The one concern of the devil is to
keep the Saints from prayer.
He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work,
prayerless religion.
We could even add ourselves, prayerless conferences.
He laughs at our toil, mocks at our
wisdom, but trembles when we pray.
I would add to this that I believe
there's no greater sign of the degenerate church
than the constant laying aside of prayer.
I've been to conferences, I've been with Christian
leaders, I've been in huge churches, and I
have constantly been amazed of how subtly Satan
just takes prayer right out of the picture.
This is the thing that hit me at
Bible school more than anything else.
A total lack of interest, part of it
a large percentage of all the students, in
anything that had to do with prayer.
Never forget how difficult it was to get
people to come to a missionary prayer band,
which usually consisted of about 20 minutes, half
of which was generally requests.
And if you went to a prayer band,
you were almost considered a bit of a
martyr, especially if you went more than once
a week.
And I can remember such a large number
of students complaining because we had some compulsory
prayer meetings.
That is probably gone by now.
It certainly goes very quickly in most places.
And I don't want to take the time
this morning to review the evangelical situation in
regard to prayer, but young people, it is
absolutely, unbelievably pitiful.
We go to church after church, we find
out they have a midweek meeting.
It used to be a prayer meeting years
ago.
Now it's changed.
It's either cut down to about 15 minutes
of prayer and the rest Bible study, which
is always easier because you can always get
one man to take a Bible study.
There's always one egocentric brother who would be
happy to teach the Bible every week, just
for the sake of teaching it, much less
any concern about seeing results.
Because, you know, there's no virtue in just
teaching the Bible.
And the people who really know the Scriptures,
many of them more than us, are unbelievers.
Some of them Jews who know the Old
Testament line for line and line for line
and who are complete unbelievers.
And, of course, there are many modernists who
study the Bible and textual criticism, higher criticism,
know the Bible, but they're not following Christ.
The Bible says the letter killeth.
The letter killeth.
The Spirit bringeth life.
And though we need to minister the Word,
prayer, I believe, is first.
And Bounds shows in his little book how
that if we have preaching without prayer, it
will actually kill.
He quotes Edward Payson who said, Prayer is
the first thing.
The second thing.
And the third thing.
Necessary to a minister.
Isn't that something?
Pray then, my dear brother.
Pray, pray, pray.
A man named Sir Thomas Buxton said, You
know the value of prayer.
It is precious beyond all price.
Never neglected.
And yet so many places we find just
that.
Prayer is neglected.
And it so easily can happen to this
movement.
There's so many forces pushing their way in.
So many things we need to learn.
So many things to do, aren't there?
Even today, there's so much that we could
do.
There's so many films we could see.
So many messages we can hear.
So many great men that we could invite
in to speak to us.
So many books to read.
So many letters to answer.
That if the Holy Spirit left this movement,
we on our own would certainly drop the
praying aspect very quickly.
We would probably, I know it, maintain just
enough of the outward facade to be able
to somewhat keep our reputation.
We'd probably have some kind of afternoon prayer
meeting that we'd somehow be able to twist
into a social hour and enjoy wonderful times
of something else together.
I've been to some amazing prayer meetings.
Literally announced as prayer meetings, but when you
got there, everything else but prayer seemed to
be priority.
So it is in many places.
Now it's all right to look off at
the general situation, but the big question we
need to ask this morning is about our
own prayer life.
Personally, if I were on OM last year
and had not grown in some way in
a prayer life, I would not come back
on OM again.
Unless somewhere a total revolution in thinking, discipline,
and everything took place.
I don't know how you can exist on
OM without praying, but I guess some managed
to do it.
Now the word prayer, we need to realize,
is not an end in itself.
It's not prayer as such, quote-unquote, we're
talking about this morning.
We're simply talking about communion with God when
we say prayer is important.
Basically we're saying God is important.
When we talk about spending time in prayer,
we're talking about spending time with God.
How can you argue against the importance of
that?
To say prayer is not necessary is to
say God is really not necessary.
Now there's so many verses in the Bible
on prayer.
