I was so blessed by what our brother
shared in working amongst the Amish and the
Mennonite people, Harold, that I would be willing
to give him a session tomorrow afternoon to
talk about the home situation.
Anyway, we pray about that, but it was
just a tremendous blessing to my own heart.
James chapter 5, if you will.
I wonder if I'm not, am I too
loud for you?
Am I okay?
It just sounds loud up here.
Okay.
James chapter 5, and we're going to read
from verse number 12.
You know, I phoned my wife this afternoon,
and she said, how's it going?
I said, these men are worse than the
Africans.
So I will phone her tonight and say
they're worse than the Pentecostals.
So you should see the song leader.
Okay, James chapter 5, if you will.
And let's read just for the sake of
our time.
Let's read from verse number 10.
Take my brethren, the prophets who have spoken
in the name of the Lord for an
example of suffering and affliction of patience.
Behold, we count them happy which endure.
You have heard of the patience of Job,
and have seen the end of the Lord,
that the Lord is very pitiful and tender
mercy.
But above all things, my brethren, swear not,
neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither
by any other oath, but let your yea
be yea and your nay, nay, lest ye
fall into condemnation.
If any among you afflicted, let him pray.
If any merry, let him sing psalms.
If any sick among you, let him call
for the elders to the church and let
them pray over him, anointing him with oil
in the name of the Lord.
And the prayer of faith shall save the
sick.
And the Lord shall raise him up, and
if he hath committed sins, they shall be
forgiven him.
Confess your faults one to another, and pray
one for another, so that ye may be
healed.
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man
availeth much.
He like you is a man subject to
like passions, as we are.
And he prayed earnestly that it might not
rain, and it rained not on the earth
by the space of three years and six
months.
And he prayed again, and the heaven gave
rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
Brethren, if any of you do err from
the truth, and one convert him, let him
know that he which converted the sinner from
the error of his way shall save his
soul from death and shall hide a multitude
of sins.
You know, it's quite significant if you study
this little epistle of James.
He said, a sense in which I believe
you'll discover that it is probably one of
the most practical little epistles in the New
Testament.
I kind of feel, because of the fact
that James, in one sense, is a half
-brother of the Lord Jesus, sometimes as I
look at this epistle and I look at
this sermon and amount, are there sometimes some
tremendous corresponding principles, as it were, that can
be a tremendous blessing.
You see, James is speaking to us about
the perfect law of liberty.
And Christ is saying to us in the
sermon and amount, that unless our righteousness shall
exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees and the
Sadducees, that in no way that we shall
be part of the kingdom of God.
But one of the most significant things about
James is simply this, that he did not
refer to himself necessarily as being related to
the Lord Jesus, but he called himself a
servant of Christ.
And the word servant is a very, very
significant word.
It is the Greek word doulos, that really
has its meaning within the Old Testament.
And in the 21st chapter of the book
of Exodus, will you discover that the Bible
is speaking to us about the bond slave
or the love slave, the Jewish slave who
has worked for his master for something like
six years, and in the word of God
it's saying to us that that slave was
under the obligation of the law after six
years to allow that, rather the master was
under the obligation of the law after six
years to allow that slave to go out
free.
But in the Bible it's saying to us
that that slave would come to the place
where he would say to himself, I love
my master and I do not want to
go out free and I want to stay
with my master for the rest of my
life, and he would go to his master
and make that confession and then his master
in the presence of two witnesses will take
him to the door and make a hole
through his ear with an oar and from
that day he would be called a bond
slave or a love slave.
In other words, he came to the place
where he said, I love my master and
I do not want to go out free
and I want to stay with my master
for the rest of my life.
Incidentally, if you read or study the epistles
of the apostle Paul, quite often you come
across this very same word, where Paul came
to the place where he said, I love
my master and I do not want to
go out free.
One of the great things about the epistle
of James is simply the fact that although
it's called to us by some the first
message to the church, well you discover that
there are some tremendous lessons and principles that
you and I can learn about the life
and the ministry of intercessory prayer.
In fact, there are some traditions that are
saying to us that James' nickname was Camel
Knee, and they are saying to us that
when James died, that they find those amazing
marks as it were on his knees and
somehow came to the conclusion that here was
a man of tremendous intercessory prayer.
I would like to say to you this
evening that if you study what we would
consider as the laws of biblical interpretation, well
you discover that quite often that God speaks
to us in principles and in propositions.
And you will also realize that when God
speaks to us, for instance in a principle
or a proposition, that quite often it's a
biblical truth to discover that he gives unto
us an illustration.
Now let me tell you why I'm saying
that you will discover in the fifth chapter
of James that the Bible is saying unto
us that the prayer of the righteous man
availeth much.
And here comes the illustration.
He's saying unto us, Elijah was a man
subject to like passions as we are, and
Elijah prayed and as a result of the
prayer of Elijah was for a moment that
God closed the heavens above for a period
of three years and six months and the
Bible says Elijah prayed again and there was
a moment that God opened the heavens above
and God sent rain.
I would like to speak to you tonight
if I may so on what I would
consider as a life and a ministry of
intercessory prayer.
