In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of prayer and never giving up. He shares his personal experience of going through difficult times and how prayer helped him overcome them. He also highlights the spiritual battle that Satan is waging against the youth, particularly in New York City. The preacher encourages the congregation to pray for the youth and reminds them that God is able to provide and bring them through hard times.

This recording is provided by Times Square Church in New York City. You're welcome to make additional copies for free distribution to friends. All other unauthorized duplication or electronic transmission is a violation of copyright and other applicable laws. This recording cannot be posted on any website, however written permission to link to the Times Square Church homepage may be requested by emailing info at timesquarechurch.org. Other recordings are available by calling 1-800-488-0854 or by writing to Times Square Church Tape Ministry, 1657 Broadway, New York, New York 10019. Now I prepared a sermon for tonight. I really studied and worked on it and then I felt like that wasn't a sermon. So I worked on another one. So I did two sermons for tonight and when I got finished, one of them I read one of the major books in the Bible through twice just studying that one sermon and then I felt the Spirit say that's not it. So tonight I'm not going to preach a sermon. No, I'm going to talk to you right out of my heart. Amen. Just want to tell you what I feel God wants me to share with you tonight. Yesterday, the world economy took a tremendous blow. I'm sure most of you have watched the news and heard, listened to the news and you heard of what happened in the world stock markets yesterday. France went down seven and a half percent. That would be like almost a thousand points of our stock market here dropping in a day. Germany took a terrible hit. Japan stock market collapsed as well. All over Europe. India had the worst day in the financial market, almost the worst they've ever had. The second worst day it's ever experienced financially in their market. During the night, last night, the Federal Reserve Board got together in the night and made a decision to jump their meeting from a week from now till they could announce this morning, they did it in the night, that this morning when our stock market opened that they would have cut the interest rates three quarters of a percent. And this was announced, but even that our market slipped to start with 400 and something points and then finally wound up one percent down 120 some points. The president and his group are meeting and the Congress is meeting to try to create a stimulus package. Now, nobody knows what's going to happen. They're hoping, they're trying. No one knows what's going to be. It's a shaky world. It's shaking. The finances are shaking in the world. And no one knows what the end will be. And I'm not an economist, but I read and listen and study and know some things about it. And I know enough to know that no one knows what the answer is. They're hoping, they're trying because it's very complicated. The world economy is extremely complicated now. And all of the leaders thought that America's problem would not affect the world, but they're shocked they were wrong. The whole world is shaking. Now, in a shaking time like this, we don't, God is not wanting us to be shaken or obsessed with fear because we don't have to be. We have an appeal beyond the stock market. We have an opportunity. God is our source and we have to turn to him. It is a time to seek the Lord. It's time to really seek God. The answer is seeking God. The answer is always prayer and seeking God. This is so important. I want everybody to listen. Your economy does not depend on, it'll affect us, but the bottom line of our economy and what happens to us is not what happens to the world. We have an access to God that the world doesn't have. And it's through, let's give the Lord a hand. Hallelujah. And it's through the avenue of prayer. The Bible says, one of my favorite scriptures is Luke's gospel, the 18th chapter, putting it in the old King James, man ought always pray and not faint. Putting in my language, man ought always pray and never give up. Hold on, keep on praying and seeking God. Now I have a little advantage over many of you, over lots of people, because I have been through the worst of times and came through. And I want to tell you how. When I was, before I was born, my father left my mother with six children. She was in Connecticut. She'd come from North Carolina, but we lived in Connecticut where my father was from and mystic. And he left without her knowing he was leaving. He left with an evangelist to hold revival meetings in Florida. And he left there in about Christmas time. And I was born two months later, never saw my father until I was a grown young man. He left and wrote us. And then all of a sudden his writing stopped for a few months and then his writing stopped and we never heard from him again for years and years until I was a young man. And she was left with no help, no family, nobody and terrible weather and no support. And in the midst of all of this, the state decided and people call the state up and said, those crandled children have nothing and you better take them because there's no way they going to survive. So the state decided they would try to take us. I asked my mother one time, I never saw my mother discouraged in my life. Never did. I saw her cry a lot. I saw lots of sadness and hard times, but I never ever saw her discouraged or ever heard her talk discouraging. So as a young minister, I asked my mother one time, mama, were you ever discouraged? She said, yes, one time. And she said, it was right when you were about two years old, just before you were two years old. She said, we had a terrible winter in Connecticut. We had no food. We had snow waist high. And I was out in the yard, the backyard with your brother who was at that time, my brother would have been about 10 years old. And he and I were pulling off limbs of the tree and I was in snow to my waist and pulling off these limbs and chopping them up off the trees to keep from freezing. Food was gone. And while I'm out there in the snow, now the state is after her children. Situation can't be worse. No money from the state, no family, nobody, nothing to eat and no fuel for the furnace and no wood for the fireplace. And it's a terrible winter. She said, I'm standing there cutting these limbs and these trees down myself and pulling them in the house. And your brother who was about 10 and Satan said to me, Mary, this is what happens to you. Now you've