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Greg Laurie

Greg Laurie – Prayer Changes Everything

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But while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him. —Acts 12:5

I want to tell you a story about a sleepless church that was involved in desperate and deep prayer. They were coming under intense persecution, and they were facing what appeared to be a hopeless situation.

It had been some time since the last attack, which resulted in the martyrdom of Stephen. But God used that for His glory. The problem was that the church tended to hang back a little in Jerusalem and stay in their little holy huddle of sorts. Jesus had told them to go into all the world and preach the gospel, but they weren’t really doing that. But when persecution came, the church spread out. It ultimately resulted in good. They remembered their objective was not to isolate from the culture but to infiltrate the culture.

As Acts chapter 12 opens, Herod is leading a new wave of persecution, and he murders James, the brother of John. Being the consummate politician, Herod saw this pleased his constituents. So he arrested the undisputed leader of the church, Simon Peter. Pretty much everyone looked up to Peter. He was the spiritual leader. And it looked as though Peter would be executed next.

So what did the church do? They unleashed their secret weapon: “While Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him” (Acts 12:5). All other doors may have been closed, but one door remained open: the door of prayer—the door into the presence of God. The church prayed, and everything changed.

Prayer is our secret weapon too, and we don’t use it enough. We will try everything else, but how often do we seriously pray? Prayer is frequently the last resort, the only thing left to do after we have exhausted all other options. But the first thing we should do is pray.

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Not Over Yet – Greg Laurie

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Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all afternoon, for you don’t know if profit will come from one activity or another—or maybe both — Ecclesiastes 11:6

Saul, later to become the apostle Paul, was doing the work of the kingdom before he was even in it. Had he not persecuted the church, I think the first-century Christians probably would have been content to stay in their little holy huddle in Jerusalem and never leave town. It was great, God had blessed, and there were believers all around. So who wanted to leave Jerusalem? But with Saul’s persecution, the Christians were forced to spread out, and in the process, they took the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.

I think the person who probably had the greatest influence in bringing about the conversion of Saul was Stephen, the church’s first martyr. I believe it was Stephen’s bold testimony that actually threw fuel on Saul’s fire, because Saul was under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Stephen didn’t have a long ministry. He never wrote a book of the New Testament. But if his only convert was Saul of Tarsus, then he was one whopper of a convert.

You may not reach millions. You may not reach thousands. You may not reach hundreds. But you may be the person whom God uses to reach someone who will, in turn, change the world. Or, it may be a child whom you raised in the way of the Lord who reaches someone else who talks to someone else and eventually shares the gospel with someone like Saul. So here is what you need to realize: It’s not over till it’s over.

We need to be faithful in sowing the seed of the Word of God, because we don’t know where that seed will go . . . in this life . . . or in the next generation . . . or in the next one.