The Bible
says that you're His and He is yours.
You can know that before eternity, before the
world began, in eternity, you were chosen to
be His.
And you can rest in that knowledge while
you're coming to an even greater knowledge, and
that is that you know right deep down
here inside that what God had planned from
the beginning of time is now yours, right
deep down there.
On His side, He always enjoyed it.
On your side, you must enjoy it.
He always enjoyed the knowledge of the completion
of His will and of His good pleasure
through the cross and Him that hung on
it.
He anticipated the pleasure of having you.
Hallelujah.
And now you, by the blessed Spirit, come
into the glory and the pleasure and the
anticipation of having Him and knowing Him in
all fullness.
Hallelujah.
Since I know as now I know, I
didn't always know like I know now, but
amen, amen.
Are you in the now of it?
In the now of it is assurance.
In the knowledge of the other, it's belief.
And you enter in by belief into assurance
of it, into the glory of it all,
into the wonder of the intimacy of the
indwelling God, one with you.
You don't understand the workings of it.
You couldn't explain the theology of it, but
who cares about that?
It's something realized in power.
Amen.
And your mind gradually begins to assimilate the
truth and you begin to be able to
interpret it to your understanding.
But that doesn't matter even whether you can
do that.
It just comes there as inward solidarity, reality
that can never pass away.
There's, but while God and I should be,
I am His and He is mine.
Rage you devil if you want, mock you
scoffers if you wish.
Come wind, come weather, come good, come evil.
Day or night, time or eternity, I know
that I'm His and He's mine.
Glory.
That's what it's all about.
Now we're going to sing the hymn through
again.
Loved, loved.
You'll be singing that on your deathbed or
as you're caught up into the air.
Loved, loved.
Praise God.
It won't be so much that you say,
I love you, but you'll know that you
are loved by Him.
And you're held in that love.
Glory be to God.
Of course love wants reciprocation.
Of course love must have reciprocation.
If it couldn't live, there had to be
three persons in the Godhead.
Love couldn't exist on its own.
There had to be at least two loving
one another.
And that's love.
It is a state created by the reciprocation
and response of two beings, two persons to
each other in one being by the Spirit.
Hallelujah.
That's what it is.
Love cannot exist as an isolated thing.
Amen.
This is why our God just had to
be God in the way He is God.
He couldn't have been God apart from Him.
If it's going to be love, and it
is love, and it always has been love,
and love will remain when all the hatred
has been confined away from it.
It will live in its splendor and glory
and unfolding from itself all that which the
mind delights to create and bring into being.
That's how it was in God.
They cooperated together to bring into being a
world, a universe, stars and sun and moon
and earth and seas and vegetation and animals
and beauty and color and man.
And then sin came.
But love has accommodated it, and love has
retrieved its loss.
Amen.
And you've been restored unto it.
Now bask in it now.
That's why I say that 50% of
you ought not to need books.
What's the matter with your minds if you
can't live this so much that these words
are the natural language of your heart and
that's the way you would express it?
And until you get this great affinity, you'll
never be able to do this.
It's when your spirit is in affinity with
the words that's when they come as the
natural expression.
Amen.
And that's the artistry of a man or
a woman who can take words and put
them together.
And that's why I leave out so much
of this other stuff that's called hymnology.
It isn't the affinity of language with spirit.
It doesn't fit me.
I've got to labor to memorize it.
But this comes up as spontaneity from the
depths of my being.
That's true poetry.
The other is rubbish.
That's right.
That's why you can't make head or tail
of what's called modern art.
It's not the true expression of what's in
you.
Is it?
I should think not.
Yet the cacophony of noise that's called music
that's being turned on.
It isn't the poetry of your soul.
It's the jangling of warring elements inside.
That's what it is.
Amen.
We have nothing to do with it.
Anyway, I'm not discussing these things.
But it's all part of this great universe
in which we live, you know.
It's relevant, though it's not terribly important.
