Pastor Wayne Van Gelderen: We’ll turn to Jeremiah chapter 29. Jeremiah 29. An exciting perspective.

The story is told of a great Scottish preacher. and he prayed one morning in the morning service there in Scotland. They were having a terrible drought and it was really affecting the farmers.

And so he really prayed by faith for rain. As they came back to the church in the afternoon, they were getting ready to leave. His daughter said to him, here’s the umbrella, Papa.

And he said, what do we need that for? He asked. Well, she said, you prayed for rain in the morning, didn’t you?

Don’t you expect God to send it? Well, they carried the umbrella, and while they came home, they were glad they had it because there was a drenching rain. Now, we can all relate to that preacher.

We pray, but we really don’t expect really much from it. My friends, we’re going to be looking at some wonderful principles about the fact you’re going to the very throne room of the universe today. You’re going to the God of Heaven who wants to answer your prayers.

He means business to help you in this regard. He wants to work in your life. He wants to intervene.

He wants to answer. He is developing as we heard this morning. But He’ll give you wisdom.

But the one thing for sure you can count on every time is that He wants to meet with you. And so I trust that you’ll listen carefully in just a few minutes of explanation here. And then that you will go to the hour with God with a heart as was preached last night, I want to meet with the Lord.

Now I want you to look at Jeremiah 29, tremendous prophecy here. And the Lord had shown Jeremiah that Israel was going to be taken into Babylonia. the country of Judah, and they would not be there officially forever.

Look in verse 10 with me. For thus saith the Lord, that after 70 years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end.

Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. Note the next verse. And ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me.

Say the last phrase with me. With all of your heart. All your heart.

Now young people, we have a promise here. If you seek him, you will find him. But the key is that you need to search for him with all of your heart.

You’ve heard some good preaching on that. Well there was a man who was already alive at this time. His name was Daniel, a young man.

And he started the influence that God was going to give him as a teenager. And you know the story in Daniel chapter 1. He purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself.

He had a heart for God. He was not going to compromise in the pressure of being in the most luxurious and powerful palace in the entire world. It could have been extremely intimidating.

But he was going to be loyal to his God. Well later in his life, if you’ll turn with me over to Daniel chapter 9. He took the word of God through Jeremiah seriously.

And in Jeremiah chapter 9 we find that in the first year of what was now the Medo-Persian Empire, and Daniel had been reestablished as a leader, in verse 2 he says, In the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by books the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, we just read it in chapter 29, that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem.

And Daniel was calculating and he knew that the 70 years were going to be up pretty soon. But he understood that there was a condition on that promise. You had to search for Him with all of your heart.

And so he took up that promise and he began to pray. Verse 3, And I set my face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. And I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession.

And you have one of the great prayers of Scripture. Now let me just say this. God answered this prayer first of all.

After 70 years Israel went back to the land. And I believe it was the key that Daniel prayed. Number two, God manifested himself to him.

And he did it repeatedly. God keeps his word. And young people, if you will draw an eye to God, he will draw an eye to you.

We’re talking about on October, what’s this, the 18th? Yeah, October the 18th, 2019, here at a little before 11 o’clock in the morning, central time, God will reveal himself to you if you’ll seek him. But your heart has to be open.

And so we’re going to take a few minutes here to explain how to take all the aspects of communication with God and to be able to open your heart to him so that you actually can spiritually get to know him and have him reveal himself to you. Now let me say this, very important. Last night, Dr.

Jim made a clear differentiation between the senses, your emotions, your eyes, your touch, all of those sensory perceptions. So often we talk about experiencing God, we’re thinking of it in the more temporal realm. We’re talking spiritually.

Let me just give you an example. Every so often, maybe Satan will bother you about, are you saved? And then the scripture comes back, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, I know I’m saved.

And a peace comes into your heart. That’s spiritual. That’s not emotional.

Now it can turn to emotional. Sometimes you’ll hear a message or you hear singing about the joy of your salvation. All of a sudden there’s just a joy in your spirit.