And what I would like us to do,
I want us to look at the attitude
of prevailing in intercessory prayer.
I want us to consider the agony of
a life of prevailing in prayer.
In fact, if time would allow us, I
want us to look at what we would
consider as the victory of a life of
prevailing in prayer.
You see my brother, let me say to
you this evening, I think one of our
greatest problems as men or one of the
reasons why you and I are not accountable
in the presence of God when it comes
to our responsibility in prayer is simply because
of the attitude that we have when it
comes to a life and a ministry of
prevailing in prayer.
And the first thing that I would like
to mention to you is simply this, that
if you study the Word of God and
if you study the history of a church
you will discover that when God is speaking
to us about a ministry of prevailing in
prayer, that God is referring to all the
people.
God is speaking to you and me about
people like just us ourselves.
I think for instance in that amazing passage
in the first chapter of the book of
Samuel when we read about Hannah, that very
interesting woman in the Old Testament, somehow it
seems to me that the Bible is saying
very little about the life of Hannah.
There are maybe one or two or three
chapters where God is referring to the life
of this woman and in the eyes of
this world she was absolutely inadequate and she
was absolutely insignificant.
And yet my brethren you will discover that
here was a woman who knew the secret
of what it means to get through to
God within a place of prayer.
Can I ask you a question tonight?
Have you ever asked yourself that when she
came into the presence of God to pray,
why was it that she asked God for
a man child?
Somehow it seems to me that this woman
year after year as she went into the
temple of God, she saw the condition of
the people of God, she saw the sin
within the temple of God, she saw the
adultery that was going on and somehow year
after year with a tremendous spiritual perception that
she had was there a moment that she
somehow got in her face before God and
she said God if you will give unto
me a man child.
She said I want to give a child
to you and that child became Samuel and
he became one of the great prophets of
Israel.
I think for instance of that amazing woman
again in the first chapters of the gospel
of Luke.
Her name was Hannah the prophetess and you
remember Hannah the prophetess was a woman and
God is saying to us that she served
God with prayers and with fasting and maybe
you sit here tonight my brother and you
say when God is speaking to me about
the ministry of intercessory prayer, somehow I can't
see that this can be a plan of
God for my life.
Maybe you sit here tonight and you say
well there are certain people that are a
George Buller or there is maybe a John
Hyde of India or there is maybe a
George Fitzfield but somehow as I look upon
my life it seems to me that this
is not God's lifestyle for me.
I was involved in South Africa a number
of years and I remember I was asked
to do a conference or a weekend retreat
at a place about 65 miles outside of
the city of Cape Town and it was
what was called the district of Clan William
and the first night the people came in
trailers these were conservative Dutch Reformed Christians and
they stayed in these trailers and tents and
the services as it was an attempt and
I discovered that night when I began to
preach that it just happened so that I
found out that there were about 50 people
who were at that weekend conference of exactly
the same name.
In fact I said to those people that
night in my opening remarks, I said to
them folks let me say to you tonight
when we turn the generator off and in
the darkness of this night if you bump
into someone just say I'm sorry Mr. Watson
because there were so many of those people.
And I began to ask myself how did
those people came to Christ?
And my friends you know what I discovered?
I discovered about 23 years earlier on two
of our faith mission evangelists went into the
district of Clan William to do a series
of evangelistic meetings for something like three weeks
or so and those men said as we
came into the town we discovered that there
was an awesome sense of the presence of
God.
They said when we gathered for the services
and the town hall the very first night
the place was loaded with people.
They said somehow there was such an awareness
of God that they were too afraid to
open their hymn books.
They were almost too afraid to open their
Bibles because of the awesome awareness of God.
Somehow those men began to preach God's word
and something like three weeks or so 400
people were swept into the kingdom of God
and every night in those services there was
an elderly man in his early 80s who
sat there with his gray hair and his
head bowed.
One morning one of those evangelists turned to
the other and said we have never in
our lives experienced this before.
He said somehow it seems to me that
this is like a breath of revival.
It seems God is working in a most
amazing way.
Why don't we go and ask the old
man why is it that God is working
like that?
They went to his little cabin up in
what was called the Cedar Mountains and as
they knocked on the door of that cabin
this old gentleman rushed to the door and
he invited them into this little cabin and
as they stepped into that cabin they recognized
that they were standing in holy ground.
One of them turned to this old man
and said sir can you tell us why
God is working in such a way?
The old man became very very quiet and
he said sir have you prayed for this
town?
He said well God is simply answering prayer.
He said will you tell us what has
been happening?
The old man turned to them and he
said do you see this town?
He said this town is divided by a
kind of a hill and he said every
day for six days of the week he
said I climb over the hill to the
other side of the town and he said
there is a place where I kneel and
I look over this part of the town
and he said the burden of God would
come upon me and he said I would
pray and supplicate and intercede and he said
sometimes for hours he said I would supplicate
in the presence of God.
Then he said there is a moment where
I cross the hill and I look over
that part of the town and he said
there is a rock where I kneel and
he said something of the burden of God
would come upon me and I would find
myself sometimes for hours and sometimes supplicate and
starve and intercede and agonize for the souls
of the people.