As you've probably heard me say, I made
this study through the New Testament, I listed
every single verse on prayer.
In this Bible, now I have a P
next to every place that prayer is mentioned,
and it's just incredible.
And of course, if we go into the
Old Testament, we find the same thing.
And we also find quite a few references
to prayer and fasting.
I don't know if we have any more
on the literature table, but Dale Roton made
a very extensive study of this thing of
prayer and fasting, and he listed all the
incidents of prayer and fasting in the Bible.
And some of you have read that.
We see that every man of God in
the Scriptures was a man of prayer.
He knew the reality of prayer.
We see the Lord Jesus Christ himself setting
the example in prayer.
Perhaps you know the reference in Luke.
Where we see an old night of prayer,
verse 12 of chapter 6.
And it came to pass in those days
that he went out into a mountain to
pray, and he continued all night in prayer
to God.
If the Savior wanted or needed a night
of prayer, continued a night in prayer, how
much more do we need to know this
kind of reality in our own lives and
in our own hearts?
Notice in chapter 5, verse 16, Jesus is
referred to here, and it says, And he
withdrew himself into the wilderness, and he prayed.
It's obvious that that was no 15-minute
prayer session.
And you will find as you go through
the Gospels constant references to the prayer life
of the Lord Jesus.
We find him in chapter 9, verse 18.
And it came to pass as he was
alone praying.
His disciples were with him, and he asked
them, saying, Whom say the people that I
am?
Of course, we know Jesus Christ's wilderness experience
of fasting and prayer.
You may want to read that this morning
of how the Lord Jesus went into the
wilderness and was tempted.
The other night we referred to the verses
in Matthew about asking and receiving.
We have the same principle repeated in Luke,
in chapter 11, verse 9 and 10.
I say unto you, Ask, and it shall
be given.
Seek, and ye shall find.
Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
For every one that asketh, receiveth.
He that seeketh, findeth.
And to him that knocketh, it shall be
opened.
What a promise!
What a tremendous promise from God's Word that
all of us should want to just grab
hold of and believe God to make a
reality in our own hearts and in our
own lives.
We, of course, have a terrific example in
chapter 18 of the kind of praying that
God wants.
We have the example of two men praying.
The Pharisee, and I hope none of us
will pray as this, stood and prayed, God,
I thank thee that I am not as
other men, extortioners, unjust adulterers, or even as
this publican.
The publican, the sinner, standing afar off would
not lift up so much as his eyes
unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying,
God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
My conviction is that real prayer always begins
at the sinner's place.
I know that when I pray this morning,
I'm going to have to start at the
sinner's place.
I want to tell you already this morning,
I've just seen afresh my own absolute, total
recklessness before God.
I've seen things in my heart, seen that
I don't really want to be here at
this conference, don't really want to do God's
will, not really.
I really love the will of George Burwer.
I'd really prefer living at my own rate
of speed.
I see that I don't really love people
near, near as much as I should.
I see so many things, and I know
that I can't even begin to pray without
repenting.
My heart is cold.
I want to pray all day.
The last thing I want to do is
fast.
I don't need much to eat, but I
like to keep just a little down in
there to keep things from speaking up.
And there's just nothing in me.
We know that verse of Scripture, in the
flesh dwelleth no good thing.
And just praise God that we're indwelt by
his Holy Spirit.
That's our only hope.
And that's exactly what it says in Romans.
Look at this tremendous verse on the subject
of prayer, Romans chapter 8, verse 26.
Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities.
For we know not what we ought or
what we should pray, for as we ought,
but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us
with groanings which cannot be uttered.
The Spirit of God is our only hope
in prayer.
This is why waiting on God is so
important.
And listening to the voice of the Lord
through the Spirit, through the Word.
The Spirit quickens the Word.
Notice verse 27.
He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is
the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh
intercession for the saints according to the will
of God.
Now you and I can be very thankful
that the Lord Jesus still believes in intercession,
because he's interceding for us.
And I don't know all that involved, but
it's very encouraging to me.