Well, that’s spiritual. Now it can turn into emotional. That’s fine, but sometimes it doesn’t.

It’s just down deep in your spirit. Some of you may have stood at a graveside and been weeping. But deep within you there was peace.

Some of you have been in a very difficult set of trials, but right in the middle of that as you turn to the Lord, there was joy. Not emotional at the moment. You’re crying.

You’re suffering. But in your spirit you’re connected to God. So that’s what we’re talking about.

So don’t look for an experience today. In fact, God’s very wise not to give us experiences because we would look toward that. By the way, have you noticed how a lot of churches try to work up experiences?

There’s a lot of danger in that. So what I want you to do is I want you to see the different elements of how you can pray an hour. You say, wow, an hour.

That seems like forever. An hour will go by very quickly if you take into account all the different ways you communicate to God. And, you know, in our own regular communications, we don’t just have one kind of communication.

We have a variety of things. For instance, my wife and I, things we talk about, things we do. At times I’ll thank her.

At times I’ll praise her for who she is. At times I’ll have to ask her forgiveness. At times we’ll talk about things that really are important to us.

At times I’ll ask her to do things for me. And on and on it goes. And so there’s a lot of things that are different facets of communication when it comes to God.

The Lord’s Prayer is what we’ve modeled this after. And the Lord laid down in the Lord’s Prayer an outline of how to pray. And so you’ll find that these different aspects of prayer will bring a dimension to your prayer that probably you’ve not had.

if you’ve not been letting those aspects be in your prayer life. So often we just think of asking, which is fine. The word pray means to ask.

But there’s a lot more to communication with God than asking. All right, if you received the orange book because you do not have your Christ Walk journal, let me show you how we’re going to use this very quickly to explain what to do here this morning. The very first page is the outline that we’re going to go over, and you’ll see that show up on the screen.

So if you have a question of where we are, you will find it on the screen. Then the next pages are your daily journal or diary. These correspond, each of the categories on that journal correspond to the topics in order that were on the first page.

So I want you to see that if you’re not familiar with the Christ Walk Journal. And then at the conclusion of the pages, and that would be on page 44, you begin a section for the first six categories of helps. Different suggestions to enhance your prayer life in these different realms.

There’s a lot more that could be added than these, but these are a help to you. Alright? So that’s what we’ll be looking at.

And we’ll be going back and forth so you can know where to go. So you’ll go from the first page, and sometimes we’ll refer to the diary, but a lot of times we’ll go back to page 44 or 46 or wherever. So you can just stay with me.

It’ll all be up on the screen, so you don’t necessarily have to be flipping back and forth. If you have your Christ Walk journal, I think most of you are familiar. If you just purchased it, you’ll find the Daily journal in the first section.

You will then see the outline right after the second section called prayer helps. And then in the prayer helps, after the outline page, you’ll start seeing the helps that are on page 44 in the orange book. So I hope you can see where we’re at.

And again, if you need help just look at the screen and it should make it clear for you. So today let’s think about really meeting with God. Let me say the first thing here young people is you need God to help you speak to God.

We’re limited. That’s why you’ve had a hard time with your prayer life if you’re not right with God. If you have the wrong perspective on life then you’re going to struggle because it’s the Spirit of God that enables us to pray.

Ephesians chapter 6 talks about praying in the Spirit. Now tell me, can you witness without God’s power? And the answer is no.

Can you do anything without God’s power? Well the answer is no. Did you know you can’t even pray without God’s power?

In fact that one thought could revolutionize your prayer life. The first prayer I prayed today is, Spirit of God help me. I want to meet with you.

I want, I need you. I submit myself to you as best I know how for you to help me in prayer. And the Spirit of God is very interested in enabling you to pray.

So keep that in mind. This is in the hour is in sections of 5 minutes and 10 minutes. 5 minutes and 10 minutes.

Most of these are 5 minute segments. Now obviously they can go over and under and so forth. But you’ll find that those are about just the right amount of time.