One of those two workers turned to him
and said sir would you allow me to
ask you how long have you been doing
that?
The old man dropped his head and broke
down and through the tears the little words
began to trickle through.
He said if I remember correctly he said
I have been doing this for six days
of the week for the last 25 years.
Gentlemen I want to say to you tonight
there is a verse in the Bible and
every time it breaks my heart when I
look at it because the prophet is saying
unto us when Zion prevails he brought forth
her young.
God is saying unto us that they wanted
to bring forth and there was not the
power to bring them forth.
I wonder tonight if you would allow me
those of us who are pastors in this
church and I know a little bit of
what you are talking about but my brethren
may I ask you this evening are there
times in your congregation and in your life
when you know something others this prevailing for
the souls of men?
It's for ordinary people you see.
And we are living in a time today
in the history of the church of the
Lord Jesus where everything is instantaneous.
Can I share with you tonight that in
the years of my experience of evangelism in
Africa and the highness of Scotland and some
of those evangelistic crusades last for up to
8 weeks that there was very seldom that
we made any kind of an invitation before
there were maybe 17 or 19 days that
are passed so that people can be exposed
to the conviction of the word of God.
It's for ordinary people you see.
And I think one of the most wonderful
things that can happen these days as you
and I and myself expose ourselves to the
communication of God's word.
As the Holy Spirit of God will come
who does witness to nothing else than the
word and the precious blood as we expose
ourselves my friends that the spirit of God
will come and fertilize the seed of God's
word in our lives so that it can
bring forth the manifestation of the life of
the word.
It's for ordinary people.
It's for you and it's for me.
I can't help but think again and again
of that amazing man with the name of
Robert Murray McShane for the simple reason that
I preach in Dundee in Scotland.
I had the joy of standing at the
place where Robert Murray McShane preached and discover
that here was a young man who died
at the age of 27.
But those people as they sat in the
rich ministry on a Sunday morning and they
listened, you know, they sat as he looked
upon us as a congregation.
It somehow seems that he knew exactly what
we were doing or what we were thinking
about this last week.
Robert Murray McShane died and the minister went
to the church of McShane and he got
hold of the old custodian or the caretaker.
He said, will you tell me the secret
of the life of this man?
And he took him into the little place
where McShane prayed and there was an old
kind of a little carpet and there was
a chair.
They speak of it as a stool in
Scotland.
And there on that carpet were two holes.
And he said to this man, he said,
I want you to put your two knees
in those two holes.
And he did so.
And he said, now I want you to
cover your face.
And he did so.
He said, now, he said, I want you
to pray.
And he said, as the burden of God
comes.
He said, I want you to break in
the presence of God.
And he said, as you pray.
He said, I want you to weep as
the master wept.
And I'm told that that minister was very
embarrassed and almost wanted to walk out.
And the old custodian got him by the
hand and he dragged him into the pulpit
where McShane preached.
And as he brought him into the pulpit,
he said, I want you to open the
family Bible.
And he did so.
And there was hardly a page in that
Bible that was not rippled by the, by
the brokenness of McShane.
And he said, I want you to put
your elbows on it.
And I want you to cover your face.
And he said, now, I want the burden
of God to come.
And he said, when the burden of God
comes, he said, I want you to break.
He said, that's how the master wept.
The same Robert Murray McShane who said, whatever
a man is on his knees before God,
is that, that is what that man will
be in the pulpit and in the public.
My brethren, may I say to you tonight,
this is a prayer at once.
And I think it's one of the most
wonderful things that can happen these days.
If God the Holy Spirit would come to
a number of us and we become accountable.
I said in the church about two days
ago or so, that there are men that
are holding me accountable.
They are not interested in my ministry.
They are not interested in the times that
I preach.
These are older men in the ministry.
They are interested in what God is doing
in my prayer life.
They are concerned about my relationship with God.
If God can give some of us this
great spirit of prayer, I would like to
see what will happen in the next number
of months when we seek the face of
God in prayer.
It's for all the people you see.
One of the most wonderful things that I
have discovered is simply the fact that it's
not only for all the people, but I've
discovered that it is also for obedient people.
You know what the Bible is saying to
us tonight?
God is saying to us, if I regard
iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not
hear.
Can I give you a 94 translation?
God is saying, if I regard iniquity in
my heart, you're wasting your time.
I wonder tonight, my brethren, if I may
ask you, is there any unconfessed sin in
your life?
I wonder tonight if I may ask you,
because these are one of the great influences
to prayer, if there is something between you
and your wife, or something between you and
your children, and somehow you are sitting here
tonight, and you say amen, and you enjoy
it, but yet in your heart, somehow you
recognize that I'm not getting through to God.
We've got a system in our own family,
and I'm really looking forward to speak to
my brother, but we've got a system in
our own family where every morning, Janice and
myself spend about half an hour with our
little girl, Monica.
We've got a system of accountability.
And I discover, and we're going to deal
with this stuff.
I mean, it's just a fact.
I'm not going to ask you tonight, but
we're going to look at it at some
point and find out how many of you
are praying with your wife.
