I suppose that the most mysterious exercise known
to man is the exercise of prayer.
I wonder if it ever occurs to you
how marvelous, how mysterious, how wonderful is the
privilege we have of entrée into the very
presence of the Lord of the Universe.
To talk to him, to be familiar with
what he expects us to say and how
he wants us to talk to him.
I confess to you that I, it is
a confession.
I don't make profession to be a great
man of prayer.
I wish I were.
I wish I knew more about this thrilling,
marvelous thing we call prayer.
Only recently I have found myself going back
to some of the old standard works.
Andrew Murray with Christ in the School of
Prayer, and the volumes written by E.
M.
Bounds, a great student and scholar of the
subject of prayer.
I've been trying to learn over again some
lessons I thought I had learned a long
time ago about this matter of address to
the God of the Universe.
I find it very difficult to be in
a meeting not anticipating or expecting that I
shall maybe have any part in it, and
someone says, we'll ask our brother Anderson to
lead us in prayer.
And I say to myself, how can I
in one split second of time transport myself
from this scene, this temple scene, surrounded here
by all these fleshly experiences, and step into
the presence of the awesome presence of the
majesty on high and properly address him?
I wish they hadn't asked me to pray.
Sometimes I don't feel like I want to
pray.
Oftentimes I don't feel like I know how
to do it.
I can certainly sympathize with Paul when he
says, we know not how to pray as
we ought, and especially maybe in these days
does I feel a sensitivity on this matter
when I hear some prayers, some public prayers
that are so thin and so shallow and
that seem to ignore the fact that they
are in conversation with the almighty God who
flung this universe into space.
So I suppose when I come to a
biblical portrait tonight, last evening we looked at
Joseph and what he suggests to us.
Really, I guess Joseph's words to his brethren
might be called the Romans 828 of the
Old Testament, for it was his interpretation, his
interpretation of the adverse circumstances of his life.
And so he tried to indicate to them
that God had significant meaning in all that
happened to him.
Well, we turn to another biblical portrait tonight,
and this particular bible character, I think, reflects
a couple of aspects of prayer that we
may not often have thought of.
First of all, let me suggest a definition
or two of prayer.
The Westminster Catechism says the following, prayer is
the offering up of our desires unto God
for things agreeable to his will in the
name of Christ with confession of our sin
and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies.
That's quite a remarkable definition of prayer.
But John Bunyan, good old John Bunyan, he
gives us a broader definition of prayer when
he says the following.
He says, prayer is an ordinance of God,
a sincere, conscious, affectionate pouring out of the
soul to God through our Lord Jesus Christ
in the grace and help of the Holy
Spirit for such things as God has promised
or according to his word for the good
of the church with submission in faith to
the will of God.
Almost sounds like a theologian does this tinker
of Bedford.
I can only say that I'm happy he
was a Baptist.
A lot of folks may not know that,
but John Bunyan was a great Baptist preacher
in his day.
Well, all of these are definitions that seek
to somehow approximate what happens to us when
we seek the faith and the presence of
our God.
It still is a mystery, this business of
prayer, and yet it becomes the characteristic of
a truly born-again Christian.
One of the first things said about Saul
of Tarsus when he rose from the dusk
of the Damascene road, behold he prayed, and
that became the characteristic, of course, of Paul's
whole life.
We have his many of his remarkable prayers
are given to us in the letters, the
epistles that he wrote to his beloved converts,
but I say again there's an Old Testament
character who seems to me to illustrate in
his life and his experience some fascinating aspects
of prayer that are not revealed elsewhere, and
I have reference to Daniel.
Now, you may not have thought of Daniel
as a man of prayer.
Perhaps we sort of get conditioned to certain
characteristics of biblical characters, and we can only
think of them in the light of that
which we have been conditioned to think, and
we may think only of Daniel as a
great prophet that he was.
We think of Daniel as a seer, and
he was that.
We think of him maybe as a very
powerful politician, a leader in the politics of
the kingdom of his day, and he was
that too, but he was a man who
had unusual experiences of prayer, and this is
illustrated in a couple of instances in his
life.
I ask you to turn to Daniel chapter
9, please, at the beginning.
