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Prayer that is pleasing unto the Lord.
Now there's a kind of praying that is
truly pleasing to the Lord.
And let me say this, not all prayer
that is prayed today by Christians is a
pleasing manner of prayer to Him.
And with the help of the Holy Spirit
this morning, I just pray that God will
change your thinking about prayer and how you
pray from now on until Jesus comes or
until the Lord takes you home in a
chariot.
God speak to our hearts this morning about
the true prayer.
Now I have no intention this morning of
complicating prayer.
That's been done good enough by well-intentioned
teachers and preachers all over the world today
who have so complicated prayer into formulas and
into strategies.
We have people now that dress up in
combat uniforms and boots because they call themselves
prayer warriors.
So they're going to look the part.
I'm not making fun of that, but I'm
saying there are so many well-intentioned people
that have so complicated prayer.
I know people now that go into the
long prayer meetings, they have prayer guides.
They have whole books on what to do
to fill up the four hours.
If you go to prayer just trying to
fill up time, you don't even know what
prayer is all about.
I am not going to add to that.
I don't have a one, two, three, four
-step program for you this morning, but what
I do believe I have are some thoughts
on prayer from the heart of God that
came from the college of my niece.
Let me begin by saying right now I
believe most Christians want to pray.
They are convicted by their prayerlessness, and they
pray for a while, but they soon stop.
They can't maintain a life of prayer, and
the reason for that is because they really
don't understand the purpose of prayer.
They don't understand the real purpose of prayer,
and until you understand the purpose of prayer,
I think most of us are praying in
vain.
You have to comprehend why God wants us
to pray.
The disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray.
They wouldn't have said that unless they wanted
to learn, and I believe most sitting here
listening to me this morning want to learn
how to pray.
You would pray if you knew its purpose.
You would pray if there was some knowledge
that God had given to you about the
eternal purpose of prayer.
Now, how many Christians I know pray only
out of a sense of obligation?
They say, well, I'm supposed to pray.
The Bible says I'm supposed to pray.
The pastor keeps putting pressure on us to
pray.
Others around us are supposed to pray, are
praying.
I have to pray.
That's the Christian thing to do.
Folks, what kind of a marriage would it
be if the wife concerning intimacy thought it
was only her duty?
In fact, there are some grandmothers who taught
their daughters that intimacy with her husband was
a very difficult duty.
Now, I want you to listen to me
very closely now because the Lord's been laying
some things on my heart.
There are people who pray only when there's
a tragedy or when a crisis strikes, and
then when the tragedy or crisis is gone,
they don't pray anymore until the next crisis.
But you will never understand the importance of
prayer until you understand one foundational truth, and
all prayer, I believe, is built upon this
truth.
It is not just for the good of
man.
It's not just for my good that God
wants me to pray.
It's not just for my welfare, not for
me to get relief, not for me simply
to get something out of God, to try
to extract something from God.
The true meaning of prayer is for the
delight of the Lord as well as for
my relief.
Unless those two go together, you don't have
a foundation upon which to build a prayer
life.
It is not just for my good.
It is for the delight of my Lord.
How many of you are hearing this right
now?
It's not just for my benefit.
I'm not going to just go to God
and intercede.
I'm not just going to ask Him for
things for me, but I'm going to see
His need as well as understand my need.
Now, Christians are very self-centered when it
comes to prayer because we go to Him
only to unburden our troubles and sorrows and
get a supply of strength to go on
to the next battle.
And that's good, it's scriptural, and it works.
And we're invited to come boldly to the
throne of grace in all of our times
of need.
But prayer is not complete.
Now, listen to me closely.
Prayer is not complete.
It is not prayer that's most pleasing to
the Lord if we do not understand God's
need.
You don't go to prayer just to meet
your own need.
God has a need.
That is why He does hardly anything.
There's nothing that's been accomplished in my life
but through prayer.
And why is it that God has tied
Himself to this process of prayer?
We seek relief and God seeks fellowship.
The Lord seeks intimacy with us.
Now, folks, you have to understand that when
you go into the presence of the Lord
that the Lord is waiting for you.
The Lord is looking for fellowship.
