Gary Wilkerson addresses the chaos and crisis in the world and personal lives, emphasizing the power of prayer in overcoming difficulties. He draws parallels between the stories of Elisha and Daniel, both of whom found strength and victory through prayer in their homes. Wilkerson encourages the congregation to establish their own 'second story apartments' or designated places for prayer, where they can seek God amidst life's challenges. He shares personal experiences of prayer's transformative power, particularly in the context of family struggles, and urges believers to never give up on prayer as a means to invite God's intervention. Ultimately, he reassures that God has a plan and a way forward for everyone, regardless of their circumstances.

As I just mentioned to you those last few minutes with you here about the chaos and crisis around the world, you know it's happening here in America too. You see things that are happening in places like Ferguson or in Baltimore. You see the crisis of racial tension in our nation. You see things happening as if you've been following the news lately. I don't know the whole story, but somebody went in with a camera and started videoing a group of people that were selling body parts of aborted baby children, selling them flippantly, laughingly, and yet I don't see anything being shut down. I don't see any major outcries. I don't see any huge uproar. As a matter of fact, have you noticed you're seeing something different and apathy towards things like that? Matter of fact, we live in a nation now where the government, a court in California has decided not to try to do something to stop the horrific dismemberment of living babies, but they stopped the ones who filmed the ones who were selling the baby parts. A court in California said they cannot show those videos anymore. They put a stop to it. We live in a land, don't we church today, where evil is called good and good is called evil. We live in a difficult situation where many are strapped financially. The poor are getting poorer, and there are many people right now without resources and ability to, or they might have ability, but just not circumstances, enabling them to move to a place of security in their own heart and life, and that's in a nation with such great prosperity. It is tough to see some of these things going on in our country, and it can break your heart. But, you know, it's not only in our nation as well. It's easy as an individual to point your finger at a nation and say here's all the things going wrong with it. That's easy to call out those things, but how many of us would if we were to, if there was a newspaper written about your life, your circumstances. The New York Times just did a whole issue based on your life. Wouldn't you have some pretty rough headline news as well? Would you not be able to tell stories and have stories told about your life? What if they knew your deepest, darkest secrets? What if they knew your heartache and your pain? What if they recorded, and what I'm saying is it's just not a national issue of chaos and crisis and difficulty. It's a personal issue as well, isn't it? Many of us in this room here today are going through the storm of your life. You're going through difficult times that you've never been through before. You have financial difficulties. You have job situations, or maybe you don't have a job, and finances are just about resourced out, nothing left for you, and you don't know how you're going to make ends meet. You don't know what tomorrow looks like. The promises of the past seem to be growing dim in your life. You don't have that kind of jump in your step anymore because what causes things to get like that is oftentimes a discouragement, if not a downright depression. And then you have family members. There might be spouses here, husband or wife here, where your spouse is not with you tonight because they're not following Christ, and that's a heartbreaking thing. It's a sad, sad thing when you're living for Jesus and you know the joy that he brings and the life and the victory and the overcoming power that he has in your life and your spouse is yet to receive that love of Christ and that transformation, and oftentimes it causes chaos and difficulty in the marriage. I could go on and speak to parents here about children, right? There's nothing more heartbreaking than children who don't know the Lord. Pastor Jim Simbel, a friend of mine from Brooklyn Tabernacle, when one of my sons was going through a prodigal season, he said this to me, he said, Gary, you know, a parent can only be as happy as his saddest child. You ever heard that before? You can only be as happy. I have four children, and various times they've gone through difficulties, each and every one of them. My daughter last year having a miscarriage. Each one of them have gone through difficult times, difficult seasons, and as a parent, you hurt, don't you, for your children? You feel the pain of them, and three of them might be happy, but if one of them's down, you're kind of down with them. You're on your knees with them. You're praying with them. You're believing