How Often I Would - But You Would Not

Summary

Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the YouTube recording's caption track, read through the transcript panel — published in summary form; watch the full sermon at the source.

Because of the Times 1995 · The Pentecostals of Alexandria, Alexandria, LA Topics: Prayer · The Church · Missions and Evangelism

Presented, and straight to work.

Her husband presents her and she opens by owning her weakness — she is so insignificant, she says, but heroes act while others just stand around and watch. She has the house lift its hands and put its agreement into its voice: something is happening here, and it is happening "to me now." The sermon that follows is her summons to become the kind of people that happening requires: intercessors.

The intercessor God is looking for.

She tells of a poor Belgian in one of D. L. Moody's audiences who had lost his wife and children, and who wept his rebuke at comfortable America: your nation could be saved if you would only pray. That, she says, is the first word for because of the times 1995 — a house on its knees, weeping and travailing, until a nation of consumers becomes a nation of intercessors. She founds it on Ezekiel: God sought for one to stand in the gap and found none, and the indignation fell. (The Ezekiel 22:30 wording is voiced near-entire as the founding call and ships; the Isaiah 59:16 clause that rides with it and the Ezekiel 22:31 closing clause she returns to are fragments, priced in the packet.) Two kings carry the contrast: Uzziah prospered while he sought the Lord; Rehoboam, established and strong, did evil because he did not prepare his heart to seek him (the pair is voiced inside narration and priced in the packet).

Scriptures: Ezekiel 22:30

The reminder.

She borrows Victor Hugo's Waterloo — the day held by a promise of reinforcements, lost waiting for them — and turns it on the house: God never despises small beginnings, but the day is not saved by a house that only watches. Then the reminder itself, voiced entire as God's standing word to his people: humble yourselves, pray, seek my face, turn — and I will hear from heaven and heal your land, the house answering with raised hands. (The 2 Chronicles 7:14 wording ships on the sayer/setting footing, priced against the Godair price-out in the packet.)

Scriptures: 2 Chronicles 7:14

A house divided, and the lament.

Jesus' own warning comes first in her argument: a kingdom, a city, a house divided against itself cannot stand (that complex is priced with the dominical family in the packet). Then she arrives at her text — Christ's lament over Jerusalem, voiced entire in its gospel words and then preached for the rest of the message: how often he would have gathered her children as a hen gathers her brood, and she would not. The text returns all through the sermon as its refrain — how often I would have gathered you — and she presses its warning: a house that refuses the gathering is left to its desolation (the desolate-house clause is priced in the packet). Her resolution is a picture: a family, a church, a city gathered together in one house, under one roof of prayer.

Scriptures: Luke 13:34

Two houses and a wall of fire.

She reaches back to the day of Pentecost, when the visitation fell on a house united in prayer — silver and gold they had none, but the promise was to them, to their children, and to all afar off (both Acts fragments ride inside that narration and are priced in the packet). Against the divided house of her text she sets the other house: the Lord himself a wall of fire round about it, and his glory in the midst of it — the promise voiced entire under its own "saith the Lord" framing, sealing the movement. And here the refrain of the gates first sounds in her adapted form — the gates of hell cannot prevail against a house united in prayer (the gates-of-hell forms are adapted refrains at all three of their loci and are priced with the family in the packet).

Scriptures: Zechariah 2:5

Know your day of visitation.

The sermon's second spine is Jerusalem's other tears: Jesus beholding the city and weeping over it — if thou hadst known, even in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace, now hid from thine eyes; the enemies, the trench, the children dashed within her, because she knew not the time of her visitation. She voices it at length, has the house repeat its clauses, and seals it herself: "Jesus said it — Jesus said it." (The Luke 19:42-44 complex is the priced family's strongest member in this record; its extent is priced in full in the packet and it stands interlocked with the pending ruling on the dominical footing, rather than riding on the title text's ship.)

The giving Saviour.

Against Jerusalem's refusal she sets the portrait of the one who came giving: not to be ministered unto, but to give his life a ransom (voiced twice; priced with the family in the packet) — stopping funerals, cleansing lepers, touched with the feeling of our infirmities (a Hebrews clause, priced), feeling the world's misery in his own body, children on his lap. Then Paul in his strait betwixt two: Paul said he would rather depart and be with the Lord, but he saw the harvest and chose to stay and reach the lost — and that, she says, is the choice laid on this house. (Paul is named as the words' speaker in the same breath and the wording is voiced at its operative extent in her paraphrase; Philippians 1:23-24 ships on the Flag-6 footing, interlocked in the packet.) The movement turns to passion: who will carry a burden for one soul the way a city turns out for a ball game? Who cares if men go to hell? She drives it home with the cost of refusing — a life spent saving itself is lost (a dominical fragment, priced) — and with hell itself, never-ending, where the worm dieth not (one clause, priced).

The charge and the foundation.

She turns to the pastors present and delivers the Miletus charge entire, as a charge: take heed to yourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers, to feed the church God purchased with his own blood. The latter house's greater glory sounds as a clause on the way (priced). Then the foundation text of every house built in the message, both halves of the verse voiced in order with the house repeating after her: except the Lord build the house, the builders labour in vain; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman wakes in vain. Plans, persistence, position — none of it builds without the presence.

Scriptures: Acts 20:28; Psalm 127:1

Joshua before the angel.

Her last text opens: Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, Satan at his right hand to resist him — and the answer heaven gives to every accuser of a praying people, located by her own mouth in the chapter and verse and then voiced in its own words: the Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee. Around it she builds the intercessor's warfare: having done all, to stand (an Ephesians clause, priced in the packet); the devil rebuked off the church, off the family, off the soul winner; the old colour of her Alexandria telling — Nehemiah's builders answered that their enemies had no portion in the work (narration, carried as content). The panel's own applause and music gaps fall in this stretch and stand as gaps.

Scriptures: Zechariah 3:2

The brand, the branch, and the censer.

The rebuke's second half returns as the intercessor's own testimony: a brand plucked from the fire. Then the promise to the standing men — they are men wondered at; God will bring forth his servant the Branch, and remove the iniquity of the land in one day — voiced inside the same exposition of the named chapter (the chapter-form alternative and the crown-and-branch complex that follows, where the mitre gives way to a crown, are both priced in the packet; the book is never named at the crown locus). The movement's emblem is Aaron: Moses' command voiced with Moses named as its speaker — take a censer, fire from off the altar, incense, and run, for the wrath has gone out and the plague has begun — and Aaron standing between the dead and the living until the plague stayed. Abraham's ten righteous close the movement as her measure of a city: ten praying people could have spared Sodom — have you got ten in your city? (an allusion, priced in the packet).

Scriptures: Zechariah 3:8-9; Numbers 16:46-48

When the praying stops, and the call to run.

She ends where intercession ends: the day the throne's intercessor says it is finished — he that is unjust, let him be unjust still (two clauses of the verse, priced in the packet) — and she reads aloud, naming her source, Robert Browning's Paracelsus on the difference between the ones who get the results and the ones who stay outside: those who get results are those who get in. "Since last night," she asks, has the mist rolled away for any of you? Then over the congregation's own singing of "Jesus Is Calling" she makes the closing appeal the whole sermon has built toward: take your censer, fill it with prayer, and run.

Summary scripture index: Ezekiel 22:30 · 2 Chronicles 7:14 · Luke 13:34 · Zechariah 2:5 · Philippians 1:23-24 · Acts 20:28 · Psalm 127:1 · Zechariah 3:2 · Zechariah 3:8-9 · Numbers 16:46-48 (10 entries).