served God all these years with incredible woman. You've been so faithful and this is where you wind up. The state wanting your children, you're freezing, nothing to eat. Throw in the towel, give up. She said in three days, son, I battle with the devil for my soul and for you children. And at the end of the three days, I told the devil this, it's true devil. We don't have any food. That's true. And it's true. We're freezing. We're awful cold. We don't have much wood or just what I can pull inside. But she said, I want to tell you something, devil. We may starve. That's possible. And we may, or we may freeze or the state may finally take you. But I want to tell you something. I am going to serve God dead or alive. And she said, I, you had to know my mother, she meant it and the devil knew she meant it and God knew she meant it. And she said, that was it. I never had another battle. Yes, we had struggles, but we didn't freeze. It's obvious I'm here. We didn't freeze. We didn't freeze and we didn't starve. I've had a weight problem all of my life. I've had to, I've eaten too much. He was a liar. Now, listen, we went through, we saw terrible times. Well, we went, our family got together and brought my mother down South. She rented a little house in Dunn on the wrong side of the tracks. Didn't have much money to live. Just a terrible little, little house, but she couldn't pay the rent. No way to pay the rent. We have no way of paying rent. She's praying at a watch night service. And God said to her, Mary, I'll take care of it. I got all the houses in the world. Hallelujah. Now let me tell you something. I'm here as an example that hard times do not need to take you under. God wants to bring you through. And my mother heard from God, went home 12 o'clock at a watch night service, praising God, thanking God. And it wasn't long, an uncle of mine, he's Baptist. We're Pentecostal and it's not, you know, there's a certain difference between us, you know, and, uh, but he came a man of very few words, came down and took my mother for a ride. They went home and he wrote her just a note and said, Mary, the house we looked at, I bought it. It's yours. Move in. And, and we stayed there for all those years until I was a young man and he paid the taxes. We live there without a penny's expense. That was God. He said it was your uncle. No, no, no, no. It was God that said, I'm going to do it. Now. I want to tell you tonight. I don't want you to get worried about the economy. I want you to do it. God wants everybody in here to listen inside of me. I have a deep feeling that trouble is times are coming. Real trouble. I don't know what's going to happen to the economy. I don't, I'm not prophesying. I'm simply telling you that we probably are facing not just in that area, but others troubles times are coming. And the answer is prayer. Worrying won't do it. Fear is not the answer. Don't get afraid and don't shake and don't give up. I want you to learn how to trust God, learn how to pray. Prayer is the answer. Prayer. Let's say it. Prayer is the answer. Prayer is the answer. Prayer is the answer. Let's call on the Lord. Don't let don't don't your, your position, the boss, your company, whatever it is, and even the government and the state aid, that's not the answer. Our source is God. Our source is God. Our source is the Lord. Hallelujah. And we are going to see God and he is going to have an opportunity of showing you how great he is, how incredibly great he is to answer prayer. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. He wants the credit. He wants the glory. So God's not shaken. America's economy may shake the world economy may shake. I don't know what's going to happen. And I want to tell you something, the economists don't know what's going to happen. We may get out. We may not right away. I don't know. That's not the point. Whenever it's bad, whenever it's worse, it doesn't matter because we will seek the Lord because he is our source. Our food comes from him. Our home comes from him. Our substance comes from him. He provides because he cares. I love him because he cares. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thank you tonight. Learn how to pray. Learn how to seek God. The answer is seeking God. God wants to teach you to get in a relationship with him. That's between you and God that you come to know him. He wants you to be filled with his spirit. He wants to talk with you. He cares about you. Praise God. And don't let the world shake you up. Yes, it can be. I don't know. No one knows what's going to be. That's not the point. God is going to take care of his people in this hour. You can seek him. I am living proof. You can't really get in much of a worse situation than my mother was in. It's just about as bad as it can get. Nothing, nobody, no help, and deserted, and God took care of us. It's incredible. I haven't got time to tell the stories of how God provided for us to eat. It was incredible. From one day to the next, how he provided for us. They lived in a great big old house in Old Mystic. At Florence, my mother, my blind aunt lived with. She had six children and a blind sister. His blind sister was a prayer warrior just like my mother. Mother was an incredible woman for praying and seeking God. One time this bum came by and he asked my mother to cook this either ham or roast beef. I forgot what it was. It was a big piece of beef. He said, could you cook this for me? She said, yes. Before it was done, he said, look, I don't want to wait any longer. You just keep it yourself. That way we had roast beef for dinner. Hallelujah. Fantastic. Praise God. He sent a bum to feed us. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise God. Well, it was a big old house and now the house is a very nice looking. They restored it, but when I lived in it, it was a shack. We came from the poorest, praise God. They rented out my mother and Aunt Florence rented out the room to an old sea captain upstairs, but he had been a chef in cooking and on the ship and he cooked great big meals and I can't cook small meals. So we cook a great big pot of soup and sent it down to us and cook something else. So we're not only rented it to him, but he fed us. Praise God. The man fed us. Hallelujah. It's just incredible. There's just no way of knowing God has a thousand ways of taking care of you. He's got a thousand ways of feeding you. Now I thank God for social security. I thank God for pensions and whatever they do. I really do. But that's not, if it goes broke, if it goes bad, don't worry about it. That's not your source. Hallelujah. That's not where it's coming from. I want you to know we've got a God that answers