Now, actually, the primary purpose of prayer ought
to be fellowship with the Lord and the
one who prays because most of the things
that we're praying about God's already promised to
do.
We are praying about things that God said
we're not to pray about.
He said we're not even to give thought
about it.
How much of our prayer time is spent
asking God for a better job, a better
apartment, clothes and food and all of these
things when Jesus said, Take no thought for
your life, what you shall eat or what
you drink, nor yet for your body what
you shall put on.
Your heavenly Father feeds the fowls of the
air.
They neither sow nor reap.
Are you not more valuable than they?
Your heavenly Father knows you have need of
these things, but seek first the kingdom of
God, His righteousness.
All these things shall be added unto you.
Take no thought for the morrow.
For your Father knoweth what things you have
need of before you ask Him.
And what I hear from that, the Lord
saying, You come to me and focus on
my righteousness or fellowship.
Focus on just getting to know me, on
intimacy, on just loving me, and I'll take
care of all your needs.
Don't put your focus on material things.
Don't put focus even on your healing of
your body.
All of these things I know before you
ask.
I know everything you need.
I've had four, I have four children.
I said, I've had, I have four children
and a number of grandchildren, eleven.
I know what my children, all my lifetime,
I've known what my children wanted.
I've known it.
He knows what we need and we spend.
You take, you take the kind of petition
out of our prayer life that many of
us pray and there'd be nothing left.
There'd be no prayer left because it is
all asking, it's all petition.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
But the Lord said, if you want to
really pray, pleasing to me, come and focus
on my need.
Come and focus on fellowship with me.
Come and focus on intimacy.
I'll take care of everything else in your
life.
And I've proven that and I believe it
with all my heart.
There are so few Christians who know what
it is to go in the presence of
the Lord with delight.
With delight, simply for the pleasure of His
company.
This is, I've had a week along with
the Lord in prayer and this is where
this message was birthed.
And I want you to, I'm just praying
that I can get it out to you
the way the Lord put it into my
heart.
I'm going to ask you a question.
Is prayer a burden to you?
And do you pray out of a sense
of obligation?
Is it boring to you?
Is it more of a duty than it
is a pleasure?
And this idea of, I've done it so
many, we call prayer work.
Work and labor, you've got to labor in
prayer.
You've got to work in prayer.
Why is it we don't say that about
the one we love the most?
If you are happily married, you love your
mate, do you call intimacy, do you call
those times alone work?
I think we have it all wrong.
The Lord is saying, why would you consider
it work to come into my presence?
I would not want to be in a
marriage where a wife, my wife would say,
she would have this mindset that it was
a duty, it was an obligation.
Oh, no, I have to have a time
of intimacy.
It's considered work, considered an obligation, and there's
no delight in it.
A true follower of Jesus, someone who really
loves the Lord, a man does not seek
intimacy from his wife simply to alleviate his
own needs.
That is the most hideous thought possible, that
either should think it's a duty or that
it's work.
But that time of intimacy, the man gets
his real joy, he should get his real
pleasure out of the wife coming to him
and saying, and he knows, she doesn't have
to say anything, but he knows that she
is there, and it's a delight.
It is not an obligation, it is not
a duty, it's a delight.
And his delight is seeing her having pleasure
in his company.
He says in his heart, she really wants
to be with me.
I'm first.
I'm everything.
It is not a burden.
It is not boring.
It is not an obligation.
It is not duty.
It's delight.
She's not reluctant.
She delights in him.
She desires him above all others, and he
reaches out in reciprocation to her because she
is responding in the same manner.
Now, we know the Lord delights in us.
The Scripture says, How fair and how pleasant
art thou, O love for delight.
Song of Solomon.
David said, He delivered me because he delighted
in me.
Now, I thank God that he taught me
a long time ago that he loves me
and delights in me.
He joys in his people.
He sings over his people with delight, the
Scripture says.
Can you imagine the Lord dancing and just
exuberant over his children because of their love
and because of his fellowship?
We know he delights in us, but do
you delight in him?
The Scripture says, Delight thyself also in the
Lord, and he shall give thee the desires
of thine heart.
