Displaying Christian Sermons by tag: billye brim

Full Dialogue  The Firepower of Prayer Ignites Revival Fire

The fire power of prayer ignites revival fire. Join Gloria Copeland and special guest Billye Brim today on the Believer's Voice of Victory, as they show you how every move of God started on the altar of prayer. GLORIA: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Believer's Voice of Victory. Billye Brim's back with us today. She's got some really good things for us. Hallelujah. BILLYE: Right, Gloria. And I want to take up where we left off yesterday. GLORIA: That's great. BILLYE: I want to talk about the Moravians and the Moravian revival. We're talking about prayer. We're talking about prayer as an incense that sends to the Father a sweet-smelling aroma. And we're talking about the prayers that have preceded the moves of God, the awakenings of God. Not one of them ever came that it wasn't preceded by great and intense prayer.

And one of the groups that prayed and actually, Charles Wesley and John Wesley got saved under their ministry, the Moravians. And you really don't know so much about them. GLORIA: Mm-hmm. BILLYE: I happen to have well, I'll tell you that little story later about my granddaughter's boyfriend. And remind me if I forget to tell you. But I want to tell a little bit more about them here. And from this book, "Fire on the Altar: Those Who Carried the Flame," by Frank "JJ" D-i, and then another word, P-i-e-t-r-o. I'm guessing Di Pietro. GLORIA: Did you bring me one of those books? BILLYE: No, I didn't, honey. And my daughter got it for me, and I think they're going to get you some here. And I know you're going to like it, too. And he spends three chapters talking about the Moravians because they were so they had a prayer meeting that lasted 100 years. GLORIA: That's long. BILLYE: And how the Moravians I'll just do a little GLORIA: Okay. BILLYE: There was this and he was born in ancient Saxony, is what it was called at the time. And it's now, I think, in East Germany. It was has been a time in Austria. But he was born to the Austrian royal family, Count Zinzendorf, and very, very wealthy.

But he loved Jesus from the time he was a child. He made a vow to live for Jesus as his passion GLORIA: Mm. BILLYE: when he was just a child. Six years old and nine years old, he made these vows. And he found a wife that was exactly as devoted as he was. So they took all their fortune they laid aside all their nobility rights and claims, and they took their fortune, they dedicated it to God. And they bought land. They had the money to do it, and they bought parcels huge parcels of the land. And at the time he had bought the land, there came a man to him named Christian David who was representing a group of terribly persecuted people, terribly persecuted by the Roman church. They were the Moravians. They lived in Moravia, Bohemia, someplace else I've forgotten. And because of their beliefs, they believed in new birth, born again, they were terribly persecuted. So this man, Christian David, came to Count Zinzendorf, and he said, "Can some of these people " They're going to be refugees. They're so terribly treated where they are. "Can I get them out and bring them here to live on your land?" And so he did.

Count Zinzendorf called him the Moravian Moses. He went down. He'd get a little group of them at a time, and he'd move them across the borders. And about 300 of them came to live there. And then people heard about it, other persecuted peoples in the area heard about it, and they came there. And there were it was a mixed group, and there were about 600 of them. And some of them didn't agree with the Moravians doctrinally or didn't like their liturgy, or da-da-da-da. So there was this contention. And it's really heartening to me, Gloria, to know that there can be divided groups, and God can get them into one. And Count Zinzendorf, who was such a man of love, and he he had one passion, and his passion was Jesus. He started visiting them in their homes. And he told them, "Start prayer groups." He was a man of prayer, very dedicated prayer. And so he told them, "Start some prayer groups. Invite your neighbors in. You pray here and then one over here and one over here." So they did it. And in five years' time, they became almost selfless. They became so overcome by a spirit of prayer. GLORIA: Praise God.

BILLYE: And he announced, in 1727, "We're all going to get together and have a communion service." So they got together, and they had the communion service. And this communion service, they had the same thing happen, that communion service that happened in the book of Acts. There was a rushing mighty wind. They ran to the windows to see if there was a storm outside. There was not. And then the fire of God fell on them, and they went under the power. Even people far away from them, two of them were working 20 miles away, and at the very same time, the outpouring came on them. It came on those two workers 20 miles away. And they all were under that power. And it was the spirit of prayer that was poured out on them. They all became prostrate on the floor. GLORIA: Praise God.

BILLYE: It is written here in this book which I'm reading, "God had come down to live among them in all of His glory." He wrote about it Zinzendorf wrote about it when he was speaking or he spoke about it when he was speaking to a British audience. "We needed to come to the communion with a sense of the loving nearness of the Savior. On this day, 27 years ago, the congregation of Herrnhut that had assembled for communion were all dissatisfied with themselves. They came to seek the noble countenance of the Savior." GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: "In this view of the man of sorrows acquainted with grief, their hearts told them that He would be their patron and their priest who at once changed their tears into oils of gladness and their misery into happiness. This firm confidence changed them in a single moment into a happy people which they are to this day. And they have led many thousands to the heavenly grace once given to themselves." GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: It was a young congregation when this outpouring came, the spirit of prayer. Zinzendorf was just 27 years old, and most of the congregation were about that age. And but they were so overcome that then they had to start having three meetings a day, 4:00 a.m., 8:00 a.m., and 8:00 p.m. they had their prayer meetings. "Prayer was the main catalyst that fueled the revival. Zinzendorf, at this time " Now listen to this, Gloria. GLORIA: Okay.

BILLYE: " received a verse from the Holy Spirit which inspired the incredible Moravian 100-year prayer vigil " GLORIA: Oh, my. BILLYE: " that they launched that year." The verse that he received was Leviticus 6:13, which says, quote, "A fire shall always be burning on the altar; it shall never go out." And, of course, that's what the priesthood was told in the Old Testament. On that altar of incense, on that altar of where they offered the sacrifices, the fire must never go out. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: And they saw God gave them that verse because our prayers, Gloria, are offered on the altar. We like Paul said, when you treat them well the people well, you're heaping coals of fire you're praying on the altar for them. GLORIA: Mm. BILLYE: And so that's what our prayers are. They ascend like incense unto God.

And the scripture they got and it lasted them a hundred years. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: "A fire shall always be burning on the altar; it shall never go out." GLORIA: Mm. BILLYE: "Count Zinzendorf knew the fire of the altar signified the prayers of the saints, and he viewed this word as a literal command to restore unceasing prayer before the Lord." You know, the Lord says, "Pray without ceasing." Church history and world history would never again be the same. GLORIA: Praise God.

BILLYE: So they decided they're going to have 24-hour prayer in their prayer tower he had built. So this is this is how it worked: "Two weeks into the revival on August 27, 24 men and 24 women covenanted to pray one hour each day in scheduled prayers. Soon, others enlisted, and before long, all members shared in what became known as the hourly intercession. At home and abroad, on land and sea, this prayer watch ascended unceasingly to the Lord. They recognized the power in the is in the key of the Lord revealed in Leviticus 6. So they decided to accept the task of keeping a continual fire of prayer, intercession, and worship burning before the Lord's presence." I doubt if they realized they would actually keep the fire burning and pure for more than a hundred years. GLORIA: My goodness.

BILLYE: "But they began by making personal commitments to the task. Two men prayed together and two women prayed together for a one-hour watch until the next team arrived to relieve them. This pattern continued around the clock, day after day, week after week, for more than 100 years." GLORIA: A hundred years? They persevered, didn't they? BILLYE: 100 years. "The fervent prayer heat generated by the sacrificial fire of their sustained prayer ignited revival fire that launched their pioneering missionary efforts, and in later years " listen to this. GLORIA: Okay. BILLYE: " helped birth the Great Awakening in America " GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: " through their godly influence on men such as John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield, all who were huge parts of the Great Awakening from which America was birthed. They were influenced by the prayers of the Moravians and by actually meeting the Moravians." GLORIA: Wow. BILLYE: "Was there ever in the whole world of Church history such an astonishing prayer meeting as that which began in 1727, and went on for 100 years?