I mean, I'm not asking you praying at
the table, a little short prayer, but how
many of you are spending quality time with
your wife?
I spend about 90% of my time
out in Western Canada with pastors.
My heart is broken for these men.
They know that they can trust me, and
we spend some time together, and I pray
for them.
But can I tell you something tonight, my
friends?
Listen, some of the most loneliest women I've
met have been the wives of pastors.
We were in a church some time ago,
and by the way, it was a Baptist
church.
When I listened to this pastor tonight, I
thought, there's no one else here but Baptists.
Anyway, we were in this church on a
Sunday morning.
It was a Sunday to Sunday crusade out
in Saskatchewan, and the pastor was gone.
He's a great fellow.
He's selling in biblical exposition.
He's got a great ministry in counseling.
He's gone to the church, and I ran
up to the kitchen just to get a
glass of water.
Just as I came into the kitchen, his
wife was there, and she's a beautiful little
girl, just a precious soul.
She turned to me, and she said, Gerard,
can I see you for a moment?
And I thought, uh-huh, this is it
again.
We sat down at the table, and I
said, what is it, Tina?
She said, you see my husband, he's a
wonderful man.
She said, but my husband refused to pray
with me.
My brethren, may I say to you something
tonight?
You're not going to take your congregation further
than you would be able to take your
family.
And I want to be honest with you
this evening.
One of the most difficult areas of my
life has simply been to discipline myself to
spend quality time with my family.
You know why?
Because I'm a morning person.
And my best times of God is between
5 and 8 in the morning.
And my wife is not a morning person.
In fact, if I would try to wake
Janice up at 7 in the morning and
say, come and watch the sunrise with me,
she will turn to me and say to
me, listen, Daddy, if God wanted me to
watch the sunrise at 7, he would have
scheduled it much later.
But I've got a responsibility, you see.
Can I tell you something tonight, my friends?
Listen, there was a day when my wife
walked into my study, my office.
She said, Gerard, I need to talk to
you.
And we sat there, and I thought everything
was fine.
I thought everything was great.
I said, what is it, Janice?
She said, I'm becoming very, very lonely, spiritually.
I said, why?
She said, you don't spend quality time with
me.
I spoke to a group of men some
time ago, about 16, at the weekend retreat.
We dealt with some of this kind of
stuff.
Right in the middle of that session, a
man jumped up, and I asked him, I
said, how many of you are spending quality
time with your wife?
He jumped right up, and he said, I
desperately need God.
25 others jumped up.
That day they made a covenant with God.
Are you spending time with your wife?
I phoned my wife last night, and, you
know, we are unbelievably busy out in British
Columbia.
I mean, if God can't call you, I
give you one to come and help me.
Because I'm directing my conference center, and sometimes
I'm involved in 50 or 60 churches a
year, and it's a tremendous responsibility.
And I phoned my wife last night, and
one of the first things she said, she
said, Monica wants to talk to you.
I said, sure.
And I never talk to my little girl.
She wouldn't go to bed unless I pray
with her.
So I talked to her about this and
that, and I said, now, Monica, let's pray.
And I prayed with her on the phone.
And boy, this is fun.
And then after I prayed with her, she
ran and jumped on the couch.
And my wife was laughing.
I said, what is it, Janet?
She said, she's sitting on the couch.
I said, oh.
She said, she so much enjoyed it.
I've got a responsibility, you see.
It's for obedient people.
Can I ask you this Monday night, are
you living in the obedience of the presence
of God?
I came across some great statements when it
comes to the concept of obedience, about what
Martin Luther said.
He said, I said, I rather obey than
doing miracles for God.
Someone said, revival is the beginning of a
new obedience and the presence of God.
Listen, my brethren, prayer is the relationship.
And relationship means obedience.
And the Bible is saying to us very
clear.
You remember once Samuel chapter 15.
This is what God is saying.
And Samuel said, have the Lord as great
delight in burnt offerings and in sacrifices as
in obeying the voice of the Lord.
He said, behold, to obey is better than
sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of
lambs.
The Lord Jesus said in the Gospel of
John.
He said, he that willeth to do my
will shall know of the doctrine that I
am speaking of.
It's for obedient people.
Are you walking in obedience this evening?
Is there a sense of openness before God?
Someone referred to Dr. Andrew Murray of South
Africa.
This man who was so mightily used of
God.
One day he crossed the street in Cape
Town.
It was Adelaide Street in Cape Town and
he crossed it.
And he stopped in the middle of the
street.
And someone saw him.
This person walked up to him and said,
sir, why did you stop in the middle
of the street?
Do you know what he said?
He said, I said, I crossed that street.
He said, I lost contact with God for
one split second.
And he said, I wanted that contact with
God to be restored again.
Sounds mystical, doesn't it?
It's obedient.
And I wonder this evening, gentlemen, if I
may ask you this Monday night.
I wonder if Satan has got some foothold
in your life.
If Satan has got some stronghold in your
life.
If there is some area of your life,
maybe some besetting sin.
Maybe some emotional struggle that you are going
through.
Maybe some theological struggle that you are going
through.
And somehow Satan is taking advance of your
life.
God said, I want to be here.
