This message is one of the Times Square
Church pulpit series.
It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times
Square Church in Manhattan, New York City.
Other tapes are available by writing, World Challenge,
Post Office Box 260, Lindale, Texas, 75771, or
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The Secret Closet.
I'd like to read about seven or eight
verses.
Begin verse one, if you will, please, Matthew
6.
Take heed that you do not your alms
before men to be seen of them, otherwise
ye have no reward of your Father which
is in heaven.
Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not
sound a trumpet before thee.
That means quit blowing your own horn.
As the hypocrites do in the synagogues and
in the streets, that they may have glory
of men.
Verily I say unto you, they have their
reward.
But when thou doest alms, let not thy
left hand know what thy right hand doeth.
That thine alms may be in secret, thy
Father which seeth it in secret, himself shall
reward the openly.
Now listen to this closely.
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be
as the hypocrites are, for they love to
pray.
You see, they really love to pray.
That standing in the synagogues and in the
corners of the streets, that they may be
seen of men.
Verily I say unto you, they have their
reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy
closet, when thou hast shut thy door, pray
to thy Father which is in secret, thy
Father which seeth it in secret shall reward
thee openly.
When you pray, use not vain repetitions as
the heathen do, for they think they shall
be heard for their much speaking.
Be ye not therefore like unto them, for
your Father knoweth what things ye have need
of before ye ask it.
Heavenly Father, I need your anointing and your
touch tonight.
I pray for the Holy Ghost to come
upon me.
Let the Word of the Lord find its
mark in our hearts.
Lord, we thank you for what we've heard
today.
You've ministered to us.
I take your authority, Jesus, over every demonic,
wild spirit, of every spirit that is unsettled,
every spirit that is unlike you.
It cannot withstand the Word of the Lord.
Give unction, give anointing to me tonight.
Let this Word go forth in power, in
Christ's name I pray.
Amen.
Praise the Lord.
If you read carefully the Old Testament, you'll
find that God divided his people into two
categories.
And as far as I can determine, there
are only two categories of his children.
Those who sought after me, he said, and
those who sought not after me.
God has two kinds of people, two kinds
of children.
Those who seek me, in other words, those
who pray, and those who do not seek
me.
They talk about it, but they don't do
it.
They do not seek me.
And God was angry with Israel over idolatry.
Moses pitched his tent, remember, outside of the
camp.
And those who had a heart for God
went outside the camp to pray.
And it came to pass that everyone that
sought the Lord went out under the tabernacle
or the tent of the congregation, which was
without the camp.
In the midst of all the idolatry, God
had a people who still knew how to
pray.
They knew that if they're going to have
victory and they're going to keep their peace
in this idolatry and apostasy, they had to
go outside the camp.
And I picture that group of people in
that idolatrous nation saying, I'm going out, I've
got to pray, I've got to seek God.
They went outside the camp.
What a wonderful camp that was.
What a wonderful group.
What a heart-blessing it was for Moses
to see these hundreds of people coming out
of that camp of a few million people
to pray and seek God.
Scripture says that under King Asa, God's people
understood that seeking the Lord brought prosperity and
rest and peace from all their enemies.
The Scripture says, because we have sought the
Lord our God, this is Asa speaking to
the congregation, explaining why God has prospered them,
explaining why there is peace in the land,
explaining why the kingdom is in order.
And he said, because we have sought the
Lord our God.
We sought Him.
He's given us rest on every side.
And so we have built and we have
prospered.
2 Chronicles 14, 7.
Now, under King Asa, also remember a million
-man Ethiopian army came against Asa and Israel
at the time.
And he said, Lord, we don't have any
might.
We don't know what to do.
We're so small in comparison.
And the Scripture said, And Asa cried unto
the Lord his God.
In very simple, that means he sought the
Lord.
He turned to prayer.
He got on his face before God.
O Lord, he said, Thou art our God.
Let not man prevail against you.
So the Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa,
and the Ethiopians fled, and they were destroyed
before the Lord.
As Riah the prophet cried out to Asa,
he said, King Asa, the Lord is with
you while you're with Him.
And if you seek Him, He will be
found of you.
But if you forsake Him, in other words,
if you stop seeking after the Lord, you
stop calling on Him, stop yearning after Him,
and He will forsake you.
When in their trouble, they did turn unto
the Lord God of Israel and sought after
Him.
He was always found of them.
This prophet stood before King Asa because he
knew that because of the pride and all
the deliverances he'd seen, that in this next
crisis, he would turn to the blessed.
We see that in Christianity everywhere we go.
People who have for many, many years sought
the Lord.
They knew that prayer was the answer.
They knew that they could get along with
God in any crisis they had, and God
would see them through.
God gave them victory after victory, and then
finally in one particular crisis, they lean on
the arm of the flesh, they forget the
past blessings and deliverances of God, and they
turn to the flesh, and then God has
to hide His face.
This is exactly what happened.
The people began, of course, to see where
the power and the victory was.
The Scripture says they entered into a covenant
to seek the Lord God of their fathers
with all their heart and with all their
soul.
For they had sworn with all their heart
that they would seek Him with their whole
desire, and He was found to them, and
the Lord gave them rest round about.
Thirty-five years of rest.
That didn't mean they didn't have problems.