God for breakthroughs in their life. Right, church? And so you begin to pray, and you begin to seek God, and when you put all those things together, and you begin to just say, this big circle here of my life contains all these difficult things, there's one or two ways to look at it. You could look at it glass half empty or glass half full. You could look at it and say, it's hopeless, and I should live in despair, or you could look at it through the lens of some of the scriptures we're going to explore tonight, through the lens of the scripture that speaks to the God who can do the impossible. You can look at it through the lens of, this is just fodder. This is just opportunity for the Holy Spirit to show his power, and I pray that as we speak tonight about prayer, you'll see that no matter how difficult your circumstances, no matter what trial or tribulation you find yourself in, God has a plan. God has a project for you. God has a way ahead for you. I want to start by looking at 2 Kings, 2 Kings chapter 6. And I want to just read one verse first, and then begin to describe the story for you. I hope I gave those who were doing the slides the right verse here. I'm not sure I did. But it's 2 Kings chapter 6, verse 13. 2 Kings chapter 6, verse 13. And he said, go and see where he is. Now, we'll come back and set the context for this so you'll know who he is and what they're telling him to do. And he said, go and see where he is, that I may send and seize him. It was told him, behold, he is in Dothan. Dothan. Dothan was the hometown. It was where the house... In other scriptures it says he had a roof where he could look out across the city of Dothan. It was the home of Elisha, the prophet Elisha, who was second after coming after Elijah, the first prophet who could do these supernatural miracles, make rain stop, make rain start, multiply food and oil and lamps and raise dead people up. Elijah had an amazing amount of power. Elijah comes after him. Elijah is saying, I want what you have and more. Very similar to a passage of scripture in John 14 that Jesus said, when I go away, it's going to be good because I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit. And you'll do the works that I do, but then you'll do greater works than these. The first is you'll do the works that I do. Many Christians have quoted to me that second part, that greater works, and they're praying, I want to do greater works. And I always try to bring to their attention, Jesus first said, you'll do the works that I do, then greater works. How about we start on just the first works, okay? Why don't we just start loving people first of all before you want to start raising the dead. Let's just do the works that Jesus did, and then we'll get to the greater works a little bit later on. And so Elijah, Elisha is asking Elijah if he could have these greater works, if he could see them in his life. And Elijah the older says to his, when he's mentoring, he says, if you see me get caught up in the air, you'll know that, and you see my cloak, you'll know that you'll get that double portion. Elisha is, in some scholars and commentaries estimation, Elisha is a picture of the church. Elisha being like Jesus, the great miracle working power, the one who's caught up into the air. It's the miraculous life, and then Elisha is like the church who's asking to see greater works, to see the works of Jesus done, and then the greater works. And so Elisha is like us, the church. It gives us an opportunity to see that when we read about Elisha, we're not just reading about some prophet in the Old Testament, we're reading about us. We're reading these things the Bible says were written for our account. We can learn from the life of Elisha about what the church should look like today. And here's the story. The king of Syria was warring against Israel. Dothan is in Israel. Elisha, the prophet, was operating in the land of Israel. And the Syrian army, much more powerful than the Israeli army, much more powerful than what Elisha's understood that his king was able to be able to battle against, a much more massive army. And he was against Israel. And apparently, it doesn't say it quite clearly here, but you get the impression Elisha is praying a lot about this situation, about Syria and them attacking Israel. And he's deeply concerned in his heart about these issues that his nation, that he himself, that his own city of Dothan is facing, that probably his own family was facing possible warfare, possible kidnapping, possible imprisonment from if Syria were to take over this land. And so the king of Syria, in his war, is giving commands and taking counsel. And one of the things he notices is that everywhere he makes a decision, every time he makes a decision, the king of Israel seems to know the decision that was being made before he made the decision. And he asks his men, he says, is there a spy? Basically, what he says in this chapter is, is there someone that's telling the king of Israel what's happening? Are one of my men betraying me? And one of the Syrian authorities obviously knows about Elisha and says, well, it's not one of