Daniel chapter 9.
Now, the chapter begins in a very fascinating
way, in the first year of Darius the
son of Ahasuerus of the seed of the
Medes.
That is a sentence that is the purpose
of which is to condition the congregation to
go to sleep, which was made king over
the realm of the Chaldeans.
However, it's quite important is the date that
is here indicated.
You see, the Babylonian captivity is over, and
Daniel has lived through it.
He was taken as a captive and became
a refugee Jewish boy when he was only
a youngster, maybe only as young as 14
years old.
He couldn't have been much older, may give
a year or two, 16 say, and he
had lived the whole 70 years of the
Babylonian captivity, so he was now in his
80s.
Don't tell me that life begins at 40.
It begins sometimes in your 80s, so they
say.
I don't know.
Long way to go, but that's what I
hear, that some of the most fascinating experiences
of God's people often occur in the latter
years of their lives.
Well, it certainly was true of Daniel.
You know, Daniel, by the way, when I
was a kid in Sunday school, I didn't
stay as long.
I didn't stay there very long.
I got out as fast as I could.
I mean, out of each session as well
as out of Sunday school, and when I
was unconverted for a long time, I didn't
go to Sunday school or church, but anyway,
I can remember just about one thing about
Sunday school.
The teachers taught the international Sunday school lesson.
Some of you may remember that, and the
method, the procedure was to give to every
kid in Sunday school a picture card in
which there was on one side a biblical
picture that was to illustrate that day's lesson.
On the other side of the card, there
was, I think, I'm trying to recollect, some
scripture references, maybe a lesson for the day,
the golden text.
I think they put that down, and that
was supposed to help you, and of course,
you were supposed to study that.
In those days, those little cards were as
popular among church going kids as baseball cards
are today.
Of course, this is another day, and at
the same time, the teacher had another device.
There, on an easel, was a display of
the same picture, only enlarged.
You may remember it.
Some of you maybe even used it, and
you could turn, you could flip these pictures
over, you see, but here was this picture,
now maybe three feet by four feet or
so, and there it was on the platform,
and some of our kids would like to
go up and peek and see what the
next week or the next two weeks pictures
were going to be all about.
Now, I don't remember many of the pictures,
but one stands out very clearly in my
mind.
It was Daniel in the lion's den.
And there he was, see, over in the
corner, a pink-cheeked little boy, just a
kid.
He's over here in the corner, and over
here are two of the hungriest looking animals
you ever did see.
All they wanted for supper was lamb chops.
They were headed for a good meal, but
they didn't have their mouths open.
Their mouths were closed.
And here's this brave little kid over in
the corner, waiting for something to happen with
the lions.
And then we always sang, Dare to be
a Daniel.
That was the theme song.
So, there it was, all in a package.
Didn't have too much preparation.
You had it all set.
You're a Sunday school teacher.
There's only one thing wrong with all of
that.
It ain't so.
It just isn't true to the Bible.
What do you mean by that?
I mean that Daniel was no pink-cheeked
boy when he got tossed in the lion's
den.
Daniel was 84 to 86 years old.
Oh, come on.
Yes, yes, he was.
How do you know that?
Well, because his lion's den experience happened not
under the Babylonian kingdom, but under the kingdom
that succeeded them, the Medo-Persian kingdom.
And the enemies of Daniel, you may recollect,
had worked against him, and somehow they'd gotten
the king to issue a decree that Daniel
should be tossed into a den of lions.
And it was an axiom of the new
government that the laws of the Medes and
the Persians could not be altered or changed,
even by the king.
And so, once the edict was issued, it
was sealed and finalized.
And Daniel, even the king who recognized after
he issued the decree that he'd made a
terrible mistake, he even could not change that
decree.
And so, Daniel had to spend at least
one night in lion's motel overnight with those
lions.
Well, as exciting as all that is, here
he comes now down.
The Babylonian kingdom has fallen, and a new
kingdom succeeds it, this kingdom of the Medes
and the Persians.
And it's the very first year of Darius,
the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of
the Medes, who was made king over the
realm of the Chaldeans.