We're coming to sing about this glorious love.
Now let yourself go away.
If you want to sit down, you can.
I mean, I suppose you're all tired.
It's only Norman and I who don't get
tired.
Listening for hours must really weary you.
If you want to sit down, well, you
sit down.
If you want to stand up, you stand
up.
You can do what you please.
Sing, beloved,
don't say it.
Sing.
Give your being to it.
Jesus, there's music in you.
Oh, to lie forever here.
Ever and ever, Lord.
Who the Lord and me shall call.
How we need to get away from our
own puny little existence.
Move into the darkness of race suffering.
And of racial joy in the newness of
Christ.
Do you understand what it's all about?
The heart that throbs.
And the heart that's filled with joy and
love.
Was filled with grief.
The man who wrote from prison and said,
Rejoice of all the way.
And again, I say rejoice.
Also wrote, My heart is full of heaviness.
God is my witness.
And he says, I have continual sorrow.
For my kinsman according to the flesh.
That's what he said.
He wasn't burdened by sin.
He'd got rid of that.
He wasn't burdened by pressures of the devil.
Nor he.
He knew how to dispose of those.
But here's something he could never get rid
of.
Here is something.
Why he was an apostle.
Of great, great wrestlings in spirit.
Of getting under the burdens of other people.
Sharing in the sorrows of the world.
Not to distress or depress him.
But in the strength of a love.
That all was calvary.
Amen.
I said to Norman, I think I might
talk about prayer one time Norman.
In this fellowship.
In this conference.
But I'm sadly tempted to launch straight into
it this morning.
But I'm not going to do that.
No.
We have to learn what prayer is.
The heart of all prayer is intercession.
We don't know that yet.
We come into prayer.
We come into the heart of prayer.
By asking simple things.
We don't know anything about it.
We come in.
And finally God makes us an intercessor.
And then we learn that everything is from
the basis of intercession.
And your prayer wouldn't have been heard in
the first place.
Except there had been an intercessor there.
All prayer is accepted upon the basis of
intercession.
And intercession is mostly wordness.
Intercession is being.
It is a being between God and man.
Jesus the intercessor.
Wordless.
Groanings.
Feelings.
The giving over of self.
Unto the achievement of the most excellent.
Whatever it be.
And once you've learned and you come in
by asking and receiving and supplicating and praying.
And you can take all your Greek or
Hebrew words that are correlated here.
You come finally to learn that intercession.
And that's why the Holy Ghost has come
to you.
That he should make the groanings within you.
And that's not speaking in tongues.
You understand that?
It cannot be uttered in any tongue.
It is groaning.
Romans 8 will tell you.
And then when you come in there.
And you start on the ground of intercession.
Why the Holy Ghost has come to make
you an intercessor.
He's the intercessor in your heart.
Because you couldn't live your life without it.
It has to be.
And that's when you start praying from there.
People rush into utterance when first they should
start with a groan.
Did you know that?
But if you didn't know it before, will
you believe it?
That's why I say it doesn't require words
really.
Not really.
Hallelujah.
Oh, intercession is a ministry.
And that is a man given over to
the Holy Ghost.
Do you understand?
Amen.
Hallelujah.
I'm not going to talk about prayer.
I've just given you the heart of it.
But everything should proceed from it.
I'm sure God answers prayer.
I have proved God answers prayer.
Glory to his name.
How many of you know it?
Hmm.
An earlier vintage than the sort of modern
spate of choruses that's coming.
But I learned it when I was this
boy at Sunday school.
I believe God answers prayer.
I am sure God answers.
I have proved God answers.
Glory to his name.
I'll try and sing it too.
There are those who know it.
I hope they haven't got a different tune
from me.
This is one of the things that shuts
you up when you go around.
You hear choruses sung in all different kinds
of ways.
And so you have to catch on to
what that particular group is trying to do.
But here then is the chorus.
I believe God answers prayer.
I am sure God answers prayer.
