Prayer Conference 2025

I was thinking of what it was like coming here. What an honor to be here. I told my wife, I feel like I'm taking hot coals to Newcastle.

If you know that expression in England, you'd take fire to where there is lots of fire already. Meeting so many of you and just discussing, the young people too, I just thought this is a little bit what it'll feel like to meet old friends in heaven that you haven't met yet. That know people you know, and you do know them because they're an old friend, because you have your best friend living in them.

And so I wanted to say to the young people, some of you here the first year, before you know it, you'll be old like us. And things will get more sentimental, but the decisions you make that seem small are huge. And so while you're here, redeem the time and press in, and you'll be able to carry on a legacy that's born of God.

I was thinking about that great song we sang about our great high priest, before the throne of God above, I bear a strong and perfect plea. And that amazing text there in Hebrews 4 that says that he's our great high priest, but it's a picture of the Lord Jesus as the priest. And in his hand, he has a priestly knife.

That's the picture, that word for that, the word of God is living and powerful, piercing down on the inside, cutting asunder between your soul and your spirit, and the joints and the marrow, the marrow is where the man is, and even is a discerner of the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. All things are naked and opened before the eyes of him with whom we have to do. And neither is there any creature, any person who's not completely known the good and the bad and the ugly in his sight.

But yet it goes down to where it says, let us therefore, because we have such a high priest who's tender and merciful and who knows what your frame is and everything about you, he's always previous to your best thought. And he says, come boldly, and it means keep on coming boldly. Seven times in Hebrews it says, keep coming up boldly, keep coming up.

When it says, let us go up, or it says keep coming up, like the Hebrew going up to Jerusalem, keep coming up boldly to the throne, for he sits as Lord of all. Come boldly to find grace to help and help to help you in a time of need. Well, it's a privilege to be here with you, and I want to just pray with you before we start.

Father, you have your own agenda tonight. You know what you want to do in our hearts, and quite often we know what to expect. But most of the time when the deep stuff happens, we weren't expecting it.

And so we pray tonight that you'll surprise us by your amazing grace and goodness, and that we will be alarmed in a real way that we've, how could we ever have not seen this till now and thought like this? Help us to understand what it means to trust you in a brand new way. What you do is new every morning. All things are new for us, and may we live with the passion and the vision that only your spirit can give.

In Jesus' name, we commit this night to you. Amen. Well, a verse that's been precious to me and was quickened to me again before I came here for this meeting here is Psalm 91, verse 1, and that's not where we're going tonight, but it says, He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

The Psalms 91 say that. It says, He's my refuge, He's my strength. But there's a person that lives in the secret place of the Most High there, and God promises all He is to that person, protection and blessing, and He's their refuge and their strength.

What is that secret place? In other places in the Psalms it says, in the secret of your presence, in the secret of your tabernacle. It's that original holy of holies in which God Himself sits and reigns, and that's where we come and we live there. And so I want to say that this is the most important thing about you and me tonight, is where you live.

And He wants us to live, dwell, make it our home, the presence of God, the secret place of the Most High. And that's what we're going to talk about tonight, the secret place of the Most High. But before I go to that, I want to just say that when we gather with Him for prayer, it's a family time.

When we come before Him, He says, if you abide, if you remain in me, and my words remain, my rhemas remain in you, then you can ask what you will, and the Father will generate it unto you. Apart from me, you can do nothing. And so nothing else in my life that I do can substitute for that.

We can be very busy, but we end up just running in place, just jogging in place, instead of really running the race. We end up just kind of shadowboxing and trying to do more to make up for a deep and a hidden sense that I wish I knew more, did more, I wish I was able to feel better about this. So tonight, I want to talk to you about something that I think will really last in your experience.

Turn to Matthew chapter 6. I want to talk about this secret place of the Most High. And before we even read that, I want to say, look, the law in the kingdom of all fruit bearing is an intimate relationship. It's communion.

This is what John 15 is all about. And God has illustrated this for us so vividly all around us. In the plant kingdom, he uses that picture, except a vine has branches that abide in it.

It'll never have any fruit coming forth without that intimacy, without that communion of inner life going back and forth. But not only the plant kingdom, but the animal kingdom is there too. If you have two dogs, prize dogs, and you want to have puppies, you'll never have puppies unless you have an intimate relationship between those dogs.

You can put them in kennels and it won't matter. And also in the human realm, we have some people here that just got married six months and four hours, well, six hours ago now, and they're extremely happy. It's very wonderful to behold.

But you know what? Suppose I married two missionaries in the name of Jesus, one immediately after the service went to Africa and the other one went to South America. After four years of faithful missionary service in separate places, how many children do they have? They're legally married. You see, there's got to be an intimate relationship.

There can't be fruit without it. So why would we think that it would be any different in the spiritual realm than it is in what he's shown us by pattern? It's the plant and the animal. In the human realm, there has to be an intimate relationship or there'll be no fruit.

And he's chosen me that I would bring forth his fruit in his season and that I would show forth his praises and all that he is. And you can tell who they are by fruit that comes forth, the fruit, the outward manifestation of inward life flow. Now I want to read in Matthew chapter six with you, if you turn there in your Bible, Matthew chapter six, and just to say that a time with the Lord is a family time, father to his children, and he wants us to really know him and love him and have access to his throne 24 seven.

In Matthew chapter six, beginning in verse five, it says, and when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites are. The two-faced ones, it means literally, you shall not be like the hypocrites are. They love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets so that they may be seen of men.

And verily I'm saying to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your closet. And when you have shut your door, pray to your father, which is in secret, and your father, which sees in secret, shall reward you openly.

But when you pray, don't use just the vain repetitions. This is men teaching us how to pray on our, just we imitate the Baptists pray one way, the Presbyterians pray another way. And I'm not saying God won't hear that, but you want to learn from God, not from man only.