The one big thing is you’ll probably go over on some of them. Today when we go through the hour with God I am going to actually tell you when a five minute time is over or a 10 minute time is over just to give you an idea of this, especially if this is your first time, how this flows. Just to give you a sense of that.

The first five minutes is what we call worship and praise. We glory in God’s unique greatness. This is where we need the Spirit of God to magnify the Father, to magnify the Son, to magnify Himself.

And I’m telling you young people, you’ve got to get out, and I have to get out of this very limited little world that we live in, and it just screams at you all the time. And that’s why you need this extended time to pray to let the Spirit of God clear your mind and bring you into the presence of God. There’s nothing like it.

It is why God created you. God created you to fellowship with Him. Did you know you’ll never, never, never find meaning in life until you meet with God?

And this worship and praise time, you’ll notice the helps there. if you go to page 44 in your orange or to the Christ Walk Journal right behind that page, you will find the different attributes of God listed out. This doesn’t cover everything, but it’s a fairly good list.

And so I would encourage you today, just go to those helps and start meditating on the great attributes of our God. You know, God is the creator God. That’s very important to remember.

God is the creator. He’s the almighty God. He is the everlasting father.

He’s the prince of peace. He’s the king of kings, the lord of lords, the almighty sovereign. He’s the god of majesty.

He is a god that’s overall. He’s the god of providence. And these kinds of things to meditate on.

He’s the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. He is the author and finisher of my faith. That’s what I meditated on this morning.

I don’t know, it just really stirred me. He brought me into faith and He’s going to finish out my life. He’s the author and finisher.

It really rejoiced my heart as I thought about that this morning. And on and on you can go. He’s immutable, immortal, infinite, eternal.

He’s omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, holy, righteous, pure, perfectly just, always faithful. On and on the list goes. And I’m telling you young people, five minutes of meditating on who God is and letting the Spirit of God work will start changing your perspective on life right then.

You see you have to decide I’m going to let the Spirit of God bring me into His presence. I want that. Seek the Lord with all of your heart.

And you can’t come into God’s presence without thinking biblically as to who He is. That five minutes frankly will go very quickly. The next five minutes is waiting on God.

Focus on your relationship with God through the persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yield to Him at this time in the hour of prayer and expect to meet Him. Page 50 on the orange you will see the waiting on God.

And what we have given to you there are suggestions on verses and thoughts regarding the Trinity. Just to, in your meditation, allow the Spirit of God, taking the first five minutes of worshiping Him, just waiting on Him and allowing the Spirit of God to reveal who He is through these precious truths. I was meditating this morning on He’s my Father.

It seems like every day that’s always special. that I can go directly to him. Every good and perfect gift cometh from above.

From the Father of lights in whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. He is, I can call him Abba Father, Daddy. No one can pluck me out of his hand.

He is constantly doing what’s needed in my life. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. And on and on you can go.

And then the Lord Jesus, oh, to meditate on what he’s done for you. He’s a high priest that is touched with the feelings of your infirmities. He knows exactly what you’re going through, and you have the right to go boldly to the throne of grace.

I love to think about the fact that Jesus now is in glory, and He is standing in the midst of the candlesticks, those great lampstands that are on fire that show forth His glory, representing the churches. The Lord Jesus is in the midst of the churches. And then you’ve got the Spirit of God, all precious Spirit of God.

2 Corinthians 13 says we should have communion with Him, all of His enlightening of truth, and go over all the things that He does for us. You see some lists there. He communes with us, He convicts us, He gives us power, He’s given us the revelation, He illumines, He guides, directs, He manifests Jesus, He manifests the Father.

You can just go right on. Spiritual gifting, how we thank God for how He enables us, the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. All of these things are what I can have every day.

He’s the Spirit of prayer, wisdom, grace. He is making intercession for me with groanings which cannot be uttered. He seals me, He fills me, and dwells me.

Just wonderful truths. By the way, you notice just in talking about this, we took a number of minutes. And you meditate on that.