It was known as the 'hourly intercession,' and it meant that by relays of brothers and sisters, prayer without ceasing was made to God for all the work and wants of His Church. This intense prayer vigil birthed in the hearts of the Moravians a hunger and a passion for the lost. They had 600 saints. And prayer, they saw as a catalyst to revival is as gasoline to a fire. Unlike any movement before or since, the Moravians never stop pouring out their hearts to God. They became literally captured by God Himself and never tired of being His watchmen on the wall. As they matured spiritually, they became increasingly concerned about those who had never heard of the Savior. Six months after the beginning of the prayer watch, Zinzendorf suggested the challenge of a bold evangelism and aimed successfully to reach those in the world from whom 'for whom no one cared.' Before the count could finish speaking, 26 Moravians had stepped forward to go wherever the Lord led." GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: Now, missionary evangelism was not known in those days. "This was the beginning of an era of Moravian missionary work which spread to Greenland, Lapland, Russia, Surinam, Guinea, South Africa, Amsterdam, Algeria, the North America Indians, Ceylon, India, Romania, Constantinople (modern Istanbul)."

And they even went to the Atlantic circle and to the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Now listen to this: "Organized missionary work and world evangelism as we know it today did not exist in the Western world until God lit a fire in the hearts of the Moravians through the watch of the Lord. It was no accident that God restored the fire on the altar first and then ignited a passion for lost souls in the world through prayer." He had ignited that a spirit of prayer fell down on them that day. And in that prayer it wasn't long, only six months, until they had the heart of God for the lost. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: And so they were praying in and whenever Count Zinzendorf said, "We have to do something about the lost," then they had 26 Moravians step forward to say, "We'll go." "And 3:00 a.m. on the morning of August 21, 1732, Count Zinzendorf drove two men in his own carriage to the Copenhagen harbor as they boarded a Dutch ship headed for the West Indies. He blessed them and said, 'Go and do all in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.'" GLORIA: Hmm.

BILLYE: In less than a year, they had sent more than 200 people out. They went out on missionary endeavors. There were no mission boards. There was nothing like this. They just went out because they got this heart for the lost. And they they "were about to enter places go into places that from the beginning of time were controlled by Principalities and Powers. These lords of darkness ruled unhindered for eons, dragging millions of souls into a crisis eternity. So, into this deep darkness, the Moravians came, shining the light of Salvation." "It is a documented fact " listen to this, " that the Moravians would pack their belongings in coffins and then send them ahead so they would have something to ship their bodies back home in.

If they could save one person in a dying world, death mattered not" to them. I mean, they went into places where there were headhunters, where there were, you know, I mean, you're not allowed. They some of them had sold themselves into slavery in certain lands because there was no other way to reach the people in that land, to reach the slaves. They sold themselves into slavery. Now listen to these ones right here: "A New York newspaper reporter was on a ship traveling back to the states after finishing an overseas assignment. On that same ship there just happened to be five Moravian families. The ship came to a stop off a secluded island, and he noticed a distress among the missionaries' families. The wives were crying and holding on tightly to their husbands. The men then knelt in prayer and blessed and hugged their children. The five male missionaries were then lowered into a small skiff and began rowing toward the island. The reporter then understood that the sorrow was caused by everyone saying goodbye until the men could be picked up again when the ship returned. His heart began to sink when, using the captain's spyglass, he read a sign on the beach of the island: 'All are forbidden to enter. Leper colony.'" GLORIA: Oh. BILLYE: "'All who enter this place cannot return.'" And so they left their families to go into the leper colony.

And it tells about the people they saw there. And a man who had no feet, they were eaten off GLORIA: Oh. BILLYE: was carried on the back of a man, and this man was carried on the back he had hands. And the man whose back he rode on, he had he had no hands, but he did have feet. So the two of them went together, and they were sowing crops. GLORIA: Oh, my goodness. What a story. BILLYE: And they brought them they brought them the message of Jesus Christ. GLORIA: My, my. BILLYE: And this all was sustained have you ever gone out, Gloria I do. I go out. And you go out, and Ken. We all go out a lot. But I'm always conscious that back there at Prayer Mountain, they're praying for me. And it seems sometimes, when I go, I kind of like ride along on their prayers, you know?

GLORIA: Mm-hmm. BILLYE: Even sometimes if I'm taking a tour to Israel, I'm teaching all day long, and it seems like sometimes maybe I didn't have as much time to pray that morning, but I know they're praying back there. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: And so Count Zinzendorf, in 1741, he himself went on to the mission field, and he went to North America. Now, you're thinking 1741. We haven't even had 1776 yet. We haven't had the Revolutionary War. And he started a settlement in Pennsylvania, and he called it Bethlehem. And that community was his base for his missionary work among the Indians, and it has now grown into a large city. And my little granddaughter, who Is studying to be a pharmacist, and she has a young man that she's been dating for a few years, and his grandmother invited her to come for Christmas about a couple of years ago. And his grandmother lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and she's of a Moravian stock. GLORIA: Is that right? BILLYE: And she's a guide in a Moravian museum that they have there in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. So it was about this time that John Wesley was introduced to the Moravians. He was on a ship bound for America, and it had a group of these Moravians on the ship. Now, he had been to America. He has he's open he wants to mission he wants to minister to the Indians in Georgia, but he's not born again, he's not saved.

And there comes a horrible storm, and it breaks the ship's mast. And all the people are crying out, all the Englishmen are crying out, they're doomed, they're doomed. And here's these Moravians, and they're singing, and they're calm. He was challenged by them. And they were people were offending them. They were treating them terribly, but they never struck back. "And many perceived these German missionaries as cowards until a great storm broke over the ship. As the main sail split and the sea began to pour into the ship, the English panicked, their terrified screams rising above the tumult of the storm, but the Moravians sat quietly, singing their hymns. Afterwards, when one of the Moravians was asked if he was afraid during the storm, he answered, 'I thank God, no.'

Then he was asked if their women and children were afraid and replied, 'No. Our women and children are not afraid to die.' Wesley recorded this in his diary and added, 'From them, I went to their crying, trembling neighbors and pointed out to them the difference in the hour of trial between him that feared God and him that feared not.'" GLORIA: Oh, my. Yeah. BILLYE: "'At twelve, the wind fell. This was the most glorious day which I have hitherto seen.'" And so Wesley then entered into his journal that he went among the Moravians. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: And the Moravians, then, he saw that he had not been born again. And he became "The Wesley brothers were saved and went on to see " GLORIA: So they were saved. BILLYE: They were saved under the Moravian ministry. And they were "saved and went on to see, in meeting after meeting, thousands come to Christ " GLORIA: Praise God.

BILLYE: in the Wesleys' ministries. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: But this had happened because they had come into contact I'm sure God led them into that. And He probably would have led them later into it, you know, but it was the Moravians whom in whom they saw the light of God and in whom they saw salvation by grace through Jesus Christ. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: And then you know what the Wesleys did. GLORIA: Now, are there are there Moravians still here? BILLYE: There are Moravians today. I don't know how many. I do know they have the Moravian museum there in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which my granddaughter went to. But that that I wanted to bring out about that part about their prayer. 100 years, they prayed. And let's see, 1727 to 1827, in that prayer tower. And then the missionaries went everywhere. And as a result of their missionary work, which was backed by prayer, the Wesleys got saved. And, man, that's a part that's GLORIA: Awesome. BILLYE: historical fact what happened in the ministries of John Wesley and Charles Wesley. GLORIA: Yes.

BILLYE: And George Whitefield also came into contact he was already born again by the time he was born again before the Wesleys were. And when he was already come into he sought out their fellowship. He sought them out. And everything starts on the altar GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: of prayer. There's not a move of God that came, there's not a revival we're going to talk about Azusa tomorrow. GLORIA: Good. BILLYE: Not any of it came without a prayer first. And if we do what they did, we can get what they got. If that's what a man did who brought a great revival out of which Hilo, Hawaii, was born. I'm going to be going there soon. But Hilo became a city because a man who was ministered to in the ministry of Charles Finney, great revivalist and Finney was a man of prayer, and Father Nash who prayed before him. And that young man who was influenced by Finney and his prayer life and his revivals, he said, "If I do what Finney did, I can get what Finney got." And he went to Hawaii, and a great, huge move of God came because he prayed. That's what Finney did. GLORIA: Praise God.