So don't use just empty repetitions as like the nations are doing. They think they'll be heard because of their much speaking. Don't you be therefore like them.

For here it is, your father already knows what things you have need of before you ask him. You know, I was once privileged to meet a lady named Helen Rosevear, and she was a medical doctor. She died not many years ago now, but she served in the Belgian Congo.

She grew up in Britain, and she was saved while she was at Cambridge. And she became a medical student and a medical doctor. And she was serious about the Lord.

And so she sailed for the Belgian Congo, as it was known in that day, later to become Zaire. And then now today is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where all the people now, it seems, are getting slaughtered. A lot of those people, if you read the news lately, there's a lot of Christians dying for their faith in the Congo.

Well, Helen Rosevear, when she went there in 1953, she went to the remote areas. She had orphans, and she started two hospitals. And during that time in her second hospital, while she was out with a young woman assistant, they were picking berries for their compound that they were in.

And this is to show you where she's coming from. I'm telling you this. She came back to the compound.

They came to deliver the berries, and everybody in the compound had been slaughtered in those days. And rather than say, hallelujah for being delivered, she began to say, Lord, why wasn't I worthy to go when my brothers and sisters were taken? What is wrong with me? Am I not ready to be in your presence? And so after that, she kept serving. Then later, there was a band of Congo guys that took her captive for about six months.

During that time, she was beaten. She was raped multiple times. Then after that, she went back to England after she was finally released, after five months.

And she was resting and getting ready to go back to Congo, which she did for seven more years. And finally, after a wonderful time, she retired. But during that last time there, this incident here happened.

And I want to read you this, because this is, to me, this is so awesome to show how big God is, and how much vaster than we've ever dreamed prayer really is, and how much more before we even know our needs, he knows we have our needs before we ask. Listen to this. Dr. Helen Rosevear was called out one night to a maternity case.

In spite of all she and the nurses could do, the mother died, leaving a tiny, premature baby and a two-year-old little girl in a remote little hospital in Zaire. The missionary doctor felt utterly helpless. She spoke to the midwives that were there.

Our problem in keeping this baby alive is to maintain a steady temperature. There's no incubator. There's no electricity.

The nurse went out to get a box to put the baby in, and some cotton wool to wrap it in. And another midwife went to fill the hot water bottle, and another stoked the fire. I'm awfully sorry, doctor, said the one in the hot water bottle detail.

I boiled the water and poured it in, and the water, the bottle burst, and it's the last hot water bottle that we have. Well, there's no drugstore where they could buy one, and the doctor said, all right, you put the baby as near the fire as you can. You must sleep between the baby and the door to stop drafts that might come in, protecting this little one.

The next day at midday, Dr. Rosevear gathered her group of orphaned children around her for prayer, as she did every day. She gave them various things to pray for, and told them of the premature baby, and how difficult it was going to be to keep the little one alive. And she mentioned the burst hot water bottle, and told them the two-year-old who had been crying because her mother had died.

Well, during the prayer time, one of the children, a 10-year-old girl named Nanny, she took the matter up in prayer in the usual blunt African way that youngsters do, and here's what she said. Please, God, send us a hot water bottle. It'd be no good tomorrow, God.

The baby will be dead. Please send it this afternoon. And then she added, I don't know if I can get through this.

And while you're at it, Lord, while you're about it, would you send a doll for the little girl so she'll know that you still love her? Could the missionary really say amen? She didn't honestly believe that God could do it, did she? Of course she knew God could do anything, but hadn't she sung that so many times and heard it preached? Was it really possible that he could cope with this one? Well, in the three years that Miss Rosevere had been there, she had never received a parcel. They just didn't come to Zaire. Mail arrived only now and then, and when someone happened to be traveling in the right direction, and if anyone in her homeland of Great Britain should send a parcel, who would put a hot water bottle going to the equator? Well, about midday through the afternoon, she relates.

I was teaching in the nurse's training school when someone came in saying, there's a car outside your home, doctor. And I went across, but when I got there, the car had gone, but on the veranda was a large box all the way from the UK. I felt I had tears then.

I felt I couldn't open it alone. So I sent for the orphaned kiddies, and we opened it together. On the top, there was lots of bright vests that they loved.

Their eyes lit up, and I threw them out, praying all the while, please God, there's got to be enough vests to go around. Then I came to some knitted bandages for the leprosy patients. The children looked bored.

Next, I uncovered a large bar of soap, and they looked even more bored. And however, their eyes lit up when I found a nice package of mixed fruit. It would make a bright patch of cookies for the weekend.

And then I pulled it out, the brand new hot water bottle. I cried. Well, Nanny was on the front row of the children, and she rushed forward saying, if God sent the bottle, he must have sent a doll.

And diving into the parcel with both hands, she pulled out the dolly and said to Mrs. Rozier, please, mommy, may I go to that little girl so she'll know that Jesus really loves her? Now, here's what you got to think about as you hear this story. The parcel had been on the way for five months, five months before that. Imagine, five months, God had burdened some Sunday school group to put a parcel together and had urged some student, some teacher to put in a hot water bottle, even though the parcel would be going to the equator.

He had caused some child in a faraway England to give a doll for a little motherless child in Africa. And yes, God wanted to answer a child's prayer even before it had been expressed. There's a verse of the scripture that say, Isaiah 65, and it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer.

And while they are still speaking, I will hear. We just read, your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him. So I want to ask you to ask yourself this question, why do you have to ask? If God's that much in control, and if he's sovereign, he doesn't need anybody's help.

He didn't have to rely on anybody to do this over here and do this over here, things we normally pray about. Why do you have to pray about it? Oh, the majesty and mystery of prayer. We have no area of our life where we're so soon at the end of ourselves that where real prayer, authentic prayer takes place.

The reason that Father God lets us pray is hinted to in Luke 18, but it says he makes them wait a while. Why? Because God wants to spend time with you. The most important part of your life is the time that you spend praying alone, or you're alone with your heavenly father, if you're a believer.