It will become precious to you when you think about the Lord. All right. Confession.

Confession is very important. You say, well Pastor, shouldn’t I start with that? Well, you open your heart to the Lord.

But I can guarantee you, if the first thing you stumble out of bed and try to confess your sin, you’ll do a lousy job at it. Okay. But you have ten minutes of praising the Lord.

Two things are going to happen. Number one, you’re going to realize where you’re not right. And God will tenderly work in your heart.

Secondly, you’re going to believe that God loves you enough that He’s going to forgive you. And it’s a wonderful thing. You’re not afraid to talk to Him.

You know, honestly, young people, if we would confess our sins every day, you wouldn’t have to have these traumatic times of getting right. Though God does dig deeper and deeper in our lives. But oh, a sweet thing, just a sweet thing to talk with the Lord about our needs and to know that He will forgive.

And so you’ll notice the next section there just gives you just one list for each day from Oswald J. Smith’s list to help bring revival to his church. And there are other lists we can give you, but just start writing things down that God has convicted you about.

And go over it. You don’t want to be introspective because God will bring to mind what you need to confess. But in that five minutes, you just open your heart to the Lord, talk to Him about those needs, and believe that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from how much of our unrighteousness?

All of it. He will forgive your sin. And here’s what I want you to do.

You might want to mark this down. When you finish, and if you meant it, and you agreed with God about it, you need to finish that time and say, Lord, I’ve got a clean heart. What Satan does is if you get rid of the guilt by confessing your sin, he wants to keep the shame in you.

You know, we’re good Catholics sometimes. We want to go through penance. All right, we get forgiveness, but we think we’ve got to beat ourselves up for the next two or three days.

Well, we need to grieve over our sin. We certainly need to know the consequences of it. But the moment you get right with God, You’ve got a clean heart and you can fellowship with God and you can be serving Him.

Isn’t that a wonderful thing? Every time you finish your prayer time you can walk away right with God. It is just glorious.

And you’ll find that to be very, very precious. Well once you do that then you’ll notice the next five minutes is spiritual warfare. Take your stand by the authority of Jesus against the devil.

Now you don’t want to start with this because you’re not going to be ready until you meditate on who God is. And you really get your heart right with God. But when you know you are filled with the Spirit and you’ve asked the Spirit of God to empower you, then you have the right to begin to engage in the battle.

Number one, there’s a battle against you. Then there’s a battle against other people that are close to you. And there’s a battle in the ministry and you need to get a hold of those areas of battle.

you’ve got tremendous promises look at page 56 or half in that second tab there at those tremendous truths about spiritual warfare we need to remember we are in a battle and the key is submit yourselves therefore unto God resist the devil and he will flee from you I’m telling you this morning it stirred my heart again I think of the battle I think of the battle for your lives I think of the fact that there are literally hundreds of thousands of people that will be

affected by decisions that are made here in this place throughout this day.

And Satan is going to do everything he can to try to blind you and stop you. And so it’s important that we understand that Satan can be overcome. He’s a defeated foe.

And you find number two there, for this purpose was the Son of God manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. Praise the Lord. Having spoiled principalities and powers, Colossians 2.15, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over the men at Romans 6.20, and the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.

So we need to be sober, be vigilant, knowing because our adversary the devil is a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom it may devour. But we are on the victory side, and I love Ephesians chapter 1, we are in Christ far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world but in the world which is to come. And He’s put all things under His feet.

My friends, we can pray from that authority and that today you can pray and submit yourself which means, Lord, I’m on your side. I don’t want God’s will. Therefore, Lord, you have promised that as I resist the devil I don’t want his will he will flee and God you’re powerful enough and I’m in you and therefore I can claim the fact that you are going to overcome Satan.

You know that’s a great blessing to know you’ll be protected. You know being in the ministry all these years this is not theory folks. It’s unbelievable the attack but it’s also absolutely glorious.