Now, in the first year of his reign,
I, Daniel, understood by books the number of
the years whereof the word of the Lord
came to Jeremiah the prophet that he would
accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
What do you have here?
You have Daniel deeply concerned about the fate
of his people.
They were still a captive people in a
foreign land, and when the government changed, he
wondered what was going to happen to them.
And in the midst of his wonderment, he
says, I'll get an answer if I search
the word of God.
And so, he began looking through the prophets,
he studied through the scriptures, and he came
to Jeremiah chapter 25, which is just where
we're going to go, if you'll allow it,
and for a moment, Jeremiah chapter 25.
You may know all of this, but I'm
just underlining it.
Listen to what the prophet Jeremiah said a
long time before Daniel, down at verse, well,
10 will do, of chapter 25.
Moreover, I will take from them the voice
of mirth and the voice of gladness, the
voice of the bridegroom, the voice of the
bride, sound of the millstone and the light
of the candle, and this whole land shall
be a desolation and an astonishment, and these
nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70
years.
Specific time element is here introduced.
70 years, and as Daniel reads that in
the holy word of God, he says to
himself, hallelujah, the 70 years are now up.
I've lived to see the fulfillment of this
prophecy.
What comes next?
What is God going to do next?
God is going to restore his people.
They're going to be allowed to return, go
back to their land, which is exactly what
happened under the Medo-Persian empire.
They were allowed to return and rebuild the
city, and so on.
Now, when this all struck Daniel, he felt
a tremendous urge to pray, and so what
you have from verses 3 all the way
down to verse 19 is one of the
most remarkable prayers of the old testament.
It's a great prayer.
In it, Daniel prays to the Lord and
confesses the fact that he and his people
do not deserve this mercy from God.
They have broken his law.
They have ignored their covenant relationship to him.
They have transgressed his ordinances.
They have neglected him.
They have sinned against him, and so he's
deeply concerned.
He says, God, oh, we don't deserve this.
I don't deserve it.
I'm just like them.
Oh, Lord.
Verse 8, he says, to us belongs confusion
of faith, to our kings, our princes, and
our fathers, because we have sinned against thee.
To the Lord our God belong mercies and
forgiveness, though we have rebelled against him, neither
have we obeyed the voice of the Lord
our God to walk in his laws, which
he set before us by his servants, the
prophets.
And on and on and on he prays
until he comes to the, really, I don't
know whether he was finished praying or not,
but to the interruption of his prayer found
at verse 19.
Well, back up to verse 18.
Oh, my God, incline thine ear and hear,
open thine eyes and behold our desolations and
the city which is called by thy name,
for we do not present our supplication before
thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great
mercies.
Oh, Lord, hear.
Oh, Lord, forgive.
Oh, Lord, hearken and do.
Defer not for thine own sake.
Oh, my God, for my city and thy
people are called by thy name.
Do you get the feeling that here's a
man deeply disturbed?
Here's a man whose emotions are breaking loose
as he talks to God and pleads with
him to be merciful and kind to his
people.
It's a great prayer.
Now, I don't know how long it took
to pray that prayer.
Some years ago when I was teaching homiletics,
which is supposed to be how, you know,
the science of how to preach, how to
get sermons together and preach, and I guess
I illustrated how not to do either one.
But at any rate, I used to get
the students to sometimes read the scriptures aloud,
just as a test.
And I tell you, it was most discouraging.
Some of them read it like they were
reading a Western Union telegram.
Some of them read it like they were
bored stiff.
And I used to say to them, well,
you wouldn't stir anything.
You wouldn't even stir the mice in your
church by that kind of a prayer.
Who do you think you're talking to and
about?
Not your neighbor.
You're talking to God.
Put a little life in it, boy.
So then they'd go back over it.
And many times I assigned this prayer to
see how they'd read it publicly.
Most fascinating to see.
Once in a while, a student would catch
fire.
And by the time he hit verse 19,
we're all about ready to cry, because God
got a hold of him as he echoed
the prayer of this great prophet.
Now, all of that's remarkable, but there's something
that occurs here that is most intriguing.
