Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Sister Jeannie…
Good morning! Thanks for coming to prayer.
Your relationship with God affects other people…
I was watching Dutch Sheets the other day, and I took some notes so I could portray what he said accurately. Basically, what we’re going to kind of start out with today is how our relationship with God affects other people and has an impact on our cities, on our schools, on our state, on our nation. And us not having a relationship with God or us not believing God also can affect an entire school, an entire nation, an entire state.
Around 1991, Dutch had an open vision…
Dutch was talking about how around the year 1991, he had an open vision. He was speaking somewhere and the people could tell something was going on because he was having an open vision. And in the vision, he saw young people, radical for God in a stadium. And it was packed with people. And a lot of these young people… and when I say young I am saying teens, twenties, and above-ish. Then the scene changed and they were in a parking lot getting in their cars to go to their hometowns. And when they went to their hometowns, those hometowns became on fire for God as well. And it was a radical, revival fire.
And then, God said, “There is a third great awakening coming to America.”
Now, one thing he said that really gave me much comfort is, “I didn’t think it would take this long.” Aren’t we glad? So then I think it was with within that same period of time, a very short period of time, DC was having the National Day of Prayer. But during that time they had a week-long Bible-thon. And they set up a tent on the grounds of the capitol. And in 15-minute increments, people would read from the Word starting in Genesis all the way to Revelation. And then they’d start over. So it was 24/7, 7 days for the full week.
Bible-thon in DC…
And he was on his way to DC and one of the facilitators said… I told him about this Bible-thon, and said, “I knew you’d want to be involved, but slots are filling up, so I reserved a slot for you.” And Dutch said, “Absolutely, I want to be involved.” And he said, “You are on tomorrow morning at 2 a.m.” Great! Perfect!
Okay, so here’s where the relationship with God comes in. So Dutch said to God, “Okay, I know that vision was from you about the third grade awakening coming to America, and that it is radical, that it’s on fire, and it’s something we’ve never seen before. So I’m not doubting You spoke to me. However, if I read the Bible and it doesn’t matter where it is, even it’s in the “begets”… you know so and so beget, so and so beget, so and so. He said, “I know me. And if I read anywhere in the Bible for 15 minutes, I will see revival. So I’m asking you, not because I doubt you, but because I’m wondering about me. I’m asking you to confirm that I truly did hear correctly and I’m asking you to do it so that when during the Bible-thon in my 2 a.m. slot…” Because it was a chronological reading… So so-and-so’s reading. Okay, your slot’s open. Now you keep going where that person left off. So if they’re in Genesis, you keep going in Genesis until you get to Exodus. Until you get to Leviticus. Okay? And he said, “I’m asking you that my slot lands either in Haggai or Habakkuk.” Because God had been speaking to him about America through those two books, Haggai and Habakkuk. And even as he had said Haggai is two chapters, Habakkuk is three. So out of this whole Bible, maybe five pages.
So he gets there at 1:30, ready to go. He’s about ready to come on board, and they’re nowhere near Haggai or Habakkuk. Nowhere near the minor prophets. And here’s another thing which speaks to his relationship with God. He said, “I didn’t want God to feel bad. So I said to Him, ‘You know, it’s fine. I believe you. I believe I heard from you. It’s fine. I don’t need the confirmation.’”
The look on her face changed…
So he gets up and the facilitator at the time looked at him and the look on her face changed. And she said, “I want you to read either from Haggai or Habakkuk. And he said, “Excuse me?” Don’t we do that? I do that. I’ll ask God for something and then it happens. And then I ask again just to be sure.
And he said, “Excuse me?” And she said, “Yeah.” And, once again, her face was kind of blank-ish and she said, “Yes, I want you to read for 15 minutes, either from Haggai or Habakkuk. And then as she walked away, he felt like she was singing, why did I just say that?
Here’s my point…
That confirmation that Dutch asked God for, not only impacted Dutch, it’s impacting all of us right now. So imagine if Dutch would’ve given up, imagine if in his walk with God at some point he would’ve said, “You know what? I can’t see it, so I can’t believe it.” Or “I can’t see it, and it’s just been too hard, so I’m just going to stop talking to you about it.”