And I'm convinced that we have to begin
our prayer meeting at the sinner's place.
Confession.
Pouring out our heart.
Let the Holy Spirit just tear through our
hearts.
Confess things that perhaps you haven't even seen.
Areas of pride.
Any man that can live a number of
days without confessing pride, I really doubt how
close he's walking to the Lord Jesus Christ.
There's not many men of God that I
have read about that weren't constantly in need
of cleansing over small areas of subtle pride
that come in.
Begin your prayer meeting at the sinner's place.
Brokenness.
Confession.
When we read verses, like the verse in
Revelation, that were to be hot or cold
but not lukewarm, seems to me that should
just drive us immediately, almost even in examining
to see if we're saved.
If Billy Graham has to state, as he
recently did, that he went off to the
mountains, this was just a few years back,
to wait upon God and to once again
have an assurance that he was saved, seems
a few of us might, you know, be
a little open-minded to the fact that
somewhere something may have gone wrong.
I'm convinced, as sure as I'm standing here,
there are unsaved people in this room.
It's happened every year.
And if you have that problem, something that
needs to be searched out, maybe today is
the day God wants to give you a
greater assurance of your own salvation.
There's no reason you shouldn't have that full
assurance.
God's promises are clear.
Holy Spirit praying through us, taking the sinner's
place, entering into a closed walk with the
Lord Jesus Christ.
I don't know why we miss the priority
of prayer when there's so many verses about
it, really.
It's a very strange thing, especially when we
have the Book of Acts and all the
emphasis on prayer there.
There's hardly time to go into it.
But you know some of the great prayer
meetings, some of the jail prayer meetings, when
Paul and Silas were in prison, and when
Peter was in prison, in Verse 12, Verse
5, Peter, therefore, was kept in prison, but
prayer was made without ceasing of the church
unto God for him.
And it's obvious these people were in a
day of prayer.
This is no 15-minute make-up prayer
meeting.
Verse 12, God released Peter, as you know,
through a miracle, in answer to prayer, because
it says right there in Verse 5, therefore
he was in prison, but, one of the
biggest buts in the Bible, but prayer was
made.
Verse 12, when he had considered the thing,
he came to the house and married the
mother of John, whose third name was Mark,
where many were together praying.
Not preaching, not discussing, not socializing, praying.
Why don't we have that today?
And the big attack on your group, your
team, when you leave here, will be prayer.
Your old George Brower won't be around.
He'll be one thing.
You have to listen to me once in
a while here.
This is why I speak, because I never
get to see you again.
I leave you.
Maybe it's too blunt, but I want to
get my two bits in before I run.
I'm so burdened.
And I speak in these evening meetings out
of burden.
And if I don't release this burden that
God puts on my heart, I don't know
what will happen to me.
But I'll be leaving.
I won't be coming around and check up.
You had your night of prayer this week?
Having your daily devotions?
And all these other things?
We've had people even get to the stage
where they wonder why we have to have
daily prayer together.
What kind of a bondage is that?
Absolutely ridiculous.
Daily prayer together.
If some of us were really in tune
with God, it would not be a matter
of meeting once a day for group devotion.
We'd be meeting several times a day.
I praised God when I got to Zollington
and discovered they had some other prayer going
on beside their daily devotions.
It's a great blessing.
After breakfast, just spontaneously, some were gathering together.
And oh, what a blessing that was.
And I just, I just see Satan's assault
on the team will be the undermining of
prayer life.
And of course, he'll individually try to keep
you out of the pyramid.
And then he has a whole series of
steps once he gets that.
We don't have the time to go through
all these verses in the book of Acts.
But we notice in chapter 13, a very
important verse.
Verse 3.
Now, this was a big decision.
Paul and Barnabas were called by the Spirit
of God to move out from Antioch.
Verse 2 first, we'll read that.
They ministered to the Lord.
Isn't that something?
Notice.
A very key little word.
They ministered to the Lord.
And I've seen in my life that much
of my ministry has been to the house,
not to the Lord.
Even in preaching and in teaching, the ministry
can be to the house, to God's people.