The power we have we have nothing to fear. You don’t have to be defeated. And to take your stand for your family, your siblings, everyone in your family, your parents, for your church, your youth group, for your community.

Tremendous verses I claim for each one of those. And just remember who you are. The very next page, the Believer’s Resume, Harold Vaughn’s list there is a tremendous list.

And I have it divided by days. I just love to go over that list. Alright, so that’s 20 minutes.

That 20 minutes will go pretty quickly, I’ll tell you. Then you get to claiming promises. Now young people, this becomes a personal…

By the way, I need to backtrack here. Go back to the diary up on the screen if you would. Alright.

This is marking there the spiritual warfare. Every time you finish, or while you’re doing each section, such as worship, waiting on God, and so forth, write a thought down. When God touched your heart about that, that will keep you very engaged, and it will also be a record of how God met with you.

And you can actually go back and say, God met with me here, here, here, and here. So every time you finish, or you’re actually involved in that five-minute or ten-minute time, make sure you write down a few things that are important to you. Like for me just the importance of the fact that He’s the author and finisher of my faith.

I want that recorded in my heart about that. Alright. Claiming promises becomes a wonderful time of remembering how God has given you confidence through His Word about different things in your life.

Recall the promises of Scripture that God has quickened your heart. And you want to stand by faith on those promises. Did you know that sometimes you have to wait on God to see the answer?

There’s still a couple of key things I’m praying about for our ministry, but I’m absolutely confident that God’s going to do it because I’ve got promises that I’ve got written down. I prayed those again this morning that God was going to do it. And always He brings peace.

And one of the keys to faith is not wavering once God has shown you in His Word and once God has applied it to the need in your life. You stand on that ground. And so you will have in your notebook, if you get one, you’ll have a place that you can just keep recording those promises and go back over them.

I have all this on my iPad, and I just go through those verses, And I’m telling you, it just gets me back on the ground of faith. You say, well I don’t know if I have any promises right now. Well put down some promises about the fact that you’re saved.

Okay. Some of the great salvation promises. And remember when you first surrendered to the Lord?

Maybe some of you got called to serve the Lord and God gave you a verse. Write it down and just keep going back over that. And once you start praying about things and really asking God to provide for this, like Brother Bosler talked about financial needs, And God stirs you about a wonderful promise, My God, so supply all your needs according to His riches in glory.

Write that down. Write it out. Put the reference there.

Memorize it and go over it during this time. Now we have our first 10 minute section. And I’m going to go through these final ones pretty quickly here.

This is what you’re used to doing. And I would encourage you, you can see in our section here in the booklet and in the notebook, ways that you can list out intercession, petitions, your needs. God has promised to give you His daily bread, praying for your family, praying for people that you know, praying for your friends, for ministry people that you’re burdened for.

I of course have all of our church, all of the different ministries that we have, so I have it organized. I use a little app called Prayer Notebook and I’m able to organize it for days. I do a lot of folks every day, but I rotate throughout the week other people.

And it’s amazing in 10 minutes how much ground you can cover. Because by this time the Spirit of God is enabling you. And you have real faith just in mentioning a name you know God’s going to work.

And I want to tell you young people it’s absolutely phenomenal how God will intervene, intervene, intervene. Yesterday morning I prayed, my wife and I prayed about something specifically in some people’s lives and that very day God did something to indicate what He’s going to do. I mean we were both rejoicing at the end of the day.

I tell you life becomes a supernatural adventure when you get involved in people’s lives through prayer. A lot I could say about that but keep good lists. And it means by the way when somebody said will you pray about this don’t say yes unless you write it down so that you can get it on your prayer list.

So that’s 10 minutes. Then Thanksgiving. This is such an important five minute section.

Thank the Lord for what He’s doing. Do you realize we get so often down about the problems we have, but remember how good God’s been. Listen young people, you have an opportunity of life ahead of you without the problems that a lot of people have.

God’s been good to you. If you’re saved, that’s enough to rejoice all day about. But you need to go through the things that God has done.