One enemy after another came after Asia, including
the Ethiopian army.
But God always, because they got on their
face and cried out to God through prayer,
through intercession, through yearning and seeking after His
heart, and turning to Him in total dependence,
God always delivered them and gave order and
strength to the camp of Israel.
It was also written of King Uzziah, as
long as he sought the Lord, God made
him to prosper, and God helped him.
In fact, the Scripture says he was marvelously
helped until he became strong.
He quit.
Here's another king who, in his prosperity, having
learned the secret of bringing order into his
kingdom, he turned away to the flesh, and
he died, of course, as a leper.
Jeremiah prophesied that pastors, in his day and
in the latter days, who refused to seek
the Lord, he's talking about shepherds and pastors
who do not pray.
And I want to tell you right now,
and I say it kindly, but it's the
actual truth.
Only, and Brother Bob will tell you, and
anyone who travels, only a handful of preachers
today pray.
They do not pray.
They lean on the arm of the flesh.
They go to their books.
They go to their commentaries.
They stand in the pulpit.
And for many pastors, it's a job.
It's a paycheck.
I had five ministers stand right out here,
right out in front of us, and I
said, I have heard that to be true.
Please tell me it's not so.
And one of the five pastors looked at
me and said, Brother Dave, I'm in my
forties, I think he said.
I don't know how to do anything else.
And he said, I have to tell you
the truth that many of us, like me,
have compromised, both in our prayer life, and
in seeking God, and in preaching the truth,
because we're afraid to lose our living.
And I looked around the circle to find
at least one of them who would object
and say, Well, that may be all right
for you, but it's not for me.
And these were Pentecostal pastors.
A handful of pastors pray today.
Jeremiah said, For the pastors have become stupid.
They are not seeking the Lord.
Therefore, they shall not prosper, and their flocks
shall be scattered.
And that's the picture we see in the
church of Jesus Christ today.
We see the sheep being stattered.
We see that which caused unity being broken
up, and the unity is no longer there.
We see people starving and running from place
to place to find a little crumb of
the gospel to satisfy their heart.
And it's a living saying that my newsletters
that go out to about 500,000 people
now, people all over the United States stop
me and say, That's the only food that
I get.
And they go to church every Sunday.
It's a saying that one letter a month
would bring the only little crumb that comes
to their table.
It said, My tabernacle is spoiled.
All my cords are broken.
In other words, that which kept unity in
the church, the cords that kept unity, they
have been broken.
My children are gone forth with me, and
they are not.
In other words, the flock is all scattered.
There is none to stretch forth my tent
anymore and to set up my curtains.
He said, There's such uncleanness, such a lack
of prayer.
No one dare go near the holy things
of God.
No one go to the curtains of the
holy place anymore.
And folks, some of you sit here now
because there was a time you wandered from
place to place.
You looked for something to satisfy your soul.
You sat under men, and I said, Kindly,
but you sat under the kind.
The shepherds, Jeremiah's putting his finger on.
He said, They no longer seek me.
There are many, many men in their middle
age that at one time started out as
men of prayer, and God blessed them and
prospered them.
There was unity in the church because prayer
creates unity.
That no demon or devil in hell can
break through a praying church and a praying
congregation.
None.
There's not a demon strong enough in all
of hell to cause discord in a church
where pastors and congregation and people in Sunday
school and the choir and everything else have
been on their face seeking God.
Devils run from that kind of church.
And some of you came from a church
where the pastor started right and then suddenly
turned to the flesh, and I don't think
there's anything sadder than meeting a man of
God in his fifties and sixties and seventies
who's burned out, who doesn't even know how
to touch God anymore, who never prays, who
stands up dead and cold and lifeless.
And the only thing that produces life is
life.
Life is produced by life.
Unless there's life in the pastor, in the
shepherd, there is no life going forth.
And if you're sitting in some dead, cold
church where there's no life in the pastor,
it's because he's not praying.
Now you better be sure you know what
you're saying if you go and rebuke a
man like that.
You better know where you stand.
But this is from the prophet Jeremiah.
Zephaniah warns, the time is going to come
that the Lord will come by His Spirit
and consume those who don't turn to Him
and seek Him.
Them that are turned back from the Lord
and those that do not seek the Lord
nor inquire of Him, He shall come and
consume.
Zephaniah 1.6. I told you that there
are two kinds of people.
People who seek the Lord and people who
do not seek the Lord.
That's God's own category.
He has drawn that division.
I want to talk to you about seeking
God.
And most of you that are in this
church and those of you sitting here tonight
would consider yourself a seeker after God.
You said, I pray.
Some of you pray here corporately with us
and some of you pray daily in the
secret closet.
Here's what I want to convey to you
from the Holy Spirit tonight.
The power of the secret closet, first of
all, demands that you have a secret closet.
Now, this is not just a closed closet
somewhere in your bedroom.
Now, it can be.
But that's not what the Bible's talking about.
I've got closets everywhere.
The closet means simply to be set in
with God anywhere at any time, giving God
quality, chosen time to yearn after Him, to
seek Him, to call upon His name.
Usually it's in my car, driving back and
forth, New Jersey or Pennsylvania.
In fact, up in Pennsylvania, I've got a
little hideaway up there, way up in the
hills of Pennsylvania.