And we sense people are in front of
us and people are listening.
And what we say is going to make
a difference in their lives.
But it's something else quite distinct when we
come to a place in our ministry where
we minister to the Lord.
And as we minister, we're conscious more of
the Lord than of the people.
That's very hard.
I know very little about it.
Then we read here, And they ministered to
the Lord and fasted.
And the Holy Ghost said, Imagine.
The Holy Ghost said, Now, in
some ways, we are in this kind of
a situation.
Some are.
I believe, actually, O.M. fits more into
that which comes before this kind of situation.
Training and all the rest.
The kind of situation that Timothy would have
found when he first met Paul.
But this word is very, very clear.
And when they had fasted and prayed, and
laid their hands on them, they sent them
away.
Things like that should drive every doubt out
of our mind concerning the necessity for prayer
and fasting.
Now, we find the same thing when elders
were appointed in the church or in every
church.
Verse 23 of chapter 14.
When they had ordained them elders in every
church and had prayed, notice, with fasting, they
commended them to the Lord on whom they
believed.
No wonder later on it says he had
an open door of faith unto the Gentiles.
There are a lot of other open doors.
And I believe it was because of prayer.
And right on through the book of Acts,
we find them praying there in Acts 16,
25.
At midnight, Paul and Silas prayed, sang praises.
What a terrible thing, not getting their proper
sleep.
These men, they certainly didn't know how to
take care of their bodies.
I know some on O.M. that want
nothing to do with night of prayer.
They say, well, if we pray in the
night, we can't operate properly in the morning.
I want to tell you, if we prayed
more in the night, we'd have more fire
in the morning.
We'd have to do less work.
And too many times we try to make
up with physical work and organization that which
we're missing in prayer.
And I have miraculously experienced many times in
praying unto the night that God gives renewed
strength in the morning.
Is he not the author of strength?
And though I don't believe that every new
recruit on O.M. and people that are
just learning how to pray should engage in
all kinds of things that are beyond them
and presume they're going to get special strength,
but certainly some of you have been around
a few years and it's about time you
got out of spiritual kindergarten in the area
of prayer and began to know the reality
of what it's all about.
And I'm speaking to myself.
Anyway, in the middle of the night, we
find Paul and Silas praying.
You say, well, look at the situation they're
in.
If I got in a situation like that,
I'd pray too.
Well, I believe in some ways our situation
is just as bad.
Maybe not for us, but we know other
brethren, other brethren who are in prison, don't
we?
Watchman, he's in prison.
And hundreds and thousands of others like him
in Cuba, in the communist countries, in China,
they're in prison.
And the other situation, we find the whole
church praying because Peter's in prison.
Now we find Paul praying because he's in
prison.
Though it doesn't tell us, certainly there must
have been other people praying as well.
And of course, again, the miraculous took place.
And God released him.
And souls were saved.
The jailer and his whole house.
And it's recorded for us to learn something
from.
Going on from the book of Acts, we
go into the epistles and we find so
many verses.
One that hits me immediately is the one
in Timothy in chapter 2, in 1 Timothy
chapter 2.
Going on from the book of Acts, we
go into the epistles and we find so
many verses.
One that hits me immediately is the one
in Timothy in chapter 2, in 1 Timothy
chapter 2.
I exhort therefore that first of all, supplications,
prayers, intercessions, giving of thanks be made for
all men.
People say, well, why do we need so
much time for prayer?
Well, I want to see you fulfill that
verse without taking a little time.
Because when I read that I'm to start
praying and interceding and giving thanks for all
men, for kings, how long would it take
you to pray for all the kings and
leaders of the entire world?
You're hardly going to do that in a
15-minute session.
Most of us don't even know the leaders
of the world.
I'd love to give an exam and see
how many know the leaders even of the
countries they're working in.
There is incredible ignorance in O.M. in
some of these areas.
We've met people in India who didn't even
know who Indira Gandhi was, and some of
the other famous people.
And I've been guilty of this at times
as well.
There's a number of O.M. countries that
I couldn't tell you who the leader is.