The Shunammite said, I sat down under his
shadow with great delight.
Now, I've always wanted my prayers to be
a delight to the Lord and a delight
to me.
I didn't want it to ever become work
or a sense of duty or obligation or
trying to fill in time and say, oh,
good, God has to bless me.
I spent three hours in prayer last night
as if God were obligated by the time
I put in.
He's not obligated that way.
He obligates himself to the delighted heart.
Now, this matter of coming into his presence
with delight is not just glee or exuberance.
No, it's much more than that.
It boils down to this, and this is
what the Holy Spirit told me.
Delight in the Lord is simply this.
I would rather be with Jesus than anyone
else on earth.
I would rather be with him more than
my wife, more than my husband, more than
my family, more than the President of the
United States, more than all world leaders, more
than any counselor, more than any famous person.
I would rather be with him.
That is delight.
I would rather spend time with him than
with anybody else.
Now, if you can't say that, you don't
know the prayer that's pleasing to his heart.
If you cannot in every crisis say, I'll
be all right.
I've got to get to him.
I'll be all right as soon as I
get to him.
Who do you go to when you're in
trouble?
Where do you go when you have a
crisis?
Who's the first one you get in touch
with?
Is it your husband?
Do you get on the phone and call
a counselor?
Some of us don't know any other voice
than the voice of a pastor or counselor
or husband or wife or friend.
Don't even know the voice of the Lord.
Who do you go to?
Folks, can you imagine what it must do
to the heart of the Lord when he
is there waiting with all the resources, everything
that we need to comfort and strengthen and
empower us, and we run off to somebody
else or we sit and brood right there
in his company?
We just sit there and will not run
to him?
Folks, this delight is something that God recognizes.
This is something the Lord sees.
When you come to him, when everything, every
day, doesn't have to be a crisis, but
any time, you just say, I've got to
get away.
In fact, if you really delight in the
Lord, you will, everything that hinders your coming
is going to bother you.
You're going to say, well, I love people,
but I've got to get away.
I've got to spend time with him.
He's waiting, and you'll get lonely.
You'll get heart sick.
I know what's happened to me.
If I go a day without the Lord,
without time alone with him, in real intimacy,
I get lonesome.
I get terribly lonesome inside because it's a
kind of lonesomeness that no human being can
feel.
No one can touch that spot but Jesus.
Nobody.
I love my family, but they can't touch
what's inside my heart.
I have to have him.
I've got to run to him, and when
Jesus sees you want him more than anybody
else, you go to him first.
That is the delight.
Oh, I know a lot of people...
I'm getting ahead of myself.
He wants to know that you prefer him
above all else.
That is delight.
Now, another thought on prayer.
Coming to him with delight does not mean
you cannot come to him with sadness and
grief.
So many times I've come into his presence,
I mean burdened and heavy with grief and
sadness in my heart.
Now, remember my definition of delight in the
Lord, preferring to be with him above all
others.
That's my explanation of delighting in the Lord.
And this is exemplified in the life of
Hannah.
You remember Hannah who daily came to the
Lord's presence, and she came one time to
the temple sad of heart and weeping with
a sorrowful spirit.
The Bible said she was in bitterness of
soul and prayed unto the Lord and wept
sore.
Her husband shared her with another wife by
the name of Penina.
And Penina had given her husband a number
of children, especially men's children, boy children, and
she became an adversary to Hannah and would
harass her night and day.
In the Scripture, in fact, Hannah said, she
provoked me sore.
She provoked me.
Hannah was dearly loved by her husband, but
in her sorrow he couldn't comfort her.
He said, am I not better to you
than ten sons?
And I know in her heart she said,
you're not understanding.
I have a need that you can't meet.
Folks, that's one of the greatest lessons you
can learn, that no human being can meet
that need in you, that deep yearning, that
longing.
Nobody.
That's why so many people get married and
divorced and remarried and remarried.
They're looking for somebody to meet that need.
That's why people run around looking for some
person, some individual.
They go to counselors and psychiatrists and psychologists.
They're trying to meet a need there that
only the Lord can meet.
Nobody else can meet it.
