Finding New Intimacy in Prayer – II

SPEAKER 03 : 0:00

Hello, everyone. You’re listening to Family Talk, a radio broadcasting ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute. I’m Dr. James Dobson, and thank you for joining us for this program.

SPEAKER 01 : 0:18

Well, welcome to Family Talk. I’m Roger Marsh, and today we’re continuing a powerful conversation about spiritual revival in America. Dr. James Dobson’s guests are Dr. Henry Blackaby and his son, Dr. Norman Blackaby. Henry Blackaby, of course, the founder of Blackaby Ministries, and Dr. Norman Blackaby, professor at East Texas Baptist University in Marshall, Texas. Now, previously, the Blackabees shared their hearts about prayer and salvation, reminding us that anyone, no matter their past, is just one prayer away from transformation. Today, you’ll hear the Blackabees take us deeper into what true spiritual revival looks like, sharing powerful stories about genuine repentance has transformed entire cities across America, from Charlotte to Cleveland to Pittsburgh. The Blackabees have witnessed how corporate prayer and deep repentance are bringing about dramatic social change, restored marriages, and renewed commitment to God across denominational and cultural lines. So let’s rejoin this inspiring conversation about finding new intimacy in prayer right here on today’s edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk.

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To see God’s people revived or have a spiritual renewal. That is one of the passions of your heart. What does that mean? And what would it look like if it came?

SPEAKER 02 : 1:47

Well, there’s a need of revival when God’s people are no longer seeing and experiencing the mighty works of God being done through them. Where all they see is what they’re doing. but they don’t see the activity of God. It means their heart has departed. And another way of expressing the need for revival is God’s heart cry constantly to His people, return to me and I will return to you. How would you know if you have adequately returned to God or have repented? saying, oh God, I’m not the person that you have wanted me to be. I have moved away from you and therefore you are refusing to do any work through my life. And there’s so much in eternity that’s being affected when you can’t. Oh Lord, would you show me my sin and cleanse me and return me to a relationship to you? You can tell when you have returned to God adequately when God returns to you. And in the great revivals, the heartbeat of revival is when God’s people come under incredible conviction of their sin and repent. They turn away from how they’ve been living and return to God. And that great revival, of course, in Wales under Evan Roberts and others.

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When?

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In 1904 and 5. There were 100,000 people who were saved in six months. But if you go and look, as I have, and I preached in Evan Roberts’ church, you will not find or hardly ever find one message preached to lost people. The messages of revival are preached to God’s people. For God’s people to return to the kind of relationship which God has demanded all along. And once God’s people return, then the lost people have an encounter with God which is incredible.

SPEAKER 03 : 3:45

Now, you are aware, I’m sure, of exceptions to what I’m going to say. But for the most part, you are not seeing that in the church at large today.

SPEAKER 02 : 3:57

Not right across the board, but I am seeing a mighty move of God where God’s people are repenting. I was just in a city in Georgia, and almost every person in that large church had an encounter with God. They wept before God. The altars were filled with sobbing people, including pastors from the area, and they were very clear about their sin. And they were telling us, that they met God and he literally convicted them of every sin that they had forgotten. And they had called on God to cleanse them and they were free. But at the end of that conference, I asked for those who have had a deep encounter with God, I tried to make it very clear. If you have responded to God’s encounter with you and you know that you’re a different person, would you just stand? Almost every solitary person in that auditorium stood. Now, we think of revival as jumping and shouting, and I’d say, no, no, no, no, no, no. Revival is when God’s people have a real encounter with God and are literally transformed by that encounter.

SPEAKER 03 : 5:09

And if you’re not seeing it, what does that mean?

SPEAKER 02 : 5:13

It means you have not returned to God. That sin still remains in your life. But I am seeing it, and I’m seeing it in cities like Charlotte, North Carolina, and Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. There’s a sudden movement of God calling his people to repent and is crossing all kinds of lines, denominationally, culturally, ethnically, and they’re coming together to pray. But they’re coming together with a prayer commitment to be the people of God in their city. And I’m seeing crime decrease and social changes taking place, marriages restored, deep repentance coming from God’s people, pastors repenting. And I’m seeing it. But it needs to be widespread.

