- Hello, and welcome toCBN's "Week of Prayer."

This is the time we set aside every spring

to pray for people, to pray for you,

to pray for CBN, to pray for America,

to pray for the world.

And in this time ofCOVID-19, we need prayer

more than ever.

If you'd like to be a part of it,

have your prayer request prayedover by the staff of CBN,

all you have to do is go to cbn.com.

There's a place on ourwebsite where you can join in.

You can write us, as well, to CBN Center,

Virginia Beach, Virginia, 23463.

We want to pray for you.

It's our honor, ourprivilege to pray for you,

and we're going to prayover the prayer requests

that have come in so far.

I'm just gonna read a few of them.

Here's Mary.

"I need prayer, please.

"I am asthmatic and havehad shortness of breath

"for about one month.

"Even with treatment,

"I still can't get mybreathing under control.

"My anxiety is through the roof.

"I need peace and the Lord's breath."

Amen to that, Mary.

Here's one praying for finances.

"Pray that God willprosper our small business

"in this pandemic.

"We have no receivables nowand nothing on the horizon."

Then another one.

"I need special prayer to have the mental

"and physical strength I need to take care

"of my elderly wife."

Let's just use these asexamples and let's pray.

Let's pray for America,let's pray for the world,

let's pray for you.

And let's create a great circle of prayer

and realize that when two ormore are gathered together

in His name, He's therein the midst of us.

We may be separated because of this virus,

not in the same physical location,

but with God, there's no time or distance.

He's with us.

In Him, we live andmove and have our being.

And He also promises,"When two or more agree

"touching anything, it shall be done."

So let us pray and let us believe.

Let's pray for these needs,let's pray for you right now.

Lord God Almighty, andwe underline Almighty,

because You are able.

When we're unable to dothings, You are always able.

When we are faithless,You remain faithful.

You cannot deny Yourself.

So Lord God, be with us now.

We lift Mary to You and her asthma,

and we ask that You heal her lungs,

that the shortness ofbreath would depart from her

and return no more.

We pray for all who have COVID-19,

that you would restorebreath and life to them.

Speedy recovery, reunitedfamilies, Lord God.

Let there be joy in themorning for Your people.

Now for those who aresuffering financially,

for the 26 millionunemployed here in America,

for the even larger unemploymentnumbers around the world,

for those who have no business prospects,

no source of income,we just pray over them

that You supply all their need according

to Your riches and glory.

Lord, let there be food on their tables.

Provide their daily bread, Lord God.

And be with them now.

And for those who arecaring for loved ones,

for those who havehealth needs, for anyone

who is worried abouteven going to a hospital

in these turbulent times,

Lord God, stretch forth Your hand

to heal their disease.

Give them strength intheir innermost being.

Give them righteousness, give them peace.

And Lord, we need Your joy.

The joy that isinexpressible and the peace

that passes all understanding.

When everything seems to be at its worst,

Lord, You always have a place of refuge.

So we turn to You now

and we ask that You give us this peace.

That You restore us, that You redeem us.

That You save us.

Do it now, Lord God, for weask it in Your name, Amen.

And Amen.

Again, if you want us to pray for you,

our honor, our privilegeis to pray for you.

And you can write your prayer request in.

All you have to do is go to cbn.com.

You can also call us, and we'd be glad

to pray for you over the phone.

1-800-700-7000.

Well, as we begin ourspecial "Week of Prayer,"

we're joined by a dear friend of CBN.

Jentezen Franklin is the senior pastor

of the multi-campus church, Free Chapel,

and a prolific author.

His most recent book istitled, "Acres of Diamonds."

We're honored for Jentezen to now share

from his heart on how tostay joyful and encouraged

and be led each day bythe presence of the Lord.

(light music)

- It's so good to be with the CBN family.

I've, through the years, grown to love

and appreciate this dynamic,amazing worldwide ministry.

And I give honor to Pat Robertson

and all that he means to so many of us

in the Body of Christ.

What a general, what a leader.

And to all of you whoare making it happen.

You know, I think theheroes, quite frankly,

of the Kingdom of God duringthe Corona-19 virus pandemic

is the technical teams.

The camera crews, the social media crews,

the people who areworking behind the scenes

getting the Gospel out.

I'll speak for our ownministry in this time.

I have new appreciation.

I always did honor andappreciate our tech teams,

but to see what you do on a regular basis.