So I have to do a little studying
myself if I'm going to get literal about
this verse.
For kings, all that are in authority, we
may lead a quiet and peaceful life in
all godliness and honesty.
So here's a first of all command.
First of all, let prayer remain.
Prayer isn't just asking.
It involves confession.
We've already talked about it.
It involves giving of thanks.
Oh, how much we have to thank God
for.
If you find it hard going today, why
don't you take out your notebook and begin
to list things you can thank God for.
Fill up a page.
If you can't fill up a page, things
to thank God for, you really are spiritually
short-sighted.
On and on we go through the epistles.
We constantly find these exhortations.
Right there in chapter 4 of Timothy, verse
5, speaks about giving thanks.
Goes on to say, for it is sanctified
by the word of God and prayer.
Our activities, everything we do, should be saturated
and sanctified by prayer.
Now, I'm not going to read any more
verses.
Oh, I hope that somehow the Holy Spirit
of God will interpret to you the need
for prayer.
Immediately someone says, well, prayer is hard for
me.
To be very honest, I find it extremely
difficult to even attend these afternoon prayer meetings.
My mind wanders.
I don't know what to pray about.
I don't feel as if God has answered.
Many times I don't even sense his presence.
And a long, long list of things along
this line.
Now, you and I have been brainwashed by
the world.
We have been brainwashed by an activistic Western
culture.
And the philosophy of prayer is completely diametrically
opposed to the philosophy of Western activism.
Because you're used to being active in one
way or the other, it, of course, will
be difficult to sit down and to simply
enjoy and know the presence of God.
But simply because something is hard and difficult
and opposite to your general way of living
and nature should never cause us to give
up.
Young people, the very fact that you find
it hard should be the greatest challenge for
you to see victory.
I find prayer hard.
Today, I think that I would find it
easier in many ways to go down into
the streets of London and give out tracts,
especially if I could have a snack in
the middle of the day.
But simply because you find prayer difficult does
not mean prayer is not for you.
People actually come to the place where they
say, well, the ministry of prayer really isn't
my ministry.
When you say that, what you're really saying,
whether you believe it or not, is that
the ministry of living the Christian life really
isn't my ministry.
Because the Christian life is totally impossible without
prayer.
Now, it's true God is very merciful.
And I'm sure there are some people who
get through the Christian life with a minimum
amount of prayer.
And God is very sovereign.
I'm not saying you can never meet a
mature Christian who doesn't spend nights in prayer
or afternoons in prayer.
But if that person, by the mercy of
God, has come to maturity without that, what
could he do with it?
And you can see how Satan would attack
a mature believer who knows how to pray
and keep him off his knees because he's
dangerous when he gets in that position.
So Satan's attack upon us to keep us
from the prayer line doesn't end when we
become mature in Christ.
It becomes even more fervent.
And Satan will try to hit even harder
the man of God to get him to
go backwards in this area.
When we think of the command of Jesus
that's repeated in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, if
any man come after me, what?
Let him deny himself, take up his cross,
and follow me.
And that's often just what it takes to
enter into prayer.
You've got to deny yourself.
You've got to deny things you like.
You've got to deny the way you would
like to spend your time.
Take up your cross, follow him in prayer,
in intercession.
And, of course, it indicates that it's not
going to be easy.
Some of us today will find it very
difficult.
Our minds will wander.
We'll feel empty.
We'll feel barren.
We'll think, well, I've prayed this prayer already
all year and I've had no answer.
Why pray it again today?
And we fail to realize just how much
perseverance is an intricate part of prayer.
We have that tremendous, challenging story of a
man knocking in the night, asking for loaves.
He says, go away, I'm in bed, don't
bother me.
Bang, bang, bang, he knocks again.
Finally, the man gets up and gives him
bread.
And then we're told to do likewise.
What a challenge.
And I admit, some of the things that
I've got from the Lord, it's been sheer,
continual banging.
Not that he isn't ready to hear very
quickly, but he loves to put us to
the test.
