Somebody once asked a servant of the Lord,
what's your philosophy of prayer?
He said, I don't know.
He said, all I know is when I
pray, things happen, and when I don't, they
don't.
Well, that's true, and that's the way it
should be in your life and in mine.
It should be that when we pray, things
happen, and when we don't pray, they don't.
I mentioned yesterday that I consider that the
greatest work for God is done in prayer,
and yet, most of us would rather take
a beating than spend consistent time in prayer.
We mentioned yesterday that one of the first
keys to effective prayer is that the person
must be a believer, but we left the
door open.
We said that God does reserve the right
to answer the prayers of unbelievers, and I
was reminded last night of a young fellow
named Dale Tweedy.
Some of you might know him.
Dale Tweedy was on the drug trip.
He was just about wiped out, to tell
you the truth.
Just about at the end of the line,
he was living in a cave down near
Palm Springs.
One day, he came to the end of
it.
Sitting there in the cave, he said, Oh
God, if there is a God, reveal yourself
to me, or I'm going to take my
life.
Within 10 minutes, a young fellow stuck his
head in the mouth of the cave, saw
Dale there, and said, Hi, mind if I
speak to you about Jesus?
He did.
Dale was converted.
Today, he's the assistant to the chaplain up
at Cook County Jail, reaching others for Christ.
Some of you read about him in the
last issue of Letters of Interest.
There may be someone here tonight who's not
a believer in the Lord Jesus.
Maybe someone here tonight who's not a decided
Christian, not sure about it all.
That's a good prayer to pray.
Pray that prayer.
Pray, Lord, reveal yourself to me.
He'll never fail to answer that prayer.
God, if there is a God, reveal yourself
to me.
If any man will do his will, he
shall know Jesus said.
The second key to effective prayer we mentioned
last night was confession.
There must be no unconfessed sin in the
life.
I'd like to speak a little more about
that tonight because confession is the road to
revival.
And I'm sure we're all familiar with the
facts theoretically, but we don't know too much
about it practically.
Would you turn back to 2 Chronicles 7
and verses 13 and 14.
2 Chronicles 7 and verses 13 and 14.
A very appropriate section in a time when
our country is suffering a terrible drought, both
physical and spiritual.
God says here in the 13th verse of
2 Chronicles 7, If I shut up heaven,
that there be no rain, or if I
command the locusts to devour the land, or
if I send pestilence among my people, if
my people, which are called by my name,
shall humble themselves and pray and seek my
face and turn from their wicked ways, then
will I hear from heaven and will forgive
their sins and will heal their land.
Now here is a most unmistakable promise in
the word of God that if we meet
certain conditions, God will send revival.
Maybe your assembly, maybe your local fellowship has
been going through a period of drought.
You're not seeing anything happening.
You're wondering what it is that's clogging the
flow in the pipes.
A possible solution is confession of sin.
I'd like to ask you tonight, not to
raise your hand or show in any way,
but in all your life, in the fellowships
where you have been, have you ever known
a meeting called for the purpose of confession
and prayer?
Most of us can live and die without
ever being in such a meeting, and yet
it's the invariable road to revival and to
answered prayer.
You have a beautiful illustration of it in
the ninth chapter of Daniel.
Daniel is before the Lord and he bows
his knee and he takes all the sin
of Israel and he confesses it as if
it were his own.
Now Daniel was not guilty of many of
the sins that he speaks of in that
ninth chapter, but he ate a sin offering.
He took those sins and confessed them as
his own and the people came back from
captivity.
And I want to tell you, people always
come back from captivity when God's people get
together in a time of confession and prayer.
We have been having a terrible drought on
the West Coast.
You've been reading about it in the newspapers
and it'll be reflected in food prices within
the next year.
The assembly in San Francisco, the Parkside Assembly,
came together one night and had a time
of confession.
Confessing the sins of this nation.
Watergate, the Lockheed scandal, corruption in government, immorality
being legalized and all the rest.
Confess the sin of the assembly, the deadness,
the lack of passion for souls, the lack
of unity, the personality conflict and all the
rest.
