We're going to turn to a book of the Bible that you're not going to find. So to make you feel good about it, we're going to have a sword drill between these three young men up here. How about just these two young men over here? You know, sometimes I was preaching at my church last week and I said, Wednesday night, I said, over here in the book of Joel, I couldn't find Joel. I said, I know it's in here, Amos. I said, what page is that? And you ever find that some of these books tuck themselves away and you can't find it? Will you want to be, Pastor, part of the sword drill up here? You ready? You ready? You want to be part of the sword drill? Yes, sir, Pastor. Brother Lamont, we'll just have... I'll tell you how to find the book. When I say the book, you say, where is that? Sometimes on the platform, when a preacher is saying a book, I'm thinking, oh, help me to find it. I know the books in the Bible. Help me to find it so nobody thinks I'm as slow as they really believe that I really am. But this is an easy one to find. I'll say the book, but just say, where is that? Before you start turning, we're looking for Zachariah. But it's very easy. Just go to the last book and back up one more. You're in the New Testament, fellas. No, that's Revelation. Matthew, there you go. Malachi, that Italian book. All right, good. Zachariah. Does that ever happen to you where you're sitting next to someone and you can't find the book? Or does that ever happen? Just a few of you. The rest of you are Pharisees. It's never happened at all, has it? It's a wonderful church. Thank you for being so kind. When I talk to various pastors about their prayer life, I'm always very humbled because it seems like Many men I talk to have a great prayer life. It's always convicting. I know your pastor prays. And I want to tell you, I know I pray. I have a, I use a prayer journal. It helps me. And it's a leather bound journal and your pastor's name is in there. You pastors that are here, your names are in there. I've organized my prayer journal much after John Chapter 17. And I enjoy it. I write so many things in that journal of prayer requests. It's going to sound very spiritual. And I'm not as spiritual as I'm going to appear to be. I work at prayer. But there are thousands of requests in that journal. I think of the widows in our church and widowers. I'm to pray for them. I think of the backs in our church and it grieves me. I have so many names, maybe 150, 200 names of backslidden people that's sick in our church and the deacons in our church and their wives and their children and my staff and their maids and their children and all of our missionaries. And it goes on and on and on and on. Things that I'm praying for. And I do know that I pray. I do know I don't pray enough. I do know that God answers prayers for me. I do know that some prayers I don't get answered the way I'm thinking. When I went to our church 38 years ago, I had a great desire to have a 15 minute daily radio broadcast. I prayed a year and nothing happened. I prayed five and nothing happened. I prayed ten and nothing happened. I prayed 15 and nothing happened, and 20 and 25 and 30. By the 30th year, God allowed us to begin a 15-minute broadcast called Revival Time. And I never made one phone call. I didn't have anybody make a phone call. But at one day's time, we had 100 stations. And now, eight years later, I've never missed one broadcast in eight years. God did that. And then expand it to the Internet and there'll be today 140 countries listening to that broadcast. Countries. God did that. I don't know, Pastor, if I was the problem. I don't know why God could not have answered that immediately. Maybe for somebody else. He does say the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. And I would come and say, Lord, am I not righteous? Am I holding this thing back? I cannot explain this. I don't understand it all. I don't understand prayer. I do know that God says men ought always to pray. I'm supposed to always be in prayer. I do know that we're to pray without ceasing. We just stay at this thing. I do know that God gives us different models of prayer. There's the prayer of importunity. We just keep asking and asking and asking. There's the prayer of fasting, and God seems like to me that this kind comes about by prayer and fasting. And so there's importunity prayer, and then there's fasting prayer, and there's all night prayer, and there's early morning prayer, and there's church prayer, and couples, First Peter, that pray together. that we might pray to not have our prayers hindered so we're right with one another. There's in the Bible children's prayers. I want prayers answered. There are so many people I feel like God has entrusted to my care. I'm responsible. I'm responsible to pray for my wife. Can you imagine the attack against pastor's wife here tonight from the devil. We cannot, and even as a husband of a pastor's wife, I cannot begin to imagine the attack of the wicked one against the man of God's wife. I guarantee you, the devil attacks you, he'll really attack her. I'm responsible, but I'm responsible to pray for my children, our children and their mates. And there's so many things I'm praying about their lives, not just bless their day, give them a good day, keep them safe. Needs that some of the needs I know they have, they don't know they have. And I'm not talking about backslidden. My boy, our boy is very content. He lives in an apartment condo with the third boy coming now. He's so content in that, he just bought a second car. He's been married these years. The first car he bought when they got married, he had other cars