And now, we are totally dependent upon you

to reaching the masses of people.

Even with our churches, you'remaking a profound difference.

And so, I salute all ofyou and honor you today.

And I love CBN and I appreciate the power

of the Gospel that goes forth every day.

And I wanna bring youjust a thought today.

You know, in Joshua, chapter three,

the Bible said that there's this statement

that God gives that I think is so relevant

to the situation that we find ourselves in

with this virus and where we are.

Everybody's wondering,when are we going back

to life as normal?

When are we going to gather in ballgames?

When are my kids going back to school?

When am I going back to workin a workspace with people?

When am I gonna be able tohug necks and shake hands

and just be at ease and not be worried?

And there's this place wherewe have never been here before.

It's unprecedented, it's uncharted waters.

Well, in Joshua, chapterthree, the Bible said

that the children of Israel

were at the place of crossing over

from the wilderness to the Promised Land,

and God spoke to Joshua, and He said,

I want you to prepare the people,

because where I'm about to takeyou, listen to these words.

You're never been this way before.

And here's what God'samazing instruction was

to a people who were facing circumstances

in their economy, in theirlives, in their families

that they had never faced before.

He said, you are to takethe Arc of the Covenant

and you are to put it out in front of you,

about a half a mile.

I think it's 2000 cubits, which reaches,

measures out to about a half a mile.

And He said, you areto put it out that far.

Listen, He gives the reason,

so that you'll know which way to go

because you've not been this way before.

In other words, I don't wantyou following your instincts

and your hopes and yourfears and your worries

and your wondering.

I want you to put Meout front and I want you

to, when you're facingsituations in your life

and a time, as a nation, that we're in,

when you can truly say, I'venever been this way before,

I've never faced thisbefore, we've never been

through anything likethis before, make sure

you've got the presenceof God leading you.

Make sure that the presenceof God is leading your family.

There's a man in the OldTestament named Obed-Edom.

You know what he did?

When nobody else wantedthe Arc of the Covenant,

when they didn't want it in the temple,

when they didn't want it in the palace,

you know what Obed-Edom did?

He took the Arc of the Covenant home

and put it in his house.

And it stayed in hishouse for three months.

He had the God box, theArc of the Covenant.

In the Old Testament,wherever that box was,

the presence of God would dwell

between the cherubims'wings, the golden cherubims.

And God said, that holy place right there

is the mercy seat, andwherever that box goes,

that Arc of the Covenant, that'swhere My presence will go.

And do you know what Obed-Edom did?

He said, I want it in my house.

I want it not just at church.

I thank God for the timesthat we can worship at church,

but I want something in my house.

And Obed-Edom had it in his house.

And the presence of God.

Can you imagine thosekids, for months and weeks,

coming up, and maybe theywent to turn something on,

I know they didn't have TVs back then,

but just let me preach it like I want to,

they maybe would start towatch something on satellite

or on the internet, andthey would look over

and see the presence of God,feel the presence of God

in that house?

The presence of Godbrought joy to that house.

As a matter of fact, I did astudy one time of Obed-Edom.

He had 70 descendants,and every one of them

were in the temple servingGod for generations.

And when Obed-Edom, when theytook the Arc of the Covenant

back to Jerusalem, theBible said he and his sons

and his family were there in the temple.

They were there.

They got addicted to God's presence

when the presence of Godwas more than just something

on a stage and a preacherand praise and worship

and gathering of manypeople in a building.

But when the presence of God came home,

it changed everything.

And my prayer for youis during this crisis,

that you not just go through it and wait

on returning to normalcy, but that you,

in the midst of this crisis, turn to Jesus

and turn to the Lord with your family

like never before.

In 1982 in Badger Stadiumin Wisconsin, 60,000 fans

packed the place out.

They were hoping thatthe Wisconsin Badgers,

the college football team,

would defeat the Michigan Spartans.

And they were thinkingthat the hometown advantage

could really make a difference.

And it became very obviousby the second quarter

that the better team was Michigan.

The score was so lopsided

that they didn't have a chance of winning.

But something amazing started happening

in the grandstands with the 60,000 fans.

Even though their team kept losing

and they were watchingtheir team being defeated

over and over and over, play after play,

the crowd started burstingout in spontaneous bursts

of shouts and joyous screams,and just, it was crazy.