I would never forget, I preached at a
conference in Africa a number of years ago.
There was an elderly lady at those services.
I mean, she was in her seventies.
And it was services like this.
God was just about doing anything that you
could think of.
And we had about four or five services
every day.
And in my ignorance as a young fellow
in the ministry, I walked up to her
and I said, I said, you know, I
don't think you should come to every service.
Why don't you take a break in the
afternoon?
And why don't you rest?
And I would never forget that little woman
swinging around and point her finger at me
and said, young man.
She said, I don't know when God is
going to break through.
She said, I set myself in such a
way that when the wind of the Spirit
will come, she said, I will be swept
into His love.
You know what's one of my greatest fears
in these days together?
And listen, by tomorrow night we're almost through.
But one of my greatest fears tonight is
that, brethren, that there could be some of
us who are going to sit through service
after service.
We are going to be exposed to the
Word of God.
And we would say it's wonderful.
It's right.
It's God's Word.
And we come to the end like this.
And we say the harvest is gone.
The time has come.
And yet we have not met with God.
You say, what are you saying?
I'm saying to you it's possible that you
can miss it.
I'm saying to you it's possible that we
could sit and gather inside this and the
Spirit of God can breathe upon us and
bring us back to the preciousness of the
Word of God and yet not being affected
by it.
I was involved in a series of lectures
in Edinburgh in Scotland.
What we speak of as a holiday convention.
People came to this theological school.
And we had tremendous times.
And the Spirit of God is breathing upon
some of those gatherings.
And you think there was a pregnancy in
the atmosphere.
It just seems that if God was going
to do something.
Friday morning came and I gave my lecture
and then the president of the school came
and he gave his lecture and we had
a prolonged time of prayer.
And it was one of those prayer meetings.
I mean, you were just waiting.
God was going to do something.
And I had to go into the city
of Edinburgh about 12, 15 minutes away.
And I waited and I waited and I
didn't want to miss it.
And there was a moment that I said
to myself, I can't wait any longer.
And I slipped into my little car and
I was driving down Princes Street in Edinburgh.
And suddenly the Holy Spirit of God spoke
to me.
And said, I've just broken into the gathering.
Sure.
I swinged that little car around and I
went flying back to that school.
And when I got back to the school,
the meeting was dispersed.
They sent people to their rooms.
I mean, these people were all broken up
seeking God.
I remember I ran to the president's office
and as I came into his office he
sat behind a desk.
And I look at him and he looked
up and the tears were streaming down his
cheeks and I knew.
And I said, Colin, what happened?
He said, Gerard, he said, God broke through.
I said, when?
He said, five minutes after you left.
You see, gentlemen, there is a moment where
God makes of us.
But there are many subsequent infillings of the
Holy Spirit.
And one of the reasons why we've met
like this these days is that God could
come to our hearts again and again and
again.
Maybe you sit here and say, hey, that's
a foreign language to me.
I mean, I don't understand the terminology of
that.
You just keep your heart open before God
and you see what happens.
And those of us who are pastors tonight,
my brethren, may I say that to you.
I don't know how you can carry on
in your ministry if there are not these
times through the exposition of God's Word and
the commitment to God's Word.
I can't see how there could not be
times that God would move upon that congregation,
somehow break into the hearts of people.
And He brings a new obedience.
It's for an observant people.
It's for ordinary people, just like you and
me.
I mean, it just about blew me out
of the water today when I knew the
Holy Spirit of God was bringing me into
the Word of God.
And God said, I've got a life of
intercessory prayer for you.
And I said, you know, my understanding was,
Lord, this means maybe 10 or 15 hours
a day in prayer.
And He said, no, it doesn't mean that.
You look at the life story of Charlestown
and Spurgeon.
They say to us that although George Muller
of Bristol spent hours in prayer with Spurgeon,
that he very seldom spent a half an
hour in prayer himself.
There was something about his life.
It's for observant people.
It's a great, wonderful verse.
In the prophecy of Jeremiah, don't you know
what he said?
He said, my eyes have affected my heart.
Gentlemen, may I say to you something tonight,
and I mean, you need to know I
would love you to death, but I need
to say this to you.
If you don't have a burden for people,
if you are not concerned about the lives
of men who are lost this evening simply
because of the fact that God has never
given you a broken heart for people.
You see, observation affects intercession.
The prophet said, my eyes have affected my
heart.
Has God given you a heart that is
broken?
Broken for people?
Have you read the life story of George
Whitefield, that amazing man?
Died at the age, if I remember correctly,
58.
A man who used to pray, God give
me soul, so take my soul away.
And do you know what they say to
us about Whitefield?
That the last three years of his life,
that somehow Whitefield was so weak, that sometimes
after he preached, that they thought this man
was going to die, and they gave him
a young man that was looking after him,
and he was always living with Whitefield, and
sometimes they say after he preached, that he
was so drained, and he was so absolutely
wiped out, that they had to lay him
down on three chairs, and somehow pray over
him, so that God would just touch him
again, and maybe he can preach again.
The day when George Whitefield died, at his
funeral that young man stood to his feet,
and he said, folks, he said, people, he
said, whatever you heard of this man, he
said, it's all true.