before that, but the first car he bought after they got married was a car that had 100,000 miles on it. And that car, finally, after the years it wore out, and he got ready to buy another car, and he never told me about it, but he showed up one night and said, I got a new car for my family, a little bit bigger. And that car, he starts with $100,000. Well, that bothers me. I'd like to see him have a newer car, a more dependable car. I pray for that. I pray for his housing. And he's content. I'm praying that those grand boys could have a backyard. I think it'd be so great for a mother to say, boys, go in the backyard and play. They have three boys in a two-bedroom house. With no future in sight. I'm praying for them. We have nine grandchildren and several more coming this year. I'm praying for those kids. When was the last time you had an answer prayer? When was the last time in my prayer journal I can write through, answered, answered. And then this one, I can't seem to get an answer. I don't know. I can't explain why. But I do know, just keep on praying till light breaks through. The Lord will answer. I don't know how, I don't know when, I don't know why, but I'm to pray. That's my part. Pray without ceasing. I do know that the Bible says I won't get my prayers answered, Psalm 66, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. I do know I will not get my prayers answered, 1 Peter 3, if I'm bitter against my wife. I do know that I will not get my prayers answered according to the Word of God if I ask a mess that may consume it upon my own lust. Tonight, we'll look at this in these few moments, more like a Bible study for a few moments. Why doesn't God answer your prayer? These people, God wasn't answering. And they came to God and said, we are, in this text, in chapter number, are we in seven? Chapter seven. They said to God, we are fasting and we historically have fasted on the fifth and on the seventh month. We have fasted historically as a people on the fifth and seventh month. And yet God wasn't answering their prayer. See, God tells them what he's interested in. Notice what he says, and I'll pull it together in prayer because he's talking about prayer. Verse eight says, The word of the Lord came into Zechariah, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying. And it gives them an outline. It's eight points right here. We'll read them quickly. One, I want you to execute true judgment. Judgment is the thought of justice. God wants us to be just with people. He wants us to be fair with people. I know we're not supposed to look down on poor people, but I want to say also, we're not supposed to look down on rich people. We're not supposed to look down on anybody. A rich person to shake their hand when you're trying to get something out of them, that's your problem. But a rich person needs friends, too, without any strings attached. People are people. And God says, I want you to exercise true judgment, true justice, true judgment. The second thing he says, show mercy. Mercy is pity. God wants us to show, to demonstrate mercy to people in need. How can you not knock on a door where you see the conditions of some of these souls? When you hear the yelling and the screaming and the blaspheming, the swearing, and all this going on, you say, well, I've never heard that, and you've never been on a bus route. You go out any length of time, you'll hear it. God says, I want you to show mercy. First thing I want you to show is what? Church. Justice. Second thing I want is judgment. Second thing I want you to have is what? Mercy. Third thing I want you to have is compassion. Compassion. And of some having compassion making a difference. And when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion as they were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. How can we not have compassion on this world? This is 7 billion people that are a mess. How could you not have compassion? Three things he said, I want you to show judgment, justice. I want you to show mercy. I want you to show compassion. Four, I want you to show, I want you to oppress not a widow. Don't oppress the widow. I want you to have care for the widow. Five, I want you to care for the fatherless. What would that be? Children where there's no daddy. Daddy's gone. We had a man a few years ago, just a beautiful family in our church, all these little stair-step children, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, beautiful kids. And he chose, I want to walk out. And he walked out, and he just left them. Just left him. Doesn't support him. Though the judge says he has to, he doesn't. With his new wife, he just walked away from him. I have a little girl. I held her the day she was born, and she married, and they have three beautiful children. And he's crazy. He's crazy. He walked out. He doesn't work, but she works. So the judge said, he applied, he applied for monthly support from her. And the judge awarded it! And she goes to work, she puts our kids in our Christian school, she works hard, she feeds them, she cares for them, and she has spousal support because he can't get a job. I don't understand this. We're to have true judgment, justice. Secondly, we're to have mercy. Thirdly, we're to have compassion. Four, we're to care for the widow. And five, for the fatherless, these kids. And six, the stranger. The stranger. Don't ever pass a stranger. We have sidewalks everywhere. I walk on the sidewalk. I see someone coming. I say, hello, my friend. How are you today? Have a good day. Good to see you. I want to bring joy to a man's life. I don't want to meet a stranger. I want to meet everybody. I