us. It's this prophet called Elisha in Israel, in Dothan. And he's the one who's causing the king of Israel to know what you're doing. As a matter of fact, he says here, basically what he's saying is, the king says, everything I seem to do in my bedroom, every decision that I make, he seems to know before I even say it to anybody. And so Elisha is getting in his house in Dothan, just simply from his house in Dothan, is getting wisdom and revelation and insight from God and direction and supernatural abilities to see things and counter them in a supernatural realm, a physical king with a physical army with physical power to overthrow all of Israel. And here's one man in a little house in a little town called Dothan who's countering every move of that whole nation. Wow. One man with that much power and authority because he has that power and authority not based on political power, not based on military power, not based on financial power. It's based on the power of the Holy Ghost in his heart and his life. And so he has a power that is beyond all that the nations around them could muster themselves. And when the king asks, where is he? I want to come and seize him. I want to take his authority. The man who knows where he is says, behold, he's in Dothan. He's just in his house. Later on, we don't have to turn there, but in verse 32, a second tier comes. The king of Syria gets frustrated by the counter moves of Elijah and his prayers to God. And so he sends a larger army. And verse 32 says, Elijah was sitting in his house. Elijah was sitting in his house. Now this may not sound that deeply profound. I'm not bringing you Hebrew and Greek words to help you scholarly understand scripture. I'm just bringing you a very simple message, aren't I? About this one guy who's in a house and all he knew to do was pray. One man in a house, all he knew to do was pray. He had military armies around him that said, I might send my armies and seize him. In verse 18, it says, and when the Syrians came down against him, Elijah prayed to the Lord. And you know what the Lord did? He struck that whole army with blindness. I would love to have been there. What does an army of blind people do? And why did they keep marching? Because they marched right into Israel. I would have just sat down and said, I'm not moving until I get my eyes back. I mean, this sword in my hand, I'm blind, it's not gonna do me much good. And yet they move ahead and they move into Israel and the Israelites and Elisha's second in command, so to speak, his assistant sees this and says, should we strike them? And Elisha goes, of course not, they're blind. I mean, they just marched in. They came to seize us and they got seized. They came to capture us and they got captured. How did all this happen? No military might. No attempts to sneak armies around and flank them. It was just a man in his house praying. One man who had no, as far as we know, had no money, had no political authority, had no power in his own, didn't own a corporation, had no weaponry. He just had his knees. All he knew how to do is, God, I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna seek your face. And time after time throughout this section of the Book of Kings here, 2 Kings, we see Elisha going to this one resource that he had, but it was sufficient, church. Did you know that? He had this one resource. I could get on my knees. I don't know how to do anything else. I don't even know how to ride a horse, shoot a gun, anything like that, but I know how to pray. When the nation's in trouble, I know how to pray. When my state and my city's in trouble, I know how to pray. When my church is in trouble, I know how to pray. When my family's in trouble, I know how to pray. I know how to get on my knees. I don't know how to do it well. I don't do it as much as I should. I don't do it as often as I should. I don't trust it as much. Sometimes I trust in the arm of the flesh more than I do in the power of prayer, but I know there's a place I can go, a place called prayer, and trust Jesus that can bring resolve to this situation. So Elijah was one time, here he was, and the enemy coming against him, and he blinds the enemy, and they come marching in, and he gives them food and sends them back home, and there's peace for a season. The king redoubles his effort, comes back, and now he's sending his whole army. Do you know who he's sending his whole army against? Not Israel, the second time. Do you know who he's sending his whole army against? Elijah. It's like, I need a whole army to stop this praying man, and there's a lot of truth to that. Did you know that? It takes every demon in hell to come against you to try to stop you from the power of prayer. Amen. You see, Satan thinks he can stop nations and can change nations, and he has a lot of power and authority in those areas, but when he comes up against a Christian who knows how to pray, a grandma who knows how to get on her knees, a mom and dad who know how to pray for their marriage and their children, a young man who knows how to pray for his vocation and his calling, a young woman who knows how to pray for her