We would not benefit from that conversation he had with God today. That was a conversation that he had in the nineties. Yet he’s continued in his walk with God. And he’s continued to remain steadfast. And we know it hasn’t been easy. But really, which “hard” do we want? Do we want the “hard” of what the enemy’s doing? Or do we want the pressing into God and knowing that by His grace, we can follow Him?
The impact it can have on a nation…
But the thing that can get lost on us is the impact it can have on a nation. Your relationship with God impacts people, impacts cities, impacts nations. And if I was the enemy, I would not want you to know that. The one that finished it, Jesus, lives in you. Those were real people that wrote the Word inspired by Holy Spirit. People like you and I. People that didn’t get it perfectly. That’s you!
The bases are loaded and we’re up to bat…
I was talking to my friend the other day. She just graduated from Charis and she came back to Minnesota and she said to me, “Jeannie, I came back to Minnesota and I wanted to go back to Colorado. But God said, ‘no, I have an assignment for you here. I have plans for Minnesota.’” And I said to her, “Yeah, the bases are loaded and we’re up to bat.” That’s what’s happening. There’s no getting away from it. So we might as well “batter up” and swing for the fences. Because really that’s our only alternative.
George Washington Carver prophecy…
And many of you, God has shown you what is coming. And it’s good. In the midst of all that isn’t good, we are right here with promises from God. Imagine if George Washington Carver, who prophesied from McAllister College that where the Mississippi and 35 intersect, great revival would come out of this area and spill over into the nation. Imagine if George Washington Carver would’ve allowed offense to cause him to walk away from God. Would we have that word from George Washington Carver? Did he know that when he prophesied that, that I would be up here right now saying the same thing to encourage you, to encourage me? Did he know that?
Every time we spend time with Him, every time we shut the door and get alone with Him, we are impacting our nation.
“Oh, Jeannie, that’s such a ridiculous, broad-brush stroke statement.”
Actually, it kind of is, and it’s absolutely a thousand percent true. Every time you get closer to Him, every time you decide to go by what He says versus what you see, you are impacting your nation.
The Black Robe Regiment…
Did you know about the Black Robe regiment during the founding of America? The Black Robe Regiment were the ministers and they would wear black robes. And they would preach the Word and they would tell the people how we were created to be free. And they would preach the Word and the good news of the Gospel. And did you know the enemy of our nation called them the Black Robe Regiment and they went after them first because they knew that’s where the power lie for a nation to be free.
Did you know that’s today? That’s right now.
Honey, do you want to read about George Washington?
George Washington…
Mike: So when we were talking about this last night. But the last couple days in the mornings, I like to get up and read something. I happen to read the Bible and I have my Founder’s Bible here, which is awesome. And I was just kind of opening it up. And if you have this Bible, there’s a lot of pages that are like really thick. They’re not like a nice thin Bible page. They’re tying a lot of history of the founding of the nation and our founders along with certain scriptures or events that were going on. But it’s trying to really make that correlation in those.
And so my Bible kept opening up when I just kind of flipped through… a couple times. And it opened up to this one page and it’s like in the middle of Psalms. But then sandwiched in for about five or six pages, there are thicker pages kind of makes it easier to kind of make a natural separation is a rather lengthy, if you want to say description or article about George Washington.
The Soldier Who Could Not Die…
And the title is “The Soldier Who Could Not Die.” And it talks about several incidences in George Washington’s life and his military career about how several times he was in a battle but he would not die. There were many times when some of the enemy’s sharp shooters would be told, “Make sure we take out certain leaders.” And there would be reports that some of these guys would take 8, 10, 11 shots and miss him. And of course, a lot of people like to believe that the founders weren’t Christians. And I’m not here to debate that, but if you actually study history, you’ll see that a lot of them definitely relied on it. And it was a big major part of their lives.