Confess personal failures and shortcomings.
Confess failures in business life and then call
on God, God send the rain.
Send the rain to this land and send
showers of blessings.
Do you know the next day, for the
first day in months, it rained and something
that never happens, it snowed and it sleeted
all in the same day.
Never happens in family.
And God has been working in that assembly
and they've had another baptism of young people
recently down in the Pacific Ocean.
What?
Because they took God at his word.
Second Chronicle, chapter 7, verses 13 and 14,
they humbled themselves before God, they called upon
God in prayer and God wonderfully answered.
Some years ago on the island of Lewis
on the northwest coast of Scotland there were
two elderly godly women and they were appalled
by the conditions in the island in which
they lived.
How people were living for pleasure rather than
for God.
How men were indulging in drink and becoming
drunkards.
And they cried to God and they laid
hold of God and they wouldn't let him
go.
Oh God, send the revival.
They confessed the sins of the people as
their own.
Two old women.
What can two old women do?
Dear friends, the greatest work is done in
prayer.
Never underestimate the power of women in prayer.
God came to them in some way I
don't know and he said the answer is
on the way.
And those women sat down and they wrote
a letter to a man on the mainland
named Duncan Campbell.
He was the head of the faith mission
at that time.
And they said God's going to visit this
island and we believe you're God's man to
bring the message of revival.
They said you better come.
And Duncan Campbell wrote back and he said
I'm right in the midst of a great
campaign here in Edinburgh and I couldn't possibly
leave it.
Well these dear ladies they dipped their pen
in acid and they wrote back another letter
to him.
They said if you don't come God will
work anyway and you'll miss the blessing.
Just like the book of Esther that we
were hearing about today.
When he got their second letter his campaign
in Edinburgh had dried up.
He got on the next boat and he
crossed the niche there to the Isle of
Lewis and when he got there it was
already taking place.
The people were in the church buildings there
till four o'clock in the morning crying
out to God.
People were going to the meetings they didn't
want to go.
Unsaved people were going to the meetings and
getting saved right and left.
A drunkard going back to his home at
night and he's sitting down at the side
of the road and he's saved before he
ever got home.
A cousin of mine Norman Morrison he was
in the second world war lost one eye
and has shrapnel in the other eye and
has a metal plate in his head to
protect his brains as a result of war
injuries.
He was there an unsaved fellow.
He came back from the war and he
couldn't work because if he leaned over like
that he lost consciousness and he began to
drink and he became a drunkard.
And this revival hit the Isle of Lewis
because two women confessed the sin of the
people as their own and started to pray
and Norrie started going to the meetings.
He didn't want to go to the meetings
but he went to the meetings.
And he got saved.
And his life was transformed and revolutionized and
when he used to walk down the street
after that the ladies would look out out
the window and they'd say where sin abounded
grace did much more abound.
I'll tell you it was a wonderful work
of the spirit of God because two women
prayed.
Some of you sisters might be here at
the conference and you might be discouraged.
You might be discouraged by the spiritual lethargy
and deadness around you there's an answer.
You go to God in prayer.
You take all of this and confess it
before God and see God come in and
work.
I really believe it's one of the greatest
answers to our needs today.
Some of you are elders here from assemblies.
Go back with a message.
Let's meet together for confession.
Call upon God.
Humble ourselves before God as he says in
2 Chronicles and see him work in a
mighty way.
During the terrible Watergate scandal in this country
Senator Mark Hatfield tried to get a resolution
passed in the Senate to set aside a
day for humiliation fasting confession and prayer.
It never passed the Senate as far as
I know but anyway the word spread and
on April 4th 1974 Christian people all over
this country got down on their knees.
We did.
Out there in San Leandro.
We got down on our knees and we
ate the sin offerings.
We confessed the sins of our nation and
of evangelical Christendom and of our assembly and
of our individual lives as well.
Do you know it was shortly after that
it was shortly after that that those terrible
tapes came to surface?
When the abscess was punctured and the pus
began to flow.