While I was speaking and praying and confessing
my sin and the sin of my people
Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord
my God for the holy mountain of my
God, yea, while I was speaking in prayer,
even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen
in the vision at the beginning, being caused
to fly swiftly, touched me about the time
of the evening oblation.
I said, I don't know how long it
takes, it took Daniel to pray this prayer,
allowing for hesitancy, time lapses when he was
emotionally gripped by his conversation with God.
It couldn't have taken more than a half
hour.
If you read it straight through, and don't
be in such a hurry to do so,
try to put some meaning in it, it
will only take at the longest 15 minutes.
Why this accent on the time element?
Oh, if you'll bear with me, we shall
see it in just a moment.
His prayer is interrupted by this heavenly visitor,
and he informed me, and he talked with
me, and he said, O Daniel, I am
now come forth to give thee skill and
understanding at the beginning of thy supplications the
commandment came forth, and I am come to
show thee, for thou are greatly beloved, therefore
understand the matter and consider the vision.
And all of you students of Bible prophecy
will recognize that what occurs in the rest
of this chapter is probably one of the
most important eschatological prophetic subjects in all the
Bible, for it was the revelation of what
is called the 70 weeks of Daniel, in
which God spells out in advance his plan,
and that what he purposes to do through
his covenant people Israel, you see.
And the issue then, or the prayer of
Daniel, issued in this very special revelation from
God.
Now, what I'm concerned about, though, is this
little truth that's woven into this prayer situation.
Where is heaven?
Do you believe that heaven is a place?
I shouldn't ask that question of you people
in this assembly.
I know what kind of an answer I
get.
Of course we believe it's a place.
It's a condition, indeed, but it's a place.
And we think of that place, we think
of heaven as a place where our loved
ones have gone before, and are waiting for
us, and whom we shall see, and with
whom we shall enjoy the presence of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
And then we insert all those scenes from
the last book of the Bible that give
us a little more detail concerning that place
called heaven.
Well, then where is it located?
Well, the Bible talks about three kinds, or
three levels of heaven.
The heaven of the clouds, which we can
see with the naked eye.
Then there is the heaven of the stars,
these mystic bodies that populate our lovely Florida
skies in the summer and winter.
And then there is the heaven of heaven.
Paul once says that he, and I think
he was speaking of himself, was caught up,
he doesn't even know whether he was in
the body or not, but he was caught
up into the third heaven.
And there he received from the Lord revelations
which he was not even allowed to tell
other men about, secrets that he carried with
him through his martyrdom, probably.
Some, maybe, he wrote into his epistles, but
not many.
He saw things that were not lawful for
him to even utter.
Where did he get them?
In the third heaven, the very presence of
God.
So, if we take any of this literally,
we would then say that heaven must be
located, God's throne must be located, out beyond
maybe even the farthest reaches of our universe.
Now, in this modern day, we are coming
to know far more about our universe than
man has ever known before.
The invention of powerful telescopes, the computer science,
space travel, all of these factors have begun
to expand our conception of the size of
this universe.
Now, it is almost impossible to compute its
size, and when we're trying to talk about
how big it is, we are frustrated because
we can't get language that is big enough
to describe it.
So, we start to use certain other devices.
We know that the fastest thing we know
now is the speed of light, which travels
about 186,000 miles per second.
And so, when we want to find out
how far out into the universe there is
a stellar body of sorts, we say it
is so many light years.
That's a relatively recent terminology that we use.
Down here on earth, we measure things by
feet.
So, we get a little ruler 12 inches
wide, or long, and we measure it.
Now, if you were asking me how far
is it from here, say, to Tampa, Florida,
and all you gave me was a 12
-inch ruler, and I had to, you know,
go all the way to Tampa, that would
be a chore.
I tell you, I could wish I had
at least some kind of a measuring stick
that I could throw about 100 feet away,
and put a rock there, and run up,
and start again.
Then, after a little while, I'd want one
a thousand feet long, and then, if I
get a longer one than that, I'll take
it, so that I can measure quickly the
distance between here and there.
So, that's what we do when we're trying
to measure the distance between earth and these
stellar bodies out there.
So, we use the term light year, L
-Y.
Now, a light year is, in miles, 5
,280 feet.