future and for her family and for her friends and her neighbors, you get that one person, and hell begins to be put on alert, and it says, man, it's going to take everything we got to stop this one person praying in their house. They don't even have a church. It's his house. It's not Pastor Carter here up on the stage or Pastor Patrick or Pastor William or anybody else, Pastor David. It is you. It is the church. The power is not necessarily all found in a pulpit or in a choir or on a stage or in a church building. The power of the gospel is found in your home. It's found in your apartment. It's found on the A train. It's found on the C train. It's found uptown, downtown. It's found as you walk to your office. It's found in your little, some of you say, man, I hate this little cubby hole. Anybody work in a little cubby hole where it's like these three gray walls, and you say, no, no, don't hate that place. Make that your house of prayer, and things will change. Things around you will change when you see the power of prayer. I want to turn to one other story and then wrap things up. This is in Daniel chapter six, and verse 10, Daniel chapter six, verse 10. When Daniel knew that the document was signed, he went to his, what's the word there? House. He went to his house where the windows of his upper chamber, second story, that's where I got my title of my message, second story apartment. Most of us don't have a first story and a second story and an upper chamber. I have not seen too many apartments like that in New York City. Have you? But here is Daniel basically in his second story of his apartment, and it says there, and he opened toward Jerusalem, and he got down on his knees three times a day, and he prayed, and he gave thanks before God as he had done previously. This was common to him. It wasn't something new that he did, and can I encourage you not to, if you haven't started praying yet in the time of crisis, sure, go ahead and start praying, but can I encourage you to start praying before the time of crisis? By the time you get to the crisis, it won't be that bad a crisis, and at least your heart won't be so troubled over the crisis because you're gonna have Daniel's kind of mentality as he had previously done. He'd already been praying, but now he's praying in a little bit different circumstances. He'd been praying before, but now some of his conspirators, some of those who were jealous of his rise to power have come against him, and they couldn't trap him because of any immorality or any disloyalty to the king, and so they say, hey, the only way we can trap him is with his own religion, his own faith. Does that sound familiar in America here today? They can't get it to any other way. Maybe they're gonna come now when you start speaking out against things that the Bible calls sin. Maybe when you stand for truth and righteousness and you won't compromise, maybe they're gonna come against you that way, and that's what they're doing with Daniel. They come against Daniel, and they say he prays. How about we put a decree out that says no one is allowed to pray other than to the king, to the king, and if anybody bows before any other god, we'll have them put to death, and so they bring this decree. The king signs it. Once a king in that, I believe it's King Darius, once a king in that environment would sign a decree that the signature of the decree was even more powerful than them. They couldn't change the decree, and so once he signs this decree, Daniel sees it. He hears it, and basically he's told, okay, if you pray, if you pray, you're gonna be killed. You're gonna be murdered. You'll be put to death, and so now if I was Daniel, I don't know about you, but if I was Daniel, I'll still pray, but I might move away from the window a little bit. I mean, I'm not sure what this dude is thinking here. But he says, you know what, every time I've always prayed, I've always opened up these windows in my second-story apartment. I looked out across the city, and I began to pray for that city, and by golly, can I say that word in New York? That's a good Western word. By gosh, I'm not gonna change now. I'm still praying for this city. I'm still believing for this city. I don't care what the enemy brings up against me. I don't know what the decree's written against me. I'm gonna keep praying. I'm gonna keep praying. I'm gonna keep believing. God's gonna do miracles in this situation. And so he had previously had this history of praying, and he continues on praying, and he's praying, and he's praying, and he's believing God for great and mighty things. And he gets, you know the story, he gets thrown into the pit. The pit, Daniel in the Lion's Den, is one of the six flannel-gram favorites. Do you guys remember flannel-grams? Anybody remember in the history of church? Flannel-grams was way before there was like video in church. It was before there was any kind of content electronically. It was actually a flannel board, and they had these little pictures, like little cut-out things, and they would just slap them on there, and they would stick. And so they'd have David killing Goliath. They'd