She testified to Eli, I'm a woman of
sorrowful spirit, and I poured out my soul
before the Lord.
Out of the abundance of my sorrow and
my grief have I spoken hitherto.
She was not afraid to come into His
presence with her sadness.
See, we've been so programmed to come into
the presence of the Lord with joy and
gladness.
Now, the Scripture makes many references to coming
into His presence with joy and gladness, but
there's some people who will not come into
His presence because they're sad, they're downcast, they're
going through a trial, they're weeping and they're
broken, and it's almost as if they're saying,
I'll come into His presence, but I don't
want to offend Him coming the way I
am.
I'll wait till I'm happy.
I'll wait till I have joy, and then
I'll come into His presence.
We're so used to coming in with clapping
and with praising and happiness and joy, but
the Scripture makes it very, very clear that
He wants us to come even in our
saddest moments.
Don't hide from the Lord.
Don't run anywhere else.
Go right into His presence.
Weep it out before the Lord.
Tell Him everything that you're going through.
Let Him have your sadness.
The Scripture says, In this time of brokenness,
Eli said, The Lord will answer your prayer.
And she went away and did eat, and
her countenance was no more sad.
Hallelujah.
And what strikes me is that when I
am overcome with grief and sadness, there's a
tendency in all of us to just shy
away and say, Lord, let me work this
out first, and then I'll come to you.
I don't want to bring it to you
now.
That is so wrong.
I recently had a time of unexplained sadness.
There was no real reason for it.
It was not, what do you call, you
know, the blues or depression.
It was just sadness.
Did anybody here ever get a time of
just sadness?
You don't understand it?
Now, and I couldn't understand it, and I
was going to go to the Lord in
prayer, and I said, Now, Lord, if you'll
just wait, this is my thinking, if you'll
just wait till this evening, I'll be okay.
Then I'll pray.
And the Holy Spirit led me to go
to the Old Testament about Nehemiah, and I
hadn't seen it before.
And I read this, and it just broke
me down.
I began to weep in the presence of
the Lord and say, Thank you, Lord.
And I had a great time.
And in a few hours, he took it
all away.
But I had to come to him with
sadness.
Nehemiah was a cupbearer for King Artaxerxes, and
he tasted the wine before he would give
it to the king, first of all, to
see if it was poisoned.
He would die first.
And also, to bring the quality wines to
his table.
He'd become a very trusted servant to this
king.
But he'd heard a report, Nehemiah had heard
a report from his brother Hanana about the
ruined conditions of Jerusalem.
And he said to Nehemiah, The walls are
torn down.
The city's in ruins.
The people are in terrible straits.
And it's disintegrating.
It's getting worse every day.
And it just tore his heart.
He had a love for Judah and for
Jerusalem.
And it carried over into his life.
A sadness gripped Nehemiah.
And he comes to the king one day.
And it came to pass, this is Nehemiah
speaking, I took up the wine, and I
gave it unto the king.
Now, up to this time, I had never
been sad in his presence.
I'd never been sad.
And when I read those words, sad in
his presence, it just hit me.
Lord, that's me right now, sad in your
presence.
The king asked, Why is thy countenance sad,
seeing thou art not sick?
This is nothing but sorrow of heart.
Then I was very sore afraid.
And the reason he was afraid, because you
dare not, by decree, come into a king's
presence, especially if you were in a king's
court, you dared not come in with anything
but a smile.
You could have your head chopped off.
And now he's very afraid, because he knows
the decree.
And rather than the king chop his head
off, he was moved with compassion.
And the scripture makes it very clear, if
you read the story, that Nehemiah's given a
leave of absence, he's given letters of credit,
the king's treasure is open to him, and
he gets the desire of his heart, and
he is told to go to Jerusalem and
rebuild the temple and the walls.
Now, here's the point.
All these things are written for our benefit,
the scripture said, upon whom the ends of
the world have come.
They're all patterns for us.
This whole story is about us.
If a man of God can go into
the presence of a pagan king and find
compassion and have every need met, and the
burden lifted, so that he comes out of
that king's presence with every need supplied, how
much more will King Jesus supply your need,
take away your burden, when you come sad
in his presence?