It is 186,000 times 60 times 60
times 24 times 365 times 40.
That's a long, that's a fur piece, as
they say down there in those mountains in
North Carolina.
That's a fur piece, brother.
Did you get it?
You got, you know it?
You got the answer.
Some of you may have your computer going
right now, the pocket computers, but that's what
we say, and they tell us that the
nearest fixed star to our earth is at
least 40 light years away from earth.
That is, 186,000 times 60 times 60
times 24 times 365 times 40 in terms
of miles away from earth.
Now, that is most intriguing, because if you
let it, it'll start to spin your mind.
For instance, we step outside on a nice
starry night, and we're inclined to say, aren't
the stars beautiful tonight?
Now, you are very unscientific when you say
that.
You must be careful.
You have to say, weren't the stars beautiful
before I was born?
Say, we're not talking about before you were
born, we're talking about now.
No, no, no.
You're not seeing them as they are now,
you're seeing them as they were.
Any one of the stars, the nearest one
40 years away, and they tell us that
some of the stars in our universe are
500,000 light years from earth.
That is, 186,000 times 60 times 60
times 24 times 365 times 500,000.
That's not great.
That means if God pulled the shade down
on all the stars of heaven tonight so
that they, the light was held back, we
would still have beautiful starry nights on earth
for generations and generations to come, because we
would be seeing light that began its long
journey maybe before we were even born.
Any further intriguing thoughts?
Suppose by some stretch of imagination I could
find some swift vehicle that could transport me
from here to a star that's 2,000
miles light years, say, from earth, and I
could stand on that star and look at
earth.
I would be seeing events that happened on
the earth 2,000 years ago.
Literally, I'd be seeing them.
And as I move closer to earth, I
would be reviewing history visually, all the events
of history.
Now, what really excites me is, would it
be possible for me to find a star
somewhere out there in the vast universe where
I could land and see my Savior dying
on Calvary's tree?
Is that a scientific possibility?
Take that home and chew on it.
Some of you will say to the leaders
of this assembly, where did you get that
heretic?
Please don't have him back, whatever you do.
Now, here is where this has very on
our whole subject.
When Daniel knelt to pray, the heavenly visitor
who came to bring God's word to him,
here's what he said, Daniel, when you first
started to pray, a commandment was given that
I should come and give you, because you're
a man greatly beloved of God, I should
give you this revelation.
So, therefore, your prayer petition reached from the
palace, maybe at Babylon, of Babylon, it reached
from the palace of Babylon all the way
to the ears of Almighty God on his
throne in heaven.
And I came immediately when the commandment was
given to become God's messenger boy.
I came as fast as I could, and
the whole round trip took 15 minutes.
Do you know what this teaches me about
prayer?
It teaches me that the scientists are all
wrong to start with.
The fastest thing in the universe is not
light, it's prayer.
When in one moment, poor wretched I, in
this weak vessel of the flesh, stumbling along,
I don't understand the right vocabulary to use
when I address my God, so I fumble
through and stutter and say the wrong things.
I don't know how to pray as I
ought, but when I do, it reaches far
beyond the stars and touches God, and he
hears.
You know, we may not indeed know how
to pray as we ought.
There was a simple-minded little boy who
lived in England.
He got converted, and he never learned how
to read or write, and he learned some
Bible verses just by somebody patiently trying to
teach him memory.
And one day he went to a quiet
place, and the quietest place he knew was
a graveyard.
So he went out to the graveyard, and
as there is in England all over, they
have stone fences that build them all up,
and he was behind the stone fence, and
he was praying, and he was saying, Oh
God, A B D F G A B
C D, Oh God, A S P A,
Oh God, A B C D, and somebody
heard him, and they climbed up on the
wall, looked over, and said, Benny, what in
the world are you doing?
He said, I'm praying, sir.
He said, you're praying?
That doesn't sound like prayer to me.
Doesn't even make sense.
Yeah, he said, I know.
I don't know how to pray.
I don't even know the alphabet, but God
knows what I mean, and he puts all
the letters back together again the right way.
Well, that's good to know.
When you don't know how to pray as
you ought, you know, God knows how to
put the letters back together again, so they'll
make sense when we address him in the
name of our Lord Jesus.