And I'm going up there Wednesday and I
go up almost every Wednesday and I get
alone because there are country roads there and
I just walk and I talk.
It's my secret closet.
It's just wonderful.
There's nobody around.
I hear the birds singing and that's my
closet.
I've heard more from God walking those hills
than probably any place.
I just came back from Florida yesterday or
Friday for a 10-day vacation and I
was walking the beach late at night.
There's nobody on the beach after midnight.
What a wonderful thing.
The sun and the stars and the moon
and the waves coming in.
That whole beach on Marco Island was all
mine.
A mile and a half down, a mile
and a half back, the biggest closet I've
ever had.
Prayer closet is simply a prayer habit.
Now I'm not talking about something by rote
that you do by rote or thoughtless repetition.
But I'm going to ask you a question.
Do you have a daily practice?
That's what a closet is, a daily practice
of shutting yourself in with God.
Do you have that daily practice where there
is something in you that is called?
There's something in you that is being wooed.
There's something in you that reaches out no
matter where you are or who you're with.
You say, I've got to get away.
There's a magnetic pull.
There's something in you the closet is calling.
You say, I have got to touch God
today or I die.
I have got to meet with my Lord.
Brother Bob was talking about loving Him.
That is what we do in the secret
closet.
Wherever it may be.
It can be on the job.
Well, make sure it's on lunch break.
Don't take man's, I don't know if God's
going to hear your prayer if you're cheating
on your time.
But you can pray in your spirit that
it's any place, any time that you begin
to reach out and call on His name.
Now, Jesus warned against hypocrisy in prayer.
Now, hypocrisy means a hypocrite is simply an
actor.
That's what the original root word is.
He's an actor playing on a stage.
Jesus points out that there are a lot
of actors in His church.
They go around sounding a trumpet before them
as hypocrites.
They love to have people acknowledge them.
You know, the flesh loves to be applauded.
The flesh loves to be complimented.
My flesh does.
And I hate that about my flesh.
You see, God can't use flesh.
The flesh never changes.
You don't get your flesh sanctified.
God does away with flesh.
He can't handle flesh.
He doesn't use flesh.
You don't remodel your flesh.
You don't get your flesh sanctified.
God doesn't use flesh.
He uses spirit.
The flesh has to be done away with.
The flesh has to die.
And we do things for God and we
can't understand why people don't appreciate it.
And we have to blow our own trumpet.
And Jesus said, you don't, He said, lay
your trumpet down.
Whatever you do, you're doing it for me.
If you're going to pray, if you're going
to fast.
These hypocrites went around when they fasted and
they would disfigure their face.
They would rub their eyes until they were
red and they would pull their thing until
they got red and they would put a
cloth over their head and everybody come around.
I can't talk.
I'm fasting.
How many times I've invited people to lunch.
I can't.
I'm fasting.
They blow their trumpet.
How many times we have musicians that sing
here.
I don't know anything about the choir here.
And I know that's not the case here
tonight, but there have been occasions where, they're
like me when I go home sometimes with
Gwen to the apartment and I'm saying to
her, Boy, preached my heart out.
Nobody said a word.
She said, Oh, David, that was a good
message.
I said, That doesn't count.
You wouldn't even tell me if you didn't
know what I was saying.
I brought it out of you.
You should have said it before I said
that.
That doesn't count.
But see, the flesh wants to be stroked.
Now, don't come up to me tonight and
say, That was a good message.
I told you my flesh is dying, so
don't cater to my flesh.
You see, these hypocrites, they love to pray
that they may be seen of men.
See, they have no prayer cloths.
There are a lot of people that pray
in public.
They pray in church.
They'll come to meetings and pray.
They go to prayer meetings, but they don't
have a prayer habit.
They don't have this wonderful daily drawing toward
the Lord.
Now, this shocks me.
I am literally amazed at how few Christians,
including those who come to Times Square churches,
how do you know?
The Holy Ghost told me.
A lot of you sitting here right now,
I have to tell you right to your
face, and I say it lovingly as a
shepherd, you don't have a habit.
You don't have a place.
You don't have a closet.
I'm talking about wherever you are at any
time, you don't have the habit of daily
retreating into the Lord's presence and calling on
His name, because when you get in trouble,
you pick up the telephone and call somebody
else.
Or there's a blindness that comes over us
and we do not reach out to the
Lord.
We reach to everybody or anything, but we
don't have that habit.
Immediately run.
Immediately go into His presence.
Immediately seek His face.
Call upon His name.
We very seldom do that.
You see, I'm not talking about hypocrites tonight.
I want to focus on good, honest, Christ
-believing Christians.
There's something of a holy anger that rises
in me when people say, Well, Brother Dave,
you pastors have to pray.
That's your job.
And sometimes when I'm with people and I
have to excuse myself, it's almost, Well, let
him go.
He has to do that.
That's his job.
There's something in me that just rises.
I hope it's holy anger.
I can't tell you that it's holy.
I hope it's holy.
But something rises up in me that preachers
are supposed to, Sister Gwen is supposed to,
and those in the choirs that are doing
things in God's kingdom have to, but I
don't have to do that.
I'm not a pastor.
No, God says that it's for every single
one of us.