Hallelujah.
I looked at that and said, Lord, he's
a pagan king, and he has compassion.
You are ever-loving, ever-merciful.
I come into your courts with this burden.
I come to you broken.
I come to you cast down.
I come with sadness.
But, folks, you still delight in the Lord
because in your sadness, remember my definition of
sadness is coming to him first, preferring him
above all others.
You still come with delight.
Even though you don't feel happy, you don't
feel joyful, the real meaning of delight is
that I go to him first.
I prefer his company, the pleasure of his
company.
Hallelujah.
Now, if we're going to learn to pray,
pleasing unto the Lord, we've got to learn
to pray through.
That's my next thought.
Now, praying through is a term that was
coined by early Pentecostals.
To them, it simply meant you stay on
your knees until you're assured you have the
answer.
You just stay there until you believe that
you have the answer.
And others talked about this term of praying
through as keep coming back to the Lord
and coming back and coming back until you
get your answer.
That is praying through.
They called it persevering in prayer.
In fact, when I was a boy at
camp meeting, everybody prayed, they'd get up and
testify, I'm going to lay hold of the
horns on the altar and not let go
until God answers.
But folks, that's not what I see in
the Spirit about praying through.
The Lord has really changed my concept of
what it means to pray through.
Now, some of you talk about praying through,
but let me try to explain what I've
seen in the Spirit.
Prayer actually is not complete, in fact, until
you pray it through.
Many prayers are wasted, they're aborted, they're lost
because they've not been carried through.
Now, I'm telling you, you can delight in
the Lord, you can go to Him and
He can lift your spirit, He can satisfy
your heart, He empowers you and you feel
like you're ready to face every crisis and
everything else.
But what happens when you leave that secret
place of communion you are not on your
knees now, you are not shut in with
God at this time, what happens when you
leave that hallowed place of intimacy and you
go back to a situation that hasn't changed?
The same devil is there, the same problems
are there, the same emptiness, and everything that
brought about your sad condition is still there
waiting to pounce on you again and bring
you down once again suddenly under its power.
Now, here's what I mean by praying through.
What you get from the Lord when you're
shut in with Him, the strength, encouragement, the
empowerment, must see you through the trial that's
just ahead.
If you don't get it in prayer, what
did you get if it doesn't see you
through the problem?
Is it an aborted prayer if it does
not see you through?
Is it a completed prayer?
Praying through is waiting for the completion of
your prayer until it's totally completed.
Many of us have never seen completed prayers.
We've seen half-answered prayers.
It's not been completed.
See, you can be shut in with the
Lord in the Mount of Transfiguration, and you
can glory in that and delight in His
presence.
And then you come down to the valley
and the demoniacs are waiting and the crisis
is there and problem after problem, confusion after
confusion.
What good is it if you get the
glory on the mountain and it won't see
you through the battle?
What you get in the secret closet, the
victory you get in the secret closet, has
to give you victory on the battlefield.
I don't want to pray for an overwhelming
blessing of power and anointing from God.
I don't want a tremendous surge of assurance
from the Lord in the secret closet, and
that's what you get when you're shut in
with the Lord.
You get peace.
The first thing He tells you is don't
be afraid.
I'm with you.
And He settles your spirit and He brings
joy, He brings peace, and you walk out
with that glory on your face.
But folks, what about the next day?
What about the trial?
Because most of the times prayer doesn't change
situations or circumstances, it changes you and puts
you above the circumstances.
And some of you get discouraged because you
haven't prayed your circumstances to change.
You believe God for that?
Now, sometimes He does, but many times you
go from that wonderful mountaintop experience of intimacy
with Jesus and go right into a battle.
All the demon powers of hell raid against
you.
But folks, it's not a finished prayer, it's
not a completed prayer until you get through,
until you're through the problem, through the crisis,
and you come out on the other side
in triumph.
God fully intends that what we get with
Him in intimacy is going to supply us
with everything we need for the battle.
And folks, if you're not intimate with the
Lord and you're not seeking Him in a
way pleasing to Him, how do you fight
the enemy?
How do you face your trials?