And he imparts to you who he is and shows you, and you begin to learn his ways. And you see something like this, and it's a great mystery. You just hold your mouth open and say, Lord, is it so true then that all things can work together for good? Like you say, to those who love you and who are the really called according to your purpose.

You're always previous. You're so far ahead of me, but he wants to give us the chance, the privilege of being invested and actually executing the will of God. Simple enough for a child, but complicated enough to bankrupt the biggest theologian.

I heard someone quoted this. I quoted it to someone today, and they said, oh, we said part of that today in class. I think it was today, but I said to this person, I said, listen, your theology, when you follow it with neology, will turn into doxology.

It'll take neology to turn your cerebral into cardio. It'll make you burn within. He'll open up the scriptures to you, and he'll separate between soul and spirit.

He'll discern your own heart and show you things that you thought were harmless, but they've been hindering you. And you'll be able to deal with it. He's not doing it because he doesn't really love you.

He's doing it because he does love you. I had an MRI a couple of weeks ago, and when you have an MRI, it shows you all kinds of things that you never dreamed were there, but you're doing it not just to get entertained. You're doing it not to find out what's there.

You're doing it because you're ultimately wanting to accomplish something that's needing to be done. And as I was reading that with a group of men on our knees, that text that I just read in Hebrew, the Lord spoke to me, and he says, I have an MRI also. And I, the Lord, search the heart, and I test the mind and the thoughts and the thoughts and intents of the heart, and I know them all together.

And I always test those that I love and call them. And when I show you something, it says in Psalm 66, verse 18, that whoever covers his sin will not prosper. It just won't happen.

Whoever covers his sin will not prosper. And it also says that if I regard iniquity in my heart, if the Lord has showed me something and I don't deal with it, the MRI, the Master Revealing Iniquity, MRI, he reveals this to me in my heart. And I wasn't expecting that, Lord.

I wasn't wanting to see that. And he says, yes, but I'm showing you this, and I want you to deal with it. You really want to go places in your prayer life.

If you want to be faithful to God in prayer, then you see it's the unrelated things that you think that may have the greatest reason and effect that you haven't been experiencing, all that you know prayer is about, and you maybe have been waiting to experience it in a fuller measure. Well, I want to go to Matthew chapter 6, and as I go there, I want to just say that it's in the Sermon on the Mount. This is the first thing that Jesus ever preached about prayer.

He preached this, first of all, and if you, there's a book by A.T. Pearson that Brother Joseph loved, and it talks about this being the first one that A.T. Pearson, the first thing, it's where it starts, it's where it all begins, prayer life. And so you see, though, in the Sermon on the Mount, which is where this is in the dead center of, the Sermon on the Mount, in chapter 5 of Matthew, the Lord Jesus is preaching, and he sets forth the public life, the B attitudes, not the do attitudes, but the B attitudes, that this is character qualities that are going to come forth, and your light will shine before men. It deals with the character of God being displayed publicly, and you see in chapter 5, the beauty of the Lord, and to show who he is.

So that's chapter 5. In chapter 7, skipping chapter 6 for a moment, he talks about the fruit. You'll know them by their fruits, the two ways that you walk. It's also the outer life.

You can tell who's who, and how the house is built on a foundation. The public testimonies in those two, chapter 5 and chapter 7. But in chapter 6, it's like the spinal cord. It's right down the middle, and it uses the word over and over again, in secret, in secret.

And you'll find in that chapter, there are three things in secret that God tells you that you're to do. He doesn't say if you do it, he says when. And the first one is when you give.

The second one is when you pray. That's the middle one. And the last one is when you fast.

Now this is not the kind that's public, and in the bigger body. This is the kind between you and God alone. God has spoken to you alone.

He says, I want you to release that. You see, all that's in the world, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of the life, all that's there putting pressure to conform you to the world. How do you say no to it? How do you learn to say yes to God? Well, God lets you be in situations.

He puts you in a situation, and he says, look, the answer for the lust of the flesh is learn to deny your flesh and that secret fasting. When nobody knows, you're saying yes to God and no to yourself, because that's how sin enters, through the desires of the flesh. The second thing is the lust of the eye.

See, one is the desire to do. That's the flesh. The lust of the eye is the desire to have.

I want this. She looked. She saw.

She took. He looked. He saw.

He took. It's the eye. He sees it.

He wants it. It's good for food. He took it.

So you see, the lust of the eye, it deals with the possession, the desire to have. And the third one is the pride of life. That's position, and that's to be.

So to do and to have and to be. Those three great pressures on your life every day that push you to make decisions that are self-oriented can be, as Hebrew says, you can exercise your faculties by right use. You can learn to give secretly and no one ever knows, just because God's Spirit says, release that.

And you get used to releasing. Then you get used to denying the urges of your body, and you get used to not having to pay attention to all the legends that people say you are, because you know who you really are. You've been in God's presence, and you spend time with Him.

But you see, the middle one of those three, the middle one, the spinal cord, right down the middle of all of it, is when you pray. When you talk about your past, I've had the privilege of knowing some really wonderful men of God. In 1972, when I was saved in Greensboro, North Carolina, the Lord really did save me.

I mean, I was basically, I was an alcoholic, but I didn't know it. I wasn't trying to quit. I was one of these distant party guys, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, just partying and playing in a band, traveling around.

I used to play the guitar with James Taylor. It's just the world to me. And one day, God put His finger on my heart, and I went into a service, and the Lord truly saved me.

I came home and began to read the Word about six hours a night. I said, when was this written? And I remember at that time, I just began to long to know the Lord, and nobody told me I should do this. I just was told by brothers around, I should read the Word.

But the more I read it, the hungrier I got, and everything just was so amazing to me. Well, so I left my business and went to Texas, to seminary. I figured that's what I was supposed to do.