SPEAKER 04 : 6:09

I think also with repentance, we put such a negative connotation with it towards God’s people. But when you look in the Bible, the most positive word in the scriptures is repent because it always brings life. And when you look when Jesus talked about it, he said, repent for the entire kingdom of God stands right next to you. And so we may look at repentance maybe for the lost or if it’s towards – I’ve often heard people say when a preacher starts even hinting towards repentance, well, the preacher’s gone to meddling now. But yet that’s the most positive thing that he can preach. He’s saying if you would turn the direction you’re going and go with God, the entire kingdom of God is waiting to be opened up to your life. All the blessings, all that God has available is there for the person who will repent.

SPEAKER 03 : 6:56

It sounds judgmental today in a very negative way. Of course, judgment is a biblical concept. Quote 2 Chronicles 7.14 for us.

SPEAKER 02 : 7:08

2 Chronicles 7.14 has to be seen in the light of verse 13 because it is an expression of God on the covenant that he made with a special people. These people were to be holy as God was holy so that the world could come to know him. So God says, if you ever see me withhold the rain and you see that disease comes across the land or I’m sending pestilence on my people, then make the connection. If my people immediately who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and then heal their land. So the healing of America waits on the repentance of God’s people. And if we will not repent and have God cleanse us, then the healing of the land is postponed. And that’s my cry to God’s people. If you hear that, make the connection between what you’re seeing in the land and God withholding his mercy his mighty presence and power through you. Make the connection. The withholding is because you’ve broken a covenant relationship with me. But if you will immediately pray and humble yourself and seek my face and turn from your wicked ways, then I’ll hear you and I will forgive your sin. And then the healing of America will get underway.

SPEAKER 03 : 8:51

That is an if-then conditional promise. The application of it is, if you don’t, what happens?

SPEAKER 02 : 9:02

Well, he then says that, if you read on in that same chapter. He says, if you do not, then I’ll turn every blessing into a curse. And everyone who walks by will say… This disaster which their God has brought upon them is because they have sinned and would not repent. You read those verses that follow. He describes that. He says, here’s what will happen if you respond. But he is very clear. Here’s what will happen if you don’t respond.

SPEAKER 03 : 9:34

Do you think that’s where we are as a nation? I’m not only speaking of America, but Western nations, Canada, where you all lived. Are we in danger of that kind of consequence?

SPEAKER 02 : 9:49

I believe that’s the key. That’s the heart question. And I believe we’re standing very close to the judgment of God. I don’t know of a nation in history that has been blessed anymore. God has blessed this nation in incredible ways, including its founding fathers, the leaders he has given us, the freedom from invasion by others. God has blessed this nation, and the nation has turned away from God. Now, no nation in biblical or history has ever received the blessing of God and turned away from God and avoided the judgment of God. And you fear for our future. I am trembling, Jim. I really am. I think we’re very close to either revival or judgment. And if God’s people will not make the connection between the condition of the nation and their sins, and repent with brokenness before God. If we do not repent, then the nation will face judgment. All the way through the Bible, God says, I will protect you from your enemy. I will intervene. No enemy will ever win against you. If my people, who are a covenant people with me, will walk with me, I will intervene. It’s very clear. And that’s in the covenant found in Deuteronomy 28. He said, I will deal with your enemies and I’ll stand between you and your enemies. Is that true today? I believe it is. And so with all my heart, with all my energy and all my time, I cry out to God’s people, make the connection. You hold the future of America in your hand. And the future of disaster is coming very close to us.

SPEAKER 03 : 11:46

When I think of the holiness of God and his righteousness, and then I look at the popular culture around us, and especially Hollywood and the Internet and the pornography and the killing of a million babies a year. And when you see the way God’s name is used in vain every day all around us, when you see the wickedness of sin, spring break and what takes place sexually between young people, and knowing that even some sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth graders are already involved in casual sex, oral sex, things that I am embarrassed to even mention. When I see all of that, I say, Lord, why hasn’t your wrath occurred I mean, we’re just asking for it. If not, then I don’t understand who God is. Because what I read in the scripture says that the wages of sin is death. Mercy.