prayer. You can call and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things. He's a great God. So I have learned don't worry about depression because he's the God that's greater than the depression. And he's beyond the circumstances. He's looking for a people that trust him, that know him, mighty people in this hour. Now we need an increase in prayer. If I could tonight, I would help every person in this building to really lift prayer in your life. As I spoke on the word the last time I was here, and I still mean that now lift prayer into a priority position in your life that you begin to seek God. Thank God for the Thursday night prayer and intercession in his church. Thank God for it. Now that's important. I would pray pastors that this church would be as full on Thursday intercession as it is on Tuesday or any other night that we'll get out here and seek God. It's time. It's time to seek the Lord. I have a word for you tonight from God. It's time to seek the Lord. Seek him with all of your heart. Seek him with everything there is within you. Lay every weight aside and get alone and get to know the Lord and to hear his voice and to experience his presence and his will because he cares about every person in this building. He's got a plan for you. Hallelujah. He's got a good plan for you. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. He cares about you. He wants you to know him. Now we need, we need prayer on Wednesdays. We're meeting on Broadway, which is strategic for the seniors. Anybody working around it can join us for the prayer from 1130 to 1230 approximately. Sometimes we run over, but I want, I want invite people, please listen to me tonight. Seniors, let's get together. Come on out with us and join with us and let's join our voice on Broadway. That's strategic spot. Lift our voice that God now beyond our own needs, we've got to pray for this city and for this, this, our youth and for the world that God will give New York city a revival. God will give us a revival that God will give us a revival. God send a revival to New York. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. We need a mighty move of God in these last days. And we need prayer. We invite you to come join us in prayer and uniting in prayer. And we want to pray for the youth. The youth need our prayers and that pastor Carter's letter that he sent out the last letter that he sent. There was a letter along accompanying his, his message by this young person from the, from the, from the church here. And she, she's one of the internists. She wrote a powerful letter and in her closing paragraph, she said, without prayer, we stand no chance. Speaking of the young people attacks from the enemy come at us from every direction, even more so when we make the commitment to stand with Christ, thanks to the saving grace of God, we were able to come to him with all of our issues, both small, great and small. Will you consider starting a prayer meeting? He says this to the ministers in their churches. Then he, she goes on to say, it is literally impossible to live in this day and age without prayer. Please do take this plea. Do not take this plea lightly. Take it serial. Rachel McIntyre, missionary intern, times square church. The youth of this city of our churches need the seniors and the prayer of this congregation. They need our prayer folk. Satan has declared war on the youth. He's determined to destroy our youth. The Bible says, revelation says, Satan, knowing that his time is short, he realizes the hour we're in. He has come down to the earth, realizing that his time is short with great fury and great power, destructive force, and he's concentrating on the youth and the youth of our cities and the youth of New York in particular. I want you to get out in the prayer. I pray, I ask God, speak to you tonight. I can't do it, but I ask God by the Holy Spirit to talk to you tonight that you're going to become a mighty prayer warrior that you're going to join together with God's people in seeking God that he will counteract the forces of the devil in this city and give us a mighty Holy Ghost revival. There's power, folks, listen to me. There's power in prayer. There's power. God has the power to defeat the forces of the devil in New York City, in Broadway, and all this area and all that goes on that's so demonic and so devilish, but the power of God is greater than the powers of Satan, and we have a right to call on the Lord to come down into this area that we want you to do battle in the spirit world and to claim the victory and to claim the souls of the youth in this city that God will invade our colleges, that God will invade our high schools and our elementary schools, and God will invade the workforce and come against the powers of the devil in the mighty name of Jesus, and then we'll see a revival come to this city. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Now it's time to seek the Lord. It's time to seek the Lord. It's time for us to call on God, and because He has predestined you for this hour. He trusted you with this hour. He's brought you to the kingdom for such a time as this. It's not an accident that you're here. It's not an accident that God saved you in this hour. It's no mistake. God planned on you battling through and being a part of the answer. We want you to be God, want you to be part of the answer to this city and to the powers of the devil. We come against the devil in the mighty name of Jesus Christ tonight. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. He's gonna give ground. He's gonna give ground. We're gonna call on the Lord. He's gonna help you. He's gonna answer your prayers. He can pray through for your family. God can help you. Do not be afraid. Do not give up. Do not throw in the towel. Get in the battle, and let's win for Jesus Christ tonight. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I want you to do more than just come forward and pray. I want you to make a determination and a commitment and a commitment to God that you will stand in this hour and join forces with the kingdom of God's people that the kingdom of God and his power will come forth, and we'll see the powers of the devil broken in this city. There's power beyond description when we see God. God said, in the last days, I will pour out my spirit. Let's call on him and say, God include New York City in that promise. We're seeking you as Satan's headquarters that you break through the powers of darkness and let the glory of God come down and let there be a revival in this city such as it's never seen before in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. This is the conclusion of the message.