And after this one incident, this caught my eye where they were in a battle during the French and Indian War. And there was a basically, a lot of men and like a vast majority of them were killed. And it says at one point, there was a General Braddock who was over everything and George Washington wasn’t at that level yet. But he was mortally wounded and it says Washington took command, gathered the panicked troops because they just basically got ambushed. Retreated to Virginia. And along the way, General Braddock died. And so Washington kept requesting for military chaplains for the Virginia troops, but he was regularly refused by the governor of Virginia to send them. So he said he took on himself the role of a military chaplain, personally conducting the funeral services, reading scriptures, and offering prayers.
Jeannie: So let’s think about that for a minute. He took it on himself. Because of his relationship with God, he knew the importance of a relationship with God. And when there was an ambush, he knew God… his relationship with God, we are talking about today. Think about that.
Mike: And then after that event, he wrote a letter to his brother. And in part of it, he talks about, “Yeah, I hear that people are saying that I was killed or that I’m writing my deathbed speech. That actually isn’t happening. I didn’t die and I’m not writing anything.” And he says, “But by the all powerful dispensations of providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability and expectation, for I had four bullets through my coat and two horses shot underneath me, yet escaped unhurt. Although death was leveling my companions on every side of me.”
Jeannie: Does that sound like today? Does that sound at all like people in our country right now standing for righteousness where death is knocking at their door, but they won’t answer because the people of God are praying. Because we’re believing God. It started at the beginning. And it’s still happening today. And it still has an effect.
Mike: And I’m going to share one more thing here. He spent a lot of his career and life in the military, and he said there was another battle in 1779 where there was a British force. They had a couple sharp shooters in the British Army. And it says this one Major Patrick Ferguson, who was a renowned rifle shot and head of the sharp shooters. They basically moved around to come against the Americans. And it says, “But just before Ferguson ordered his sharp shooters to fire, he experienced a surprising impulse, later recounting that the thought of shooting that particular soldier suddenly disgusted him. The American officer now in point blank range, turned and looked directly at Ferguson, locking eyes with him over the sights of Ferguson’s rifle. After a few moments, the American slowly turned his horse, deliberately showed him his fully exposed back to Ferguson, then calmly cantered away. Ferguson recalled “I could have lodged half a dozen balls in him before he was out of my reach, but I let him live.” He later discovered that it had been General Washington whom he had allowed to live.
And then a historian kind of talked about it’s difficult to calculate its probable effect upon the result of the struggle of the American people. This singular impulse of Ferguson illustrates in a forcible manner the overruling hand of providence in directing the operation of a man’s mind when he himself is least aware of it.
We can draw a lot of similarities and parallels…
When I was reading that, I was really, in thinking about obviously what’s going on in our country, you can draw a lot of similarities and parallels to what was happening at the founding of this nation as to what’s going on now. It looks a lot different. It’s not that we have a military force invading our country right now, but the same principle of evil trying to overtake a people who just want to be free and express their devotion to their God, even if they don’t believe in God. They want the freedom to worship whoever they want to. They want the freedom and liberty to be able to live out the destiny that God has for them, whether they know it’s God’s destiny or not.
And I feel reading this, especially, the irony of tonight is the first debate in an upcoming election. And things can look really bad. I mean, you consider somebody like Washington, who he was in the thick of it for years and decades of literal battle. And at times, was surrounded. Yet his relationship with God kept him alive. And he had such an impact, literally, on a nation.
This isn’t just for one or two people…
Do you think that God doesn’t have the same thoughts toward every single solitary person that He’s ever created? This isn’t just for one or two people. Well the big things only come from those who are either leaders in politics or leaders in churches. No! It’s for every single solitary person at some level. There were so many stories of how, even back then, the founders and the people who we call the Founding Fathers… And there was a lot of them. There wasn’t just the people who served or signed the Declaration of Independence or anything like that. There were many people who put their trust in God despite what it looked like. And their relationship with God, their time they spent with Him understanding His Word the power of His Word. Everyone who stood up had some sort of impact on an entire nation that is still reverberating today, 250 some years later almost.