SPEAKER 02 : 12:59

God extends his mercy. But we are never to take that one for granted. God does not have to extend his mercy. Mercy is the withholding. of what we really deserve for our sin. Grace is giving us what we don’t deserve. But when David heard God’s indictment and he had not repented for a whole year, he cried out to God, “‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to the multitude of your tender mercies.'” The only reason why God does not judge us immediately is the mercy of God, which extends the opportunity for us to repent just a little longer.

SPEAKER 03 : 13:42

There are people listening to us right now whose hearts have been pricked, as we read in the Scripture, by the Word. What do they do? Where do they begin to say, Lord, here I am. Open my eyes. Let me see my own sin. Bring the conviction. Bring repentance. I’ve been stone cold dead. I want your pleasure in my life. I want your presence.

SPEAKER 02 : 14:12

Where does he go from there? Well, the moment that we repent, God does what he promised to do. He brings us fullness of life. It’s like the woman at the well. You know, the moment she repented, Then the whole presence of God filled her life. And she ran back into her city, and they saw God’s salvation. Her eyes were different. Her voice was different. Her walk was different. Her talk was different. Everything about her was different. And God had done something to transform her life. And they all ran out to meet the one who had transformed her life. Our problem is we keep telling the world that we’re a Christian, but they don’t see any radical transformation in their life that looks different than theirs. And so we try to talk our way with the unbeliever. And I’d say, no, no. God intended that when he transforms a Christian’s life, including one who’s repented and returned like Peter, he repented. He was a different man. He wept bitterly. He did. And he was then used of God to bring thousands to faith in Christ. So it begins with a solitary person saying, whatever anybody else does, I want my life to be right with God. And when you do, God then fills that life. And your life becomes the center of God’s activity in your family. I’ve watched parents get right with God and it turned their children around. They’ve been concerned about their children. And the moment they got their lives right, the children began to return to God. And so one life that is totally transformed by an encounter with God, then God does what he promised to do. He fills their life with his presence, and it affects everything and everybody around them. So I would say begin with one person wholly yielded to God, and that can begin a revival because everyone sees the impact of a transformed life.

SPEAKER 03 : 16:19

You speak often at the Pentagon, and you all have had a great burden for our military, for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere. And you have felt the need to assist and to help, and you have provided materials. Explain how that came about.

SPEAKER 02 : 16:44

I was speaking to some Protestant Army chaplains. And the chief of army chaplains came up to me and said, Henry, your little book, Experiencing God Day by Day, your daily devotional book, has changed my life and radically affected me. He said, if there’s any way you could get that put into a little paperback with a camouflaged cover for the military, I’d like 100,000 copies. And then the air force chief of air force chaplains said, I’d like 50,000. So we immediately began to find out what it would cost, and we then asked God to help us to provide it. And we could get them for $1.76, but then the math said that’s $176,000, which I didn’t have 176 cents.

SPEAKER 03 : 17:35

That’s just for the first $100,000.

SPEAKER 02 : 17:37

That’s right, and that doesn’t include shipping, plus the shipping. But we have proceeded. by faith and never ask for a cent, but let people know what God laid on our heart. And Jim, the people of America have a huge love for our troops. And they want to know, what can I do? Is there anything I can do for them? And when they heard that we were printing this in a military version and sending it to them, they said, can we help? And it just came in. And we’ve sent over 60,000 to Iraq. We’ve sent them to Afghanistan and 38 different locations, including the medical centers in Washington, D.C. And one of the top CEOs said, could I go and distribute them with the chaplain to the medical center? And he said it was incredible. They just went like hotcakes. Everyone wanted one.

SPEAKER 03 : 18:34

And we need to be praying for our troops around the world, too. This is a difficult time for them. In fact, Norm, you were telling me when we had lunch together that you’re hearing from people who are reading the materials that you all are providing, and they’re studying it, and you’re getting a marvelous response from them, aren’t you?

SPEAKER 04 : 18:56

We are, and it’s been amazing. To see the response, we teach online courses and we have troops that are going through that, but we provide the material. But the responses we’re getting from the troops in Iraq is breaking our hearts. And I think often we forget how young so many of those troops are. And the stories and the e-mails, and I share with you one 20-year-old that had e-mailed and he said, I’m a Christian, and yet I have to protect my troops that were with me and his fellow soldiers. He said they ran out a little girl in front of him with an explosive strapped to her. And he had to run her over to save himself and the men. And that was his orders was to keep going so they wouldn’t get attacked and they wouldn’t get RPGs shot at them.