I ask you again, do you have a
prayer habit?
Do you have a daily prayer habit?
David said he prayed seven times a day.
How many times do you pray?
Well, three times at each meal.
And one little goodbye Jesus or goodnight Jesus
before you go to bed.
Let me tell you something.
There has to be a closet established.
A prayer habit.
Now, this also implies quality time.
It's true we're not heard for our much
speaking, the Scripture says.
But the Scripture makes it very, very clear.
We're to give Him the best that we
have.
You couldn't bring a lamb, according to Malachi,
you couldn't bring in Deuteronomy, you couldn't bring
a lamb to be sacrificed that was blemished
or blind or lame.
It had to be the very best that
you brought to the Lord.
What kind of time are you bringing into
your closet?
Busy, busy day and you come in yawning
in His presence and you sit down after
three or four yawns and you say, Oh,
hallelujah Jesus, I love you, come to pray.
And all of a sudden, you know what
a lot of people do who know how
to pray in tongues?
Because their mind is not engaged, they're not
speaking to the Lord with their understanding, they
start speaking in tongues.
And while they're speaking in tongues, they're thinking
about the car that has to be washed,
they're thinking about all these things entering in.
Their mind is over here and their tongue
is speaking something else and they think they're
praying in the Spirit.
You are not praying, listen to me, you
are not praying in the Spirit if you're
talking in tongues and your mind is somewhere
else.
Your mind, your heart, everything has to be
where your lips are.
Now you can go to the job and
you can sit and talk to somebody and
have your mind wandering off somewhere else.
You can sit in school and you can
listen to the teacher and your mind can
be wandering off somewhere else.
You can come backstage and talk to me,
look me right in the eye and listen
to me and your mind can wander anywhere
you want and I won't know it.
But when you come into the presence of
the King, when you come to God, my
Bible said He sees in secret.
That means He sees what your heart's doing.
He sees where your mind is.
He sees where your thoughts are.
Do you come with your thoughts into captivity
to the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ?
When you're in that secret closet and your
mind begins to wander off and you're yawning,
I tell you, when I'm too tired, I
say, Jesus, I'm too tired to pray tonight.
I'm going to bed.
I'm going to wake up and give you
a better hour.
We hear people say, Well, I laid before
the Lord last night.
They snored before the Lord last night.
I know what it is like David who
said he meditated on his bed at night.
I know what it is to lay on
the bed, be wide awake.
There's a wonderful thing that happens when you
pray in the Spirit often.
You say, I can't sleep, Lord.
My heart's going out to You.
And that bed becomes a secret closet.
Isaiah spoke of the kind of burnt offerings
and sacrifices that are acceptable on my altar.
That's in Isaiah 56-7.
He said, Them will I bring to my
holy mountain and make them joyful in my
house of prayer.
And he said, Only those.
I don't have time to go through it
right now, but when you go home and
study Isaiah 56, you'll find out what brought
power at the altar when these people prayed.
First of all, the Scripture says that they
were obedient unto the Lord, who love the
name of the Lord and are obedient and
who take hold of His covenant.
There was a divine purpose.
There was quality time.
And they went into, the Scripture says very,
very clearly here, that there was an acceptable
offering upon the altar.
I don't think our prayer sacrifice is acceptable
unto God unless, listen very, very closely, unless
we've established that closet and our hearts are
into it absolutely completely.
Jesus said, The Father is in secret and
thy father seeth in secret.
He said, If you want to have an
acceptable offering, if you want me to hear
you, if you want me to see you,
if you want my ear, if you want
your prayer answered, you come to me with
a focused mind.
You come to me with a focused purpose.
You know, I've often had people come to
me from all over the world and they'll
stand in front of me.
They'll block my path and say, Would you
please pray for me?
I say, About what?
They say, Well, I don't know, but I
thought the Lord would tell you.
They want a word.
They want me to be a mind reader.
And I say, I'm sorry, if you don't
know what I'm to pray about, how can
I pray?
I'm not God.
There are some men who play God and
they'll start giving about 10 words and one
of them is going to hit.
You know, it's an amazing thing how we
go to God in such a haphazard measure.
And I know people who said, I pray
for hours and I don't understand why God
doesn't hear me.
I don't get answers to prayer.
I remember a man saying, I heard of
his reputation as a man of prayer.
They said, This man prays for eight hours
a day.
And I thought, Boy, he must be some
preacher.
I'd like to meet that man.
I met the man and there was nothing
different about him.
I didn't recognize anything of his spirit or
anything else.
But first of all, it dawned on me
later, if he's praying eight hours, nobody would
know about it.
He wouldn't have to tell it.
And he wouldn't let anybody else tell it
because he wouldn't be letting the trumpet blow.
But you see, you can spend hours in
prayer and come out and nothing happens because
half that time or more of that time
was spent with your mind wandering one place
after another.
And I'll tell you, I called them satanic
interruptions.
He will come and interrupt you.
If you go and pray, take the telephone
off the hook.
Better yet, pull it out of the plug.
Pull it out of the wall.
Now, I don't mean rip it out.
I mean just pull that thing out.
I made up my mind years ago.