Well, now I'm only half through.
We should go home.
What do you want to do?
You want to go home?
Anybody wants to go home, go.
The rest of us will stay.
If you got any patience and time left,
and I won't transgress too bad, there's one
more lesson that needs to be learned.
So Daniel's praying.
He learns the speed of prayer, the swiftness
of petition that reaches out across the vastness
of our universe and touches God.
All right, so now you come to chapter
10, and he's praying again in this chapter,
but now there's a different emphasis.
In the third year of Cyrus, king of
Persia, a thing was revealed to Daniel whose
name was called Belshazzar, and the thing was
true, but the time appointed was long, and
he understood the thing and had understanding of
the vision.
In those days, I, Daniel, was mourning three
full weeks.
Notice the time element.
Three full weeks.
I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh
nor wine in my mouth, neither did I
anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks
were fulfilled.
Now in the fourth and twentieth day of
the first month, I was by the side
of the great river, which is Hiddekel.
I lifted up mine eyes and looked, and
behold, a certain man clothed in linen, and
he describes this man, and it says he
got me down on, or I fell down
on my hands and knees, and he said,
verse 11, he said, O Daniel, a man
greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak
unto thee, and stand upright, for unto thee
am I now sent.
And when he had spoken this word unto
me, I stood trembling.
Then he said, don't be afraid, Daniel, fear
not, for from the first day that thou
did set thine heart to understand, and to
chasten thyself before thy God, thy word were
heard.
That verifies that first principle of prayer.
His words were heard, and I am come
for thy word.
But, and this is one of the most
significant buts in the Old Testament, but the
prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me
21 days, and lo, Michael, one of the
chief princes, came to help me, and I
remained there with the kings of Persia.
Now I am come to make thee understand
what shall befall thy people in the latter
days, for yet the vision is for many
days.
I come with a very important message.
What's going to happen to your people whom
God has chosen for himself in the latter
days?
And on my journey from God's presence to
you, I was withstood by the prince of
Persia for three full weeks, the exact time
that Daniel was mourning and fasting.
And when you come to the end of
the chapter, he adds another sentence, and he
says, verse 19, O man greatly beloved, fear
not, peace be unto thee, be strong, yes,
be strong.
And when he had spoken unto me, I
was strengthened, and he said, let my Lord
speak, for thou hast strengthened me.
Then said he, knowest thou wherefore I am
come to thee?
Do ye understand what I brought, the message
I brought?
And now I have to go back.
I'll return to fight with the prince of
Persia, and when I'm gone forth, lo, the
prince of Grisha shall come.
What is all of this prince of Persia
and prince of Grisha business here?
I cannot accept any interpretation that makes these
princes human beings.
No human prince would have the ability, or
the skill, or the power to withstand a
heavenly messenger, and hold him back from delivering
the message God commissioned him to bring.
So, these must be other kinds of princes,
and indeed they were.
These are satanic beings.
Why then denominate them prince of Persia, and
prince of Grisha, and so on?
Well, I haven't the time to develop this
much further, but the startling fact that's presented
in the bible is that every one of
the spiritual princes set over the governments of
this present world system are directly under the
control and in the hands of Satan.
They are sympathetic to Satan's program, and they
are antagonistic to the program of God.
When we become saved, we are delivered from
their jurisdiction.
We're delivered from the kingdom of Satan and
translated into the kingdom of God's dear son,
and this, of course, incurs the deadly hatred
and enmity of our previous master, who is
constantly making a bid for the return of
our vassalage.
There was a book that was out of
print for a long time, it's back in
print now, and I think it would pay
you to buy it.
It's entitled, it was entitled, maybe they have
a new title now, it was called Earth's
Earliest Ages by G.
H.
Pember, and there is a significant paragraph in
Pember's book.
If you'll bear with me, I'll quote it.
