Our Weapons - Prayer Orientation 2

Number two. The subject of this session is the solution, or our weapons, prayer. Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank Thee that Thou hast called us into a warfare, and that Thou hast given us weapons, weapons that are not carnal but that are mighty unto God, unto the pulling down of strongholds. And we pray this morning, O God, that Thou would move in our hearts. We pray that Thou would cause us to seek Thy face, to draw nigh unto Thee, to learn of Thee.

We pray, God, that You'd enable each one of us to learn how to use this tremendous weapon of prayer, that we might tear down the strongholds of the enemy, and that we might move in and possess the land. Lead us now in this time together, that we might be prepared for the tremendous battle that lies ahead. Yea, Lord, even the tremendous battles that we are within, or engaged in right now, for we ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen. Now in the next three orientation sessions, we will be discussing the weapons of our warfare. We will be discussing mainly the weapons of prayer and the Word.

And then in our fourth session, we will have the all-important message on the motivation for using these weapons, the motivation for going forth into the war, the motivation for living for Jesus Christ, the motivation that is so important when we think of doing the various things that will be suggested to us in today's session. And the motivation, of course, is love. I mention it here because love also can be referred to as a weapon in the warfare.

And one of our greatest weapons in the warfare against the powers of darkness is cowardly love, as we love one another. And there is no weapon more powerful than love. And prayer without love is nothing.

And even a study of the Word of God and a use of the Word of God without love means relatively little. And so, let us keep that in mind as we go into the next three sessions. Today we shall look at what the Word of God says on the subject of prayer in the Gospels and in the Book of Acts.

Next week, we shall discuss the weapon of our warfare, the ru, the Bible, how it is the Word of God and how it can be used to stop the fiery onslaughts of the evil one. And then after that we shall have another session on this great, mighty weapon of prayer and look and see what the epistles teach concerning prayer. As we think on the subject of prayer, it is extremely important to remember the fact that this movement was born in prayer.

For some of you who have perhaps not heard how this whole thing began, I want to just briefly tell the story. Across from Ramsey High School in Ramsey, New Jersey, there lived a dear old lady who believed in the power of prayer. She believed that God answered prayer.

She believed that through prayer, territory could be won. Some people might say how could a woman, how could an old woman ever be effective in shaking a high school, or what is known in England as a grammar school, for Jesus Christ. How can an old lady ever affect or ever make an impact upon the young people of this age group who are out seeking thrills and good times, who are out racing their cars up and down the highways, who are interested more than anything else in girls and money, good times and all the rest.

How can an old lady ever affect or ever make an impact upon a place such as this? But this woman believed in the power of prayer, and so she prayed. She prayed more than 17 years for that school. She prayed not only that God would save souls in that school, but she prayed that young people would be sent out from that school to the ends of the earth.

She cried unto God that missionaries would be raised up out of that school. Now that's quite a radical prayer. She wasn't praying for a Bible school.

She wasn't praying that missionaries might be called out of a Christian college. She was praying that out of that heathen grammar school, out of that heathen high school, God might raise up young men and women and send them out to the ends of the earth. And year after year she prayed, and year after year it seemed that things got worse at the school, and sin abounded, and drunkenness abounded, and all kinds of other things that we don't want to talk about here.

It was when I was 14 or 15 years old that I first entered that school. One of the first persons that made an impact on my life was the son, the young son of this woman who was living for Christ on the campus, and I couldn't understand him. His life, the way he talked, the way he walked, his vocabulary was clean, his thoughts were clean, he carried a Bible with him.

This I could not understand. But at the end of my first year, this young man sent me a Gospel of John. Little did I know, little did I know that this woman was praying that God would mightily use that Gospel of John.

Little did I know that she had been praying for me in other ways. She had seen me and heard about me on various occasions, and God had put me specifically on her heart to pray for me. It wasn't actually her son who sent me the Gospel of John, but it was she who sent it.

