I think what the Lord has directed me to,
and many of you don't have a Bible, and that's fine...
Most of you probably know this verse already,
It's in Jeremiah, the 33rd chapter, in the 3rd verse
and what strikes me about this verse is that
we are encouraging you to pray...
we encourage our families to pray,
we encourage our churches to be fervent in prayer
But here, the Lord Himself is encouraging us to pray.
This is the Lord's encouragement for us to pray.
We should know our God is sovereign.
He is all powerful; He calls the end from the beginning,
He ordains the end...
But He also ordains the means to that end,
And the means to the end, one of the means is prayer...
it's fervent, effectual, constant prayer of the saints.
If God's going to do something, He's going to
move His people generally to pray before He does that.
In the 32nd chapter here,
God is promising Jeremiah some things.
Jeremiah is shut up in prison.
He is promising him that He is going to
take the people of Israel into captivity,
but also there in verse 37, He says "I'm going to gather them
back out of those countries, whether I have
driven them in My anger, and My fury, and My wrath,
I'm going to bring them again into this place,
I'm going to cause them to dwell safely
and they shall be My people, and I will be their God
and I will give them one heart, one way that they may
fear Me forever, for their good and their children after them,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them."
Wonderful promises that are promised to you and I as well.
So, Lord, how are You going to do this?
He opens up chapter 33, he's still in prison,
The Lord comes to Jeremiah again and He tells him
how He's going to do this,
and here's the verse, verse 3 of chapter 33,
He says, "Call unto Me, and I will answer thee,
and show thee great and mighty things that you do not know."
I'm going to show you great things.
I'm going to show you hidden things, that you don't yet know.
This is how I'm going to answer My promise to you.
These hidden things.
So, He commands us to pray.
"Call unto Me."
This is encouragement for us to pray, brethren.
"Call unto Me."
Can you imagine, the Almighty God, the God of Heaven,
the Sovereign One, the Eternal One, Jehovah God,
the self-existent God speaking to you and saying,
"Call unto Me."
And we might bring this to our level...
"Give Me a call."
"Call me."
You know I love it when my daughter or my son says,
"Dad, call me. I need to talk to you."
They don't do that very often, but I like that.
This is our God saying, "Call Me."
"Call unto Me and I will answer you."
Not only I will answer you, but I'm going to show you
some great and hidden things that you don't yet know.
Now here we are at this conference,
who knows what the Lord may do?
Often times, seed is sown and it's weeks, months...
even years before the fruit comes forth,
but don't you have an expectation here?
This is what this verse says,
"Call unto Me and I'll answer you."
This should be our expectation as we call upon the Lord.
You're going to answer us, God, You promised.
And not only that, You're going to enable us to experience something.
Now we're not here just to go through the motions I hope...
I hope we're here to experience God.
What do we want to see?
We want to see God working in our own lives personally,
We want to make advances; we want to reach higher ground, brethren.
We want to be more faithful than we were when we got here.
We want to go home with our wagons loaded,
and walking in the light that God gives us.
But we want to see this in our families, and in our marriages,
and in our churches.
What a blessing last night was!
Practical, real helps for the people of God.
So, how's this all going to happen?
Well, pray.
"Call unto Me. I'll answer you and I'll show you
great and mighty things that you have not yet seen."
Paul says it this way in the New Testament:
"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
neither has it entered into the heart of man
the things that God has revealed to those that love Him.
Who knows what the Lord may do?
Who knows what great things the Lord is going to reveal
to each of us, through prayer,
through conversations that we might have
with others, through fellowship, through singing,
through encouragements; God breaking strongholds of sin,
God opening eyes...
You know I've had many conversations through the years,
And someone will share something with me,
and it's just like the voice of God has spoken...
I hear. I hear. I understand.
And so, let us pray, brethren. God is encouraging us to pray.
"Call unto Me. I will answer you, and I'm going to show you
great and hidden things that you don't even know yet."
And when we leave here, we go home, next week, next month...
maybe we can raise an Ebenezer
and say, "Lord, You've brought me this far...
and You've used even this weekend,
this conference, these prayer meetings,
these preaching meetings, these conversations,
these times of fellowship...
You've used this to advance Your kingdom."
And it's a very easy verse to remember. Call 333. Jeremiah 33:3.
"Call unto Me. I will answer you and show you
great and mighty things that you don't know."