He said, I watched him for three years.
He said, we would lay him down in
his bed at night, and he said, somehow
I just wonder if he would see the
next morning.
And he said, at around three or four
in the morning, he said, I would hear
something, and then I would see the great
George Whitefield got on his knees before God,
and those early hours of the morning, he
was supplicating and interceding, and the presence of
God.
That's why he could preach to 120,000
people in Cumberland and Scotland.
So they could hear him two or three
miles away.
What was it?
Was it Whitefield?
Forget about it.
It was the Spirit of God.
One of the greatest miracles for me that
can happen, is in a conference like this,
that God the Holy Spirit, my brethren, listen,
can lift out an individual like you and
me, and He can break us, and He
can humble us, and He can bring us
to the place where we are concerned about
the glory of God, and He can burden
us, and He can give us a spirit
of prayer, and you and I can walk
away here as a pastor or as a
lay leader, and we can say in the
days to come, it's not going to be
desire that controls destiny, it's simply going to
be determination, seeking the face of God in
prayer.
How does it happen?
Well, God said, without a vision my people
perish.
You need to have a burden, you see.
I spent three wonderful years in Northern Ireland,
and I mean, you need to understand Northern
Ireland, you're dealing with the cream of the
people of God.
I mean, you need to go to appreciate
that.
I want to get John Curran into Northern
Ireland.
I mean, he will get to Northern Ireland
and you'll never see him again.
It's an appreciation for the Word.
You know why?
In 1920, God began to use a Presbyterian
minister with the name of William P.
Nicholson.
And God met with Nicholson in the revival,
you know where?
In a little Salvation Army meeting in the
corner of the street.
And He said, I passed by, and He
said, I look at this bunch of cranks,
and I said to myself, they're way off.
And the Holy Spirit of God said, Nicholson,
your problem is pride.
And God said, I want you to humble
yourself in that little street meeting, and I
want you to confess that you're near its
pride, and I want you to ask these
people to pray for you.
Nicholson said, in that little Salvation Army meeting,
was a little boy who didn't have enough
brains to give him a headache.
He was called Darth Jimmy.
And God said, I want you to ask
Darth Jimmy to pray for you.
And God met with him in the revival
in a little meeting, just like that.
And do you know what happened, my brethren?
The Spirit of God came upon Double P.
Nicholson, and He began to preach, and thousands
of people were converted in Northern Ireland.
And I spent three wonderful years in the
north of Ireland, and wherever I went, I
came across the converts of the late Reverend
William P.
Nicholson.
And they stood, and they were strong, and
they were prayer warriors, and they were people
who were absolutely going through with God.
And I will never forget, I came into
a house on the other side of Newcastle,
kind of south of Belfast, walking to this
house, and I said to the lady of
the house, I said, madam, did you know
Mr. Nicholson?
And her eyes just lightened up.
She said, yes, I did.
I said, well, you tell me about him.
She said, Gerard, I was but a young
little girl, about six or eight years old.
And she pointed me in the house.
She said, you see that room?
She said, Double P.
Nicholson stayed in that room.
I said, tell me about him.
You know what she said?
She said, one morning around six o'clock
in the morning, she said, we heard something
in that room.
We wondered what was going on.
She said, my mother and my father and
myself, we slipped up the steps to wonder
because we heard a commotion.
And she said, as we came to the
door, and my father opened the door about
six inches or so, and we glanced through
the door, and she said, there was Nicholson
on his knees and on his face before
God.
And she said, you know, it was the
winter's morning, and he had covered himself with
the sheets of the bed.
And she said, he was praying, and he
was interceding, and he was agonizing.
And she said, Gerard, as I watched him,
something of the burden of God came upon
him, and he supplicated, he interceded.
And she said, as he prayed, he got
so involved with God that he began to
tear the sheets of that bed into pieces,
as he supplicated before God.
I stood back and I said to myself,
forget about the physical manifestation.
What about that deep spiritual intensity of intercession?
Has God given you a broken heart?
Are they men, gentlemen, that you are praying
for?
Now, I don't want you to misunderstand, I
don't think God wants us to have worldly
friends, but listen, if you don't have friends
in the world, you're dead in the water.
And every single year I asked the Lord,
I said, Lord, I'm trusting you for 12
or for 15 men that you are going
to bring into my life, that I can
relate to these men, that I can pray
for them, that I can share the gospel
with them, as I try to minister them
through my lifestyle, through just being transparent.
Observation.
I spent about 18 months in my own
country in what was called the National Defense
Forces, and we were called up for military
service.
And I mean, goodnight, you talk about discipline.
We had a minute and a half for
breakfast in the morning.
We had a famous instructor and his famous
words were, swallow now and chew later.
Boy, will I ever forget that.
And after my national service, I had to
do chaplain's work every second year.
We were called up for three months.
And my last chaplain's camp on the borders
of Zambia, we were on the Zambezi River,
it was a large river about a kilometer,
kilometer and a half wide.
And there were some beautiful fish, it's called
tiger fish, they are fierce fighters if you
are into fishing.
And I had great times in my office
studying.