want to talk to everybody. How are you with everybody? Brighten someone's path. I saw him to care for the stranger. This one comes in and we're to entertain strangers unawares, the Bible says. And then that's a Christian thing. And then he says, he says, are they poor? I want you to take care of the poor. Number seven. And I tell you, they're poor because we have a policy in our church. We don't give money to poor people because that's generally not going to help them. But we do provide diapers and formula and groceries. And we will put, go down to the city and pay the utility bill. And we will put fuel in the car. But I'm not just going to give money for more drugs to drink. I was with Brother Bobby Robertson preaching in Walkertown, North Carolina, and this guy, He came before church, he gave Brother Bobby a story. I saw it right through this guy. This guy, he was a con, con, con artist. And I thought, Brother Bobby? And he said to the fellas, you stay for church tonight, hear Brother Traver preach. And he says, then I'll talk to you after church. He stayed! Oh, the story, Brother Vessel, the story was so bizarre. It's like I've heard that same story a hundred times, maybe a thousand. It was it was one of those stories that you hear all the time. The guy was lying through his teeth. And he says, you know what, Brother Bobby, I'm trying to get up to New York. If you'll just put some gasoline in my car from North Carolina. The guy was, I mean, so here we are. And I didn't know all that took place. We're driving, he goes. He's taking me back to my place. He said, Brother Jack, where's a stop by the gas station? And he said, he said, I'm going to put some gasoline in this fellow's car. I said, you know, you're being ripped off. And he answered, he goes, he may not be telling me the truth. That's why I'm not going to have the church do this, because I think they might get tired of me getting ripped off. But I just got some money. I'll go ahead and fuel it up. I think God will bless him for blessing the stranger and blessing the poor. That guy, who knows? Out of all the times he conned, that may have been the turning point in that man's life. Or it may have been I was judgmental and wrong. I remember the last time I was wrong, I was wrong in 19... I think I was wrong in 1950, 51, somewhere around there, the last time I ever made a mistake. But oh, my God says here, I want you to do these eight things. Here's eight things I want you to do. I want you to have, let's see if we can remember, true justice, true judgment. Second, I want you to have mercy. Third, I want you to have compassion. Fourth, I want you to care for the widow. Five, for the... Six, for the... Stranger. Right. Are you speaking in tongues? Seven. Depart, people. Eight. Eight. What does he say right there? Number eight. He said, I want you to let none of you imagine evil is hard against against his brother in your heart. Keep your keep your heart right toward one another. Don't come to church and sit on this side because I don't want to talk to somebody on that side or sit over here because I, you know, wherever it might be. Or I'm not going to talk to my mother-in-law. Why? Because she's so opinionated and always right. So? Why can't you let her win because of your pride? Who cares that she's always right? Hell, I got this sister-in-law! Well, why can't you be nice to your sister-in-law? My sister! My sister! Why can't you be nice to God's people and your own family? What is it you can't get along? So he says, I want you to do these eight things. Now, I'm not God, but if I were God, And I told you eight things I want you to do. And I'm telling you, it's a very poor illustration, but if I were God and I said, here are eight things I want you to do, how many would you think you should probably do? All eight? But look at the next verse. What's that word, Church? To hearken. and pulled away the shoulder and stopped their ears. So, Brother Steve, if you're a brother for us, if you'll help me, you represent God. And God's just told me eight things, what he wants me to do. And I'm not going to listen. Who do you think you are? And you put your head on my shoulder. How puny. Thank you. How puny to a holy God. Get your hands off me. But I want you to have justice. What is that about? They refused. Watch this now. Yea, they made their hearts as adamant stone. Lest they should hear the law and the words which the Lord of Hosts hath sent in His Spirit by the former prophets, wherefore came wrath from the Lord of Hosts. Therefore, this is our text. Therefore, it has come to pass, as he cried, so they would not hear, so they cried. What's the next statement said? And I would not hear said the Lord host. There's maybe why we're not getting answers to prayer. Those poor people, it's their own stupidity why they're poor. God says, OK, you want to feel that way? I'm not going to listen to you. I've cried out to you and you responded not so you cry to me and I'm not going to hear you. Well, OK, I'm taking care of poor people, but I'm not going to take care of those widows. Well, God says, I can't hear you. Well, those fatherless kids. For justice, our compassion. This world's a mess. And if they cannot find the help from God's people, these eight groups, where are they going to find it? I was preaching in Atlanta two years ago. I remember it was two, almost three now, because my granddaughter was the same age, nine, as this little girl I read about. She's going to be 12. This little girl's going to be about 12. And in Alabama, the little girl came down the country road on the school bus. It was nationwide. You may have read it. She