Now, I know the president would never call
me unless it was to rebuke me for
preaching against some of the things that are
happening, but I've made up my mind when
I'm alone with God and it's my prayer
time and I'm in my closet, that may
be in my office, it may be in
my bedroom, however the door is shut, I
don't care if the president calls, nobody's going
to reach me because there's quality time and
God knows it.
When I go in there, I'm focused and
if my mind begins to wander, I stand
up against it in the name of Jesus
and I bring every thought into captivity.
I will not think about anything else because
I'm before the King of kings and Lord
of lords and I want him to know
I am there, make my petitions known and
then I'm going to wait on him to
speak to my heart.
How do you go into the secret closet?
Haphazardly praying for hours and just static gun,
never directing, never hitting the target of his
ear because you really don't know what you
want or what you need.
Folks, yes, you go in to love him,
you go in to praise him, you go
in to worship him and mostly to love
him but there comes a time you make
your petition known, the scripture says.
But I'll tell you, most of my petitions
I don't know clearly until I go to
prayer and in prayer he tells me what
my need is.
Because not only do we not know how
to pray, mostly we don't know what we
need.
Hallelujah.
The power of the secret closet is first
of all to have one and secondly is
to come into that secret closet with an
undivided mind and that means simply shutting the
door.
When you pray, shut the door.
Most people pray with the door open.
It's like going to federal court down here
in 100 Court Street down here.
I've been down there at times and I
go in the courtroom and I don't know
even how the judge can keep his mind
on the case.
You've got stenographers running around and tapping.
You've got guards running here and there.
You've got lawyers running everywhere.
It's a wild mob scene and sometimes I've
seen judges get so upset they'll get the
gavel and say, Silence!
And I wonder sometimes if God doesn't feel
like that when we come into his courts
and our minds, like that courtroom, everything is
racing around and I wonder sometimes God won't
slap that gavel and say, Silence!
Silence!
All these things hanging on us.
You say, well, I've got children.
What am I going to do?
Well, if you have to wait until they
go to bed.
If you have to get up before they
get up.
I know women of God that get up
at 5 o'clock in the morning and
they have an hour with God before anything
else happens and they pray, God, give me
special rest.
Give me more sleep in six hours than
I used to have in eight.
And he doesn't.
Because they have set their mind that their
children will go up before God.
They're going to bind every demon or devil
of hell that comes against their family and
they are really seeking the face of God.
They come in there and they shut the
door.
Folks, you may have a closet, but is
it an open door closet or is it
a shut door closet?
I'm asking God to help me keep my
door shut.
That's in my mind.
I'm not talking about the physical.
No, the physical door does help.
Especially if you've got company.
Surely you don't want the company to walk
by any room and see you laying out
there weeping and praying, lest your heart be
filled up with pride and said, hey, they
saw me pray.
Shut the door so they can't see it.
Shut the door so the devil can't see
it.
Shut the door so nothing can enter in.
Shut it literally.
Shut it spiritually.
Shut everything out and say, Lord, this is
your time.
Quality time.
I dare you to go to the mayor's
office and sit there doing dumb and he's
saying, what are you here for?
I really don't know, but I thought you'd
know.
You try sitting down in the president's office
and you get an hour of his time
and you're just sitting there.
Your mind is out there.
You're looking out at the tennis court.
And you're sitting there talking to the president.
You're looking out there and you're watching somebody
playing tennis.
Hillary's out there playing tennis.
I hope.
You know how long you'd last in that
office?
Are you getting the point?
You come into the king's presence focused with
everything shut out and you look God in
the eye and say, Lord, search me.
Try me.
I'm here for you.
Hallelujah.
Praise you, Jesus.
It's the only acceptable sacrifice in the closet
of prayer.
The Bible said when you shut the door,
the next thing you do is pray with
all your heart.
Once you've established a habit and you shut
the door and got rid of all the
distractions, God expects you to seek Him with
all your heart.
But if from thence you shall seek the
Lord thy God, you will find Him if
you seek Him with all your heart and
with all your soul.
He said, you'll find me.
You'll get your answer if you seek it
and you seek me with all your heart,
all your soul, and other scriptures and all
your mind and all your spirit.
Now Moses spoke to the Israelites in his
dying message, his last message.
He knew that there would be tribulations and
trials coming and he said, in the latter
days when you're in tribulation and all these
things are coming upon you, if you turn
to the Lord your God and you shall
be obedient unto His voice, for the Lord
your God's a merciful God.
He will not forsake thee.
He will not destroy thee.
Nor forget the covenant of their fathers which
He swore unto thee.
He said, if you will turn to Him
with all your heart, if you just seek
Him with all your heart, no matter what
you're going through, no matter what your trial,
if you'll seek Him with everything that's in
you, He said, I'll see you through.
Now folks, I wonder how many of us
here tonight can honestly say that you have
a closet and when you go into that
closet you're focused and that you pray with
everything that's in you.
You're not lazy.
You're not sitting there waiting for some angel
to tap you and give you some thrill.
You're there for one purpose and that's to
pour yourself out.
Pour yourself out.
I can do that sometimes without saying a
word.
It doesn't have to do with just words.
It means that Lord, everything in me is
reaching out to you.
All my mind, all my heart, all my
soul, all my strength.
It's what He said, if you'll seek me
with everything that is in you, every thought
focus, everything.