I could not, I can't face anything without
running to Him and getting my soul fired
up and getting the peace and the joy
and the rest of God in my soul.
I don't know what even Christians do who
don't know how to pray according to His
mind.
I confess that at this point I have
failed miserably in the past.
I've known great times of ecstasy.
I know what it is to get lonely
for Jesus even after 24 hours and have
to run to Him to have that wonderful
intimacy with Him.
And I know what it is to run
to Him with heaviness and sorrow and tears
flowing.
And I've experienced that awesome touch that you
get and you come out with relief.
But then when I face a crisis, the
next day or the next week, this is
the end of side one.
You may now turn the tape over to
side two.
Seems to evaporate.
Come on now.
I think the reason it's getting so quiet
here, I'm touching somebody's nerve.
Oh, you had such power when you prayed.
You had such an anointing.
Came to church, you were blessed.
The glory of the Lord was here and
then you went right out the door and
all the demon powers of hell are out
there waiting.
You went home and your husband screamed at
you, yelled at you.
Everything went wrong.
You went to work on Monday and everything
went crazy.
And where is that joy?
Where is that peace?
Where is that rest that you got in
intimacy with Jesus?
Your prayer hasn't been prayed through because your
prayer's not prayed through till you've lived it
through.
Now, what is the end purpose of prayer?
Is it just to give you ecstasy?
Is it just to give you rest and
peace?
No, folks, it's got to be a grief
to the Heavenly Father.
It's got to be a grief to the
heart of the Lord that He gives us
everything we need that tends to godliness and
righteousness.
Everything we need for life is in Him
and He gives it to us in that
time of intimacy.
He builds us up and it must grieve
His heart that we don't see it that
way, that somehow between this glory and the
crisis, we lose everything that we have got
and gained in intimacy and prayer with the
Lord.
So how do you keep it?
What do you do to maintain the victory
so that your prayer is prayed through to
a triumphant conclusion?
What is it going to take?
Folks, I really prayed about this because Christians
everywhere are hurting.
We get 30,000 to 40,000 letters
a month from our mailing list.
There are over 700,000 people on our
mailing list that get these messages.
And folks, I've never, we've never heard what
we hear now of the hurting of the
people.
There are Christians that are so lonely they
can hardly see themselves through a day.
They are just suffocating with a loneliness that
is incredible, especially during holidays.
There are other Christians that write to us,
and it's probably representative right here of our
own congregation here, going through all kinds of
marital problems and family problems, hurting, pastors that
are grief-stricken of what's happening in their
congregations.
Many of them write to us that they've
had people rise up against them.
Some people they trusted the most just rise
up against them and betray them.
It's so bad, I can't add to that
hurt, that burden.
What do I do?
And the Lord said, what is needed is
a word from the Lord on how to
go to Him in prayer, become intimate, and
receive the power and the authority to go
through it.
A word from the Lord.
Folks, I can't stand here and say, why
aren't you in victory?
Why aren't you praying?
Why are you sad?
Be happy.
What terrible people you are, because you shouldn't,
after all these years, you shouldn't be so
downcast.
You ought to have victory in your life.
I can't do that, because sometimes I get
downcast, and I get sad.
I'm not going to be a phony as
a preacher.
Now, this is just mashed potatoes and gravy,
old home cooking.
I want to get this out to you.
I said, Lord, what do I do that
I can maintain victory, take the victory from
the prayer closet, right through my battle, come
through the other side, and then on the
other side, just a time of intimacy, of
praise, and worship, and thanksgiving for the greatness
of God and His keeping, saving, delivering power.
First of all, listen.
Listen.
That's the word He gave me.
Most Christians don't listen to God.
They go to talk.
You go through this Bible, you look at
any man that God has ever used, and
he had learned to stay in God's presence
until he heard His word, until he heard
His voice.
There'll be a word behind you saying, this
is the way, walking in it, when you
go to the right hand or to the
left.
There'll be a word behind you.
Now, I'm going to tell you now, and
I want you to hear it.
The Lord wants to talk to every one
of us.