And when I got down to seminary, I began to be hungry, looking for people. So the Lord amazingly put me with, like, Leonard Ravenhill to travel with Him, and Natalie Beasley to travel with Him, and just different people, and getting to know them. And I saw what we're talking about here, private life praying.

And I saw, this is what's got to be real if I want to be used of God by Him. And so it became like breathing. Prayer is like the love language of the heart.

It's the breath of the soul. And it became supernaturally natural. It just became obvious and real.

But you see, at seminary, being busy, when it got to the end of that time, when I was about to graduate, I wasn't married, and I didn't have a ministry ahead of me. And I didn't know where I was supposed to live. I was in Texas, and I'm from North Carolina.

So I went away to a place called Glen Rose. And while I was out there alone, I took my guitar, which I didn't use. I took a jug of water, and just a loaf of bread.

I didn't use that either, just the water. And I took all these books, and I put them on the floor. And just for three days, I got quiet.

I just asked the Lord, I want to know your secrets. I want to know where I'm supposed to go. Because I want to know what's going to affect my life in the next 10 or 15 years, or anything else.

And I want to know what I'm going to do at the seminary. And I had my notebook. I've still got it at home.

And I had my pen, and I started writing, because I just felt like I was taking dictation. Have you ever had a quiet time like that, when thoughts came, and you know they weren't yours, because they're too smart? They're too good. And you write it down, and later you say, whoa.

And you realize. And so the Lord said to me, get ready for a move, and a mate, and a ministry. He used alliteration.

I knew it wasn't me. And he said, get ready for a move, a mate, and a ministry, but not necessarily in that order. Well, just to make a long story short, things happened in such an amazing way, that I ended up, when I graduated, I got married.

And we moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where I became part of Precept Ministries, and taught a lot. And I became so busy. I was traveling around, you know, over those six years, to almost every state, preaching the Word, and everything.

And I remember, as time went by, and I felt the Lord moving us to Atlanta. So we moved to Atlanta, and I was just turning 40. And when you turn 40, things happen in your brain, on a natural level.

You begin to say, oh no, I'm ready to die now. And a little girl said, what does it mean to turn 40? She said, you're getting very, very old, and soon we'll die. This little girl.

But I remember, I said, I did that before. Almost every single thing the Lord wrote me, details, details, details, years before, had happened. And I said, I'm going to do it again.

Because I'm facing these next 40, until my next years, I want to know what will make the difference in my life, more than anything else. And so I went away to this monastery, and rented a room, and got down like that before. I had all my books out, my Bible out, I was ready to write.

I said, I am ready to write this down, my future biography. Here we go, Lord. And as I was down like this, I had this sense of anticipation.

God just gave me, I'm going to show you, you ready for this? I'm being overly dramatic, but this is what I was feeling. You're going to think I'm weird when I tell you these things, but it's like, here it comes, you ready? Yes, Lord, I'm ready. I remember that move, make, ministry.

Tell me more about the next 20 years of my life, what will make the biggest difference in my life, in my ministry, in my marriage, in my children. Here it is. Get, yes, back to the closet.

Wow, that's good. Go on, that's it. It wasn't like 20 pages, it wasn't like 10 pages.

It's like one sentence. And I realized, I said, wow, this is what's happened to me. It's the, and then the Lord took me to this passage we just read, and showed me, I want to give you the ingredients of closet prayer.

This is what you must turn your heart and life to if you're going to see God's effective work in and through your life, your family, your church, your country, your world that you're in. If you want God to use you, this is what's got to happen in your life on a personal, deep, intimate level. Prayer has no rival.

It's as big as God, nothing else you can ever do would substitute. Why do I need to do it? Because he urges me to, he commands me to, he yearns for me to. Why does he do that? Because he wants your involvement in his purposes and in his work.

And you have, you see, the thing is, it's such a privilege. It's like, oh, I've got to have my time with God. You know, that's like going in to see the king and saying how long do I have to spend with the king, instead of how much time would the king give to me today? I want to give you these ingredients before I get down off this, I've got to get on it.

If I'm going to go now, I don't know how long I have, but we should be through by 2 a.m. But in Matthew chapter 6, I want to give you these ingredients of closet prayer. See, I need this word again today. You need this word again today.

You do. I don't care if you're a brand new student or if you've been a 50-year veteran on the mission field. This is a word for us in our day.

When the situation in the world and the situation in our churches and the situation in our nation, the situation in the culture and everything that's going on, we've got to get back to authentic prayer. It says the eyes of the Lord are going back and forth across the whole earth, looking for a heart that's right toward him that he can show himself strong through, 2 Chronicles 16.9. And so it's not human credentials he's looking for. It's heart consecration.

That's what he wants, heart consecration. Well, the first ingredient of closet prayer that the Lord showed me as I looked at this passage, he did it from my heart to say is secrecy. Secrecy.

That's in verse, you can see it in verse 6. It says, but you, when you pray, enter into your closet. And when you shut your door, pray to your father who's in secret. And he sees in secret.

And he'll reward you when you do this. But you see, enter into your closet. This secret in this chapter is key.

Six times it says secret, not to be seen of men. It's a life that you're living just for the eye and the heart of Father God alone. Just for him.

And you're learning to walk in his beauty and his holiness and his presence. He don't want you to go do a bunch of things. In fact, communion always precedes commission.

Everybody's out trying to fulfill the great commission, and I'm all for that. But you see, if you're trying to fulfill and do things in the great commission before you're living in communion and consecration, you're just spreading disease. You're not sharing the life of God.

Not really. You see, you look around, you say, what's wrong with, why is the population increasing in the people in churches? They like church less unless you serve the right kind of coffee or have the right kind of music or do this this way. You make them feel charmed, warm and unharmed.

And they want to stay in your congregation. And you see, and we think we can have this burgeoning mission. You think we can have a growing church while we have a shrinking prayer ministry.