BILLYE: And that's what they all did. And if that's what we'll do, then we can have what they had. GLORIA: Oh, yes. Hallelujah. BILLYE: We can have GLORIA: It's time. BILLYE: Jesus, our passion, but it's going to take prayer GLORIA: Praise God. Glory to God. BILLYE: from the Body of Christ GLORIA: Hallelujah. BILLYE: who is the priesthood on the earth and can lift up GLORIA: Amen, amen. BILLYE: men and nations to God. GLORIA: Billye and I'll be right back. ANNOUNCER: We hope you enjoyed today's teaching from Kenneth Copeland Ministries. And remember Jesus is Lord.

Textual Sermon The Firepower of Prayer in Awakenings

BILLYE: Prayer and awakenings. GLORIA: That'll change everything. BILLYE: That'll change everything. GLORIA: That's right. BILLYE: All we need is an awakening to God. GLORIA: That's right, that's right. BILLYE: And I wrote a book. My most recent book is, "First of All & The Awakenings." And of course, the "first of all" part has to do with first of all, you pray for the leaders. GLORIA: Yeah, right. BILLYE: And then this is what drew my attention to awakenings. Out at Prayer Mountain in the Ozarks, which we established as the Lord's, at His direction, to help the pray-ers in 1995 and so He told us to establish it on two premises: One, pray in the plans of God; two, stop the strategies of the enemy. And that's for all pray-ers everywhere. Pray in the plans of God, and stop the strategies of the enemy. GLORIA: That's right.

BILLYE: It's two kinds of praying. So He told us to provide places for conducive to those two kinds of praying and to make a place where people could pray individually so we have cabins for that but to make a place for corporate prayer. And so out at Prayer Mountain, we have a chapel. And out at Prayer Mountain, we have corporate prayer every Sunday at 3:00 and every Wednesday at noon. And that one at noon is streamed live around the world, and people join us online and pray together in united prayer. GLORIA: That's powerful, isn't it? BILLYE: Oh, it's powerful. Though and, you know, Brother Hagin said, "There are things you can get in united prayer that you cannot get any other way." So we're I believe that the awakening is one thing that we need. We're going to show that in some things that we read. But it was 2008. It was 3:00 in the afternoon, Sunday afternoon, and there was an upcoming election. You remember 2008, 2016 were election years. And so we're praying out there, and we're praying hard and fast and heavy like machine gun bullets for the election, and really telling God just what to do. And suddenly

GLORIA: (Laughs) Whether He needed it or not. BILLYE: (Laughs) All He has to know what to do is just ask us. But, anyway, I'm sitting on the second row, praying. And suddenly, this blanket, you might call it a mantle, falls on me from heaven. I've only had it happen twice in my life. Once it did in 1979 and then again in 2008 at this prayer meeting. It just comes on you. Now, the Bible says that the spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet. So that means you can be quiet and speak in church. You don't have to blurt out everything. But there have been two times. These were these two times that this mantle came on me. You open your mouth and words are coming out, you do it. So here's what came out of my mouth, in a really loud voice: "One thing will save America, and it is not the election. It is an awakening to God.

One thing will avail for Israel and the nations. It is an awakening to God." And that's the end of it, short, but it shook us all. We were quiet. We knew we had been reprimanded. GLORIA: Mm. BILLYE: And then, suddenly, thoughts start shooting through my mind like machine gun bullets. And they go really fast, and I know that it's the Lord. And those thoughts are, "The best person in the world could be elected president, and it would do no good if the people did not awaken to God." GLORIA: That's true.

BILLYE: Awakenings, history, American history. "The part of prayer in the awakenings, study." So I did. I did what He told me. And I learned I had heard of the Great Awakening barely because it's not really emphasized in history, but it's there in secular history. And I found out that the United States of America was born out of what history, even academic history, calls the Great Awakening. A contemporary Harvard professor wrote, "One cannot understand the colonial society that brought about the American Revolution without a study of the Great Awakening."

GLORIA: Mm. BILLYE: Harvard Professor William Perry said, "The Declaration of Independence of 1776 was the direct results of the evangelical preaching of the evangelists of the Great Awakening." GLORIA: Mm. BILLYE: Now, some of those evangelists that we studied, and the very most prominent one, was George Whitefield. He was from England, and I go into great detail about him in the book. He was he made 13 crossings across the Atlantic. God actually put it in his heart to preach unity and the new birth. He came and went to all the colonies.

He was the best known person in all the colonies, and he knew God wanted to unite the colonies. And his message was that they should be one nation under God. And another one GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: another brothers who were very eventful in Methodism, it was called, in the early day Methodists, I mean, they were shouting-their-hair-down Methodists, and that was Charles and John Wesley. And both Whitefields and Wesley were influenced by some people called the Moravians. And their prayers we're going to study about their prayers today and how they preceded so much that affected the Wesleys and affected George Whitefield. And so my daughter Brenda, she's a book hound, and she got me this book. And notice the title, "Fire on the Altar: Those Who Carried the Flame." Remember we've been talking about the altar and its coals of fire?

And the incense altar in the Old Testament in the temple times, there were coals of fire, and the incense rose. And then the New Testament and the Old Testament likens our prayers to rising before God like incense. GLORIA: Mm. BILLYE: And so this book is called, "Fire on the Altar: And Those Who Carried the Flame: Vol. 1: The Great Revivalists," by and it's written by Frank "JJ" Di Pietro, I guess, P-i-e-t-r-o, "Fire on the Altar: Those Who Carried the Flame." Now, I'm going to give you a word about that title because they understood that we offer prayers, we intercede on an altar, and it sends to God. Now, there's a misunderstood verse in the Bible that this will help you, Romans 12:20, Paul writes, "Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his head." I had a man say to me, a Christian, "I don't really like Paul's writings."

And I said, "What? You don't like Paul's writings?" And he said, "Well, what about that verse where he talks about heaping coals of fire on people's heads?" And I guess he had the idea that that was, you know, you just Paul wanted to burn them up. That wasn't what the author was talking about. And if you read the whole context of it, Romans 12, starting with Verse 17, it says, "Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if your enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." What does this say? You're taking him to the altar.

You're taking him to the place where the fire is on the altar. You're interceding for your enemy. You're loving him. The first thing Jesus ever said about prayer is, "Pray for those that spitefully use you." GLORIA: Yeah, that's right. BILLYE: And so you're taking them. And that's what Paul was talking about, take them to the altar. Take them to the fire on the altar and let your prayer raise up for them. That's what this man titled the book. He understood that, "Fire on the Altar: And Those Who Carried the Flame." And Acts 4 speaks of united prayer. It says that Paul and not Paul, but Peter and John had been to the temple, you know, and they prayed for a man, and he got healed, and they got in bad trouble. It says they went to their own company and their own company, it said, lifted their voices and prayed to God. Well, here are the speaking spirits, and here's what they're doing.

They lift their voice, and they ask God to stretch forth His hands in signs and wonders and miracles. That's united prayer they were praying. And so that's what this group of people, the Moravians, probably prayed, a kind of united prayer like the world has hardly ever seen. And I'm going to be reading to you from this book. I'm going to start here on page three. And the man who wrote the book, and he begins chapter one with, "Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf and the Moravians." He said, "I've hesitated to write this short history about the Moravians' revival, for no other reason than I cannot begin to do this awesome move of God justice." What they did, Gloria, is and I'm going to read to you about it. It's hard to do justice to because, Gloria, they had a prayer meeting that lasted 100 years. GLORIA: That's a long prayer meeting. BILLYE: 100 years, united prayer.

GLORIA: Wow. And what was the result? BILLYE: Well, you're going to see the result. GLORIA: (Laughs) BILLYE: One of the results was they affected the Wesleys, got them born again. GLORIA: That was good. BILLYE: John Wesley wasn't even born again until he came into the contact with Moravians. GLORIA: Wow. BILLYE: They affected George Whitefield, and they affected missionary endeavors which were nonexistent over the whole world. So this is how it began. GLORIA: Hmm. BILLYE: He writes about them in an era when missionary outreach was almost nonexistent, "The Moravians covered the world, going places where most refused to go. They suffered prison, shipwreck, persecution, ridicule, plague, disease, poverty, and death, all to have the honor of being called ambassadors for Christ. It was 50 years later " William Carey is a father of a modern Baptist missionary, and it was 50 years later that he began. So they were very early in this. "This missionary work that they prayed into the earth would soon fill the kingdom of God, and it was birthed by intense intercessory prayer. Perched atop a prayer tower, these nearly forgotten prayer warriors took their turns praying."