He wants to talk to the children, like
the little girl who was dying of leukemia,
and she was near death's door, and she
was having a terrible time, even thinking the
concept of death, and the mother came in
the room the next day, and she was
all aglow and happy.
Mother said, what happened?
She said, an angel came to me and
said that I was going to take a
trip, and God came, took my hand, took
me to a beautiful garden, walked me through
the garden, and said, you're coming here tomorrow.
She took all the things.
God spoke to that little child.
God spoke, said, tomorrow you're going to be
with me.
Took all the pain out of her heart,
and she was with the Lord the next
day with joy in her heart.
God can speak to children.
He can speak to anybody who will give
Him quality time.
But see, we go into His presence demanding.
We go into His presence in a hurried
spirit.
Oh, the one thing that God wants more
than anything else is quiet, quality time.
It's not the length of time even, but
it's getting your soul steeled in His presence
and saying, now speak to me, Lord.
I'm going to ask you, when you got
intimate with Jesus, when you were siding with
Him, did you get His directions?
Did He tell you what to do, when
to do, and how to do it?
I know there are people who don't believe
that, but my Bible says my sheep know
my voice.
They hear when I call.
I don't do anything anymore.
I haven't done in a long time.
I don't do anything now until I get
along with Him and say, Jesus, there's nobody
on this earth that can tell me what
to do.
You're the only one who knows all things.
You're the only one who knows the way
through this.
I'm staying here until you tell me what
to do.
I won't do anything until you speak to
my heart.
That is the kind of praying.
That is the kind of praying through where
you stop and you hear His voice, and
He says, now, you've got to make this
thing right.
You've got to make restitution here.
You've got to make this call, or you
just stand still until next week.
I'll tell you what to do a week
from now.
Don't get in a hurry.
I want you to sit for a week
and just trust me.
He will speak to you.
He will give you direction.
Folks, the devil cannot come in and invade
that private time when you are really preferring
Him above all others and delighting in Him
in that way, and you're trusting Him in
faith.
And then, folks, after He speaks to you,
just get this word out.
Stay right there on your knees.
Stay in with Him and get this book
and say, Holy Spirit, where do you...
First of all, you should have a time
where you read through the book systematically.
You go right through the book and mark
it.
But then you go along with the Lord
and say, Lord, speak to me through Your
Word.
Speak to me through Your Word.
He'll say, Psalm 33, and I go to
Psalm 33, and by the way, what is
Psalm 33 here?
By the Word of the Lord, the heavens
were made, and all the host of them
by the breath of His mouth.
Let all the earth fear the Lord.
Let all the inhabitants of the world stand
in awe of Him.
For He spake, and it was done.
He commanded, and it stood still.
The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen
to nothing.
He maketh the devices of the people of
none effect.
Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon
them that fear Him, upon them that hope
in His mercy to deliver their soul from
death, to keep them alive in famine.
Our soul waiteth for the Lord.
He's our help and our shield.
Hallelujah.
See, He just spoke.
He's given us a lesson.
Honestly, thank You, Jesus.
Our hearts shall rejoice in Him because we've
trusted in His holy name.
Hallelujah.
Listen to Him.
You see, He's going to give you direction.
He will tell you how to get through
your crisis.
And this is the problem.
We have failed because we didn't stay to
get our direction.
We didn't stay to get the word from
the Lord.
Now, some of you are here this morning,
and I'm speaking prophetically now.
You have to hear from God.
There's nobody on the face of this earth
that's going to see you through the problem
you face.
Nobody.
And I want you to hear this in
the Spirit.
I know I'm speaking prophetically.
You are here this morning.
You may be here for the first time,
and He's speaking to your heart.
And you hear it now in the Spirit.
Don't hear it from me.
Hear it from the Holy Spirit.
You have got to get to Him and
stay there in His presence until He alone
gives you your direction, until He tells you
the way through, when to act, how to
act, who to call, what to do.
He will give you explicit direction.
And if He doesn't give you direction, He'll
tell you to hold still, and He'll give
you the peace to maintain that stillness until
the victory comes.
Until the answer comes.
There are some things He can't do right
now because situations are not ripe.
