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[Music] [Music] (dramatic music) ♪ Alleluia ♪

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♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ (ominous music) (choral music)

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(eerie music) [MUSIC] (eerie music) [Music]

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(dramatic music) [Music] [Music] (eerie music)

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[Music] (dramatic music) [Music] [Music]

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[Music] (dramatic music) (growling) (eerie music)

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♪ O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ♪ ♪ O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ♪ ♪ O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ♪ (eerie music)

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(eerie music) (eerie music) (soft music) (bells jingling)

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- Shall we pray? The light of God surrounds me. The love of God enfolds me. The power of God protects me.

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The presence of God watches over me. Wherever I am, God is. God is our help. God is our source of happiness.

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Our Father God, we come to thee this moment humbly for the honor of your work. And we know that you love us even as your son, the God for us, loves us.

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And we pray that your love, your power, Your power, your counsel will guide and keep our beloved president. She is doing everything in her power to bring the woman's auxiliary up to the highest peak it has been in all years of its existence. [INAUDIBLE]

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Go with her as she goes from one end of the country, one end of the equator to the other, ever in your name, and keeping the name of the woman's existence of the National Baptist Convention of America

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before the people with whom she comes in contact. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

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I'm going to work until the day of the Sabbath. I'm going to work until the day comes. Because if you starve and there are no food for tomorrow, I'm going to work until the day comes.

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Having made this commitment to be loved by all, we've come a long way to be willing to give ourselves to that community. [INAUDIBLE] who will turn to you in the program of this momentous experience that has been presented to us by our president, our various organizations, the [INAUDIBLE] the work groups, the seminars, the guide programs, the climate work, and even recently, across the ocean, when we're still exploring the deep. As new ideas have grown, may there be new inspiration in each work of art.

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New ideas for the causes. To the foregoing of new people may we master. To the bigger and the deeper. In theater, even more than we have ever been before.

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Real action. That we can't be confused. And in the continuity of human so much as us. may we show more concern and more dedication

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to the work further which thou hast assigned for this land of ours. Ever holding at the arms of President Thompson, supporting her in all her work, was thou a painful heritage on her heart. And we pray in all of the glory of the master,

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we'll be bound as we seek to extend backward around the world. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. (church bells ringing) - With my people who are called by my name,

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the Holy Spirit is free, and churches are made to breathe. and I will heal their land and will give their strength. O Father God, this is our prayer today, that our nation might know Thee as we know You.

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That they may be able to stand fast and stand firm, knowing that You are God and all power in Heaven and Earth is in Your hands. and earth is in your hands. And truly today we are praying for our president, praying for his cabinet.

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We're praying for every leader today that they may know that you're God and all power and heaven and earth is in your hands. And then, oh Father God, we are praying

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for the believers in you today, that they will stand up and say that I know my Redeemer lives. Whatever comes, that you're going to supply our every need.

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Because you promised us this in your word, and we are standing today on your word. So help us, Holy Father, to reach out and touch somebody's life.

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Holy Father, we didn't come to this prayer breakfast just to eat. But we came today for fellowship. We came today that we may grow stronger by touching each other's lives.

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And oh Father, help us to just reach out. We know that the new world is going to begin with us. And when we think about believers in Christ Jesus, we are the best at the world after all. Help us, Holy Father, because we need you right now.

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We're asking that you bless our convention. Bless all of our leaders. And especially, Father God, bless the succumb to our president. And then bless the women that they may flow their loving arms around her.

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Help her to be the leader that she is meant to be. And oh, Father God, we're just thanking you today for this opportunity. Many, many things that are going on that we need to be praying about. Time out for form and fashion.

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But oh God, help us to stand strong and stand tall, knowing that you're God and that besides me, there is none other. Oh, have mercy on us today, because we need you.

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Oh, Holy Father, we come hundreds and hundreds of miles to get here today, just to reach out, just to join our hands together, that we may be stronger in your name.

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Notice that in your words where two or three are gathered together in your name, that you'll be in the midst. We know you're in our midst today. And we know whatever we might do, that we can still stand. Oh, Father God, I know today that you're going to take care of me.

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I'm not even worried about it because you've given us the assurance in your words that if we just walk upright, no good thing will befall on us. And that if we just abide in your word, and your word abide in us,

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that we can make the journey. Don't leave us now, because we can't make it without you. I know you're God.

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Oh, I know you're God this morning. I've had the experience, I've had the assurance, you're stood by my side.

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Don't leave us. These, bless and I ask in the name of our son Jesus' name, and for his sake, amen. [Music]

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[INAUDIBLE] He's a twink with a black eye and a witch's dark skin. His family members, Karen and her husband, are the very same age as Chuck. So he grew up in Beachtown.