have Noah, and the ark, and the animals would stick out, and it was called a flannel-gram. And some of you are looking at me like, was Abraham Lincoln your Sunday school teacher? I mean, what? Man, you are old. And so he had these flannel-grams. And it's strange. All these flannel-grams were like the most violent stories of Scripture. Of course, they never portrayed them like that. The giraffe was always like real happy, and Daniel in the lion's den was like the Daniel would be in there. And it doesn't tell the end of the story that Daniel got set free, and the king ended up putting those men who conspired against him into the pit, and they got eaten with their wives and children. I mean, they didn't show that on the flannel-gram. It was just Daniel like that. And Noah's ark was just like flowers, like looked like the 60s. They had flowers on the ark, and it didn't show millions of people drowning. But I say all that to say this. Daniel was thrown into the pit, as you might have known the story. And the animals had been left. They put him in a place where they were hungry, so they knew to instantaneously eat him. And supernaturally, the king comes back the next morning and opens up the covering that was over the pit that he was thrown in, and he sees Daniel in there. You know what he's doing? He's just praying again. Oh, man, that guy's got a one-track mind. He's just praying. And the king lifts him up and throws the bad guys into the end of the story. Daniel, in his second-story apartment, changed the world. The king, the king of Babylon, the king says, I think it's Babylon. The king says, bring him up, and the king writes a decree, a new decree. It says, Daniel serves the living God, and we will serve the living God, because there is no other God. That's what the king writes. So, Elijah, just in his house in Dothan, fought armies. Daniel, in his second-story apartment, took on the worst enemies from the pits of hell, and both of them stood victorious because of a simple thing of just praying in your house. It's not even coming to a prayer meeting, although we encourage you to do that on Tuesday nights here. It's great to pray. There's nothing like the power of praying together. But the power of praying together is only one aspect of the healthy Christian life. The greater aspect of it, really, because you have more time for it, is the everyday prayer that takes place in the secret closet in your home, or on your job, or on your way to the job, or when you walk through the park, whatever it might be. Finding that secret place, that second-story apartment, that house in Dothan, finding a place to get on your knees before God, finding a place. I have a place in my house. It's in my bedroom, and I have the beds over here, and then there's a walkway out to the door there, and I just, I don't, can I confess to you honestly, if I get on my knees to start praying, I fall asleep. I do. I'm like, Lord, bless grandma and grandpa. I'm out. I'm out like the light. Forget sitting down or laying down. I'll be, and so I have to walk when I, and my room's not that big, but I walk from this, there's a window here, and then there's the door right over here, and I walk back and forth, and I just walk back and forth, and I just, that's my, that is my, that's my place of power. If I have any authority in my life, if there's any anointing on my life, if there's any wisdom for decision-making about missions around the world, if there's any hope for my family, if there's any hope for leading my church as a pastor, leading World Challenge, of preaching this message with any godliness, power, authority, if there's any hope for me living pure and godly, it's not in my own strength, it's not in my own power, no matter, you can be mature till you're blue in the face and gray hairs popping out everywhere. If you don't have this place with God, all the maturity in the world will fail you. It is in this place, and I just walk in that carpet, and I remember, and I've shared this many places before and touched on it with you before, but I remember one of my sons being in such horrible difficulty. He had about four or five years ago met this beautiful young lady in our church. He was probably 17 or 18 at the time. Met this beautiful young lady. She works for Nikki Cruz Outreach. If you've read The Cross and the Switchblade, you know of Nikki Cruz. So she has a heart for ministry and mission and lost and the poor. She's also one of our elders' daughters, and how many of you brothers know elders' daughters are the top of the line, right? Elders' daughters. Elders' sons are okay. Elders' daughters. Any of you guys have daughters? You have a daughter, right? Okay, you have all sons, right? You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you? So this elder daughter, she's so sweet and so precious, and so my son started kind of getting interested in her, but he took a bad turn. He started hanging out with the wrong crowds, started to my utter shock being that my father started Teen Challenge, a drug rehabilitation program. He had started smoking weed, and sometimes he'd come home, and I was so