He loves to see if what we're praying
for is a passing fancy or a deep
burden of soul born of the Spirit.
And I believe this ship is a deep
burden of the soul.
But perhaps the Lord is holding it back
to see how many of us really are
ready to persevere and pray this ship into
being.
It should be one of our big targets
today in prayer.
If there's anything that will bring that ship
in, it's a day of prayer.
Many days of prayer.
We've had them.
We've had them for years.
Many people would have given up by now.
In fact, if it wasn't perhaps for a
few stubborn individuals who do really believe the
God of the impossible, O.M. would have
given up on the ship project many years
ago.
We believe as we persevere, as we press
continually, showing God it's not a passing fancy,
paying the price as we move along, various
obstacles are put in the way, we have
to pray through them.
Some things will never be answered until you
pray obstacles out of the way that are
set between us and that thing.
I've been praying for a large gift for
work in India for a long time.
The Lord has continued to give tokens of
His grace.
He's kept the work going in a miraculous
way.
But I've yet to see the gift that
I'm praying for, which is anywhere from $15
,000 or not.
Anything beneath that I don't think would be
in the category that I'm praying for.
And I've got a lot of reasons to
be discouraged about that, but I just refuse.
I just know it's coming.
I've been telling people about it for months.
Though it's impossible, we don't know where, how,
what, we know it's going to come.
Perseverance.
I believe.
That's it.
Yesterday a young man who was lost drove
by this factory.
I've been praying for this fellow for four...
Well, I've been praying for him since 1962.
He was the one who first put my
meetings in England.
He almost became the director of this work
in England.
But his wife didn't like the work too
much and they chose to go on another
work and that folded up and ever since
then they've just been doing all kinds of
things.
They're back here now.
It's been a difficult road.
I haven't seen him for four years.
I've heard from different people that they're probably
really not too keen to see me and
this and that.
But I've continued to pray for this person.
Continued to believe that something was going to
happen.
Yesterday he was driving ten miles from here
and he got lost.
Missed the turn.
So he tried another direction and he missed
the turn again.
So he didn't know what way to do
it.
He said, well, I'll go through Sidcup or
go through Orpington headed south.
And it just came into his mind, oh,
well, I might as well drive through Orpington.
And he drove down this road and as
he was driving he looked to the left
and he saw OM.
Couldn't believe it.
It must be a builder's conference.
It registered in his mind September.
He knows all too well what OM does
in September.
He drove down the road and he came
back.
And God united my heart with his last
night in a very deep and real way.
He'll be back with his wife and family
to visit us.
Five years, I haven't even seen him.
I want to tell you persevering prayer is
one of the most important things in spiritual
warfare.
When God puts a man on your heart
don't give up.
Don't give up.
Keep praying.
Keep believing.
Last week I wrote in the middle of
all this more than 30 letters to people
who I haven't seen in many years.
Just had this great burden upon my heart.
I'm not sure when it was.
I think it must have been Sunday afternoon.
On top.
Just write to people who we just haven't
heard from and some people who we know
are backslidden and away from God.
And just encourage them.
And pray.
Oh may God give us this burden today.
May we just sit before God and say
Lord, bring to my mind people that I've
forgotten to pray for.
Write them down on paper.
Determine to drop them a line sometime later
on.
Snatch them from the pit.
Notice that verse.
I think it's in Jude.
Great challenge along this line.
Verse 23, another is saved with fear pulling
him out of the fire hating even the
garment spotted by the flesh.
And this links in my mind to that
other verse where it says he that saves
a man from the error of his ways.
What is it?
Book of James.
I think it's the last chapter, isn't it?
James, the last chapter.
Chapter 5, verse 19.
This is it.
Brethren, if any of you do error from
the truth and one converted, let him know
that he which converted the sinner from the
error of his ways shall save a soul
from death and shall hide a multitude of
sins.
Through prayer we can have that ministry.
Persevering prayer.
So as we come to prayer today, let
us not be concerned or overly concerned that
we don't feel like praying.
Or that our emotions aren't tingling with some
kind of spiritual supersuddence.