I have proved God answers prayer.
Glory to his name.
Now you ought to know it.
Ready?
I believe God answers.
I am sure God answers prayer.
I have proved God answers prayer.
Glory to his name.
Now sing it then.
I believe God.
I am sure God.
I have proved God answers prayer.
Glory to his name.
Now think of a prayer of yours that
God answered.
And then you won't just be singing a
chorus.
You'll be singing reality.
And you'll sing with gratitude.
Ready then?
I believe God answers.
I am sure God.
I have proved God answers.
I'm the proof God answers prayer.
Glory to his name.
Is that right?
That should get you going.
Ready?
I believe.
I am sure God.
I'm the proof God answers.
I thought they ought to stand up for
that one.
I'm the proof God answers.
I'm going to minister to you on the
word that I intended to minister to.
Because there wouldn't be time to do it
justice.
But to take up the theme and thought
that has predominated our last three quarters of
an hour or so of prayer.
I wish our brother had gone on to
minister to us on prayer.
I confess that I am the proof that
God answers prayer.
And not the prayer of words.
Amen.
Because I despaired of words and gave up
praying in words.
Because there were no words left to express
or to convey what I wanted to pray.
In fact I confessed to a brother that
I could pray no longer.
Hallelujah.
And then God answered.
One of the great passages of scripture that
delights my heart that I never tire in
expounding is that lovely 17th chapter of John's
gospel.
That great and glorious prayer of Jesus put
into words by the Spirit and inscribed there.
For our encouragement.
For our exhortation.
For our inspiration.
To create faith within our hearts to believe
that what God prayed and eternally prays in
his Son by the Spirit.
On our behalf as that great intercessor whose
whole life is an intercession to God for
us.
To realize that we are the answer to
that prayer.
Are you the answer to that prayer beloved?
Glory to his name.
I was one of those people brought up
on written prayers.
A prayer book.
I have a number, I should say a
multitude of anthologies of prayers.
Books.
From which one was taught to read.
I think I learned the book of common
prayer off by heart as a child and
as a young man.
Knew it far more realistically than I'd ever
known the Bible.
In fact I could never remember reading the
Bible until I was 18.
I heard it read but I'd never read
it.
I had no understanding concerning its content but
I'd learned the prayers.
And I thought I knew how to pray.
After God moved upon some of us in
the power of the Spirit.
I remember taking the brother to whom I
made reference to the other evening.
Who inspired that sermon, that revelation on the
countenance of the Lord.
I remember taking him to a prayer meeting.
In fact we went out to tea with
some people in Worthing.
And they very apologetically said, Do you mind
if you go to a prayer meeting with
us afterwards instead of spending the evening here?
And we said no, not at all.
So we went to this prayer meeting and
in the middle of this prayer meeting the
brother was moved upon by the Spirit of
God.
And he began to pray very quietly in
tongues.
And as he prayed he soared beloved.
And heaven literally opened.
And God came down into our midst and
it was as if there was no one
else there but God.
And I remember coming out and standing in
the pathway of the brother's home in which
we had met that evening.
And Phil Williamson said to me and I
said to him, Well if that was prayer
then we'd never prayed before.
We thought that we prayed.
We thought that we knew how to pray.
But when God moves, beloved, by the Spirit
and takes a man beyond what he can
all understand in his head and supersedes all
the limitations of his mind and his thinking
and his terminology and carries him away in
the Spirit, it's then that you discover that
heaven's open and that throne of grace that
is available unto which the Spirit invites us
come in time of need is ever there.
It's when you come to that place you
know that your prayer is being heard.
You know that your prayer is being answered.
The brass heaven has melted away.
And you're through to a place of reality
where you're in fellowship.
You're in contact with God.
I pass this is our biggest problem for
most of us, beloved.
And that was a tremendous experience.
But then some little time later, and some
of you who are here will remember the
occasion.
I don't think Mr. North or I will
ever forget it.
