismissed, and would you—but would you find someone and pray? And then when we’re done praying, you can just sit back. We’ll try to be, you know, respectful of each other; we’ll pray and all that. But let’s just spend some time praying. God would like to see his work this fall in a great way. Would you do that? I’m going to pray, and then would you divide up and pray? Lord, we come to you.

Father, it’s so true: a spirit of prayer really comes from you. Lord, I pray you to send that to us tonight. Help us to bond together in prayer to see your good hand on this ministry, Lord. You’ve been so good to us, but we would love to see more souls saved, more people like the Godspeed way. Lord, would you give us the privilege to see family trees changed, where their whole family has changed because they got saved and you touched them, they got into church. Lord, would you give us more young couples, Lord, raising their kids for you, and they’re getting their marriage and their lives built on your word, old-fashioned Baptist Church? Lord, would you give us more baptisms? Lord, it’s been a while. Father, give us more of those folks baptized and growing as disciples.

Father, we’ll thank you. Give us that spirit of prayer, the burden of prayer, if you would, for just a little bit here, Lord, please. We’ll thank you, Lord, for it. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen. Would you just find someone? Would you find a little corner? Would you find—just men with men, ladies with ladies—just find two, maybe three, no more than three, and just find a little corner, and we’ll pray together. Would you do that? Husbands and wives, if you want to pray together, that’s fine.

Let’s just find a little corner, and let’s just pray together: Souls be saved, family trees changed, young couples…

Original File: Pastor Paul Chisgar - The Need is Great - Wednesday 08102022