But as soon as they are ripe in
His time and His way, it will not
be one minute too late or one minute
early.
It will be right in Holy Ghost timing.
So when you go to pray now, you
say, Oh Lord, I come now not just
to have my needs met.
I come now, Lord, to meet Your need.
I know, listen, God created Adam and came
down and fellowshiped with him every day.
He wanted it.
He needed it.
We were made for fellowship with the Lord.
Do you love to be with Him?
I've got to close now, but in the
world, how can anybody say they know how
to pray or have even attempted to pray
if there's not something in your heart that
every day draws you, woos you?
There's no love if you don't have that
drawing to the Lord.
I'm not talking about a two-minute, five
-minute little prayer.
I'm talking about shutting the whole world out.
Say, Oh Lord, You're my everything.
That's the way I praise the Lord.
And Lord knows this.
Lord, didn't I want this world?
Not its fame, not its money, not its
recognition, not its pleasures.
I don't want any of that, Jesus, because
You've become the whole delight of my soul.
I prefer Your company.
I just enjoy Your company.
Hallelujah.
When you get in the car, what do
you do?
You begin to sing.
You begin to worship.
You begin to enjoy His company.
Hallelujah.
When everybody around you, there's busyness and you've
got company and you've got all kinds of
things going, what do you do?
The heart, if you really love me, God
is reaching out.
You can't wait.
Then finally, you say to everybody, I'm sorry,
I've got to leave you for a moment.
Don't tell them you're going to prayer.
That would be boasting.
Just escape.
Just vanish.
Get alone with Him.
Hallelujah.
Do you prefer Him above all others?
God, help us to enjoy completed prayers.
Really praying through.
Will you stand?
Now, this message won't make you shout, but
it ought to change your life.
It ought to affect your life from here
on out.
And when you go to prayer, say, Lord,
I come for Your pleasure.
I come to meet You.
Hallelujah.
This is for Your pleasure.
It's a joy.
God helping me.
Now, I know the Bible said they labored
in prayer.
But there was a delight in what they
were doing.
I prefer not to use that word because
the connotation today is obligation and duty.
Hallelujah.
Now, some of you up in the balcony,
the main floor, you've been praying.
You've been seeking the Lord.
God wants you to add this one thing.
Lord, I'm going to stop talking.
Every time I come, I'm going to talk
to you.
But when I've talked out my heart, I'm
going to quit talking.
I'm going to quit speaking.
I'm just going to sit silent and say,
Speak, my Lord, speak to my heart.
Hallelujah.
Folks, God wants to speak to everyone in
this church, everyone in this choir.
He wants you to be able to know
you shouldn't have to go to somebody.
You shouldn't have to come to me.
You shouldn't have to come to any pastor.
You shouldn't have to go to any counselor.
Counselors are for those who, honestly, I'm going
to tell you straight out, for those who
have not yet learned his voice.
There's nothing wrong with counselors.
That's fine.
Because there are new converts, there are people
who have not yet learned, and that's good,
and they will learn.
And eventually they won't need counselors.
I don't go to a counselor.
Every time I've gone to a counselor, I've
got the wrong advice.
Because people tell me what they think I
want to hear.
They tell me something that might abort the
work of God but it's not in my
heart.
No, you go to him, he will speak
to you.
You know, some of you, you're here, Seth,
this morning, and you're cold in heart.
You have not been drawn to the Lord.
You are, I'm going to tell you straight
out, you're cold.
You're cold.
You're not even lukewarm.
You're cold.
I want you to come down this aisle
and shake off that coldness and say, Jesus,
you draw me to yourself now.
If you have a spirit of loneliness on
you, if you've got a spirit of depression
or anything else that's just bombarding you, you
bring it to the Lord now and say,
Lord, I'm going to listen to you.
You're going to tell me how to get
out of my loneliness.
You're going to tell me what to do
and how to do it.
Folks, don't go to the Christian bookstore and
get a half dozen books on how to
fight loneliness.
Save your money.
Go to Jesus and say, Lord, what do
I do?
And he said, the first thing, I'm going
to give you all the grace you need
to see it through.
He'll pour grace into you.
This is the conclusion of the tape.