We were at a conference up in the
Longcroft when a need was brought of which
we had no information, only general knowledge, no
specific information.
It was concerning that great land of China.
And our brother knew that I had a
particular love for the Chinese and for the
people of the East.
I'm glad that in a few months' time
or a few weeks' time now I shall
be gravitating in that direction.
Praise the Lord, that thrills my heart.
And he turned to me and he said,
Brother, will you lead us in prayer?
He said, that's evangelical, that's old, he's just
told us.
But that's what he asked me to do
on that occasion.
Things he says, beloved, today, yes, because he
will have got greater revelation.
Amen.
He would have said to me he contradicts
himself.
No, he doesn't, beloved.
He just lives in fellowship with the Lord.
And when the Lord tells him something better
than he already knows, he's quite happy to
say it, even if it contradicts what he
formerly said.
Amen.
None of us, beloved, know all.
We're all learners.
When I come to a conference like this,
I just want to sit and learn and
listen.
That's why I find it no difficulty.
I don't find it difficult, beloved, to give
way to someone who has been in the
way much longer than I.
No difficulty whatsoever.
Amen.
But he turned to me on that occasion,
beloved, in that conference and he said, Brother,
will you lead us in prayer?
I stood upon my feet and all that
was natural and all the intelligent part of
me, beloved, had a desire to pray.
It had a measure of understanding because of
the interest.
It had feeling and emotion and involvement with
those very people, although I'd had little to
do with them at that time.
And yet I opened my mouth, beloved, and
it was as if all my vocal faculties
had seized up, all my understanding or knowledge
of the situation had suddenly drained out of
me.
And all my ability to lead anyone in
anything, beloved, had suddenly fled.
And I didn't know what to do.
I stood before the Lord and it was
as if something deep down inside of me
for which I had no explanation or no
understanding, beloved, began to well up.
I know what the Apostle Paul meant when
he said that he talked about praying with
groanings, the spirit praying with groanings that cannot
be uttered.
I know what he meant, beloved, not because
it's in the book and because I understand
it in my head, but I know what
he meant now when he said he travailed
again in birth.
I know what he meant, beloved, when he
said the very deeps of him seemed to
all break up inside.
I am not a woman, beloved, and have
never been pregnant and known what the experience
of bringing forth of a child is, but
in the Spirit I know what that's all
about.
And something inside of me began to move
until it broke, beloved, and all I could
do was cry and groan so much so
that my whole physical form became involved and
I fell upon the floor and so did
the majority of the conference, beloved.
And they groaned and they ached and they
cried and they wept and they sobbed and
they longed and they ate, beloved, and they
knew nothing about what it was all about
apart from the fact that it had some
connection with this request for which we had
been asked to pray.
It was the following day, beloved, that the
news announced of the tremendous need and the
terrific persecution which was coming to our brethren
in China.
We didn't know it.
Information wasn't known in the West, beloved, but
the Spirit of God involved us in that
great prayer and ministry of intercession.
Glory to his name.
And, beloved, after that I wondered whether I
had ever prayed before.
I'd said words.
I'd communicated desires and longings and yearnings of
my heart to the Lord, but I wondered
whether I'd ever prayed.
I'd never been touched like that.
I'd never found myself involved like that.
I'd never been moved like that.
I wasn't conscious that on behalf of another
that I'd ever wept as a grown man
in public, beloved, so uncontrollably as I did
on that occasion.
I was oblivious of it all.
It didn't matter.
I couldn't have cared what anyone was thinking
or saying, but, I mean, it no longer
mattered.
Since that time that's happened after, have you
ever found yourself involved like that, beloved?
Not just for someone you don't know, but
for the very needs and people known to
you.
Brother has been talking on a number of
occasions and it's an indication that it's something,
that it's bearing itself deeply in upon his
heart in these days, the tremendous need for
men and women who really are concerned and
exercised and by the Spirit have within their
heart that tremendous love of God that can
no longer sit back and see and observe
the needs of people that have been there
for so long, which seems so deep, that
seem to respond to no ministry.