GLORIA: They had a prayer tower. BILLYE: They had a prayer tower, and they "took their turns praying 24 hours a day, 7 days a week " GLORIA: Wow. BILLYE: " from 1727 to 1827, 100 years nonstop." GLORIA: Wow. BILLYE: Now, how did they get their prayer tower? GLORIA: I don't know. Tell me. BILLYE: Well, they got it from Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. He was their story begins with him, this one man, a count. He was born in 1700 to a family of nobles in lower Austria. And his inheritance was to sit upon the continents, one of their most powerful thrones. But he gave it all up and spent his life and fortune to carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth. He was not a Moravian, he was a devout Lutheran. And from a very early age, he had a desperate hunger for God. GLORIA: Mm. BILLYE: At six, he made this commitment, quote, "I firmly resolve to live for Him alone who laid down His life for me." GLORIA: At six years old. BILLYE: At nine, he made this commitment: "To have a living communion with Christ, my heart's affection never departing from my Savior" GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: my Jesus. GLORIA: That's awesome. BILLYE: His blessed presence, God Christ's blessed presence was Zinzendorf's all-consuming theme. He had chosen from an early age as his life's motto for his now famous confession, quote, "I have one passion. It is Jesus and Jesus only." "I have one passion. It is Jesus " GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: " and Jesus only." GLORIA: That's awesome.

BILLYE: Prevailing prayer was his lifestyle. He studied under a famous priest, and he was the valedictorian of his class. He had a strong desire to win souls for Christ, and he found a woman, "a mate who was as consecrated to Christ as he was." And they both sacrificed their rights of nobility and willingly entered into a life of service for their Savior. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: And this was when the kings and queens of Europe flaunted their authority. "The countess bore twelve children, of which only three outlived her." And the count began purchasing an estate with acres of land. And as he purchased this estate that grew and grew and grew to these acres of land, there was a group called the United Brethren, or the Moravians, who were suffering intense persecution in Bohemia, Poland, and Moravia. GLORIA: Wow. BILLYE: They were being terribly persecuted.

The Roman church in those days persecuted all the people who didn't believe like they did. So GLORIA: That made me laugh because that's the way we bought this land, piece at a time BILLYE: Piece at a time, yeah, yeah. GLORIA: just like they did. BILLYE: And bought the land at the direction of the Father. GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: Well, he's buying the land at the direction of the Father. He has he has pledged to God he's going to live for Jesus and Jesus only, and he doesn't even know about that group of heavenly heavily persecuted people called the Moravians. GLORIA: Mm. BILLYE: But he's going to cross paths with them. And a lone Christian refugee from Moravia showed up at Zinzendorf's door. His name was Christian David, and he hoped the count GLORIA: Christian David? BILLYE: Christian David. And he hoped the count might allow a group of these oppressed people, Moravian refugees, to come and live on his land as a haven, to escape, refugees. And the count said "Yes." So David then, after he met Zinzendorf, he would go back to Moravia and group little by little, he would bring those people. He'd slip them out. He'd slip them to the borders and bring them over to this land that the count had GLORIA: Wow, what a story. BILLYE: bought and purchased. And Zinzendorf called him the Moravian Moses because he went after them and rescued them. And so there was a community of them that grew up and they named it Herrnhut, which means the Lord's Watch.

And there were 300 of them in the beginning. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: But other people, the Anabaptists, Calvinists, Reformed, Separatists, others, heard about this refugee place you know, the thing about refugee camps today, the Christians that are having to leave Syria are having to leave Syria and things. And so they hear about it, and they start coming there. And so it eventually GLORIA: At least they didn't fight. BILLYE: No. And they well, they kind of did among themselves when they started. They came there, and they they're from different groups. And the Lutherans, they didn't like the way the Moravians were doing their worship. And they the little different doctrines, you know, among them, they started they didn't get along so well. GLORIA: Nitpicking. BILLYE: Yeah, yeah. So Zinzendorf, he always preached unity. "And Zinzendorf, with his pastor's heart, began going from house to house to each family and counseling them from the scriptures. And he organized little groups that he called bands who would meet in their homes and pray together. So it was kind of like, at first, you might say little home prayer groups. And so they started praying together, and, before long, their homes were opening up. And they began to have even all-night prayer vigils. It took five years. But after five years, and of them praying, and of them coming all together GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: their dissension and bickering vanished. GLORIA: Five years. BILLYE: Unbelievers came to Herrnhut, and they were converted.

And something happened at that place. A spirit of prayer immediately became evident in their fellowship GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: in the golden summer of 1727. The fire of the Spirit was about to fall on these dedicated saints. By August the 5th, they would lie on the floor, and anticipation would come up to them, "Something's going to happen. Something's going to happen." Some of them didn't even sleep because they sensed that something was going to happen. GLORIA: So you think that prayer opened the door to that? BILLYE: The prayer opened the door. So it was Pentecostal fire was about to fall on the Moravians. May 12th to August 13th, 1727, they called it the golden summer. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: A spirit of prayer they called it communion, so they're all going to meet, and they're going to all take communion. And at the communion service, Wednesday, August 13, they prayed. They knelt, and they sang. Suddenly, they heard a sound of a mighty rushing wind. "The power of the Holy Spirit swept across the congregation in waves." GLORIA: Oh, thank You, Jesus. BILLYE: The noise of the wind was so loud that they looked out the windows to see if there was a storm.

There was not. The manifestation of the Spirit was not relegated within the four walls of their church building but had fell throughout the community. And men and women were touched with a passion for God. "And His purpose swept through their hearts." GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: Two members who were 20 miles away, unaware of the meeting, and the power of God fell upon them the moment that they were that it happened at the church. And they were smitten and fell under the power. "On that day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we saw the hand of God and His wonders. We were all under the cloud of the Father baptized with His Spirit. As the Holy Spirit came upon us, great signs and wonders took place in our midst. And from that time, scarcely a day passed but what we beheld as mighty workings among us. A great hunger after the Word of God took possession of us, so that we had to have three services every day. Everyone desired above everything else that the Holy Spirit might have full control. Self-love and self-will as well as all disobedience disappeared and an overwhelming flood of grace " GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: " swept us into a great ocean "

GLORIA: Praise, favor. BILLYE: " of divine love." They left that house when they did at noon that day of the first outflow, of the next day, "hardly knowing whether they belonged to earth or had already gone to heaven." GLORIA: They were in the Spirit. BILLYE: "The Savior permitted to come upon us " This is what they wrote. " a Spirit of whom we had hitherto not had any experience or knowledge." GLORIA: Praise God. Oh, Jesus, we so desire that. BILLYE: "The Holy Spirit took control of us." GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: Just what happened in the book of Acts, a rushing mighty wind. GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: But they had they had moved into a place of unity and to a place of prayer. And they began praying, and then they're all together at this community service. And they have this rushing mighty wind, and they have an awakening that affected the whole world.

GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: And I'm going to take this with this tomorrow GLORIA: Good. BILLYE: and show you how they affected even the awakening in America. But every awakening, Gloria, that came, every move of God, came because people prayed. And if we want an awakening in America GLORIA: Yes, that's right. BILLYE: there's one way we can get it, and that's to pray. GLORIA: Mm. BILLYE: And that's to pray in, and that's to pray "first of all," and that's to have a passion for Jesus and be willing to let His Spirit take us over. GLORIA: You don't have passion unless something's very important to you. You don't just kind of, "Eh." That's not passion. BILLYE: Hmm-mm. GLORIA: You have to take it. Glory to God. That has really stir that stirs us all up, Billye. BILLYE: Mm-hmm. GLORIA: Praise God. Hallelujah. We want that. Billye and I'll be right back.