He says, the whole aerial surrounding our planet
is densely populated with a hostile race of
beings unutterably superior in wisdom and power to
ourselves, having had during a vast number of
years every conceivable experience of the weak points
of humanity, and possessing the incalculable advantage of
being themselves invisible, though as spiritual intelligences they
are probably able not merely to judge us
by our words and our outward expression of
countenance, but even to read the innermost thoughts
of our hearts, cooperating with a most perfect
and never failing organization, and lastly directed by
a leader of consummate wisdom and skill who
is assisted by powerful princes, and finds his
subjects so numerous that if we are able
to lay any stretch on the word legion
in the memorable narrative of Luke, he is
able to spare some six thousand of them
to guard one miserable captive.
And, here in Daniel, we have the astonishing
revelation that as Daniel prepared himself in prayer
to receive God's revelation to him, a battle
royal was provoked in heaven.
Satan began to move to keep the heavenly
messenger from ever reaching the prophet of God,
lest the revelation, the message that he brought,
should be disseminated.
And so, there was a battle in the
aerial, in the invisible air round about our
planet, and it was so fierce between this
heavenly messenger and one of the demons who
had the title prince of Persia.
The conflict was so sharp that the heavenly
messenger had to send a message back to
heaven for help, and Michael the archangel was
sent to defeat this satanic force that was
seeking to frustrate God's plan and God's purpose.
It's rather fearsome to think that maybe in
this invisible anvil surrounding our very planet earth,
there may be going on right now battles
that we cannot even concede in intensity.
And, when you and I as a believer
kneel to pray, we must never forget that
we must invade and penetrate a kingdom of
power far superior to ourselves, a satanic force
that is determined to frustrate every plan and
purpose that God has for your life and
mine.
That's why prayer becomes a battle.
That's why our prayers must reach beyond the
silly, simple, shallow, little request that we pray
for.
I go to some churches, and I think
I'm in a clinic.
They pray for everything from aggravated dandruff to
ingrown toenails, and they go up and down
the human anatomy and pray for everything that
is sick and weak among God's people.
And, while I have recognized that we should
pray for one another when we're ill, we've
got to reach out beyond that and realize
that we're in a battle against the forces
of hell, and it's time that we begin
to marshal some of our prayer strength to
fight against these forces.
While there are still more than two billion
souls going to hell without Jesus Christ, who've
never heard the gospel message on our planet,
our prayer life ought to be totally transformed
from the little stuff that we're petitioning God
for to battering like a ram, a battering
ram against the forces of hell.
So, Daniel teaches me the speed of prayer
and the power of prayer as it engages
the enemy.
Well, so much more could be said, but
let me say this.
I don't know who wrote this.
Maybe it was a native from Africa, but
here's how it goes.
From a convert in Uganda comes to us
a story grander is the lesson that it
teaches than a sermon often preaches.
For they tell what sore temptations come to
them, what need of patience, and a need
all else outweighing of a place for private
pray.
So, each convert chose a corner far away
from eye of scorners in the jungle where
he could pray to God in solitude.
And so often when he thithered that the
grass would fade and wither where he trod,
and you can trace by the path each
praying place.
If they hear the evil tiding that a
brother is backsliding and that some are even
saying he no longer cares for praying, then
they say to one another very softly and
gently, brother you'll forgive us now for showing
on your path the grass is growing.
And the erring one relenting soon is bitterly
repenting.
Ah, how sad I am at knowing on
my path the grass is growing, but it
shall be so no longer.
Prayer I need to make me stronger.
On my path so oft I'm going, soon
no grass will there be growing.
Question, any grass on your prayer path?
Lord, we seek thy face because we need
to see thee.
We favor the psalmist, my soul panteth after
God like the hind pants for the water
brooks.
So we are hungry for thee.
Forgive us for the times we've rushed into
thy presence with unworthy petitions in our hands,
when we could be involved more and more
in the great battle for the souls of
men, or for the greater purposes of God.
We worship and adore and praise thee tonight
for who thou art and for this mysterious
and inestimable privilege of prayer.
Savior, teach us to pray.
Spirit of God, teach us how to pray
as we go up, and so much the
more as we see the day approaching.
Father, we look at our prayer path, see
if there is any grass growing there.
We're ashamed that oft time we have to
wade through the grass to find the place
of prayer.
Forgive us, we pray, and again we ask,
teach us how to pray.
In Jesus name, amen.