All the talking and all the discussing and
all the analysing seems to get them nowhere,
beloved.
The tremendous need that there is in the
Church of Jesus Christ today for people who
are prepared to put themselves at the disposal
of the Eternal Spirit and come together and
pray and fast and wait upon the Lord
and let the Spirit in unhindered time, beloved,
move to the liberating and the emancipating of
people.
I know people, beloved, of whom as far
as I have understanding, one has almost despaired
but for the fact that you know that
God cannot fail.
He said to me, Do you think that
there are people, beloved, who would be prepared
not to come to a conference to listen
to someone expound the Scripture and to educate
them in the glorious truth and to minister
to them for their sakes, but to come
together to minister unto the Lord in such
a way that their lives become involved in
that great intercessory activity with God that will
go out and minister to the needs of
men and women that we know, let alone
all the myriads of people throughout the earth
that we don't know?
It's costly, beloved.
The greatest prayer that God heard in heaven,
I believe, was the extended form of His
precious Son in sacrificial love, hung up on
a cross, providing the answer and ministering the
glorious provision of God to remedy man's greatest
need for all eternity.
Amen?
And didn't it involve His whole person, beloved?
He didn't just come down in words.
He didn't just come down in spirit.
He came down in totality of person, spirit,
soul and body.
I was going to minister to you on
what it means to be involved unto your
body, beloved.
I will do before the week's out.
It's not just spiritual theory.
It's not just mental appreciation and understanding.
It's not just feeling, beloved.
It's the implication and involvement of your whole
person.
And to become involved in this great ministry
of intercession, beloved, means being fasted away from
everything and everyone else, to be entirely at
the disposal of God unto that end.
Hallelujah.
It won't be for our much speaking that
we will be heard, beloved.
Amen?
It thrills me to discover that God, on
the basis of His own integrity, beloved, answers
prayers before we ever ask them.
I was travelling in a car.
Some time ago.
And a person asked me if I would
give them a lift.
They wanted to go in the same direction,
but as it were, it was to kill
two birds with one stone.
She wanted to talk to me.
So I gave her a lift.
And as we travelled along, she shared her
heart, expressed her need and the problems that
were involved and the implications of those problems.
The embarrassment that was crewing unto her and
her greatest regret was that it was implicating
the integrity and name of the Lord, because
someone else was taking advantage of her problem,
her situation, her need to mock the Lord.
And that hurt her deeply.
And as she shared, beloved, and I was
driving, and I was already late for the
meeting at which I was going to minister
and had little time to pause for anything
else other than to drive like Jehu and
listen to the cry of her heart.
And as she shared, beloved, it just passed
through my mind, through my heart, I believe.
Lord, I wish I was in a position
to rectify that situation for the
testimony of Your love and faithfulness.
You see, I've discovered that God is faithful,
beloved.
Truly I'm the answer to His prayer.
I stand before you as the evidence of
Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
I'm the proof, beloved, that what Jesus did
those years ago works in the twentieth century.
I make no apology for that.
The cross isn't a merely historical fact that
I relegate to the past, beloved.
It's an eternal and present truth that I
know operative on this very day.
I know the faithfulness of God in things
both great and small.
I know, beloved, that my life, my experience,
my testimony, my biography is the answer to
prayer based on the faithfulness of God.
Glory to His name.
The following morning, beloved, I went to my
study.
My mail was on my desk.
I lifted the first letter and I slipped
it open.
There was just a small folded piece of
paper with these words on it, to be
used at your discretion for your own personal
need.
And I opened the other piece of paper
that was wrapped up in the first piece
of paper and it was a check for
exactly the same amount of money that the
person had confided to me to be her
plight the night before.
All that I did, beloved, was take it
out of one envelope and put it into
the other envelope and put on the front
with love from Jesus.
Amen.
Before we cry, He will answer.