oblivious, I mean, so unaware. Like, he'd come home, and I'd go, you smell like you've been by a campfire? Seriously. He'd go, yeah, Dad, me and some of my friends, we went up the mountains, and we were... I'd go, good, I'm glad you had fun. That's good. And then... But it wasn't until it got serious, it got to the place where you could see, I started knowing, yeah, he's not now, he's lost himself, he's not himself, and then his drugs got into worse and worse situations, and to the point where he was, to supply his drug habit, it got much worse than pot, it got into all kinds of drugs that were just destroying his life. He was stealing from us to take care of his drug habit, and we had to do, one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life is ask him to leave our house. And just, I tell you what, if I didn't have that prayer place, I probably wouldn't be here today. I probably wouldn't even be in the ministry. I probably would have given up, because Satan was coming on so strong, you're a failure, you go around preaching freedom, and your own son doesn't have freedom, you're not even worthy to be an elder. The Bible says that an elder has to manage his own household well, and it wasn't for my own elders at the church that tried to describe that to me as being, your son's old now, now he chose to be out of your house, when he was in your house, you managed him the best you could, and so they kept sticking with me, they kept praying over me, but it was this, it was this little 10 steps this way, and 10 steps back that way. It was 10 steps this way, turning around, 10 steps back this way, tears rolling down my face, fists clenched, screams, I mean screams, I waited until everybody was out of that house, and I just screamed to God, God, you've got to save him, God, you've got to bring him back, God, don't let him die, I would be getting phone calls at three or four in the morning, and expecting it to either be the morgue, or the police, that he was homeless, living on the streets, and every single night, I felt powerless, I tried counseling him, I tried sending him to rehab programs, I tried 100 million, seems like different things, I tried being kinder to him, I tried giving him money, I tried stop giving him money, I tried cold shoulder, I tried let him cry on my shoulder, I tried it all, and I had nothing left, but I had this one thing left, this 10 steps, I had the second story apartment, I had a place, I had a place alone with God, I had a place alone with God, and in that place alone with God, the first thing he began to do is touch me, he began to touch me, to put me in a place of trust, sometimes when you're in the worst situation in the world, God is actually allowing some of those things to take place, because he's teaching us to trust him, no matter how difficult things get, and I began to just learn to lean on him, there's no way anything else is going to work in my son's life, he is either dead, or saved, sanctified, filled with the Holy Spirit, it's going to be one or the other of those two things, there's no in between in this kid's life, he's the most radical guy, all in for everything, and I just knew it was either death, or everything about Jesus, and all I could do was pray, and cry, and pray, and plead, and beg, and you know what those prayer times for, maybe some of you are praying for a prodigal son, or a spouse, or a mom or dad, or you're praying for a sickness in the body, and you know how those prayers can change in an instant, you're praying like, I love you Lord, and I trust you with all my heart, but I sure am miserable, I feel terrible, I don't know what to do, but God I should trust you, I trust you Lord, I think this is a roller coaster of emotions that go on, but that's what God wants, he wants you to get in that place, and many of us don't go to that place, because we're always on the phone with somebody else, you know the cell minutes are racking up, and the prayer minutes are diminished, and sometimes we have to shut off the phone, and not talk to the friend, and not call the church, and just say God I'm going to shut myself in with God, shut myself in with God, I'm going to, and as some of you in this room, have heard me tell the story of my son, God used some circumstances, and he called me one day, and he had actually gotten put in jail, not for drugs, or being homeless or anything like that, he had had some unpaid speeding tickets, and so they got him and put him in jail, and he did not like it, and God just kind of trapped him in that situation, and so what I tried to do is like, I was so nervous about my son being in jail, and I thought man can I drive, it was a couple hours away from where I lived, can I drive down there and post bail, and they said no it's the weekend you can't post bail, and then on Monday they had to wait until a court date, and it was like, it ended up being two or three weeks, and I was like just so frustrated, it's like I was a parent, I want to do something, I want to get him out of there, I don't feel like he's safe, there was some little bit of violence going on, and he told me about it, and I was