That's an oxymoron. You can have some kind of growth, like it talks about where birds come and lodge in the large branches and everything. But God's kind of growth that we're talking about must be in secret, five times, not to be seen of man.

So a secret life is promised open reward of God. And this kind of prayer we're talking about dies when it's exposed to man's gaze. It's like those flowers, you hit the sun and they wilt.

Man can't, aren't supposed to see this. It's enter into your closet. Well, in that Pearson book, you'd read it.

If you've read it, it says that word closet is the word tamion. It's used four times in the New Testament. And it's used, number one, for a honeymoon chamber.

What a vivid picture, where intimacy is consummated, where a marriage is proven and it relates to reality. And that's the first thing, an intimate chamber, honeymoon type, return to your first love. And it's also a treasure vault where you keep your gold or silver or supplies.

In those days, it would be a tamion. It's also like a laundry room that you close the door when company comes over because it's a family only closet. Nobody can look in there and you share your intimates that way.

And nobody knows but just the immediate family. And that's the tamion. He says, look, get into your closet.

And when you're in there, you have a closet, don't you? You have a place. It doesn't mean like a literal closet all the time. It means a place where you're totally alone with God.

It's secret. It can change. It can be out in the woods somewhere.

But in this case here, it usually means the Hebrew mind. It relates to them, the secret place of the Most High, Psalm 91, dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High over and over. It's in the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant sits and the blood's been sprinkled on that golden mercy seat.

And nobody's in there but God and one other person, the high priest. And there in that solitary, in that secret place, prayer takes place. That's what it's saying.

It's a definite place to meet with God. And it's your father sees in secret. So get back to the secret place of the Most High.

So here's the thing. When you've been in the ministry a while, when your prayers start getting answered, you start having a lot of people come and you have problems with the sheep and all these things happen. Are you finally seeing answers? Are your budgets finally on course or whatever your plans are, are seeing some real life? Secret prayer is the first kind of prayer to disappear when things get busy or you think you're doing well.

It's true in the ministry. It's true on the mission field. I go on a lot of mission fields and I can tell you deep inside a lot of missionaries are wilting.

They're overworked. They're tired. They're lonely.

And they've let secret prayer slip some of them. They need a word like this, you see. But the power of my public life will flow out of my private life with God.

That's the same for every single one of us. And so he will reward you openly. The Bible says in these days, the last days, there'll be a form of godliness, a lot of it, while denying the real power thereof.

We know how to build big buildings. We've got more church buildings in America than anybody. We spend more on the debt repayment, the interest on our debt, than we do on foreign missions in a year in America on the debt on our church buildings.

Now I'm not making that to condemn anybody, but I'm just saying I've heard people say it. Being in the closet seems like such a waste of time. There's so much to do.

We've all thought this. I've got all these things and I've got to do all these things. And so this attitude, you see, is the reason why we're so impotent.

Because we listen to it. And it's not unanswered prayer that's our problem. It's unoffered prayer.

The communion of being alone with God is not happening. So we're sharing man's thoughts. The best scholars say are this, instead of thus saith the Lord.

Instead of the cross, we talk about a cushion or something like we make substitutes. And it looks so right. Active for Jesus is not the same thing as being occupied with Jesus.

Sharing about Christ is not the same thing as sharing Christ. Coming to church, my friend, with me is not the same thing as me in the power of God praying and sharing the gospel with you one-on-one or whatever. So Oswald Chambers once said, the central thing in the kingdom of Christ is a personal relationship to he himself, not public usefulness to man.

It's a relationship to the Lord. It's a holy watch. And here's what's happened in our day.

It's happening worse. A pragmatism and a lust for results has bred endless energy and activity not birthed in God. It has.

You know it's true. You're not being kind. Well, it's too late for that.

I mean, it's urgent. Look what's happening around us. How long do you think God's going to just let all this calling it right when it's not? So a lot of people have buried, buried their spirituality in the grave of their activities.

And they have just done that. But God says, I will give to you the treasuries of the secret place in Isaiah 45. I'll give you the hidden riches of the secret place.

There's treasure there. There's secrecy. Isaiah 45, 3. And God says, I want to give it to you.

But see, so many people are, what I would say, too busy for the best. It's the overloaded heart that are the most likely to pray the least. You think it would drive us to our knees.

Is this too hard for you? I mean, is this, it ain't got bad yet. It's going to get worse. Because you see, secrecy, it's the secret of all of our failure may be the failure of secret prayer.

We offer all these other kinds of things. But you see, it's the secret prayer is the cure for hypocrisy. And the greatest battles in the universe are in secret, like Daniel and Abram, all these secret times of prayer, heroic prayer.

I could tell you about men I've met that are, I would say, heroes. I remember in England, down in Cornwall, we were out and there was this, we were late to church because we had to drive and we had some traffic. We got there.

I was supposed to preach. And there was this, they started the music and they were singing. And down front was, as we were sitting there, getting ready, getting ready to get up in a moment, they knew we were there.

There was a little lady down front. She had on this really old suit, like felt, and these high heels that women today would never be seen in, no matter what. But she was there and she had on a little suit.

She had on a little blue hat, suede or something, with net down halfway over her eyes. And we're all singing. And she's up there going, ah.

She tried to sing. She was terrible. But she was just going, ah.

And I sat there and I said, man, what is up with her? And I got up and I preached and I noticed this little radiant expression on her face the whole time. And after it was over, she came up and she said, oh, Sonny, that was a good message. And she had on a button right here, big sparkly eyes, big button that says, keep me burning, Lord.

And I said, who was that woman? She said, that's Aunt Sonny. She lives over on the cliff by the ocean. And people come outside her house and they line up and they wait for hours.

And she'll talk to them and she'll pray for them because she has an industry of prayer. She has an audience with the king. And they come and they talk to her.

And I said, wow, that's awesome. Well, you can read these biographies and you will see the way that God tends to move in people that spend time alone with him. Secrecy, that's the first ingredient.