You mean to say that Jesus Christ leading
together for confession and prayer can affect the
whole destiny of the nation?
I say yes it can.
But I believe that's what God is waiting
for.
He's waiting for us to do this very
thing.
Well then the third key we said yesterday
was we must pray in faith.
We must take a promise of the word
of God and say Lord you said this
in your word.
That's the kind of faith that honors God.
That's the kind praying in desperate believing prayer.
We said that our prayers must be according
to the will of God and the will
of God is generally revealed in the word
of God.
And when we pray in his will we
know that we have the things that we
ask for him.
Our prayers must be sincere was the next
key.
We mustn't ask God to do things for
us that we can do for I figure
it would be the height of hypocrisy for
me to get up before a group of
Christians and make known a need for a
thousand dollars for some work of God if
I had the money in the bank.
If all I had to do was sign
a check to meet that need I figure
it's the height of hypocrisy for me to
ask people to pray about it.
God isn't honored by that sort of thing.
We must be sincere when we come to
him.
We must persevere in prayer.
God lays the burden and leaves the burden
on us.
Persevere.
Some of you are praying tonight for unsaved
loved ones.
Don't give up.
But let me say something about that.
What about that?
Some of us pray for unsaved loved ones
and nothing happens.
They don't get saved.
How do you resolve that in your mind?
Well, let me suggest something to you and
see what you think of it.
I don't believe God saves anyone against his
will.
I don't believe God is going to populate
heaven with people who don't want to be
there.
But I do believe this.
I believe every time I pray for an
unsaved person, God speaks to that person in
some way.
I believe that with all my heart.
Think of it.
I'm praying for that fellow, let's say, down
in Miami that I mentioned to you.
I believe every time I pray for Doug
Danforth that gospel is brought before him in
some way.
Whether the Holy Spirit comes and speaks to
him, whether he sees a sign on the
bus, whether he turns on the radio and
hears the Billy Graham quote, I don't know
how he does it.
I really believe that the simple believer in
the Lord Jesus, every time I pray for
him, God speaks to him.
That should be a tremendous encouragement to us
that's praying according to the will of God.
You know it's the will of God and
you know that God is going to do
something in answer to your prayer.
We must be willing to accept something better
than we ask for.
God will never give us anything that will
be harmful, but he sometimes gives us something
better than we ask for.
And then we mentioned that the best prayer
comes from a strong inward necessity that we
pray best when we're in the wilderness, when
we're really cast upon the Lord, when if
God fails us, we're sunk.
Now what I want to do tonight is
give some practical illustrations.
Does it work?
Does it pay to pray?
Or do you just pray and nothing happens?
People say to me, what do you think?
Does prayer change the hand of God or
does it just change your mind with regard
to what's going to happen?
Well I'm not interested in those theological questions
at all.
Really not interested.
All I know is you pray, God answers
prayer.
And these are just some little illustrations taken
from one of the trips that I took
within the last few years.
A few years ago we were in Rome,
Italy, and we visited a young fellow there
named Woods, a young missionary.
And we were on our way behind the
Iron Curtain at that time.
So he said, Steve, Steve Woods, he said,
before you leave, let's get down and pray.
He said, do you have any special prayer
requests?
And we said, as a matter of fact
we do.
We're going into Czechoslovakia tomorrow and we have
only one contact and we'd really like some
more contacts in Czechoslovakia.
We got down on our knees and poured
out our hearts to God, prayed for that
among other things, and left.
The next day I was driving through the
streets of Rome in a car with a
young Italian Christian driving.
It's a faith-producing experience.
There's nothing that will deepen, there's nothing that
will deepen your prayer life like driving in
Italian traffic.
And this fellow, this fellow was driving through
and all of a sudden he started waving
to the car next to us and I
thought, what did the poor man do?
You know, this terrible demonstration.
And so the poor man pulled off to
the side and as we were pulling in
front of him he said, this is a
missionary and I want you to meet him.
There was nothing more than that.
But he was really making a federal case
about it.
So we got out and this man had
some visitors with him.