just like I couldn't sleep at night, all I could do is pray, take those 10 steps in this direction, take the 10 steps back in that direction, I'll tell you what, I've only lived in that place where I am about three years, but that carpet's going to wear thin real quick, if the conditions of my life stay the same as they have been, for the last three years, but there it is, I'm back and forth, 10 steps this way, 10 steps the other way, for you it might be that second story apartment, it might be the house that you live in, or the apartment building, but you're just saying God this is my place, it's set apart for you, and I just began to pray for him, and I had nothing left to do, and finally about, I think it was about 10 o'clock at night, one night I was literally walking in that same place, in my carpet, and the phone rang, I picked it up, and it was like, this is the county correctional office, if you accept the phone call, I said absolutely, click call, and it was my son, he goes, dad you're not going to believe this, I said why, I thought something really bad had happened, he goes, I was laying in my cell, and all of a sudden, the warmth of the Holy Spirit came over me, and he said this, he said hold on, he said dad I've heard you preach about this, and talk about it, and I thought it was the stupidest thing, I've ever heard in my life, he goes, you talk about that speaking in tongues things, he goes that sounds like freaky weird Christians, from the 1920s, and I wanted nothing about it, he said but dad in my cell room, the Holy Spirit came over me, and I just started praying in tongues, he goes oh man the glory of God came, and he got marvelously set free, he got totally delivered, he's living for Jesus now, and I started the story, by telling you about Megan, the elders daughter, who works for Nikki Cruz, the reason I started the story there, was after he got right with God, he also got right with her, because he's no dummy, he's raised by Gary Wilkerson, so he's, you find a good girl, you got to go for that thing, none of this, come on guys, none of this weird, like I'm not committed, I'm not sure, I'm uncertain, no, you find a good girl, go for her, all right, come on, right, is that good, is that good news, yeah, no, no, no, no, that was like a golf clap, that was like you're at a golf course, like yeah, yeah, and so, not only did he get, most importantly reconciled with God, but I get the joy of, I'm going to Africa tonight, I'll be gone about two weeks, I get home, and I get to stand in front of my son, and Megan, and pronounce them man and wife, in about two weeks, oh my goodness, yeah, amen, so I want to close by saying, never give up, never, ever, ever, ever give up, never, ever, ever give up, don't stop praying, if you don't have any resources, there's no recourse, there's no channels left open for you, it seems like everything has come against you, if you feel like you're hopeless, and down and out, and you'll never be able to pick yourself back up, don't give up, be like Daniel, get in that second story apartment, be like Elijah, get in your house in Dothan, and just say, I don't have anything else God, I don't have the book smarts, nor the street smarts, to figure this thing out myself, I don't have anything, but I have a leaning on you, I have a reliance on you, I can trust in you, God you can take care of every need, every situation, you know, God has shown himself faithful, time and time again, there are grandmas in this place, and a lot of you young folks wouldn't be here, if your grandmas weren't in that second story apartment, praying for you, amen, young people, there are a lot of, there are a lot of women in this place, that married knuckleheads, and prayed them into men of God, and some are still believing, still on that second story apartment, believing God, some feel just like, oh I could mention a hundred different circumstances, that just seem to be going wrong in your life, that seems like God is distant, the enemy is attacking you, and you have no hope, I want to tell you, just keep praying, just keep believing God, trust him, he'll see you through, stand with me if you would please, I just want to invite those who need prayer, you're saying to yourself, man I have, I have armies against me, I have in my family, in my finances, in my physical body, in my addictions, in my being a prodigal, or having prodigal children, I have, I have a need to offer all this to God in prayer, and if you'd like to step out of your seat, and come to the front here, we want to pray with you, that you would, you would be commissioned tonight, there's what I want to see the Holy Spirit do, commission you tonight, to find a place, a second story apartment, your house, your dwelling, your, the bus you ride, whatever, you have a designated place, to come and seek the Lord, if you want to make that call, that commitment tonight, would you step out of your seat, let me pray for you, that God would seal this work up tonight, saying I am going to be, in my problem, in my difficulty, in my darkness, I'm going to be a person, who brings it to the Lord, not the arm of