Second ingredient, solitude. Solitude. Notice it says in verse six, shut your door.

Only one person in the holy of holies at one time in the secret place of the most high. But I'll tell you, you become a shut in in the right way. You become a shut in with God and you shut out the world.

I remember landing in a church in South Carolina here. This is South Carolina. I keep forgetting.

Landed there and at the airport, the pastor met me and he'd become quite successful in terms of numerical growth. And he was a very busy man. He was a good friend of mine.

And we kidded around a lot in the old days, but we were talking honestly. We always shared and held each other accountable. And he picked me up and he said, Al, God has blessed us so much, so much that all my praying has to be done on the run.

I looked him right in the eye and I said, well, brother, you're busier than Jesus. It was an interesting moment. But have you ever wondered when it says that the Lord Jesus, he went out into a solitary place and he spent all night in prayer.

He would go up to a mountain and be gone. When they woke up, they'd see he'd been on a mountaintop praying all night or he'd leave in the afternoon. He'd leave 5,000 people and go spend time with his father alone.

Have you ever wondered what, have you ever wondered what he prayed about? His absolute priority that was so vast, that it was the only thing the Holy Ghost recorded that they asked him to teach them. Lord, teach us to pray. We see this most conspicuous thing about you.

The time you spend with this one called father and he tells you what to say and where to go and what to do. And you do nothing but what he says. This is what you've told us.

Teach us that same thing. Have you ever wondered what he prayed about? Well, he didn't have any sense to confess. He didn't have bad attitudes to overcome.

He was communing with his heavenly father. And it seems like it's unproductive to us just on that, that kind of level, but it's not. It produces in us the very best things.

Solitude was priority to the Lord Jesus and prayers like the robing room of the soul. God puts on us intimacy. Intimacy is cultivated alone.

Let me tell you, teenagers that love each other become conspiratorial to spend time alone. They have to go sit on a bench or something like that. They got to talk.

They got to be together. And that's how love is like. Intimacy grows in solitude, together, just quietly.

Same thing for every experience of marriage. You see, everything he does in our life comes on the wings of prayer. Somebody somewhere has prayed for you.

It's not just you figuring it out and doing better. You see, the Bible calls people like this his hidden ones. God has hidden ones.

I've met some of them, little old ladies that you'd never know, little old guys. A guy died in Raven, who used to talk about a guy named Rex Andrews, and he lived in Chicago. And he'd been in Israel as a missionary and got kind of sick, and they made him come home.

And he didn't come home in his heart, though. He stayed on the field, and he got in his room, and he would pray for everything. And finally, he didn't come out.

They didn't have any contact, and they went in, and they found him. He had gone to be with the Lord. And they carried Rex out of his apartment.

It was the first time he'd left his apartment in 12 years. And all these books that he prayed for people all over, because you see, he had a life alone with God. And I tell you, when he gets to heaven, he won't be sad.

He won't be sad. He'll be amazed at all that happened. See, the one thing we will look at, how could we have neglected such a great opportunity and a precious gift that we could have had? We could have been faithful in prayer, and we could have seen.

I mean, I love getting a call on the phone and hearing it be a youth director from Vidalia, Georgia. And he says, you don't know me, but 30 years ago, I brought a youth group up to a conference you all did, and you were preaching to a bunch of teenagers, and I was their director. And you preached on the great white throne judgment.

And he said, that day, God showed me that's where I was headed. And I got saved that day. And my kids were amazed.

And I went back to Vidalia, and the Lord changed my life. And I began to be discipled by the Lord and the people. And I got married.

Now I have kids. Now I'm the chairman of the deacons. And I just wanted to call and tell you, don't ever stop preaching the truth.

You see, now that's just one little thing the Lord says, think of what you can sell and hear one day when you get to heaven. Why do you think he waits till everything at the consummation? He doesn't just give you your rewards when you first get to heaven. He makes you wait to win till it's all finished.

You know why? Because your works follow you. The things you do now and you leave to go to heaven, they're going to keep on working. And it's like the Ponzi scheme that's the best.

It's the Jesus. It's the Jesus way. One man builds on another man's work, and you are rewarded.

He's rewarded because of what you've done. So be still and know that I'm God. That's what we're saying tonight.

But see, the test of solitude is a big one. How few can bear it? How few young people can go 10 minutes without looking at their phone? How many times I'm in the car and I feel my whole car start going, it's the guy next to me. He's got his bass on so loud.

You wonder if he's having a heart attack or whatever. I mean, you just wonder. And I stick my finger out the window and I say, man, that's loud.

And he says something and I said, what? And he said, what? And I said, Jesus loves you. What? I mean, it's a great opportunity. You could capitalize on everything anyway.

But see, here's the thing. People don't like to get alone. Fear stalks most people's hearts in silence.

And so I remember at men's conferences, we'll send men out to get alone. We'll say, go get alone with God. Get under a tree, get under a bush, get under somewhere and be absolutely still and listen, listen, listen.

The polite part of conversation is listening before you speak. Listen to him and see what he says and then commune. And we had guys come in.

This one guy came in and he said, he said, after about five minutes, he said, I don't like that. I said, why? He said, it makes me nervous. You see, because here's the thing about solitude.

When we're alone with God, we're no longer all the things we've convinced ourselves we are. Or that our press says about our sports or whatever else. We're just naked, ordinary people who need God.

And God wants to show us that when we're alone with him. So in solitude, he reveals himself and he unveils myself. And I see sin's enormity.

I begin to see self's deformity and few can bear it. You see, this is why when we're hypocritical, we never pray alone. I don't want him to point that out to me.

I know it's there. I've been nagging about nagging by that something. It's the Holy Spirit saying, you want to really pray for your children and get your heart right.

You want to really pray for your wife, then listen to her and pray for her and live in an understanding way. Otherwise, your prayers are hindered. So in solitude, the Lord has my has my ear.