It was so crazy that thecoach and the players

started looking at one another,saying, what is going on?

The more we lose, the louderthe stadium is getting

and our fans are getting.

What they didn't realizewas, 70 miles down the road

at the same time in a bigger arena,

their professional baseballteam, the Milwaukee Brewers,

were playing the St. Louis Cardinals

in the fourth game ofthe 1982 World Series.

And the people had their transistor radios

up to their ears, and eventhough they were looking

at defeat in the arena where they were,

they were listening to victory

that was being broadcastfrom a larger arena.

They were responding towhat they were hearing

more than what they were seeing.

In other words, they reached a place

where they understood,we're celebrating victory

in the midst of defeat.

And I wanna tell you, that's the key

to staying joyful and staying encouraged

in the middle of this.

We are in a bad situation, but we have

to tune in to another arena.

And if you tune in to this book

and you read it, it'll read you.

And you'll never pick thisbook up and say, talk to me,

and it tell you, you're right,

you're depressed and youshould stay depressed

and you should give up and you should quit

and you should just lose all hope.

You can't read this book.

And no matter what we see,we don't go by what we see.

We don't live by sight,we live by every word

that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

So it's possible, in times like these,

to be in the world dealing with this,

but not of the world.

We're hearing another report.

And I hear Jesus givingthree cheers to the Church.

He said in John, chapter six, "Cheer up,

"for I have overcome the world."

That's John 16:33, I should say.

And then in Matthew 9:2, He said,

"Be of good cheer, foryour past is forgiven."

And then in Matthew 14in verse 27, He said,

"Be of good cheer."

Cheer up.

"It is I, be not afraid."

I wanna proclaim today to allof you at the CBN family there

that we're still in God's hands,

that God is in control.

Calvary looked bad.

They were looking at defeat in one arena,

but from another, higher arena,

there was a victory decreethat was being broadcast out.

And I wanna tell you today

that Calvary lookedback, but the upper room,

there came a sound from Heaven.

They were looking at defeatwhen Jesus was hanging

on the cross and whenthey put Him in the tomb.

But on the day of Pentecost,there came a sound

from Heaven as a mighty rushing wind.

It filled the place wherethey were assembled.

And the Church was born.

And I'm telling you thatthis virus isn't gonna stop

the Kingdom of God, and thisvirus isn't gonna stop you

and I from what God has purposed us to do.

It has not caught God by surprise.

He's not in the fetal position,curled up by the throne

of God worrying one bit.

He's gonna provide for you.

He's gonna take care of you.

He's going to protect youand He's gonna keep you.

And Lord, today we askyou to tune our ear in.

We may be looking at badnews, but we hear good news.

I hear the sound of an abundance of rain.

God is up to something.

Something good is comingout of this crisis.

Something powerful.

I believe worldwide revival is coming.

I hear a different sound.

I know what we're looking at looks bad,

but what I hear, I hear that verse

that God told David in 1 Samuel 30.

He said, Lord, I've lost a lot of things.

And you remember the story,his house was burned,

his family was kidnapped.

And he said, what should I do?

And the first thing he hadto do was encourage himself.

The Bible, that famous verse,"And David encouraged himself

"in the Lord."

Cheer up, cheer up, cheer up.

Three cheers.

I'm with you, I've overcome the world.

And your past is forgiven.

And David encouraged himself in the Lord.

And then he asked, "Should I pursue?"

And God said, "Pursue, foryou shall recover it all."

I wanna tell you thatAmerica is coming back

stronger than ever.

We're gonna see a recovery,

we're gonna see restorationlike we've never seen it,

quicker than we've ever seen it.

I hear the sound of an abundance of rain.

I know we see one thing, theeconomy and all the millions

that are unemployed.

But I hear something and it'snot defeat, it's victory.

It's Emmanuel, God is with us.

Father, today I pray for all of my friends

at the CBN family there.

I pray that Your hand would bless them

and keep them, makeYour face shine on them,

be gracious under them, liftup Your countenance upon them,

give 'em peace and protection,

and tune their ear into another arena

because You are proclaimingvictory over Your people today.

In Jesus' mighty name.

We love you guys.

We're praying for you, pray for me,

and get ready, becauseGod is doing something

in our lifetime, in our generation,

that is unprecedented.

We've never been this way before,

but we're gonna follow Himwherever the Lamb leads us.

(light music)