flesh, brings it to the Lord, come on ahead now, as we sing this song together, we praise you God, the Holy Spirit designed this invitation, to pray up here at the front of this auditorium today, in a very specific way, I believe I gave you insight, from what the Holy Spirit was wanting to say, and accomplish in your life, at this what we call the altar here today, and if you notice what was said here, was not if you have a prodigal son, come and pray for him, or if you have a bad marriage, come and pray, that's fine, you don't have to leave, if you're doing that okay, but if you remember, what we just said a few seconds ago, is if you want to come and make a commitment, to find a place to pray, you see because it's going to be easier for you, to have me or the pastor, try to fight your battles with you, and for you, and we want to do that, but it's going to be better for you, if one thing will happen, that will change your life tonight, it would be finding that place, finding that second story, you know what I mean by that, that's just the analogy of finding a place, it could be something as simple, as a particular chair, it could be locking the door in the bathroom, if you have a big family, be careful with that one all right, but a designated place, does that make sense, a designated place, because oftentimes, we are a little bit freelance, lackadaisical with this, and I don't know what it is, but all throughout the Bible, there was this idea of a place with God, the secret closet, oftentimes God spoke about the upper room, that where Pentecost fell, there was a sense in Bible about place, and I want to encourage you, it may sound like freakishly practical, but it really is important, that you find a specific place, in certain seasons of my life, I went to the public library, and try to find the corner, that the least people, I go to the math section, or something like that, where no one else went, and just find a little chair there, or find a desk, or a cubby hole, and pray there, it could be many places, but have a place where you go, this is where I go to do business with God, and that's what I gave this invitation, I want to pray over you, because some of you might have a hard time, finding that place, how many of you, if you don't mind being honest, can we just be friends here today, is that okay, how many of you would say, I really don't have a place right now, would you just slip up your hand, I want to pray specifically for you, is it hard to find a place, like crowdedness, or you just haven't thought about it? Homelessness, and I'm under attack really bad right now, okay, so homelessness, that's a tough one, because you don't have a second story apartment, but you have a place with God, right, doesn't our sister have a place with God, she really does, amen, amen, and some of the other sisters, should get around her tonight, and pray for you, Father in the name of Jesus, we pray right now, what's your name? Christy, Lord we pray for Christy right now, Holy Spirit, she's got to pray, give me a place to pray, she's got to pray, give me a second story apartment, so I have a place to open the window and pray, so touch her Jesus, touch her Jesus, touch her God, and do a miracle, we're all praying over her, right now God, and the enemy would try to stop that, and come against it, but Lord you'll give her the clarity of mind, to movement in the right direction, that you have for her, others, raise your hand just a minute, they're saying, Lord I honestly confess to you, I don't have a place, some might be like, we're just praying here, that's physically not having one, others it's a crowded place, and God, so this is not legalistic, but at the same time, God help us, but Lord even more, even more than finding a place, is finding the spiritual tenacity, the fervency of heart, to say God, I'm going to all kinds of other places, but I'm not coming to you with these issues, teach me to pray, Lord we say with the disciples, teach me to pray, teach me to pray, teach me God, to come before you, teach me, if I have 10 square feet, God I'm going to make use of everyone, if all I have is a lounge chair, to sit in, or an old couch, whatever it might be, if all I have is to walk through Central Park, Lord I'm going to find a place in this city, and in my home, and God it's going to be a dotham to me, it's going to be a place, where enemies are defeated, I declare that now in the name of Jesus, there are moms and dads, kids, grandmas and grandpas, in this place, who are going to from that second story, from that dotham of their own home, are going to defeat enemies God, Lord the supreme court is not as strong, as one man, one woman in that household of faith praying, the oval office doesn't have the power, that that prayer room has God, we pray now in the name of Jesus, for mighty things to be birthed in prayer, deliverances and freedoms, and victories and jobs, and miracles in our bodies, all these things would come, out of that place of prayer, alone with God, we trust you for that, we believe you for that, in Jesus name, amen, let's put our hands together, thank God we do believe him.