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His family later carried him to the war of a very great success. So he grew up in Beast Valley. He attended elementary school there, and high school there, and later went to college with not only much work, but a fabulous life.

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He was bestowed the crown of the prince and his team, and he was the queen for over three years. He attended Bishop College, the Nader Oderlin Theological Seminary, and the first black to finish Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He has pastored two churches in his lifetime, the New Hope Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, and the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, where he is now the pastor for 13 years.

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This little black boy, with the help of God, will live happily ever after. [Music] Chairperson, Mr. Bessie Rowe, to our gracious and cleanly progressive president, Sister Fantasy Thompson,

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to my friend Reverend Chu and all of the distinguished personalities at the head table. It's not often that a speaker has the privilege of being introduced by his wife. So I want to thank her for that gracious introduction. and to all of you lovely ladies of the Women's Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention of America,

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I invite your prayerful attention to two passages of Scripture tucked away in the Book of Acts, 12th chapter and the 5th verse. Peter, therefore, was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the Church unto God for him.

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The 19th verse of the same chapter reads, "Peter continued knocking." The subject of this prayer message, "Something funny happened at prayer meetings." "Something funny happened at prayer meetings." In the midst of the human struggle,

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we soon discover that there are certain forces which we are up against. We must struggle against that which threatens our well-being. We must struggle against enemies of the faith.

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We must struggle against foes within and foes that are without. God has not promised us a rose garden free from thorns. We are up against thorns and thistles. Sometimes it may be a thorn in the flesh,

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it may be a thorn of hostile forces determined to destroy us, but heaven provides a source of strength and a weapon of defense in prayer.

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If we want help, if we want strength, If we want protection, prayer provides the way. Prayer is the road which leads to the throne of the heavenly father.

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- Yeah, yeah. - Prayer is communion with God. Prayer is seeking. Prayer is asking.

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Prayer is knocking, prayer is receiving, prayer is the soul's sincere desire, unuttered or expressed, the motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breast. In the midst of our modern scientific and sophisticated society, there are those who would minimize prayer. They say that prayer is all right at a prayer meeting, but it is no good at a fair meeting.

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But I come to bear witness to the eternal truth that prayer is powerful. Persistence in prayer is a potent force in the household of faith. The Bible says that we ought always to pray and that the prayer of the righteous availeth much. Those who think that prayer is just auto-suggestion, that prayer is engaging in a monologue,

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that prayer is just talking to oneself, that prayer really makes no difference, those who think that are misguided and misstated. So let us consider an event which illustrates the effect of prayer in human life and how circumstances and and immense are changed through prayer.

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The setting of the story is in the first century. A wave of persecution has swept over the Christian community. Luke, the first historian of the Christian church, records it in his Acts of the Apostles.

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Here we have the record. tells us that Stephen, the chairman of the deacons of the First Baptist Church of Jerusalem, had been stoned, that Herod the king stretched forth his arm and put James to death, and seeing that this pleased the people, he proceeds to have Peter, the pastor of the First Baptist Church,

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arrested and put in prison. And his plans are to keep him there and to put him to death after Easter. The record says that Peter, therefore, was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church

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under God for him. This is a time when the people of God have door after door shut in their faces. The remarkable thing about it, however, is that they keep on knocking.

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The door of acceptance by the religious leaders is shut, but they keep on knocking. The door of acceptance by the civil authorities is shut. Nevertheless, God's people keep on knocking.

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They never give up. So it is ours today to keep on knocking. Never give up on the validity of prayer. Never give up on the authenticity and the power of so sincere prayer.

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Keep knocking. Prayer is made without ceasing of the church under God. Let's unravel these words. First, we see the power of Herod at work in the world.

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Herod is a powerful, evil, treacherous, conniving monarch who takes pleasure in ridiculing and persecuting God's people. The House of Herod troubles the sincere God-fearing person. It is the house of Herod that attempted to destroy Jesus at the time of his birth.

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It is the house of Herod that causes innocent infants to be slain. It is the house of Herod that is without compassion, for Herod is scrupulous. He is unscrupulous. He's a vicious, bloodthirsty monarch. It is the House of Herod that is instrumental in having John the Baptist beheaded, that stern, stalwart, brutalist prophet of righteousness. It's the house of Herod that heals James and arrests Peter, the powerful, flaming evangelist

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who on the day of Pentecost proclaims the word of God with vigorous vitality and 3,000 souls receive the word of God and are baptized into the kingdom of God. And now, Herod stretches forth his hands to vex the church. Herod seeks to irritate, to annoy, to torment, to trouble, to cause us to worry. It is Herod's mission to vex the church.