Full Dialogue of Gloria Copeland & Billye Brim

GLORIA: And how we can be in the right place at the right time. BILLYE: Doing the right thing. GLORIA: Doing the right thing. And that's vital. BILLYE: And I'm telling you, we went last we went last week into the fact what separates us from all other animal life is we can speak. GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: We have intelligent speech. And we were created ish and ishah, and the root of those two words are "fire." You need to watch it from last week. And we were created to use our voices. And one way we use our voices is in prayer and in intercession. GLORIA: Yes, amen. BILLYE: We're talking right now about interceding for a nation or interceding for people. Jesus is the head. We're the body. And His present-day ministry is as priest. He's priest of our confessions, what we say. When we offer up a prayer for our nation, He's the priest of it. He presents it to God GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: presents it to God. And so He we're told that in His ministry of as high priest, He ever liveth to make intercession for us. And then we are told that in our ministry, as His body, a kingdom of priests, a royal priesthood, we are told to make prayers, supplications, intercessions, and giving of thanks for kings and for those in authority because God wants He wants the nations to be sheep nations. He wants them to have a revelation of God.

GLORIA: Oh, yes. BILLYE: Israel had the ministry of intercession. It was supposed to present to the nations God, and it does. It still does because it illustrates He brought them back home like He said He would, and His Word is true. GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: Now, we are told that we are to intercede for kings, all of those in authority, presidents. You're supposed to pray every day first of all for your president, for your judiciary, for your senators and representatives. GLORIA: Yes.

BILLYE: That's what we are to do in our priestly ministry. Now, we know we read yesterday how Abraham interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah and how God agreed to everything Abraham said. Moses interceded for Israel. GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: He even said when they were in such bad shape they made a golden calf, he said, "If you won't forgive them, blot my name out of the book of life." I don't know if I'd go that far, Gloria. GLORIA: I won't go that far. I don't think so. BILLYE: But he knew God. He knew God. GLORIA: Oh, my. BILLYE: And God did it. God forgave him. And they marched around 40 years in the wilderness and all that group died, but He didn't wipe He was going to wipe them out and just start over with Moses and Aaron and Miriam, but Moses talked Him out of it, you might say. And we see this scripture very GLORIA: He had mercy. BILLYE: Yeah. We see this very telling scripture in Ezekiel 22:30, God talking. And He's talking about Israel. The first temple is going to be destroyed. This is the book of Ezekiel. And He tells Ezekiel, "I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge " GLORIA: Yes. BILLYE: " and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none." GLORIA: You know, Billye, think about it. That's the only thing that's ever held God back BILLYE: It's truth. GLORIA: finding Him. BILLYE: Hey, you're right.

GLORIA: I just saw that. That's just BILLYE: I'm telling you, we sit on this program and we get revelation. GLORIA: We do. BILLYE: And, Gloria, she just gets some jewels it operates in her so well. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: Now, let's think that through. Nothing else stays the hand of God. Selah. GLORIA: But he needs a man BILLYE: And He GLORIA: or woman. BILLYE: indicates here, Gloria, as bad as their sin was and I'm telling you there's some chapters in Ezekiel GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: you can read GLORIA: You could say vile. It was vile. BILLYE: some bad, vile stuff happening right in the temple, them turning their back on God and worshiping the sun in the temple. But He said, "I sought," He looked for, He hunted. GLORIA: And where did He look? BILLYE: Among them.

GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: That they should make up the hedge there's a hedge that can be put up around America GLORIA: Yes, amen. BILLYE: and stand in the gap. I'm telling you, Gloria, we see some things happening that just breaks your heart. You see the enemy trying to divide our country racially. There's no such thing as race. We all came from one blood, the Bible says. GLORIA: That's right. BILLYE: But the enemy tries to make all these differences. The Democrats, the Republicans, the liberals, the conservatives, the I don't know what all. GLORIA: What would that be, Billye? I've got a scripture. BILLYE: Okay. GLORIA: "Where there's strife, there's confusion and every evil work." BILLYE: And that's the enemy's. Because why? He wants to bring the house down.

GLORIA: So every evil work, that's the root. BILLYE: Through that's the root. And if he can he can perpetrate that, then he can bring the house down GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: because he knows what Jesus said, "A house divided against itself, cannot stand." GLORIA: That's exactly right. Praise God. BILLYE: So He's trying that on America, folks, like never before. So who can stop it? Who can help it? Somebody among us, you, me. GLORIA: A man among us or a woman among us. BILLYE: We can make up the hedge. We can stand in the gap. And I believe it, Gloria. And I know we're going to get those great moves of God that have been prophesied. GLORIA: Oh, Billye. BILLYE: They're even in the Bible. And before the week's out, we'll see where they're in the Bible. GLORIA: Good, good. BILLYE: We're going to give them. We're going to do it. GLORIA: We need it. BILLYE: We're doing it now. GLORIA: We need to believe for that. BILLYE: First of all GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: pray for those in authority, intercede. Look what Daniel did. He had not sinned like his nation had sinned, but he confessed and repented for their sins. Sometimes we have to, I think, repent, you know, for what's happening. "Lord, God, this is not good. We don't like it, you know. Please forgive us." And he confessed and repented for the sins of Israel and his approach to God, and an angel came. GLORIA: It said, "though he had not sinned." BILLYE: No, he had not sinned like that. GLORIA: He confessed and repented. BILLYE: That's right. GLORIA: So it doesn't have to be the one BILLYE: No. GLORIA: that sinned or the people that sinned. We you another can stand in the gap for them. BILLYE: We can stand in the gap for America.

GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: Brighter you and I are not for murdering babies in mothers. GLORIA: No, no. BILLYE: We are not for the rioting and the things that go on. GLORIA: No. BILLYE: But we can stand. GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: And here's you can read Daniel's prayer, Daniel 10, and an angel came and told him what was going to happen to the Jewish nation in the last days. Well, Satan did not want that them to get that information. And you and I get information from what's going to happen in the last days. GLORIA: And apparently, Billye, we can he confessed and repented for the sins of others. BILLYE: Uh-huh, of his nation. GLORIA: Of the nation, but of others, too. BILLYE: Yeah. GLORIA: If you had somebody in your family that was going on the dark side BILLYE: If you see a brother

GLORIA: according to this, you could repent BILLYE: It says, "If you see a brother sin a sin " GLORIA: for them. BILLYE: " that is not unto death, ask " GLORIA: That's right. That's right. BILLYE: "Whosoever's sins you " GLORIA: That's two witnesses. BILLYE: Yeah, and "whosoever's sins you remit, they are remitted." So this is the part of priesthood. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: This is the part oh, brother, I don't know if it's in this lesson or not, but we're going to get to something, a really good scripture that's going to sow this all up when we get to it. GLORIA: Hallelujah. BILLYE: But through the centuries, men and women have made prayers and intercessions that have brought into being our beloved country, the United States of America. This country and the freedoms we enjoy are the results of people praying and interceding. Now, Gloria, I went GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: in Branson I live in Branson. I'm one of the blessed ones that gets to live in Branson. And I went down to this shopping place that we have, and they have a Christmas store down there, and they have a book store. And I love books, you know, enjoy them so much. And I found this book, "40 Prayers that Changed America and Those who Prayed," by Dr. Paul E. Barkey, B-a-r-k-e-y, "40 Prayers that Changed America and Those who Prayed." Then I quickly, you know, just scanned through there and I found Benjamin Franklin. I just love Benjamin Franklin, and I know that deists have made not deists, but revisionist history has tried to make you think that he was a deist. And they're trying to make us think that our Founding Fathers, that he and Jefferson, were deists. Well, they were not because a deist believes that God created the world and then He left He left. He didn't do anything else about it, can't be approached, doesn't change anything. GLORIA: Oh, He just took His hands off BILLYE: He just took His hands off and left, yeah. GLORIA: and left through the window. BILLYE: Well, now you can tell right here by this that Benjamin Franklin was no deist.

GLORIA: Mm. BILLYE: And what is happening here is the it's after the war of independence and they're having a convention to get a constitution for the United States of America. And so all of the different colonies have sent representatives to a convention, a constitutional convention. And here they come, you know, and they come from Virginia or New York and they all want to look out for their people. And they have they've been arguing and they've been there for some time. And their progress is slowed almost to a halt. And Benjamin Franklin gets up and gives this speech. Listen to this, "Mr. President, the slow progress we have made, after four or five weeks' close attendance and continual reasoning with each other, our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many nays as yeas, is, methinks, a melancholy proof of the imperfection of human understanding. We indeed seem to feel our want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those republics which, having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, now no longer exist." They probably looked at Romans. GLORIA: Mm-hmm. BILLYE: "And we have viewed modern states all around Europe, but we find none of them of their constitutions suitable to our circumstances. In this situation of this assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understanding? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the Divine protection.

Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence," and that's what they call God, "we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend," capitalized 'Friend', "or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that, 'Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our little, partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves become a reproach and by-word down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate circumstance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest. I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business " GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: " and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service." You can see he didn't believe that God had forgotten about GLORIA: No.

BILLYE: mankind. They're deciding on the Constitution, Gloria, the one that we defend, the one that we live by, the one that gives us our freedoms. And he was begging them, "We've got to have God's help." And thank God they got it. So after the convention, and nine days after the first Constitutional Convention convened, Dr. Franklin's suggestion was put into practice. Two chaplains from different denominations were appointed, one to the House and one to the Senate. This is still the practice today. It was not a violation of the First Amendment. As the men who wrote the Constitution also hired the chaplains. The founders had an appreciation for prayer and the need for God's intervention in the affairs of man in order to assure success. Thank God. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: Thank God GLORIA: Prayer.

BILLYE: he insisted that we have prayer. You can learn more about Benjamin Franklin in a book by Eddie Hyatt, Eddie L. Hyatt, H-y-a-t-t. It's called, "The Faith and Vision of Benjamin Franklin." Don't let them talk you out of knowing that Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, were men who knew and quoted God in that wonderful Constitution by which we live freely, glory be to God. GLORIA: Hallelujah. BILLYE: Thank God. Thank God. And it is this nation. He was Benjamin Franklin was greatly influenced by George Whitefield. And I wrote a book. I wrote a book called, "First of All & The Awakenings." And we're going to start there. Prayer and awakenings, you should have it. Now, here it is. Here it is right here. I wrote this book, "First of All & The Awakenings." And I actually wrote it after I had taught it on your program that was aired in July 2017. And this book came out in July 2017, "First of All & The Awakenings." GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: And this, of course, the "first of all" part has to do with our intercession for our nations, our standing in the gap for them like we are told to do in I Timothy 2:1.

GLORIA: Amen. BILLYE: First of all, before you pray, before you pray GLORIA: Did you bring me one of those? BILLYE: Yeah. I think you've got one at your house. I'm not sure, though. First of all, before you pray for your father, your mother, I Timothy 2:1, "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men." Now, in order to bless all men, you're going to have to pray for their leaders. You pray for their kings and for all that are in authority. GLORIA: Think about how that one thing may have changed a lot of history if people had prayed, first of all, for their leaders. BILLYE: Absolutely. If we had done it like we should have, Gloria, we wouldn't have a lot of the problems we have today. GLORIA: But now we get another opportunity. BILLYE: We've got another opportunity GLORIA: Good.

BILLYE: to, first of all GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: lift those up, pray for them first of all. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: I remember Brother Hagin. You know I worked for Kenneth E. Hagin. And he had gone out in ministry, and he had a vision. And he had a vision of three frogs, dark frogs, coming up out of the Atlantic. But he said that was a type of the sea, of people. The Bible can refer to a sea of people. And coming up out of the sea of people, he saw these big, dark frogs. And they were coming up on the Florida coast. And they made three hops, and they landed in Washington, D.C. And the Lord said to Brother Hagin, "Satan has something really bad planned for America, but you can stop it. You go back to Tulsa, and you start a prayer group that prays against this." So he came back to Tulsa. I remember when he did it. They have prayer and healing every day on Rhema Campus, and it started then.

So he came back, and he started the daily afternoon prayer. And their focus was supposed to be to stop these this plan, stop the strategies of the enemy. That's one of the things you do in prayer. So for a while, they stayed focused on it. This happened about 1970 or '71. And so for a while, they stayed focused on it, and then he started the they stayed focused, but then they lost their focus and started praying about other things and kind of forgot about the three frogs. So 1972 came, this thing called Watergate, and it was terrible then. I mean, it shook America. It shook it to its foundations. It ended up in the resignation of President Richard Nixon, and he would have been impeached if he hadn't resigned. The things that are happening nowadays, it really doesn't seem so bad, but then, it was terrible. The Republican GLORIA: The beginning of BILLYE: Yeah.

The Republican the Republican Party had broken into the Democratic headquarters and stolen some secrets. And then the president and his men tried to cover it up, and it just snowballed and got worse and worse. And so Richard Nixon was going to be impeached, but he resigned. So the nation was absolutely shaken. I remember how shaken we were. And the Lord said to Brother Hagin that when the day of reckoning comes and there is a day of reckoning. He is the Judge of all. He said, "I am not going to hold Richard Nixon primarily responsible for this. I am not going to hold the Republican Party primarily responsible for this. I am going to hold you, Kenneth E. Hagin, responsible for this " GLORIA: The Church. BILLYE: " because I told you, and you could have stopped it." And He said, "Whatever happens in a nation happens because the Church allows it to happen."

GLORIA: Ooh. BILLYE: So what does that mean? You're a priest. You're in the priesthood. You're supposed to take, first of all, the heads of your nation, and you're supposed to put them on the altar of prayer. You're supposed to you're supposed to lift them up in intercession. And if you don't do it, somebody's going to answer, and it's the Church of that age, the Church of that day. Well, right now, Gloria, all these things that you and I have talked about, that we don't like and that we need to repent for and we need to pray for, we can change them. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: But we have to do it by the Body of Christ being who it is. You have to know who you are. You have to know that He's the head and you are the body, that He's the high priest and you have a priesthood. We're going to talk GLORIA: Give me that again, Billye. I didn't get it all down. "Whatever happens in a nation " BILLYE: " in a nation " GLORIA: does what? BILLYE: "Whatever happens in a nation happens because the Church allowed it to happen." GLORIA: I believe that. BILLYE: Whoa. That's pretty heavy. But, we're the ones with the authority. We're the ones.

GLORIA: We're the ones with the name BILLYE: With the name, we're the ones with the blood, we're the ones with the blood GLORIA: of Jesus. BILLYE: with the Word. We're the ones who have been given this charge. GLORIA: That's right. BILLYE: You sit up there and you rule and reign and you lift up the kings and you be the priests on the earth. See, we're the priests on the earth. We're the priests for this nation. GLORIA: The Church. BILLYE: Yeah. GLORIA: Praise God. Wow. You don't want to miss any of these. Billye and I'll be right back.

full text Gloria Copeland Sunday Praying With Fire for the Nations 28-Jan-2018

BILLYE: And people watch us, you know what, Gloria, and I see them everywhere. And they say, "We get a cup of coffee and we sit down with you." GLORIA: That's a good idea. BILLYE: "And we feel like we're your friends, too." GLORIA: Yes. BILLYE: And you are. GLORIA: Yes. BILLYE: And you're our brothers and sisters, and we're glad to have you here. GLORIA: So just join us. BILLYE: Yes. And GLORIA: Hallelujah.

BILLYE: and probably you were here with us last week, so you know how we went into studying, really, the priesthood, and studying the fires of God on the altars, and studying even how the word for ish and ishah, male and female, are the root word of it is fire. GLORIA: Hmm. Praise God. BILLYE: So I don't know. You know, we could we could say there's a fire shut up in my bones. GLORIA: That's right. BILLYE: And we would be scriptural.

GLORIA: That's right. BILLYE: Because it was in the female and the male that the word "fire" is the root word of that. Well, in the Old Testament, we looked at the priesthood. We looked at the altar of incense and how incense arises rose to God and how that's that our it's a type of our prayers. And our payers rise to God like a sweet smelling savor. And they are saved in vials of gold. GLORIA: Hmm. BILLYE: So prayer and incense and the priesthood all fit together in the scheme of God. And in the Old Testament, which the Bible tells us is an example to us and that it is types and shadows and so in the Old Testament, there are three offices that men stood in, men and women, and they were anointed. And they were prophet, priest, and king. And so the Lord Jesus Christ, He's the fulfillment of all of it, all of prophecy. He's the fulfillment of it. So He is the soon-coming king. He's already king in our hearts, but He's the soon-coming king of the whole of the earth and all the nations. GLORIA: Praise You, Jesus. BILLYE: And on earth here, He'll have set up a visible kingdom. And of course, He was the prophet, the essence of all prophecy and fulfillment of all. But His present-day ministry right now is that of priest. The present-day ministry of Jesus Christ is priest. I would recommend to you a book by Kenneth E. Hagin called, "The Present Day Ministry of Jesus Christ." It's marvelous, and it shows how His present-day ministry is priest and how we, as the Body of Christ, are a royal priesthood. And that is what prayer is. When we are praying, especially when we're praying for others, we're operating as priests, a royal priesthood. His present-day ministry as high priest is really covered in the book of Hebrews.