One day two of the soldiers came in.
And they sat down and they said, Padre,
we saw something today.
I said, what?
They said, and there are these majestic fish
eagles in Africa.
They said, we saw this fish eagle.
And we watched him.
And do you know what the Bible is
saying to us in Isaiah?
The Bible is saying to us, They that
wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings as eagles,
they shall run and not be weary, they
shall walk and not faint.
I said, what did you see?
They said, we watched him.
And they say that African fish eagle, when
he gets old, he would scratch his beak
against the cliff, so that it would be
sharp.
He would scratch his claws, so that they
would be sharp.
He would bash his wings, so that those
old feathers would fall out.
I said, what did you see?
They said, we saw the fish eagle today.
And he went down into the river, and
he got older when there was huge tiger
fish.
And they said, we saw how he got
his claws into that tiger fish.
And as he got it into it, he
began to lift that fish.
And they said, that fish was so heavy,
but it was a strong bird.
And they said, he began to fly to
the other side of the river.
And they said, Padre, we watched him through
our binoculars.
He was old.
And they said, there was a moment when
he knew that he was in trouble, because
the fish was too heavy.
And that fish was bringing him down towards
the water.
And they said, he tried to get his
claws out, but he was so old, and
they were so long, that he couldn't get
them out.
And he said, we saw him going into
the river, and we saw the crocodiles descending
upon him.
It spoke to my heart, you know.
Are you sensitive towards God?
I think one of the reasons why we
are not sensitive towards people, is simply because
we are not sensitive towards God.
And he said, Tom, he said, these are
exactly the kind of people that we've been
talking about.
Are you praying for people?
I mean, go and get hold of the
life story of George Muller of Bristol.
85,000 answers to prayer.
35,000 answers to prayer in 24 hours.
Someone asked him, you know how long has
he prayed for someone?
63 years, I'm told.
Why was it?
Someone asked him, Mr. Muller, do you ever
stop praying for people?
He said, no, never, never.
Why?
He said, once I know I'm in the
will of God when I pray for that
person.
He said, I never cease to stop praying.
Observation.
My time is virtually gone.
What is the agony of intercessory prayer?
Fervent praying.
Oh, you know, there is a phrase in
the Old Testament prophets, boy do I love
it, the oh, just that, that's something.
That sense of fervency.
That sense of coming to grips with God.
That sense of saying, Lord, we will not
let thee go unless thou would bless us.
Do you know something of that fervency?
I tell you, my brothers, let me say
to you tonight, I don't, I can't see
what more God can do for this prayer
at once.
I mean, we're talking about revival.
Listen, we can preach ourselves blue in the
faces about revival.
We can be concerned about revival.
But unless we're going to get on our
knees and pray through for revival, we are
not going to see revival.
It's fervent.
I mentioned about Lewis this afternoon.
We don't know how many years those two
ladies prayed.
We don't know.
Heaven alone will know.
It seems to me behind every movement of
the Spirit of God, you know what I've
discovered?
There is a kneeling figure.
Someone who has been praying, agonizing in the
presence of God.
My greatest fear in the 90s when it
comes to the church, I tell you, I
think we are in deep trouble.
You know why?
Because the older people who knew something of
this burden, who knew something of this passion,
something of this sense, and I'm totally against
this business that we take the young people
out of our churches, and we take them
away from the prayer meeting, and we say
they must have their own little meeting.
Do you know how I grew in my
prayer life?
I listened to men who knew the secret
of getting through to God, and as they
were praying and interceding and supplicating before God,
something of that spirit of prayer come to
rest upon my life.
Fervency.
Fervency in prayer.
Oh, what about Elijah?
Boy, that's tremendous fervency.
I mean, if you study his life, if
you go to 1 Kings chapter 18, if
you look at that great chapters of preparation
in his life, and you see in 1
Kings chapter 18, the prayer was only something
like 54 or 56 words, but it came
from a heart that was so saturated and
soaked before God.
What about Christ and Gethsemane?
The Bible is saying to us that His
sweat drops became as blood, as He agonized
before His Father.
What about the Acts of the Apostles?
The Bible is saying they were fervently praying.
In Acts chapter 4 and the crisis in
the church, they were fervently praying.
And what happened?
The place was shaken.
In Acts chapter 12, they were earnestly praying.
Fervency.
I will never in my life forget.
His name was John Greer.
He was about 73 years old when I
met him, outside of Bellarmine County, Antrim in
Northern Ireland, safe under Nicholson.
There were two weeks of meetings for Christians,
and every morning, about five or six of
these older men came together to pray with
me.
And every morning as we got on our
knees and our faces before God, he was
just a frail little figure.
He's gone to be with the Lord now,
but I remember I used to watch him,
and this one would pray, and that one
would pray, and this one would pray, and
then suddenly John Greer would pray, and he
would just lift up his head like this,
and he would say, Lord Jesus, God is
in our midst.
A young fellow in the ministry, open my
eyes, and look at him.
The burden of God would come upon him.
Persevere.
Sometimes he would grab that chair where he
was kneeling, and he would knock it, as
the Spirit of God just flowed through his
life, as he agonized, as he prayed, as
he got through to God.