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For you see, Herod is the symbol of the secular that seeks to rule the sacred. Herod seeks every opportunity to ridicule good people. Herod will do whatever is necessary in order to gain popularity. Herod puts forth his hand to vex the church when he sees that his action pleases the Jews.

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And you see, he does this, first of all, by persecution. Herod embarks upon a program to get rid of the church. It is his plan to stamp out that righteousness which is of God, so he harasses.

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He persistently inflicts torture upon the innocent. It's natural for us to be bothered when we bother other people, but it certainly bothers us when people bother us

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when we aren't bothering them. (audience laughing) Sometimes we forget that they persecuted the prophets. The people threatened to kill Moses

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and Jezebel threatened to take the life of Elijah. And Jesus says to his disciples that he wants us to be able to rejoice in persecution. When people speak on man of evil against you,

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fast, learn, rejoice, and be glad, for you're in good company. So persecuted the prophets that were before you. So you see, it is Herod's nature and mission

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to plan a program of persecution for devout and faithful disciples of the kingdom. Herod specializes in vexing the church, He wants church people to feel miserable,

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and he wants church people to have a hard time. So he torments, he harasses, and he does everything within his power to cause us to worry.

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So not only does he persecute, but he goes a step further, and he puts Peter in prison. is arrested for no good reason. He's harassed, he's tormented, and placed in jail. And he's not just put there overnight.

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The Bible says that he was kept in prison. Now prison is a place of deprivation. It deprives us of freedom. It deprives us of the freedom of locomotion. You can't go where you want to go. It deprives us of the freedom of association.

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You can't be with the people that you choose to be with. It is uncomfortable and a miserable experience. And Herod not only seeks to get the upper hand on us, he wants us to be put in prison and kept back.

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And then you see he goes on further by taking certain precautionary measures. Peter is put there for safekeeping in the hands of 16 soldiers, four quadrillion soldiers. In other words, there are 16 men that are appointed just to look after this one man. And in addition to all of this, he's put in the inner prison and while it was customary to just put handcuffs on the right hand of Peter, handcuffing him to another soldier,

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Peter is handcuffed, you see, in such a way that he is chained with both hands so that he is placed in what you might call an unget outable situation. But while all of this was happening, prayer is being made without ceasing of the church "Onto God for Peter."

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It's a good thing to pray for your leader. They were praying for their pastor. And we ought to pray for our leader. We ought to pray for the president.

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And somehow as we find the church praying, not just for a brief period, but it says that prayer was made without ceasing. And when I read this passage closely, it seems to me that they were praying around the clock.

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That all day and all night somebody was at prayer, praying for the welfare of the church. And for Peter, they were also giving special attention. Now sometimes Herod harasses us, he arrests us and puts us in prison, and he keeps us there and prays to destroy us.

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But prayer is the remedy. Sometimes Herod has us in an unget out of a place, but prayer is the remedy. The church is in prayer. Peter is in prison, but the church is in prayer.

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And the wonderful thing about prayer is that God himself answers prayer. And on the night that Herod had already made the decision that he was going to have him brought forth

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and put to death the next morning, on that last night, the last night that he was to spend on earth, We look in the prison and as the light is shown,

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as we glance in there, we find Peter asleep. You know when you pray, when you have really put the matter into God's hands, you can sleep on it.

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You can go to sleep on it. He wasn't disturbed, he was sleeping there between the soldiers, but the church was in prayer. And God sent his angel.

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And the angel came down, and while Peter was sleeping, the angel touched him and said, wake up, fella. Wake up. And he says to him, put on your shoes.

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Get rich. We have a journey that we are to make. Peter put on his shoes, and the chains fell off. He was sleeping there between the two soldiers.

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And he began to walk with the angel. And he walked out of the inner prison. And he walked out of the next prison, doors. And he walked out of the iron gate,

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that huge iron gate that was usually locked, opened up. And he walked out on the streets. And it seemed to Peter that it was just a dream. Strange things can happen when you pray.

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And they're so strange that you wonder what is really happening to you when you really pray. Funny things happen. And then when he walked out and he discovered that God had really delivered him. It wasn't a dream. It was for real.

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And the first place he went was to the house of John Mark's mother, Mary. They were there in the prayer meeting. It seems to me that probably Sister Mary, I really don't know, but it could have been that she was the president of the Missionary Society. And those sisters were there in that prayer meeting and they were praying.

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And as Peter came and as he knocked at the gate, [Footsteps] A young woman came, I guess she was the president of the Junior Mission. [Laughter]

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And she came and as though her hair had been knocked, and she came and she looked out there and she saw Peter and she could hardly believe that what they were praying for, that their prayers were already being answered while they were yet praying. [Laughter]

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And she went back and she told him, she said, "Peter is out there." They said, "Oh no, no, you must be seeing the ghost. You must be seeing his guardian angel. There really must not be Peter."