Let's be there ourselves.
Let's take up the cross and let's follow
Christ in his life of prayer into the
wilderness.
Believing, trusting, praying.
What are some things you can do?
Most of us have to admit that we
aren't exactly deep in the Lord just to
pray all day.
Probably will not be possible in a sense
of just waiting before God all day.
So vary your time with God.
Jonathan gave some good practical instructions the other
night.
He was just talking to a few of
us.
Spend some time reading the Psalms.
Just praising the Lord.
Have your own worship service.
Sing a hymn in your heart.
Take your little songs of victory with you.
And sing a hymn or two.
Praise the Lord.
Read some Psalms.
And just spend time in praise and worship
and confession as we've already mentioned.
Then you may want to take something boiling
hot like gems from Tozen.
Let that stir your soul.
Read it until you just are absolutely challenged.
And then pray it, pray it off.
And go back and read some more.
Take a copy of Power Through Prayer.
There's some on the table there.
You can have them free while they last.
If you really want to use them.
If you already have some, book, don't take
because there's not that many.
Though these are actually for free distribution.
And read a few of these quotes.
Or some other book on prayer.
Maybe go to the library and see if
there's something on prayer.
And after you do that, then spend some
time in prayer on what the Lord has
spoken to you about.
Then maybe take the New Testament and read
some passages and pray for a while.
Then memorize some verses.
Why don't we all decide we're going to
memorize at least two verses on prayer.
That will take some time.
The Word of God, as you memorize it,
will build up faith in your heart and
will encourage you.
Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word
of God.
Memorize some of these promises on the subject
of prayer.
And then after that, spend some time in
intercession.
Praying for various people.
Take some of the prayer challenge material off
the table there.
Take your pictures of those Indian brothers.
Take your map of the world.
How you could have gone this far in
O.M. and still not have some kind
of map of the world?
If you don't, put a requisition in and
get one.
You all need a map of the world.
You can come in here.
Wouldn't bother me if ten people sat around
here weeping over that map, to the least.
Spend some time.
Why don't you pray for all those countries
on that state of the world chart.
There's some of those around somewhere.
Pray about this terrible situation.
Not alone worth a day of prayer, to
me.
Now, in intercession, you must put yourself in
the place of those people.
That's why fasting is important.
Pray for your enemy.
It's easy to pray for your fellow countrymen.
But the Word of God, the revolutionary book
that you and I believe, teaches us to
pray for your enemy.
It's nothing for your beloved brethren from the
Arab world to pray for your refugees from
Jordan.
But it's quite another thing to, in travail
and in love and brokenness before God, pray
for Jews in Israel.
It's one thing for us Americans to pray
for fellow countrymen suffering in Vietnam.
It's another thing to pray for North Vietnamese,
for blessings in Hanoi, and for Chinese communists.
That's real Christianity.
So put your enemies on the list and
pray fervently.
Not calling down curses upon them, but asking
God to bless, to save some of them
through all the impossibileness of the situation.
Let's pray for these things we've been challenged
about in Africa.
It's true intercession is hard.
It's difficult for us in this easy environment.
Looks like we have another nice day to
get into the burden of 500 slaughtered people
in Amnabar.
By faith, God can enable you that when
you're fasting, you can do it a little
bit easier than when you're feasting.
Oh, may we really have time of intercession.
And if you carry out those things, you'll
discover before you know it, the morning is
gone.
You've been in the Word, you've been in
some challenging books, you've memorized a verse or
two, you've had a worship service, a Thanksgiving
service, and in time of intercession, and pretty
soon, it'll be two o'clock and we'll
be back here again.
Now, this morning, we're going to spend half
our time together.
But this afternoon, most of the time, you'll
be completely free.
I want you to go to prayer now
as a group.
And through this time of praying as a
group, you will hear someone else pray for
something.
Jot it down.
It doesn't hurt to...
You're not breaking some rule in the middle
of someone's prayer to just open your eyes
and jot something down.
Well to those who run around peeping at
the prayer meetings anyway.