An hour or so later, I would look
in his heart, with an eye that is
dry, and sometimes, by the time that John
Greer came to the end of his prayer,
I would look at my watch, and two
and a half hours is gone, and we
had to help him to sit, because his
clothes were so soaked with sweat, as he
agonized, so wiped out.
I don't know tonight if you'll appreciate me
saying this, but an hour or two hours
of real intercessory, and listen gentlemen, prayer is
not a weapon, it's a battlefield.
It's a war zone.
And the bullets are flying, and the casualties
are high.
Intensity of ferocity.
Frequently.
Focusing.
Do you realize the story of resale intercession?
Do you know what Leonard Raven said about
resales?
During the time when they prayed for the
Bible college in Wales, the wife of resales
would say, my husband started a Bible college
worth 25 cents in our language, just more
than two shillings.
And when God spoke to him about that
theological school, she'd say, early in the morning,
around six o'clock or so, my husband
would go into his prayer room, and he
would stay there until six o'clock at
night, and she heard him as he supplicated
before God.
He said, God, you've spoken to my heart.
We don't have a fence.
We're not going to borrow it.
We're going to trust you.
And he prayed every cent in to build
the Bible school.
And do you know what they're saying to
us?
They're saying to us that the prayers of
resales changed the course of the Second World
War, believe it or not, because he got
free to God.
Thomas Goodwin, that great Puritan, said, those prayers
that awaken God must also awaken us.
Listen to Tozer.
He said, the sight of God when he
appears in awesome majesty to the wandering eyes
of the soul will bring the worshipper to
his knees with fear and with gladness to
fill him with such overwhelmed sense of divine
greatness that he must spontaneously cry, only God
is great.
Listen to this.
This is John Calvin.
Let us know that no one who prepares
himself for prayer but those who are so
impressed with the majesty of God.
Lynette Ravenhill said, our prayer meetings today are
nothing else than a dumping ground for our
ills and our diseases.
W.A. Tozer said, our prayer meetings is
nothing and our prayers is nothing more than
giving God a lot of information that he
already knows.
Servancy and prayer.
I wonder tonight, my brethren, if I may
ask you, where do you stand when it
comes to your prayer life?
I'm not asking you, I'm not asking you
how much time you spend in prayer.
I'm asking you, do you have a prayer
life?
You see, it's really none of my business
to find out how much time you spend
in the presence of God.
That's really between you and God.
But the question is, do you have a
prayer life?
Do you spend time with God?
I said to Harold Saturday, I'm staying in
a wonderful little house there close to the
church where we are having meetings from Wednesday
night on.
And I said to him, Harold, I said,
brother, if you come to that house and
you don't find me on my knees, I
want you to ask me, what have I
been doing?
I mean, I want to be accountable.
Are you seeking the face of God?
Listen, gentlemen, if anything is going to happen
in these meetings, it's going to happen as
a result that we've got through to God.
That means you need to get through to
God and it means I need to get
through to God.
Firmness.
Focus.
It means God wants me to be specific
when I come into His presence.
Let's pray.
Our Father, we are so amazed tonight by
the sense of the awareness of the presence
of God.
And Lord, we sing tonight at the very
outset of this gathering together that God is
speaking to us in very amazing ways.
And this is but the first half of
the day that we are spending together.
And Lord, we ask tonight in Jesus' name
that you will bring to us such a
tremendous honesty.
We ask for such a brokenness.
Lord, I pray for such a conviction upon
my heart and upon the heart of every
one of us, every pastor, every person that's
involved in leadership, every single soul.
We come tonight, Father God, to seek the
face of God.
My brethren, I wonder this evening, and we
don't want to push this, but I wonder
this evening, maybe in one way or another,
God has been speaking to you from the
very first session.
And you really need to come and spend
some time with God.
I wonder if you could maybe slip out
wherever you are and come in here at
the front or find a place somewhere and
you say, I'm going to seek the face
of God.
I'm going to ask God to get through
to the realm of my will so that
I can make long-term commitment in my
relationship with God.
There's someone coming, I wonder if there are
others, and you just want to slip out
right here to the altar and you say,
I need to come and spend time with
God.
Just come.
We don't want you to come if you
don't really mean business of God, but you
really sit here and you say, I know
God has spoken to me.
I want to come and spend some time
with Him tonight.
I want God to break my heart this
evening and do something that is so deep
and so real in my relationship with God.
Just come.
Those of you who are sitting here, maybe
not at the front, maybe you just want
to kneel right where you are.
God, I want to seek your face.
And you're going to become very, very personal
and say, Lord, come to my heart.
Those of us here at the front, you
know, sometimes it's good to hear ourselves praying.
And just one after the other, if God
has touched your heart tonight and if God
has broken your heart and you want to
open up tonight, we want to give an
opportunity.
Now, what we would like you to do,
we don't want you to pray long because
there are many of us who want to
pray.
And secondly, we don't want you to pray
for us or for your church, but we
want you to be specific.
Just as you are, you come to God.
Just one after the other.
I wonder if there is someone who would
like to lead us in prayer.