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She said, "Oh yes, Peter is out there." And while they were debating the question, Peter keeps knocking. He just keeps knocking. You know, you ought to keep knocking.

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No matter what happens, you ought to just keep knocking at the gate of heaven. Keep on knocking. Sometimes your knuckles are all sore from knocking, but just keep knocking. Keep knocking at heaven's gate.

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But what I like about Peter is when God answered his prayer, the first place he went was to the prayer meeting. To thank God in the presence of his people for what God has done for him. Sometimes people pray and when God answers their prayers, give them what they want, they forget what they got.

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They forget where they got what they wanted. Thanks be to God that he does answer prayer. And the wonderful thing that in whatever condition or circumstance that we find ourselves in, that God comes to us. Funny thing happened. Peter, Peter, Peter, as he stands up and he tells them, and they begin to shout in that prayer meeting, he tells them,

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"The tone down, because if you keep making such a fuss, the people all over town will know that I'm free." They were making a noise about what God had done. Something funny happened at that time, and you know something always funny happens when we pray. Strange things happen when we pray.

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The prison door will open when we pray, and when we really pray and pray right, God opens the island gates that are there. When we pray and pray right. Funny thing happens. It happens because you see God is always there. No matter what happens, how dark the night may be, and how strong may be the efforts that Herod may put forth to put us to death, God is always there. But a thing happens when you pray, because God is there, God acts.

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And you know, that's the testimony of the faithful. And I've seen it happen in my life over and over again. You've seen it happen in yours. Something funny happens when we pray.

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Don't understand it, but somehow a miracle always happens when we pray. Just a few days ago, my wife and I were in Mexico, in Guadalajara, out some 25 miles. We went shopping in a little place called Tlalocopaki and we shopped until just about night And we were staying at a camp out in the country

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And just about as I went to around the block to get the car to come and pick up my wife Had a package wrapped in just as I came around a few blocks the car stopped And I tried again, it still wouldn't stop.

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I did it again, it still wouldn't stop. And again, it still wouldn't stop. And by that time, there were a stream of cars behind me, honking their horns so we would get out of the way.

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And in that very moment, I said, "Oh Lord, what am I going to do? "Here am I out here in Mexico. "I don't speak the language,

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"and my car has stopped, "and I don't know what I'm gonna do." And just at that very moment, there was a man standing on the curb.

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he said put it in neutral. (audience laughing) I put it in neutral and he switched it off as I got it into the curb.

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And then he came over and he said, let up the hood, so we let up the hood and he looked under the hood and he said, you have any gas in there?

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I said yes, I've got plenty of gas in there. He said, well it doesn't seem to be getting any gas. And he took off a contraption and he said, try it again, I tried it again, nothing happened.

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He said, "You want a mechanic?" I said, "Yes." And he went around the corner and a few minutes he came back with a mechanic with some wrenches in his hands.

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And the mechanic looked at it for a moment and the mechanic said, "Well, what you need is a fuel pump." Well, it was dark then. And I thought everything would be closed.

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It's dark. And he said, "Well, wait a minute." He went around the corner and a few minutes he came back with a brand new fuel pump. And he put it on.

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And I said, "What's that?" He said, "It's a pump." I said, "What's that?" He said, "It's a pump."

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I said, "What's that?" He said, "It's a pump." I said, "What's that?" And he put it on and I said, "You think this will take you?"

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He said, "Yes, this will get you back to Texas and back to Mexico several times." And I thought about how did this happen? The car ran and gave me no more trouble from that moment on. And I said, "How did it happen that just right there when I needed it, it was there?"

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That's the way God is. He's always there just when we need Him most. God is there. A good thing always happens.

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Great big crowd. That's your preacher. That's your preacher. [applause]

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[crowd noise] [CHANTING] [INAUDIBLE] [CHANTING]

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[MUSIC PLAYING] (crowd chattering) (men chattering) (crowd chattering)

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- Thank you, Dr. Griffin, for that message. [inaudible] (music) the benediction was well offered.

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And after we sing, "Let's be the time," we clap our hands. I'm going to ask our honorary chief from Fort Worth, Texas,

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if he can give us the benediction. Will you stand and we're going to sing, "Let's be the time." (gentle music)

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♪ The street of my heaven ♪ ♪ Our hearts in peace now ♪ ♪ The devil's here ♪ ♪ Walked in the rain while ♪

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♪ This I do say ♪ ♪ I ♪ - Unto him who's able to keep you from falling to present you faultless before his throne

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with exceeding joy. Only wise God, our savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and forever. [MUSIC]

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[Music] [Indistinct chatter] You know where the music hall is? Remember?

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You know where the music hall is? [BLANK_AUDIO]