But I just chose a few of the verses to read here. There were many more, but we're going to start with Hebrews 2:17. "Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people." In His office of high priest, He has walked in a body like you and I walk. So He knows about where we have walked, what we've walked in. And so He then can be our faithful high priest. Hebrews 3:1, "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus."

And that word is "profession" translated, it's "confession." So He's the high priest of your confession. When you make your confession that you took Him as your Lord, then He's the high priest. It said, "This one follows me, Father." And He's also the high priest of your daily confessions with your mouth to bringing them to pass. You want to make sure your confessions are right. He's the high priest of it. Hebrews 4:14, "Seeing then " Oh, I just love this verse. "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus Christ Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession," or our confession. Again, it's talking about Him being the high priest of our confession. "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but he was in all points tempted like as we, yet he was without sin." Hebrews 8:1, "Now the things which we have spoken of the things which we have spoken this is the sum " It's talking about Him being our high priest, but this is the sum of it. "We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens." That's the sum of it. He was lifted up above all principality, power, might, and dominion. It is we are told in Ephesians. And He's seated at the right hand of the Father. Colossians tells us to keep our mind there on Him where He is seated at the right hand of the Father. And Ephesians tells us we're seated there with Him. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: We are seated there in Him. GLORIA: Now, may I ask you a personal question? BILLYE: Uh-oh. (Laughs) GLORIA: Do you remember when, some years ago, we learned that we had to say right if we wanted things to be right, from Brother Hagin?

BILLYE: Listen, girl, our confession here that He's high priest of, do I ever remember. GLORIA: Thank God that we learned that, Billye. BILLYE: Thank God, Glo. GLORIA: No telling what we'd be like today if we hadn't learned to speak right. BILLYE: Well, I can kind of remember in my carnal mind how I was GLORIA: (Laughs) BILLYE: and how I would have been. GLORIA: Oh, my. BILLYE: Because I was and I'm not going there. GLORIA: We so got the message to you'd if you don't want it, don't say it. But it changed our whole lives. Everything we said, we tried to we endeavored and did say what we wanted to come to pass, based on the Word of God. And we wouldn't say anything different. And if we did slip up and say something different, we repented and we asked the Lord to just do away with that, "We repent of that. That's not what we say." And then we'd say the right thing. BILLYE: That's right, right quick right quickly. GLORIA: Yeah, that's right. BILLYE: And, Gloria, think about it now. You He's right there to hear what you say. He hears it. GLORIA: That's right. BILLYE: And it's got to be something He can take before the Father, you know? At GLORIA: Well, yeah. BILLYE: in His high priestly. GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: He can't take junk. So if you're conscious of Him being there when you make your confessions, we're going to find out that in that place, He intercedes for us. GLORIA: That's good. BILLYE: It's all Him. And He's the high priest of it. It all works with the Father and with Him. GLORIA: And we've got it. We got that you can have what you say, back in those old days BILLYE: We did. GLORIA: when we BILLYE: We policed each other, by the way. GLORIA: Yeah, we did. BILLYE: "Oh, don't say that."

GLORIA: You can have what you say. And, boy, we said right and we still do that today. We endeavor to speak only what we want to come to pass. BILLYE: Mm-hmm. GLORIA: And if we do get negative, we repent. But, you know BILLYE: We recognize it right away. GLORIA: after so many years, it's BILLYE: You recognize it right away. GLORIA: it's not the normal thing to be negative. BILLYE: And you recognize it. GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: Bless the Lord. Thank God. GLORIA: And what and what about it? We've had things that have gone well with us. BILLYE: Mm-hmm, they have gone well. Oh, my goodness, Gloria. Oh. GLORIA: Glory to God. So it's a key to BILLYE: Every once in a while, Shelli GLORIA: the blessing. BILLYE: Every once in a while, Shelli will say to me, "Mama, this is a long way from in the kitchen peeling potatoes when you got your first you know, heard the voice of God." Bless the Lord. GLORIA: Hallelujah. BILLYE: Now GLORIA: Okay. BILLYE: He's our high priest. He is the head another thing in the Bible that we have to understand is, we're called the Body of Christ.

He is the head GLORIA: Mm-hmm. BILLYE: we are the body. Now, He's the high priest. So if the head is a high priest, the body also is in a priesthood. GLORIA: Mm-hmm. BILLYE: And we see this spelled out for us in I Peter 2:9, "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood," you are a royal priesthood, " an holy nation, a peculiar people " and that really means a purchased people. You were purchased by His blood, " that you should " and here's your here's your call, here's your job, " that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: So you should walk around as a living example GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: of someone who's light GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: and light in a dark world. GLORIA: And your words should reflect that. BILLYE: And your words your words, your priesthood words should reflect that. GLORIA: That's right. BILLYE: Now GLORIA: Hallelujah.

BILLYE: the King James Version of Revelation 1:6 reads, "He has made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." GLORIA: Hallelujah. BILLYE: Now, this is that same scripture, Revelation 1:6, in the Amplified translation, "He formed us into a kingdom (a royal race), priests to His God and Father-to Him be the glory and the power and the majesty and the dominion " GLORIA: Yes, glory. BILLYE: " throughout the ages forever and ever. Amen." GLORIA: Throughout the ages. That sort of settles that, "throughout the ages." BILLYE: That settles it, girl. GLORIA: Forever. BILLYE: It ain't ever going to change. GLORIA: It's not ever going to change. BILLYE: Never going to change! GLORIA: Glory to God. BILLYE: He's not going to change. He's an unchanging God. GLORIA: That's right. BILLYE: And it's not going to change that His body is a royal race. GLORIA: We know that He's there's no shadow of turning in Him, the Scripture says. BILLYE: No. GLORIA: But now this says that now we're involved with something that's not going to change. BILLYE: Yes. GLORIA: Glory to God. BILLYE: And we're to show this forth. Bless the Lord. Now, "Christ" of course, is the Greek translation of the "anointed one." The Hebrew would be mashiach, Messiah. So Brother Copeland, quite some time ago, the Lord told him, "When you see that word 'Christ,' translate it." GLORIA: Mm-hmm, yeah. BILLYE: And so He is the anointed One. So what is the anointed One doing in His present-day ministry as high priest up at the right hand of the Father? Well, for one thing, He's doing this: Hebrews 7:25, "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost " GLORIA: Praise God.

BILLYE: " that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." GLORIA: That's present day. BILLYE: Present-day ministry. GLORIA: That's right now. BILLYE: Right now. GLORIA: That's every day. BILLYE: Right now, He's at GLORIA: Glory to God. BILLYE: the right hand of the Father. GLORIA: Yeah, and He's able. BILLYE: And He's making intercession for you and for me GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: and for mankind. GLORIA: Yes. BILLYE: Somebody's praying for you, and it's Jesus the high priest, your high priest. GLORIA: Praise God. And we need to receive that and depend on it. BILLYE: Absolutely. GLORIA: Yes. BILLYE: Romans 8:34 tells us the same thing, "Who is he that condemns? It is Christ," the anointed One, "that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of the Father, who also maketh intercession for us." GLORIA: I'm an "us." BILLYE: I'm in that "us" bunch. GLORIA: Yes. BILLYE: And He's GLORIA: And you and us depend on that. BILLYE: Absolutely. He's making intercession for you, Gloria. GLORIA: That's the most important thing that could ever happen to us in this lifetime. BILLYE: That's right. GLORIA: And that Jesus would be at the right hand of the Father, making prayers available for us, intercession available BILLYE: And isn't that a lot? GLORIA: on my behalf. Hallelujah. BILLYE: You're never alone. He never leaves you nor forsakes you.