SPEAKER 03 : 19:41

Let me make sure everybody understood just what you said. The insurgents or terrorists, as I call them, had set up a roadblock. And then because we would blast through it, they put a little girl right there.

SPEAKER 04 : 19:57

To have the troops stop because they knew that they wouldn’t want to run her down. And then they intended to hit them with – Yes, if you stop, then they hit you with the RPGs. And here is a Christian – 20-year-old calling and emailing the ministry saying, how do I deal with that? And so our troops are hurting. And that’s why our ministry has such a heart to try to get material and discipleship material and praying for our troops. Regardless of where you stand on political issues, we need to be praying and we need to be supporting them because they are seeing things that no 20-year-old ever should have to see.

SPEAKER 03 : 20:35

If people have not yet prayed for this nation, this would be a real good place to start. Yes, a great place to start.

SPEAKER 02 : 20:44

And I think we need to bring our little families together and pray as a family. And in the workplaces, if you have the opportunity, bring your employees together. But under all the influence that you can have, bring them together. I spoke to judges and lawyers, about 800 of them. Every judge I spoke to had been through experiencing God, but every judge was leading the course experiencing God with the people in their courtroom. And I thought judges ought to pull their court people together. Policemen ought to stop and get together. Firemen ought to get together. Schoolteachers ought to do. I think we need to gather together and pray, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name in our nation. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in our nation. And we need to do it together as well as individually.

SPEAKER 03 : 21:44

Well, we have reached the end of our time for the second day. And I think it’s very appropriate that we ask Dr. Blackaby Sr., Dr. Henry Blackaby, to pray for this country, Dr. Blackaby. Thank you.

SPEAKER 02 : 21:59

Father, there is indeed a trembling in our heart as we stand in your presence because you have blessed this nation. You have put your hand upon it for centuries. and you are guiding us even in this hour. And as life begins to unfold in our nation, would you in mercy extend your protection and extend your wisdom and your discernment to the leaders of the nation, from the common person to the chief executive officers, to the government officials, to the military. Hear our cry. and put your hand upon us one more time. We do not deserve it, but we are pleading with you to extend your mercy to us and give us time to return to you as a nation. And we’ll be careful to be a catalyst in doing it and to give you the praise as you let us be a partner with you in seeing a nation return to you. And we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

SPEAKER 01 : 23:19

Well, amen, indeed. Friend, you’ve been listening to Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk and a powerful conversation Dr. Dobson recorded with Drs. Henry and Norman Blackaby about experiencing deeper intimacy with God through prayer. Now, Dr. Henry Blackaby went home to be with the Lord early last year, but these insights still ring true today. A powerful reminder that prayer is not just talking to God, it’s developing a real relationship with our Heavenly Father. The powerful message we heard today and on the last program, that revival starts in your own heart and spreads through faithful prayer, is exactly what our nation needs during these challenging times. By the way, if you missed either part one or a portion of today’s program, and you want to share it with someone who needs to hear this message, visit drjamesdobson.org forward slash family talk. That’s drjamesdobson.org forward slash family talk. Once you’re online with us, you’ll find program information in addition to information about Henry and Norman Blackaby’s book called Experiencing Prayer with Jesus. That’s drjamesdobson.org forward slash family talk. And keep in mind, the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute offers several inspiring reading plans as well that are all available through the Bible app by YouVersion, covering everything from parenting wisdom to strengthening your marriage to Whether you have three minutes a day or 30, these reading plans bring practical, biblical insights right to your smartphone or mobile device. You’ll find topics like the power of forgiveness, being students of our children, and more. Each of these plans are carefully crafted to help you build a stronger family on God’s foundation. So why not start today? Just open the Bible app on your phone or tablet, search for Dr. James Dobson, JDFI, and begin your first reading plan. It only takes a few minutes to get started, but the impact on your family could last a lifetime. Well, I’m Roger Marsh, and on behalf of Dr. Dobson and all of us here at Family Talk, thanks so much for listening. Be sure to join us again next time right here for another edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love.

SPEAKER 02 : 25:44

This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.