Now that's a very material and mundane thing,
beloved, but a very real and precious, practical
manifestation of His integrity, of His love, of
His ability, of His faithfulness.
I have yet to find Him unfaithful.
God spoke to me many years ago and
He said to me, if you put me
first in your life, I'll take care of
everything else.
In other words, seek ye first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness and all these
other things will be added unto you.
I want to testify to you this morning,
beloved, that I have never once had to
remind God of His own precious word and
faithfulness in relationship to my own personal needs
or the needs of my family.
Never once.
Glory to His name.
I testify to the fact, beloved, that God
is true and what He says, He does.
And as we find access into His living
presence, oft times merely or wholly to lie
there and let the Spirit implicate us and
involve us in His own great and glorious
ministry of intercession, beloved, I believe that that
liberates from that blessed throne of grace the
glorious benefits provided for all men in Jesus.
Hallelujah.
I'd love to know what our brother would
like to minister to us about prayer.
I hope he doesn't disappoint us.
Glory to His name.
May he ever teach us, beloved, and lead
us on so that increasingly we know the
reality of prayer being answered in us so
that we can say, I am the proof
that God answers prayer.
Let's sing that chorus again, shall we?
Come along.
I believe God answers prayer.
I am sure God answers prayer.
True, beloved.
Your life, the answer and proof.
Let's sing it again then.
I believe God answers prayer.
I am sure God answers prayer.
I am the proof that God answers
prayer.
Glory to Thy name, Lord.
Thank You, Lord, that it's not theory.
Amen.
Thank You, Lord, that You've got us beyond
the mere verbosity and limitations of our own
persons, Lord, unto that place where we know
communion and fellowship with You.
Oh, lovely Lord, where all that You are,
Lord Jesus, becomes involved in all that we
are, and where all that we are becomes
implicated in all that thou art, Lord Jesus.
Hallelujah.
And our lives become that testimony of Jesus
Christ, Him crucified, oh God, to this generation,
Lord, with all its need.
Oh, Father, that what You did in Your
Son so long ago is eternally true and
relevant even today.
Oh, glory to Thy name, Lord.
I love Thee.
I love Thee, Lord.
Praise Thee, Lord.
Jesus.
Oh, Lord, thank You for hearing the prayer
of desperation that it did not speak, Lord.
Oh, precious Lord, praise Thy lovely name.
Father.
I want to ask You, Justice, whether You
will become an intercessor.
You can have no higher calling?
None.
The Holy Ghost basically has come for that.
Jesus.
To make on earth what is in heaven.
For Jesus is the advocate and intercessor in
heaven, and the Holy Ghost is the advocate
and intercessor on earth.
And He comes to thee to do this
thing, that everything may be done from intercession,
and everything may prove, may move from this
basis.
I don't know whether I should preach to
you about prayer.
I got you to the heart of it
in the five or ten minutes in which
I spoke.
I could have gone on for another hour,
but that's the heart of the matter.
And you need to know it, and come
into it, and stay there.
The Holy Ghost has three basic works.
One, He comes into your heart at new
birth, crying, Abba, Father, that is for life,
for birth.
He comes into your heart as the anointing,
that is for guidance and certainty and assurance
for the rest of your life, that's your
christening.
He comes into your heart to groan as
an intercessor, and that is the basis from
which it all must move.
And you will find that these three integrate
and are one.
And you will move off from that basis
in the life in the Spirit, and you
cannot live the life in the Spirit apart
from it.
These three are one, and bear witness in
the church.
Even as there are three that bear witness
in heaven, the Father and the Son and
the Holy Ghost, and three that bear witness
on earth, the water and the Spirit and
the blood.
And it is the Spirit that beareth witness
because the Spirit is truth.
So do the birth cry of Abba, Father,
the anointing of the Spirit for guidance and
assurance, and the groaning of the Spirit for
intercession.
Testify one life abandoned unto the Spirit.
Amen.