We met the missionary and he introduced us
to these visitors who spoke only German, they
didn't speak English, German, and Czech.
And so the conversation was rather halting for
a while but they said to us, yeah,
you're going into Czechoslovakia and we said, yes.
They said, do you have any contacts in
Czechoslovakia?
And we said, only one, Dr. Jan Zamen
in Bruno.
And they said, Dr. Zamen is dead.
Well, I nearly fell over because we had
been corresponding with the man.
What had happened he had taken a heart
attack and died.
And so to make a long story short
they gave us their card and they said,
here, you come and visit us when you're
in Czechoslovakia.
You know, we had prayed the day before
here in the busy Italian traffic we need
a couple from Czechoslovakia the next day.
Can?
It would never happen by chance.
It was God moving the checkers on the
checkerboard.
So we went into Czechoslovakia and we went
by the Zamen home and we visited Mrs.
Zamen.
And as we sat there and talked to
her she told us this lovely story.
She said, you know, the night Dr. Zamen
died I was all alone here and my
daughter was off at a camp in the
mountains counseling some young people.
She said, they have no telephone there at
the camp and I had no way of
getting touch with them by phone, she said.
And I got down on my knees and
asked, Lord, you know my prediction my husband
is dead here in the house and I
have no way of getting word to my
daughter.
It's really a toughie.
She had no car no way of going
up there.
Do you know that in the morning her
front doorbell rang?
She went to the door and there was
an American lady there.
And the American lady said, I represent the
Child Evangelism Fellowship.
She said, I'm making a study of a
Bible camp in Europe.
She said, and I hear that you folks
have a camp up in the mountains.
She said, could you tell me how to
go there?
And Mrs. Zamen said yes she could and
she explained the story.
Her husband had died during the night her
daughter was up at that camp.
When you do go to the camp would
you please tell my daughter who is counseling
there to come home.
So Mrs. Zamen Child Evangelism Fellowship worker drove
along for quite a while and she asked
the Lord to guide her to guide her
to the camp.
She wasn't too certain about it.
You know conditions in those countries aren't the
way they are here with all the clear
road signs and route signs and all the
rest.
So she's driving along and pretty soon her
instructions kind of run out and she said
oh here I am Lord and I don't
know where I am.
And she cried to the Lord.
And then she saw some people and she
went to them and she showed them the
address of the camp and she said you
know how would I get there?
And they said look, the shortest way leave
your car here and follow us.
And they led her across some fields into
some forest.
And when they got into the forest they
found a young woman with some young people
on a nature hike.
Who do you say I don't think it
was.
It was the Damon girl.
She had decided that morning to take her
young people out from the camp on a
nature hike.
They didn't leave her at the camp.
They met her out in the forest.
Does God answer prayer?
Does it really pay to pray?
Or are you wasting your time?
I'll tell you it really pays to pray.
We go on from there and I think
my God can work in all countries can't
he?
We go on to Kathmandu, Nepal and then
we hear a story there of what had
just happened to George Verwer the head of
Operation Mobilization.
George was there in Kathmandu, Nepal and he
had to fly to Britain.
So they piled his things in the back
of a cab you know and rush off
to the airport.
Everything is done in a rush.
And they rush off to the airport and
George grabs his suitcase and runs into the
airport and checks on board and gets on
the plane and the plane takes off for
Britain and he's forgotten his shoulder bag it's
still in the trunk of the car with
important papers.
What do you do?
There's a predicament.
You know how would the Lord ever get
you out of a fix like that?
Sure pray on the plane to Britain but
you know very well it's hopeless don't you?
Well George prayed on the plane to Britain.
The next day one of his colleagues there
in Kathmandu Ron Penny had to take off
in a bus for India.
There's only three main roads in Nepal incidentally.
Three main paved roads and one of them
goes down into India.
So he takes off in this bus they
go a few a few kilometers and the
bus breaks down.
Business as usual.
They get out and they try to repair
it with a few coat hangers and a
rubber elastic I'm exaggerating but this is what
it seems like.
They try to repair it they get back
in and go a few more kilometers it
breaks down again.