And in solitude, you learn the art of thinking of God alone. You shut out everything else and you're thinking on him. You're dwelling on him.

It's called a single eye in scripture. David said, I've set the Lord continually before me. He's always meditating in his word, in the Lord's presence, you see.

And this, you see, is an act of will, not just what you want to do. Listen, everybody wants to have somebody praying for them. They want to belong to a praying church.

But are you praying? If you want to run the Olympics, we watch. Well, I love to watch the Olympics. It's such human triumph on a natural level.

I just love it. But you see, nobody just goes to the Olympics because they like it on TV and they think they'd like to. Those people, you don't see what they do to get to there.

And the same thing with the prayer warrior. You don't see what it costs sometimes with not going to your friend's thing or whatever else or doing something that you don't want to do to really become a prayer warrior. But in solitude, you can become a riverbed of light and the waters keep flowing when you leave and and you're waiting upon God, that which I tell you in darkness, go out and speak in the light.

What you hear in the ear, preach upon the housetops. You see, when you're alone with God, pretense is stripped away. You can't pretend in the presence what a man is on his knees, said Robert Murray McShane.

What a man is on his knees before God, that's what he is and nothing more. When you get alone with God, pretense will be stripped away and motives will be challenged. Your ear will be trained.

You'll behold him with a new vision. You'll have a new sense of divine realities that will carry over and cause you to be a catalyst and a change agent wherever you go because you're meditating on him and you're praying without ceasing. It follows you out and so this kind of prayer will gloriously change a life.

It's silent surrender alone with God. We all, as in a mirror, beholding in a mirror the Lord's glory are changed by the Spirit of God into the same thing the scriptures show us as we unveil ourselves. So, secrecy, solitude, sacrifice.

That's the third S. When you pray, it doesn't say if you pray, if you do this. When you pray, when you do this, then you pray to your Father in secret. You've got to make time.

You'll never find time. The devil will make sure you'll never find it. It's not just laying around.

You see, priorities must be adhered to and set. It's more important to be alone with God. I just saw somebody turn their head.

They're getting there. I'm taking so long with this. It's beginning to hurt people's neck, but hurting your neck better than where else people feel like they've been kicked, you know.

But it's called in the scriptures, spiritual sacrifices. That's what prayer is called, a spiritual sacrifice, you see. Something's got to go if something good's going to come.

So, what's it costing you not to have time with God like I'm talking about? That intimate, long-term time with God. You've got to quit giving God leftovers. That simple.

He's got to get the main ingredient, the main meal. So, whatever is done without our hearts is done in the dark, really. And he wants us to understand this.

So, God speaks to those who take time to listen to him. Without faith, it is impossible to please him. Whoever comes to God must believe that he is, he is what? He is everything the scriptures say, and that he's a rewarder of those who casually inquire after him.

Is that what it says? No, they diligently seek him. So, return to thy rest. Well, did you know that one hour a day alone with God, one hour a day for 365 days is the equivalent of 45 eight-hour working days? Eight-hour working days, 45 days.

One hour a day for 365 days. And that's what's amazing. But if you take two hours a day over a period of 40 years, it's like adding 10 years to your life.

That's the time. Do the math. God's not messing around, you see.

A listening heart is the greatest of riches. Solomon, you hadn't asked me for all these riches and everything else. I'm going to give you wisdom.

That word in the Hebrew means a listening heart. Did you know that? He quit listening a little later when it came to women. He quit listening, and he shipwrecked in many levels of his life, you see.

I like that verse in Matthew 26, 39. It says, Jesus went to Gethsemane. I was reading it one day, and it says, and Jesus went a little further, and he fell on his face, and he prayed.

It's like the Lord said, are you willing to go further? Are you willing to fall on your face and to spend time alone when it feels unproductive because you're so used to doing things and being busy? But are you willing to invest? It's not just ministry for the Lord, it's ministry to the Lord. And I want time with you. I want you to worship me in spirit and in truth.

Well, the fourth ingredient, I got to keep going, is simplicity. Simplicity. See, this is gloriously uncomplicated.

As a child to a father, use not vain repetitions. And it's simple in heart. See, not empty words, not canned phrases.

Don't preach to God. Don't say, Lord, you know, you know. It's like that mama that sent her little girl named Sally away, and she said, honey, I want you to learn to listen to God.

Sally went away, and she said, I want you to get on your knees by your bed, just wait, wait there. And Sally was just only about four years old. And she got down and was listening, and suddenly she comes running back in after about a half an hour to her mommy, and she says, mommy, mommy, he knows my name.

He called me Sally. Small, isn't it? It can change your life. He called me by my name.

That's the kind of thing that you've got to teach your children. It'll change them forever to the glory of God. God listens to the language of the heart.

He uses things like, pour out your heart before me. Listen, nothing speaks to a parent more than a sob. I'm in my study, and my little girl comes in there, and she just sits in the corner, and she's sobbing.

You know what I do? Honey, would you come back later? I'm busy preparing, you know. I put aside everything, and I listen. I listen, because it's the language of the heart.

Or what about tears, you see, or a sigh, or just silence, silence. These things, this is the language to God, that when you're alone with Him, you can wait upon the Lord, and you exchange your strength, you see. It's the incense picture of the Bible, something so small and insignificant.

But here's the thing. God keeps our prayers in vials. He keeps our prayers in books.

He keeps our prayers, our tears, in a bottle. What do you, where's your box that you have in your closet that you put graduation ring and all the things that are so special to you? There's a box that we keep that have things that can't get away from us. They're important.

Well, God has that in heaven. He keeps the tears in the bottle, and the prayers in the book, and the vials in Revelation, because they're precious to Him. That's what He wants.

He wants time with you. He wants time with me. Your Father knows.

You don't have to impress Him. He is impressed. When you come in, in Jesus' name, you're covered in the power of the blood, and you're claiming His precious promises that He's been telling you over and over again.

