ARME 1: Soquel, CA - Aug 2009

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ARME Bible Camp

Martin Kim

Experiencing the Power of Prayer

I'm amazed to see how God has brought people together and how God has brought Army Bible Camp about.

I know some of the key leaders very well and I know a bit about the seminar presenters And as 1 leader put it the other day, most of them have come out of the gutter.

Most of them have come out of the world and 1 has come out of a cave.

And we need to learn to connect with this God through the Word and through prayer.

Dear God, thank you for the privilege of prayer.

Lord, I ask once again, Lord, that you would just pour out your spirit on us, Lord.

And I pray that you would speak through me, Lord.

Not I, but Christ, honored, loved, exalted.

Not I, but Christ, be seen, be heard, be known.

And this morning I thought I'd begin with a mission story.

Back in 2004, I was finishing up my studies at Andrews University at the seminary and I was excited about going out to work.

The 1 thing I did not have in my blood was babysitting.

Well the Lord worked it out for me to go out to the state of Washington to work for a church to be in charge of the English ministry at a Korean church.

And I knew I was in trouble because I don't know if babysitting is a gift.

And I got on my knees because I knew I was in trouble.

I knew I would not survive without much prayer.

And that's when I first started getting serious about praying.

This is apart from morning devotional time.

I didn't know how to pray, but when you're desperate, guess what?

And I spent about half an hour in the morning spent about half an hour in the afternoon spending about an hour a day in prayer I look back I see what a blessing it was Charles Spurgeon the great British preacher of the 19th century, he has said, anything is a blessing which makes us pray.

Charles Spurgeon was an incredibly gifted and powerful preacher.

Some have said that he was the greatest preacher since apostolic times.

Do you know why he was such a great preacher?

Charles Spurgeon has said, I would rather teach 1 man to pray than 10 men to preach.

It says something about the value he placed on prayer.

And he says, because prayer is such a blessing, he says, anything is a blessing which makes us pray.

Maybe you're going through financial troubles.

Maybe you're going through relational marital troubles.

Maybe you're going, maybe you're experiencing health troubles.

If it brings us down to our knees, It's a blessing.

I like what Ian Bounce, the prolific author on prayer who has written many volumes, has said in his book, The Essentials of Prayer.

He says, prayer is of great value to trouble.

Trouble is under the control of Almighty God and is 1 of his most efficient agents in fulfilling his purposes and in perfecting his saints.

And a year later, I have this team of praying leaders who are believing in the power of prayer and we're united in praying for this church.

God was sending laborers in answer to prayer and a year and a half later we had about 70 youth and young adults and we're saying, Lord, we're not here just for ourselves.

We exist here to do your work, to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.

How do we help our young people understand that we're here to be about your business?

And as we prayed, The Lord gave us this idea of setting aside our loose offering on the third Sabbath of each month and sending it overseas to help the less fortunate.

And since we were Koreans, we thought about our less fortunate neighbors in Southeast Asia.

Another reason we decided to do this is because a missionary who had visited our church for a mission rally gave many inspiring talks and he shared this 1 quote.

Ellen White in Gospel Workers, page 465, says, to show a liberal, Self-denying spirit for the success of foreign missions is a sure way to advance the home missionary work.

For the prosperity of the home work depends largely under God upon the reflex influence of the evangelical work done in countries afar off.

In numerous places, she says something similar.

God will bless the local mission work if you get involved in supporting the foreign mission work.

And so we were inspired, and so in December of 2005, we decided to collect our first offering because archers can keep the loose offering on the first and third Sabbaths of each month.

We collect about $200, $300 in loose offering each Sabbath.

We're not going to die if we don't have 1 Sabbath's loose offering, but overseas it can make a world difference where people survive on barely a dollar a day.

And so for our first offering we collected $288.

And then in January we went to a retreat but we decided that we're gonna collect an offering and we collected an offering of $154.

Well, a few days later, I picked up this tape that was sitting in my office room for a few months by this missionary and I decided to listen to it.

And this missionary was sharing story after story about how he was moving forward in faith and how God was blessing.

And he said something I will never forget.

He says, we'll never have enough money to finish the work.

He says, we need to move forward in faith and trust the God.

I said, God, I want to step forward in faith.

I said, I don't believe that I have to be out in a third-world country in a malaria high-risk area to see you do mighty things.

I believe that the United States is a great mission field and you will work.

And I thought about our third Sabbath loose offerings.

I thought about challenging my members to pray for a $500 offering.

But then I thought, you know, that doesn't require much faith.

I finally decided it would take faith to pray for a $1, 000 offering.

And because in January we provided rice for the people of Vietnam, $20, you feed a family for a month back then now it's gone up Now we want to provide Bibles for their spiritual nourishment And so I showed up in church a few days later, and I challenged my members.

For the next month for a thousand dollar offering and We sent out email reminders every Sabbath.

And the next month, God blessed us with an offering of $4, 382.

The Sabbath before we had a visitor that came, heard the announcement we were making, reminding people to pray, and left a $1, 500 check.

Experiencing the Power of Prayer

Transcript

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