Now folks, we want to go into the
secret closet.
We get to thinking prayer is just second
nature.
No, it's not second nature.
It's something that has to be practiced.
It's something that is learned.
That's why the disciples didn't teach us to
pray.
They knew it could be learned.
It could be taught.
And Jesus taught them how to pray, the
scripture says.
The Holy Ghost will teach you how to
pray and He's trying to do it through
this message tonight.
You go to Him in your daily closet.
You go to Him where you sat in
with His presence.
And you focus.
And then with everything in your heart, reach
out.
Reach out and call upon His name.
Sometimes it'll be loud.
Sometimes it'll be quiet.
But it's the heart totally given to Him.
Now, if you have established a closet and
you have shut the door and you come
without distractions and you're seeking Him with all
your heart, Jesus said there's a reward.
Now, those who are hypocrites, God, Jesus said
they have their reward.
They like the applause of man.
That's all they're going to get.
Their prayer didn't go above the ceiling.
God said, I didn't even hear it.
In fact, where it said, your Father which
is in heaven, there's no reward of your
Father which is in heaven.
You got your reward.
You wanted to be seen of man.
You wanted to be applauded.
You wanted to be praised.
You got that.
That's all you get.
I don't want that.
I want His reward.
The scripture says, And thou, when thou prayest,
enter into your closet.
And when thou set the door, pray to
thy Father which is in secret.
And here it is, And thy Father which
seeth in secret, so reward thee openly.
Now, folks, I've asked the Holy Spirit, and
I'm not going to preach long tonight, maybe
five more minutes, but I want you to
get this reward, please.
I could name all the rewards that come
from the power of the secret closet, but
there's one in particular that the Holy Spirit
revealed to me, and I want to show
it to you, please.
2 Chronicles, 23rd chapter.
Now, this is very vital, and I want
you to see it.
That's why I want you to turn to
it.
2 Chronicles.
Here's the reward for those who have established
the secret closet of prayer and have set
the door and have prayed intelligently and with
all their heart.
2 Chronicles, the 23rd chapter.
I want you to mark this in your
Bible.
And every time you go into the secret
closet, I want you to remember it.
2 Chronicles 23.9. I've got the wrong...
Let's see, is it 22.9?
Yeah, 22.9. I'm sorry.
2 Chronicles 22.9. Well, let's start with
verse 8.
Now, folks, don't read it yet.
Look at me, please.
Don't get ahead of me.
This is important.
I want you to get this truth.
It's so freeing, especially if there's disorder.
Now, let me ask you a question.
If there's disorder in your home with children,
your marriage mate, if there's disorder in the
job, if in your life there's any disorder
at all, if there's any confusion, you've got
to listen to me.
You've got to hear what the Holy Spirit
is saying.
This is so clear.
If you allow the Holy Spirit to speak
it to your spirit, not to your head,
but to your heart.
I want it to go deep.
Now, the Scriptures say it's very clear that
Jehoshaphat sought the Lord, and the Scripture says
very clearly he sought the Lord with all
his heart, and because Jehoshaphat sought the Lord
with all of his heart, he had 35
years of a kingdom in good order, the
Scriptures say.
Everything was ordered.
There was order.
There was no chaos.
There was no confusion.
There were enemies that came on all sides,
but God quickly, as soon as the enemy
came, they began to seek the Lord, and
order was restored.
The devil tried to break the cords that
bound them together, and order was restored.
Everywhere you go, when you find a king
or a nation, Israel or Judah, turning to
the Lord and seeking with all their heart,
order was always restored.
Complete order.
But his son comes to the throne.
Ahaziah.
Look at verse 9.
And he sought...
Oh, verse 8.
And it came to pass that when Jehu
was executing judgment upon the house of Ahab
and found the princes of Judah and the
sons of the brethren of Ahaziah, they ministered
to Ahaziah.
That ministered to Ahaziah, he slew them.
And he sought Ahaziah, and they caught him,
for he was hid in Samaria, and brought
him to Jehu.
And when they had slain him, they buried
him, because, said they, he is the son
of Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord with all
his heart.
So the house of Ahaziah had no power
to keep still the kingdom.
In the original, it's to keep order in
the kingdom.
He had no power to keep order.
How many see what the Holy Spirit is
trying to say?
Here is a man, Jehoshaphat, his father.
He seeks God and 35 years of order.
No confusion.
Every enemy is defeated.
Every trial, there's victory.
Because the Scripture said, he sought the Lord.
And if you read the story of his
son, the Scripture said, he sought not after
the Lord, but did that which was evil.
And he had no power to keep order
in his kingdom.
Now your life is your kingdom.
Your home, wherever you are, that's your domain,
that's your kingdom.
And if you don't have a prayer closet,
if you don't have this daily habit, if
you're not walking in the path the Holy
Spirit is outlining tonight, I said carefully, you
have no power to bring order to your
household, order to your job, order.
See, the devil is an author of confusion
and disorder.
He brings disorder into children, into marriages, disorder
into churches.
There are churches where there is no spiritual
authority against disorder.
The children run wild.
There's all kinds of divorce in the church,
all kinds of confusion everywhere you turn.
Why?
Because it's just like this man, the Scripture
said, had no power to keep order in
his kingdom.