GLORIA: Phew, that's powerful. BILLYE: He never leaves the right hand of His Father. Of course, He's omnipresent. And He has got you on His mind. You know that GLORIA: But, you know, we have to receive that. BILLYE: Mm-hmm. GLORIA: I mean, I could read that if I never thought about it again, and I didn't receive it and take it like it was actually true, because it is actually true. BILLYE: Absolutely. GLORIA: Then it wouldn't be working for me. BILLYE: No. GLORIA: We have to receive these things by faith. BILLYE: And you can't run around saying, "Oh, why?" or "Where is God"? GLORIA: "Woe is me." BILLYE: "Why did He forsake me?" He didn't forsake you. GLORIA: That's right. BILLYE: He's right there with you in His in His intercession. GLORIA: You might have forsaken Him, but He didn't forsake you. BILLYE: Yeah, mm-hmm. And He's the head, and we're the body. GLORIA: Hallelujah. BILLYE: So we, too because He makes intercession, we're to make intercession. GLORIA: Yes, that's right. BILLYE: So we're instructed to make intercession. And here's one of the things we're instructed to make intercession for. This scripture is just prominent in my teaching and my thinking these days. I Timothy 2:1, "I exhort therefore, that, first of all " And I wrote a new book and I started it out with the title of "First of All." " supplications, prayers, intercessions intercessions " "Intercession" is, you're praying for someone else. GLORIA: Mm-hmm. BILLYE: " intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." GLORIA: Now, if we're not having a quiet and peaceable life BILLYE: In your country, the United States. GLORIA: in all-godliness and honesty BILLYE: Yeah, it's because you didn't obey God. GLORIA: we're not doing it right. BILLYE: You didn't pray "first of all."

GLORIA: That's right. BILLYE: Before you pray for your family GLORIA: Yes, amen. BILLYE: before you pray for you, me, anything else, we're supposed to be praying, first of all, for those in authority. GLORIA: Amen. BILLYE: Now, that is not something new God thought up in the New Testament GLORIA: No. BILLYE: because it is written in Malachi 3:6, "I am Yod-Heh-Waw-Heh," we might say, "Jehovah" or "Yahweh," "I change not." GLORIA: Yes, amen. BILLYE: He never changes. If He didn't like something in the Old Testament, He still doesn't like it today. GLORIA: Here's a key that here's a key, though, in Verse 4, "Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." Now, if you're not saved, if you're not born again, you could be by making Jesus the Lord of your life. And then it's up to you to get in a good church, in a in the Word of God yourself and come into the knowledge of the truth. You have to spend time in the Word. You're you even when you got born again and filled with the Spirit, you didn't have all knowledge of the Word. BILLYE: Oh, I know.

GLORIA: You have to go after that. BILLYE: And what makes it conducive? Like, let's take the United States for example since we are living here. You need to pray for your leader so that there's not turmoil in your country GLORIA: That's right. BILLYE: so that you cannot be the United States was a missionary it is a missionary nation. We have sent 90 percent of the missionaries around the world. Well, if, suddenly, we lost that freedom, it would it would hurt missionary causes around the world. GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: So you pray for your leaders so that your nation can stay conducive to spreading the Gospel. GLORIA: That's right. That's right. BILLYE: That's really what it says in there, just like you pointed out. GLORIA: All right. We have sent 99 percent? BILLYE: 90, 90 percent GLORIA: 90. BILLYE: of the gospels missionaries have come from the United States. GLORIA: Isn't that awesome? No wonder the U.S. is blessed. BILLYE: Yes. It's truth. Now, but God didn't change. This isn't something new to Him GLORIA: No. BILLYE: that you pray for leaders.

You pray for people in authority. God has always led mankind, the speaking spirits remember, we're speaking spirits GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: to lift up their voices in prayer and intercession for people groups, for nations, and particularly for their leaders. He has heard and promised to deliver men on earth if people would pray. And, really, my title today is praying for people groups, praying for nations, being a priest, you know, being an interceder for your nation. And, of course, Abraham did this for Sodom and Gomorrah, and they weren't even the best people GLORIA: Yeah. He stood the gap. BILLYE: I mean to tell you right now, they didn't deserve it at all. But everything got everything Abraham asked God for, He did it. So in Genesis 18:1, "Jehovah," God, Yahweh, "appeared unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre: as he sat in his tent door; And he lifted up his eyes, and he saw three men approaching him." Turns out they were angels, and even the Lord among them. And so he bowed toward them, and he told Sarah to go in and fix some food for them. He gave Abraham some message. He gave Sarah a message. But then this is so interesting to me Genesis 18:16, "And the men rose up thence, and looked toward Sodom " Now, you know about Sodom, Sodom and Gomorrah.

GLORIA: It's a sorry place. BILLYE: A sorry place and all kinds of you heard of sodomy GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: which is a sexual sin gets its name from here; gives you an idea of what was going on there. GLORIA: Yeah, and what the Lord thinks about it. BILLYE: Yes, and what He thinks about it. But, "The men rose up from thence." They get ready to go. And this is so telling, Gloria. Look at that Verse 17, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" Abraham's called a friend of God. And in the New Testament, you can be a friend of God. John 16 talks about it. GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: "And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord " GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: " may bring upon Abraham that which he has spoken of him."

So He's got a plan and these men are sitting down to execute it from heaven because that sin of Sodom and Gomorrah has risen up stinky. GLORIA: Yes, it has. BILLYE: And God has sent someone down to investigate it. It even looks like He Himself might be among them, maybe in Jesus. I don't know, but it says, "Shall seeing Shall I hide from him what I'm about to do?" So, "The Lord said," Yod-Heh-Waw-Heh GLORIA: Mm-hmm. BILLYE: " Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come up to me; and if not, I will know it."

GLORIA: He's going to check it out. BILLYE: He's checking it out. "And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood before the Lord." GLORIA: Oh, thank God. BILLYE: And now you're going to see one of the greatest records of intercession for a people, and it wasn't even a godly people. But everything Abraham asked, God agreed to. So, "Abraham drew near," in Verse 18 Chapter 18:23. GLORIA: Yeah, got it. BILLYE: "Abraham drew near to God, and said, Will you also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there are fifty righteous within the city: will you destroy and not spare the place for fifty righteous that " GLORIA: He's make he's making a deal. BILLYE: Yeah, he is. "That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: that the righteous should be as the wicked, and be far from thee that be far from thee." Now, listen to this: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Finney, when he was wondering about this father's salvation, his father had gone on, and this phrase came to him, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" You could be sure God is going to do right.

GLORIA: He is. BILLYE: But we can stand before Him. And you notice here that Abraham is even He's trying to stay judgment, and evidently, He could. So then Abraham goes down GLORIA: He was in right standing with God. BILLYE: He was in right standing with God. GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: So then Abraham said, "Well, how about if there's 45 righteous?" And the Lord said, "I will not destroy it." And he said, "Well, how about if you could find forty?" And the Lord said, "Okay." "Well, how about thirty?" And then he comes down, "How about twenty?" And every time the Lord says, "Okay." And then he goes down to 10 and the Lord says, "I will not destroy it for ten's sake." GLORIA: Wow. BILLYE: "And the Lord went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned to his site." He thought surely He could find 10, but God didn't find 10. He did find GLORIA: Actually, you'd think there were 10 BILLYE: You'd think there were 10.

GLORIA: in Abraham's household. BILLYE: Well, Abraham didn't live there. Lot lived over there. GLORIA: Oh, Lot. BILLYE: You'd think there might be 10 in Lot's household. GLORIA: Yeah, yeah. BILLYE: But, see, Lot's daughters' fiances, you might say, they wouldn't go along with it. So there was just Lot, his wife, and his two daughters. But the point is, Abraham stood in the gap for these people, and God agreed as far as he went. You can stand in the gap for your nation. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: And God and if you get where you can't, He'll let you know. But we can stand in the gap for America, folks, and that's what we're going to be talking about when we come back here tomorrow. GLORIA: Praise God. Is it time to go already? BILLYE: Yes. It goes fast when you're having fun. GLORIA: Billye and I'll be right back.