You come and say, oh God, He is impressed. We're not making a speech to God. We don't have to have our words just right.

A sob or a groan as we come in can make it perfectly. So, a cry is mightier than just a bunch of words. Well, I spoke on this one night at a church, and talked about the kid getting it and that.

Anyway, the next night, this man came to me after the service, and he was shaking. He said, I've got to tell you what happened last night when I went home. He was four years old.

This boy that heard it. I thought it was six, but it says four here. He came to me, and we were going to have our nightly prayer like I always do.

I'd get down by his bed, and we'd get down, and we'd pray together. My wife and I, we were getting down by the bed, and my four-year-old said, Daddy, Daddy, the preacher said, Get in the closet. So, we got up, Al, and we went into his closet, and I raked the toys aside, and we got down on our knees, and we started to get ready, and the little four-year-old says, Daddy, he says, shut the door, and he shut the door, and he says, we started to get ready, and he says, Daddy, he says in secret, turn out the light.

He says, Al, I shut the light out, and there my wife and my son and I were on our knees. It's dark. He said, I'm glad it was dark, because I've never felt, in my experience, the hand of God in His presence so mightily as in that closet, in secret, in the dark, with my family.

He said, it's changed me forever. I don't know what's happened, but I feel different, and I'm not going to miss this anymore. See, he took a four-year-old to teach him.

So, God wants you to learn secrecy and solitude and and sacrifice and simplicity. I remember my daughter, Catherine, when she was just about four years old, and we have a friend named Molly who actually came here. Molly Farlow, you might remember her, and she, her name, Molly, what was her maiden name? It's been so long, 40 years, I don't even know, but she was in Singapore for all those years as a missionary, and Catherine loves Aunt Molly, and so we were down praying, and we're praying for Molly, and Catherine wanted to enter in.

She's only about four or sometime in three, and she's not a very good talker, and we're trying to pray for something, and Catherine, she loves colors. She's a little girl, and she loves colors and dresses, and she, I remember, she's over there like this, and she says, Lord, send Molly a red dress, and she goes, you know how little kids, they're thinking and concentrating, they go, send red dress. I'm sitting over there trying not to just laugh my head off, because it's so cute, and I just want to kiss her, because it's just so beautiful, and, and, uh, and I just say, that's so sweet.

Well, about a week and a half later, we get a thing from Molly saying that she got this red dress in the mail. She didn't know where it came from, and I said, good night, that's amazing, and I went along, and I got before, I said, Heavenly Father. I started doing my lips like that, and he says, and I could almost hear him laughing, and say, don't you know it's not just moving your lips that I listen to? I'm listening to her heart, specifically.

That's the last one. Pray this way, and then he gives us what we call a Lord's Prayer, but it's really the church's prayer. There's like all these different wonderful things, his will, his word, his way, his warfare.

It's all based upon his character that he shows us as we get along with him. You've got to know his ways, not just what he wants to do. You've got to know who he is, and so what are you specifically believing God for today that it takes a miracle from him to do, that only he can do, and you know what'll happen when he does it? Joy will come, like you know that he's done it.

God's heard my prayer, and it's awesome, so he becomes our focus and our single eye. Well, so we're through, and you say, at last, some of you said that maybe, but we've got to dare to receive these things. See, you've heard this a hundred times, maybe some of you, but that doesn't matter.

Have you done it? Have you acted on it? Have you let God change it? And as I've spoken, I can see it in your eyeballs. You learn how to recognize in eyeballs certain things when you look out, like shut up, or something like you can tell it. You can hear it, and you can hear it, and it doesn't bother me anymore.

It used to really bother me, but it still bothers me some, but it's, I can't lie, but that inner stirring as we cover this ground, you say, ah, there's something stirring. If that inner stirring is the desire of the Holy Spirit of God in you to lead you into this thing we're talking about, this secret place of the Most High, it is His invitation to intimacy. It's His confirming voice to you that He wants to give you communion with a call to the closet.

So, I just want to encourage you tonight to act on this, and are you really willing to become a person of prayer? I know we pray, but look, we need to turn to real prayer in our churches, and it takes individuals in churches to do this. It takes individuals and families to do it, and you will salt the oats of others, and they will want to move into this, you see. Do you have to discipline yourself to watch TV or check your emails? Do you have to deny yourself to play golf if you do that? You see, we always find time for our likes.

So, the question is, why don't I want this? Why don't I love this? Well, secrecy, solitude, time alone, alone, that's so hard. Sacrifice, that's what it is. It is not hard.

It's just real and specific. Pray His Word, pray His will, pray His ways. So, you see, if He has not fully seen us consecrate our affections to Him, if He still has to compete for our attention, let me pray with you.

Father, I thank you tonight that you've set a banqueting table before us in the presence of our enemies, and it's the things that we look, they're so dangerous, but we can pray, and you will blow our minds and show us the way into the holiest of all. It's through the blood and by the name of Jesus. So, I pray for this night that you will do something that's only done by God, that you will put into your truth in the inward parts.

I desire truth in the inward parts. If you'll continue in my Word, then you'll know this truth, and the truth that you've come to know will set you free indeed. And you will know me and make me known, and you'll have joy unspeakable and full of glory and the peace that passes understanding.

And when you pray, you can, you can, with prayer and supplications and thanksgiving, change the world, and the joy of the Lord will come and garrison your soul and make a fortress around, and you can stand at anything. Help us for the days ahead, Lord, to become men and women of prayer. And bless these young people, and may this be, may they realize prayer has no rival.

There's no substitute. Nothing else can take its place, and the devil hates prayer more than anything else. He wants to stop it or hinder it.

He doesn't care how sweet we are or anything. If we'll just not pray, he doesn't have to worry about us. So, teach us how to walk in the truth and the beauty of your presence.

Lord, I say to you, I need this truth in my life as well. May this not be just listening tonight. May it be receiving, receiving.

We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.