Folks, when there's any problem in this church,
we don't get around and discuss it.
Brother Bob and Brother Don and I get
on our knees.
We cry out to the Lord.
We don't try to do anything about it.
We let the Holy Ghost discipline.
Other times Holy Ghost will say do this
or do that and he'll lead us.
But there's been order in this church and
there's order coming to our lives through the
prayer closet.
There is power.
My message is the power of the secret
closet and that power, and this is the
key to my message, is if this is
all you get out of what I'm preaching,
if you want order restored to your life,
if you look around you right now and
say honestly, Brother Dave, there's disorder creeping into
my life or into my home, into my
job.
There's disorder.
Now folks, I've known wives who've had to
live with a husband who's a devil.
Some of them have been beaten, alcoholic husbands,
and for years they've prayed and tried to
bring order.
It may have taken 25, 30 years, but
I've seen the testimony after testimony I've heard
of women who are faithful to God.
First of all, God gave order into their
spirits.
God gave them knowledge of where they were
going and how to act, how to hold
on.
There was order in her life until finally
one day the Spirit of God strikes them
down not to kill them necessarily.
Now God will do that if he asks
you to bring order.
A lot of people die because there's somebody
not praying them dead, but praying order.
And to get that order, God has to
remove people sometimes.
Didn't he do that in the Pentecostal church
in Jerusalem?
Who fell dead?
Ananias and Sapphira.
So God can restore order.
Is there disorder?
What he would do, you may not see
the sign of it right now, but the
first thing he's going to give you is
order in your spirit.
Your spirit will not be wild.
Your spirit will not be in confusion.
God will bring order and unity and peace
because you're seeking him with all your heart.
You're not turning to other people.
You're not turning to the flesh.
You're not looking for some human counselor.
You're sudden with God and little by little,
inch by inch, he's bringing order out of
that confusion, taking it all away.
He had no power to keep order.
Now here's a good word for those who
are determined to seek the Lord.
The Lord said, not only will I give
you order, but in a time of famine,
I'm going to feed you and you're going
to be in green pastures until you die.
I'm reading from Isaiah 65, 10, and Sharon
shall be a fold of flocks in the
valley of Achor.
Now that's supposed to be a valley of
weeping where everybody else is weeping.
That's a valley of shame.
But the valley of Achor, a place for
the herds to lie down in for my
people who have sought me.
Those who seek me go lay down in
thick green pastures and want society all around
them and church people are starving.
In fact, the scripture says, makes it very
clear, but he said, my servant, here it
is, those who do not seek the Lord,
they shall be hungry.
They shall be thirsty.
This is Isaiah 65, 13.
They shall be hungry.
They'll be thirsty.
They'll be ashamed.
When you look around and see that in
the church today, the hunger and the thirst,
but the scripture says, those who seek the
Lord, but my servants, they shall eat.
My servants, they shall drink.
My servants shall sing for joy of heart.
You show me a praying people and I'll
show you people don't have to be pumped
up.
Not with preaching, not with singing, the joy
flows.
He said, the joy will flow automatically out
of their spirits.
Hallelujah.
All right, it's power to be taken into
green pastures.
It's power to bring order.
And finally, it's the power of the 91st
Psalm.
Turn there and you know what that is.
Hallelujah.
Did you know that that has to do...
Folks, how many of you have accepted this
as your favorite psalm, 91?
If you don't know the 91st Psalm, you've
never been walking with God.
Look at that, every one of mine.
No, I'm not going to blow my horn.
Forget it.
It's about doing something I'm preaching against.
Have you ever seen all these great promises?
He's my refuge, my fortress.
He's going to deliver me from the snare
of the devil.
He's going to cover me with his feathers
and under his wings.
I'm going to trust.
I'm not going to be afraid for terror
by night, arrow that fire by day, or
for pestilence that walketh in darkness for destruction.
A thousand are going to fall at my
side, 10,000 at my right hand, but
it's not going to come near me because
I've made the Lord my refuge, even the
most high habitation.
No evil shall befall me, neither shall any
plague come near my dwelling.
Give His angels charge over me to keep
me on my way.
Yeah, but you know, there's a condition.
It's right in the first verse.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of
the most high.
There it is.
That's the closet.
You can't claim any of this until you
have a closet.
It doesn't apply to you, so you might
as well just rip it out of your
Bible.
It doesn't have anything to do with you.
If you're in the secret closet, you're going
to dwell under the shadow of the Almighty.
Hallelujah.
In every promise, this book is yours because
you, the Bible says dwell means that's to
live.
You say, well, Brother Watson, do I have
to be praying all day long?
Doesn't it say we're to pray without ceasing?
That means that you can pray in your
mind, you pray in your thoughts.
Now, that doesn't mean you have to go
to work carrying a big Bible everywhere you
go.
Some people carry it just as an accessory,
like a purse.
To show off their holiness.
Better have a little one in your pocket
here that you're reading read.
But you see, hallelujah.
He's wanting to establish the people that have
determined all through the day just to keep
running to him.
And I thought today, and this came, and
I believe the Holy Spirit put it in
my mind, with this I close.
My Bible said God's a jealous God.
And the Muslims have just built a big
temple here up in Harlem.