They try to fix it with some hairpins
and all the rest and on they go
it breaks down again and Ron said I'm
never going to get to India this way
and he wasn't far wrong either.
So he got his bag out of the
bus crossed the road found a bus going
back to Kathmandu Nepal.
He got to the edge of Kathmandu in
the second bus and he hailed a cab
and the man opened the trunk for him
to put his suitcase in and what do
you think was in the trunk?
George's shoulder bag it shouldn't have been there.
I'll tell you with the character of the
cab cab drivers they're not sanctified and with
the number of taxis in Kathmandu they never
should have got that same taxi but they
did.
George is praying on the plane to England
God is working back in Kathmandu.
You see this type of thing happening in
your life?
You should.
God is the God of the miracle and
I think this is the miracle of the
day in which we live.
Seeing God working in these marvelous ways in
answer to prayer.
We're driving down on that same trip into
Italy.
We left I think Geneva, Switzerland early in
the morning we're driving and driving and driving
and we're going to a place called Reggio
Emilia in Italy and we have the address
but we don't know and it's dark when
we get there and we're tired and on
edge and how do you find they don't
have street lights the same as we do
how do you find an address just cry
to the Lord Lord lead us to this
place.
So Ray Lynch said look stop the car
let me run over into this tavern and
ask them.
He speaks a little did it tell.
So we stop the car and he rushes
over to the tavern and he said where's
this address and they said where's your car
and he said right over there and he
said they said you're right in front of
it.
Right in front of it.
And I find out on this trip God
is answering his prayer all over the world.
We went we went on that same trip
to to Bangkok Thailand and there we met
a young fellow named Billy Bray not the
Billy Bray that's already been referred to in
this conference was it you brother Sheridan somebody
referred to Billy Bray well this was a
descendant of his he was a student at
Moody when I first met him and he
was over there in Bangkok Thailand I don't
know whether Dr. Smith here met him did
you know Billy Bray okay well you'll appreciate
this story Billy at that time was kind
of serving as a newspaper reporter for one
of the big magazines Time Newsweek something used
to send stories in and get a check
back in return and his purpose there was
to serve the Lord of course but this
was to put bread and butter on the
table well Billy Bray has an interesting habit
when he signed his name on a check
on a news release to Newsweek or Time
Magazine every time he signs his name he
signs Billy Bray Bill 121 Philippians 121 for
me to live is Christ and to die
is gain and when he signed his checks
at the bank Billy Bray Bill 121 he
went down there he always went to the
same teller in the bank and he went
there one day and the teller said what's
Bill 121 he said I understand Billy Bray
but I don't understand Bill 121 and so
it gave him a wonderful opportunity to give
the gospel to this teller at the bank
well one night Billy was in the I
think it was the Oriental Hotel you can
correct me in some of the details but
Occidental Oriental something like that and he had
his supper there and he had his attache
case there and when he left he forgot
his attache case his check book was in
it he had just received a big remittance
from the magazine that he'd been writing for
and he forgot his case he went away
and the case was gone the waiter didn't
forget it the waiter took that attache case
and took the check book out of it
and he saw quite a nice balance it
was the biggest balance Billy had ever had
and so the waiter made out a check
and signed Billy's name and he took it
down to the bank and you know that
tells me I'm supposed to be too sneaky
he took it down to the bank and
you know it's a strange thing Billy had
always gone to the same teller at the
bank which teller do you think this teller
went to the same one Billy was praying
that the Lord would bring the attache case
back to him he went to that very
teller and the teller looked at the check
and he saw the amount and he saw
the name Billy Bray and it looked good
but something was missing Phil 121 and the
teller called Billy Bray and Billy Bray came
down to the bank and when he stepped
in the door the waiter stepped out and
Phil 121 saved him over a thousand dollars
in answer to prayer it really pays to
pray why am I telling you these accounts
I asked the Lord years ago that I
should never speak on prayer without making people
want to pray without making them in a
hurry to go back and get down on
their knees and learn God in a new
way in answer to prayer on that same
trip we were coming from Yugoslavia and we
had to come through Paris to Brussels in