What I like to do is I’ll go back and start the day before, early in the morning when I got up, and go all the way through either the night’s sleep until the next morning, and just thank the Lord for everything I can think of. If I didn’t do that, I’d forget how good God is. And so that’s a good thing to do.

And then thank the Lord for the trials. That’ll free you from bitterness. Or just some things I’m going through, but I believe you’re going to do it.

I thank you. It will free your heart. Now here’s a very important section.

Meditation and discovery, 10 minutes. Here’s where you take a portion of Scripture and you let God talk to you. Remember, this is a two-way conversation.

You want God’s presence. So you may be going through a regular Bible reading. Take a section of that and look for some part of that passage that God speaks to you.

and you talk to Him about the Scripture that He has touched you about. You’ll notice there on the diary there is a major section for this on this page. And what you do is you take your verse or verses that God touched your heart about, write them out, you’ll be amazed that discipline how it will help you.

You think you’re reading a verse, but you write it out, it’s going to all of a sudden come alive. Then write it in your own words. Then meditate on that.

Say, Lord, you’ve touched my heart about that. What decision should I make about this? You know, you don’t have to wait until a service to make a decision.

If you can learn to do this, and we call them I will statements. And you’ll notice the next section that we’ll look at in just a minute is listening. Write the I will statement and be as specific as possible.

And put that in the listening section. And you’re going to then talk to the Lord about it. and that is a great discipline to do.

For instance, maybe you read something about praying the Lord of the harvest would send forth laborers and God touched your heart that you need to be a laborer and you need to start today and you might, the Lord put it on your heart to give out three tracts today. And so you would say I will hand out three tracts today based upon the need of the harvest. Well that’s very specific.

Guess what will happen? God will enable you to give out three tracks today. Or whatever.

I will tell my mother that I love her. You say, oh my. That’s a good decision.

A really hard one, fellas, is I will tell my sister how much I appreciate her. You know, or my brother how much I appreciate her. But God may deal with you about that.

About loving one another. Be specific. So that meditation, let God speak to you.

And then you talk to God about the Scripture. Let the Word of God come alive. Listen, you’ve already spent 40 minutes in prayer.

Don’t you think your heart’s going to be pretty open? Imagine if you spent 40 minutes and then came and heard the preaching. Boom, you’re ready to hear it.

It’s the same way. God can speak to you. That’s how you experience the presence of God.

So that leads us to the next five minute section, which is listening. I already talked about the I will statement. You say, Lord, what do you want me to do with my life today?

Lord enable me to do this, give me more insight on this. Who should I share this truth with? You know it can even be an open door to giving the gospel.

You know God showed me how much He loved me today in Scripture. And you’re talking to somebody on the job. Or maybe another Christian.

Or maybe in your family devotions. Where are you going to share the truth that you learn? You know the thing that we all have such a blessing with as preachers.

Is we get to share the truths that God gives to us. And the more we verbalize it the more we get it. And the more you verbalize truth.

And so ask God that. And I can’t tell you during that five minutes how God will just give you direction. And He’ll give you wisdom later.

You know a lot of things. What do I do Lord? Who do I see?

How am I going to use the time? How am I going to get this homework done? Just talk to Him.

Do you think He cares? And I tell you after 50 minutes of prayer you’re going to believe that He’s going to give you wisdom. Many a message.

Many a direction. Many a thing to say that I needed to say in counsel. God gave me in that short little five minutes.

Listen to God. He’ll speak. And then I love the final five minutes is praise and singing.

That’s when you just say, Lord, you’re going to do it. I believe you’re going to answer this. And then you just, if you’re in a private place where maybe your family wouldn’t care, just start singing.

Those final five minutes, just thank the Lord for all that He’s done. And God will put a song in your heart. It was just a couple days ago I woke up a day later than the song that was really on my heart the day before.

And I was just singing it again. I didn’t even realize it. I just got tickled with it how it just all connected.

The Lord had used that in my heart and it was so real. And that’s the way you finish your time.