A great big dome temple, you've seen it.
And they blow that horn hour after hour.
I don't know how many times a day.
Now, it's done by rote, yes.
But they kneel and face east.
And I wonder if God doesn't get jealous.
He said, oh, that my children had that
kind of devotion for me.
That they would come to me as often
as the Muslims go to their Allah.
Now, you may not agree with what they
believe, and I don't.
But I see sometimes that I have more
devotion in cults than I do in the
house of God.
How about you?
I know God's been wooing me more and
more.
He's wooing me into that closet.
Before I close, I have to say this.
I don't know how many times in this
pulpit I have tried.
I have tried everything the Holy Spirit's put
in my heart to get people to pray
daily.
Now, we've had six weeks of prayer.
We've had weeks of prayer.
We have people come on Thursday night to
intercede.
We have people praying downstairs right now.
That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm not even talking about praying in this
church at all.
I'm talking about you alone with God.
And I'll tell you what, that's why we've
not seen the glory yet.
We've had taste of it, but the glory
comes to a people who've established that habit,
that daily, wonderful, marvelous habit of running to
Him.
I run to Him all day long.
I've been running to Him today.
Right now when I'm preaching, I'm about to
give an altar call.
My spirit's run to Him.
My spirit just raced to Him and said,
Oh God, now send your Holy Ghost to
make this message real.
I want you to stand.
But look at me for just a moment.
Let me talk to you as a shepherd
now.
Brother Bob was talking very profoundly today about
a shepherd's heart and the searching.
And many times that searching love comes through
His servants, His under-shepherds.
It came all day today through Brother Don
and Brother Bob and again tonight.
God's given this church true shepherds.
There are times I have to tell you
honestly, I've about given up trying to get
people to pray.
I've almost come to conclusion that no matter
what I preach, no matter what I say
or any pastor comes up here, thunder it,
threaten, plead, beg.
First of all, to get women to pray
then to get husbands and men to pray.
We don't have that tendency.
We don't have something natural in us that
makes us want to pray.
It's something that you have to discipline your
soul into and your body and your spirit.
It doesn't come easy.
And I'm going to ask the Holy Ghost
to convict you if you have not developed
a prayer closet, a prayer habit, and you've
not been shutting yourself along with God.
I don't understand that if you've got a
television set and you can sit there even
for one hour watching television, God's jealous over
that hour and one day you're going to
answer for that hour that you took away
from God.
If you've got time to sit with your
friends on the telephone, if you've got time
to play games, it's wonderful to be with
the family and play games.
There's time for that.
But God said, if you're going to take
time for that, you're going to give me
time.
And I don't think you can hear from
God unless you give Him quality time.
Not believe in a specific effort in shutting
yourself along with God, dismissing yourself from every
person, everything around you, and disappear.
Disappear.
He said, God is in secret.
You go where He is.
Where is He?
He's in secret.
Go in secret.
That's where He is.
Go to Him in secret.
And He said, I see in secret.
I see and I hear in secret.
Hallelujah.
I'm going to ask God to convict you.
He's convicting me.
Convict you.
Say, I'm not leaving this church until the
Holy Spirit helps me to be reminded of
this tomorrow after this service is long in
the history that the Holy Ghost will remind
me, Lord, I want that message driven in
my heart.
I want to establish a prayer closet in
my life.
And I want to be shut in with
you and seek you with all my heart
because I know that's the power to bring
order into my life.
I dare you to show me a truly
praying person whose life eventually does not come
into full order.
There is order.
It may take a while.
But no matter what you see outwardly, God
is at work bringing order, restoring order, taking
away confusion, and giving purpose and direction.
Hallelujah.
There's no other way.
You don't need a pastor to counsel you.
You need to get on your face before
God and say, Lord, you bring order to
my home.
You bring order to my life.
You bring order to my mind that races
and wonders bring order out of chaos.
Holy Spirit, only you can do this.
Lord, humanly, I'm convinced it's impossible to get
the church of Jesus Christ to pray through
any human effort, even through any preaching, unless
the Holy Spirit brings life to the Word.
Holy Spirit, I'm asking you to go to
the balcony, main floor, choir, all of us
on the platform, including me.
Convict us, Lord, for not giving you more
of our time, not truly seeking you with
all our heart and loving you with all
that is within us and then receiving that
order and that clearness and that fullness that
comes from seeking you with everything that's in
us.
Now, where your head's about, I ask first
for those who have to acknowledge this disorder
in my life, in my home, and I
have not been seeking God as I should.
I want you to get out of your
seat from the balcony, go to either stairs
and come down any aisle, either here.
I know that's a strong confession.
You heard Pastor Bob make a very strong
confession this morning of God's deal with him
about love for him.
That took a lot of grace.
It's going to take grace in your heart
for many of you to step down this
aisle tonight and say, Lord Jesus, forgive me.
Forgive me.
I've not been seeking you with all that's
in me.
Now, you may be here tonight cold, backslidden,
may not even be saved.
You may not even know the Lord.
Come and follow these that are coming.
Get out of your seat and follow these
that are coming.
Don't come and let the Spirit draw at
you.
You feel that drawing, let the Spirit of
God just draw your heart.
Please.
This is the conclusion of the tape.