Paris we had to change stations we were
late getting in and we knew we were
going to miss our connection Romans 8 28
you never miss connections things don't happen they're
planned so we went to the north station
I'm not going to try to pronounce it
in French I think it says north station
we went to north station and the fellows
that were with me they plunked all our
baggage down in a pile and got out
their guitar and we started singing and when
you start singing over in a railroad station
there you gather young people like honey gathers
bees the young people started coming around pretty
soon we had a gospel meeting going there
in the railroad station well the time was
going on it was getting time for us
to get our train to Brussels and a
young fellow came along and he said to
Bill McCarter could I leave my baggage here
while I go and buy my ticket and
Bill said sure where are you from he
said from Chicago Chicago he said that man
over there is from Chicago so he introduced
him to me he said this is Terry
Foley I said my name is Bill McDonnell
I said where do you live Terry he
said tell me where you live I said
oh I said you know a church building
there in the corner of Foster and Nagle
Norwood gospel chapel he said sure two blocks
from my house I said that's where I
fellowship that's where I attend service so I
witnessed to him about the Lord Jesus and
he said I said to him Billy nothing
happens by chance in life I said it
was no accident that we met here in
the railroad station in Paris he said you
think you're going to save me in a
Paris railroad station I said Terry I couldn't
save a mosquito let alone you but I
think God is speaking to you and I
think you better listen he left us and
went and bought his ticket came back and
got his luggage and off he went and
off we went and we were praying to
Terry Foley you'll never meet him again will
you?
You'll never meet him again Terry Foley went
on his way several years later I had
been serving the Lord over in Ireland I
had to come back to the United States
on business and I was only one weekend
in Chicago I went to the Norwood Gospel
Chapel for the breaking of bread at the
end of the meeting I started walking toward
the back of the hall a young Danny
Erickson came to me and he said Bill
here I have a friend I'd like you
to meet and he said this is Terry
Foley I just remember a few years had
gone by Terry Foley it rang bells so
to waste time and let me think I
said where are you from Terry?
Well he told me but the family had
moved and that threw me off they had
moved to a different location and then I
kept stalling for time and finally I said
to him Terry did I ever speak to
you about Jesus in a Paris Railroad Station
and he went like that it was a
physical reaction he said yes you did what
happened?
He left us in that Paris Railroad Station
he went down into Germany he was hitchhiking
a ride to Vienna Austria a car came
along with a girl and two fellows in
it and they were Christians she was connected
with Young Life they took Terry all the
way to Vienna she didn't force the gospel
down his throat she told him about Young
Life and about the camp they had out
in Colorado and they showed kindness to him
in the name of the Lord Terry came
back to the United States and she didn't
live far away and one night he thought
he would call her she was in La
Grange so he called her and they went
out on a date together I'm not recommending
this but what I mean is she's unsaved
and he's unsaved that's what I mean I
don't recommend that but anyway it happened that's
what I'm trying to say and she didn't
force the gospel down his throat but she
told him again about the camp that summer
in Colorado well you know a strange thing
happened I mean he had some free time
that summer and on his own with no
connection with her now he went out to
the camp in Colorado he was there a
whole week and nobody forced the gospel down
his throat but you know the last day
he was going to be there he was
standing in the swimming pool and a fellow
came in and spoke to him about the
Lord and Terry who fully trusted Christ there
in the swimming pool in Colorado we met
him in a Paris railroad station God tracked
him down to Vienna back to the state
since then he's graduated from Wheaton College has
worked for Bill Gossard in his seminar and
as far as I know he's still going
on for the Lord does it really pay
to pray I'll say it pays and I
hope we'll go away from here with these
keys to effective prayer and with the desire
to really get to know God in a
life of prayer and if something is hindering
if something is clogging the pipe let's get
before the Lord in confession in humiliation in
fasting and in prayer and see diplomatic relations
established and be on God's side in the
wonderful work that's going on throughout the world
today may the Lord bless his word to
our hearts