came home and the 26-year-old stepmother, Went to the bus driver, excuse me, the 46-year-old grandmother, went to the bus and said, does she need a candy? And he goes, well, yes ma'am, she had a small piece. Get off that bus, that 46-year-old grandmother said. She walked her up that lane to that little mobile home and said to the 26-year-old stepmother, That 26-year-old mother said to that little nine-year-old girl, you get ready, and we're going to take you up on that levee up there. They took her up on the levee, and they took wood, and they piled her little arms that were bare with logs. And they said, you start walking on this levee, and don't you stop walking on this levee, and don't you drop those logs until we come back. They would see her from time to time. Keep walking! Her arms are bleeding. She eventually came back down into the house at dusk that evening and the sun was setting. She collapsed in her bed. The next place they found her an hour later, they had taken her to the hospital and she died. I thought about our little granddaughter, Ashlyn. How could anybody ever treat a child? How can someone treat a child like that? Did you know that today in America, 7,000 teenagers were arrested today? In America. We're told that nearly 1 billion people are going to bed tonight, starving. God says, you're heaping upon yourselves, but there's a world. All those were eight groups of people that needed help. Brother Mutcher encourages me, he inspires me, he challenges me. But I think he needs encouragement, too. We have a, when I tell you these stories of things that happen in our church, we have the most amazing godly church. It's amazing. It's growing. It's been growing for 38 years. It's exciting. Wonderful youth. Sunday morning, by Sunday morning, before I preached, I had four good families. One, I've been their pastor for 26 years. They all said, we're moving. Well, that's quite frankly, I understand it to be able to buy a house. Man, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to let that affect my preaching. I'm going to preach. But it ripped my heart out. It just ripped my heart out. And to think that. I've poured my life into all those people. And I know that you can't just stay alive. I know all that. Everybody has a right to move. I know that. Do you know that things like that happen here? The goal is not to put more load on the man. The goal is to pray for him. By the way, I'll guarantee it today, I've had thousands of our people praying for me, too. But isn't it amazing how You know what I'm talking about, Pastor? You can have 95% or 98% or 99% of the people love you, and that 1% can just eat your lunch. I have purposed in my life, I was not ever going to try to do anything to tear down a pastor or hurt a pastor. My goal is not to hurt, but to help. Tonight we see the text and God says, I can't hear you. It seems then it's very simple. I closed my Bible to give you help. I hope that I'm going to be done here in just a minute. It means nothing, but I did close my Bible to give you hope that the end is in sight. When I was in high school in 1966, I've told you this before I think, John Rice and Bill Harvey came. Bill Harvey was the music director for John Rice and he was a nutcase with his face. He was so expressive when he sang. He'd do his eyes and it was fun, it was great, but John Rice sang this song, I'll never forget it. Just keep on praying, Bill Harvey, till life breaks through. That's how he sang, Dr. Rice. The Lord will answer, Brother Harvey, will answer you. God keeps his promise. His word is true. He would do that every time. As a teenage boy, I thought, this is crazy. And then together, they'd harmonize. Just keep on praying. And then two part, till light breaks through. I'm going to keep praying. I don't know why it took me 30 years. Maybe I was the problem. Maybe God was trying to do something. Our church grew by a hundred all those years. It was all on one acre. Thirty-eight parking stalls. I couldn't get any land. I couldn't get any building. I'd been to every company around. And now, by that time, thirty years later, there wasn't one acre of land left in our city. When there was land, it was going for a million and a half an acre. And now, thirty years, not one acre left. And God gave us that building over there, that property. I don't know why it took so long, but God gave it to us. Finally, we had eight years ago an auditorium that we never had auditorium space. Now on that property, I don't have Sunday School's place, but I got auditorium space. I don't know. I've got to put it all together one of these days. So what am I doing? I'm praying. That young boy who's right by our church, about 15 minutes from our front door, he cashed some of his stock in yesterday. It's only, what, 28? And he made, was it $8 billion yesterday? And last year he made $6 billion. Zuckerberg. And then right across the street is Larry Ellison. I mean, right across the street, his, his, my, my house and his office is probably a hundred yards from one another. And he's worth about 7 billion. And the owner of Intel is just right there. And he's worth about 7 billion. And then Cisco right there, they're worth billions. The owner, the CEO. I pray for him. I pray for him today, Lord. Something to cut loose with some money, but first let me... I prayed for it every... I said, Lord, help me to win unto Christ. And I'm checking my motive, and I said, yes, Lord, part of my motive is to get them saved so I get their money. I mean, just to be honest, I'm talking to God. Could you imagine if God would give me a billion dollars, and I'd write you a check for $50 right now. you