It's interesting that some would like to just
run around and watch everybody.
Now, I'm not against praying with your eyes
open because I don't find many verses about
keeping them shut.
But why don't you look at the sky
and the ceiling of the mass?
And I just...
It's very hard to me to believe a
person is really involved in prayer when he's
sort of spying around to see who's speaking,
especially when it's a girl who's praying and
suddenly several boys pop up and...
There's some men that evaluate the girl they're
going to marry by how she prays.
They hear a girl praying in a terrific
prayer and they desperately got to find out
who it is.
Well, I'm not sure really that that can
be included on any biblical basis in a
prayer meeting.
Of course, there's many ways to do it.
Somebody walks into the room and all of
a sudden some brethren get a deep travail
of soul as if they have to put
their hands over their head.
And I've done it.
Then all of a sudden a little crack
appears.
All these things tend to draw us away
from what we're aiming at, the Lord.
And many times in a prayer meeting we
will have to constantly put our minds back
to the Lord.
Now, I have a quotation on this that
I really must read because it is a
great help.
Actually, I don't need to read it.
I'll just paraphrase it because it's very long.
But this man of God, Nius Gambai, stated
that even if all we've done in prayer
is constantly had to bring our mind back
to the Lord, he goes on to say
it's worth it.
If in a prayer meeting all you've done
for one hour is constantly battled and brought
your mind back to the Lord, the very
fact that you've brought your mind back to
him 15 times is worth it.
And it will do something for your own
soul.
So don't get overly upset if your mind
wanders.
Keep bringing it back.
If it wanders, keep bringing it back.
The less it wanders, the better.
One thing I do is in a definite,
disciplined way determine I'm going to follow that
person as he prays and I'm going to
let my heart agree with him.
Now this takes discipline.
You have to fix yourself on the one
who's leading in prayer.
And I have to say amen in my
heart at least.
And every couple of sentences I analyze it
to see if I can say amen and
then I say amen myself.
It means so be it.
That's what it means.
Make it true Lord.
Bring it to pass.
And you will find this will help you
to concentrate when someone else is leading in
prayer.
When you go out praying privately, pray out
loud.
Or pray at least at a whisper.
It's much harder for your mind to wander
when your lips are running along praying.
Those of you who just try to pray
silently completely will probably end up asleep.
Because that's so easy to happen.
Especially if you haven't had much sleep.
But walking around praying out loud it is
rather difficult to fall asleep.
Mind you I've done it.
But learn to pray out loud.
Another thing you can do that will help
help a lot is to change your position.
Kneel for some time.
Stand for a time.
Lay prostrate on your stomach for some time
if you're alone.
It's strange when you're not.
I wouldn't stay there long.
That's a very ideal sleeping position.
But change your position.
And this afternoon you can go into the
woods and have what we call a prayer
walk.
As you're walking along pray.
And God will bless you as you do
that.
Well our time has passed.
We want to go to prayer and so
much more could be said.
So let us remember God is going to
meet us today.
Mary McChane said this.
Study universal holiness of life.
Your whole usefulness depends on this.
For your sermons last but an hour or
two.
Your life preaches all week.
If Satan can only make a covetous minister
a lover of praise of pleasure or a
good eating he has ruined his ministry.
Give yourself to prayer.
Get your text your thoughts your words from
God.
Luther spent the best three hours of his
day in prayer.
William Penn or George Fox said this.
But above all he excelled in prayer speaking
of George Fox.
The inwardness and weight of his spirit the
reverence and solemnity of his address and behavior
and the fewness and the fullness of his
words have often struck even strangers with admiration
as they used to reach others with consolation.
The most awful living reverent frame I have
ever felt or beheld I must say was
his prayer.
And truly it was a testimony.
He knew and lived nearer to the Lord
than any other man for they that know
him most will see most reason to approach
him with reverence and with fear.
Let's pray.
Father we can read many more quotes we
can look at many more Bible verses but
the hour has come to pray.
Lead us Lord as we pray together.
Then as we divide up.
We may note power in prayer this morning
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.