And as she sent it, she prayed that God would use it for the salvation of my soul. Two and a half years passed after I received that Gospel, but I could never put it down. Her prayers seemed to push me into the Word of God.

I'd come home from a nightclub at 5 in the morning and I'd feel impelled to read one or two verses of Scripture. And after two and a half years of reading that little Gospel of John, I became convinced that it contained the truth. And then it was climaxed at a Billy Graham meeting in New York City when I realized more than ever before that I was without hope and without God.

And I gave my life to Christ. And then things began to happen. Back in high school, we had a crusade to give our Gospels of John and young people came to Christ.

We had a large evangelistic rally when 125 young people came streaming down the aisles to make their decision for Jesus Christ. And then I went off to college. And there I met some others of like mind.

Then I met Dale. God united our hearts together. And it was there, at an ungodly college, or in England what's known as a university, God began to move and to speak.

And brought the vision concerning Mexico. And pretty soon we found ourselves in Mexico. And pretty soon we found stores being opened in Mexico.

And the story of what God did is a miracle. The tons of pieces of literature, the seven bookstores, the radio broadcasts, the national workers who've been faithful down over the years, the souls that came to Jesus Christ as we preached the Gospel from our sound truck, to hundreds of braceros, or men lined up to work in America. Dozens of them came to Jesus Christ.

And the stories one could tell about Mexico, how hundreds of churches were mobilized in a mass country-wide crusade. It's all a miracle. And as we talk about it, and as we talk about later what God did in Spain, and then what God has done this past summer in Operation Mobilization, and as we think of the millions of souls that have been reached, as we think of the hundreds who have come to Jesus Christ, we need to stop.

And we need to go back to that dear woman who interceded for 17 years for one ungodly school. We need to go back to that dear woman bent before a dead knight in intercession that God might shape that school and send young men and women from there to the ends of the earth. I want to ask you, did God answer her prayer? Did God hear her cries? Of course He did.

And every time we move forward another mile in this work, every time we move into another land, every time we reach another million souls, every time another soul comes to Jesus Christ, the bells of heaven ring. And it's because this woman years ago believed that God wanted to ring them. Oh, might each one of us learn a lesson from the woman who was used to bring this work into being.

It wasn't me. It wasn't a young man who had a lot of zeal and a lot of fire who was converted to an evangelistic meaning and then went out from there to shape the world. It was a dear saint of God who believed in the promises of the Word, who believed that God was a miracle-working God and that He would and could do the impossible even through a weak, frail vessel as herself.

Let this be a lesson to us. Let this be a warning to us that unless this movement stays as a movement of God through prayer, it will end up as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. Now let us look into the Word of God starting in the Book of Matthew and let's see some of the things that Jesus Christ did and said concerning prayer.

Let us first of all look at Matthew, the 6th chapter and the 5th verse. Matthew 6, verse 5. Now it's impossible to cover all of the references in the Gospels concerning prayer and we're not going to even take time to read them all. But we trust that you'll take time to look into a concordance and to copy down the verses on prayer or better yet to go through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts and underline or circle or mark in your Bible each verse that talks about prayer.

Now here we see in Matthew 6, verse 5 these words. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the street. And they may be seen of men.

Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou when thou prayest, enter into the closet, and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy Father which is in secret. And thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking. And then it goes on to give us the famous Lord's Prayer. The Prayer of Jesus.

Might be better named the Disciples Prayer for it was the prayer he told them to pray. Now here we have some very strong words. God tells us that we're not to be as the hypocrites who pray to be seen of men.

Now I trust we'll get this because if we miss this everything else is of no value. And that is the fact that motivation in prayer is the first and the most important thing in really getting through to God. Motivation.

In John 5.44 Jesus Christ tells the people why they couldn't believe. He says, How can ye believe which seek honour one of another and not the honour that comes from God alone? How can ye believe which seek honour one of another? And if our praying leads us into seeking the honour of men, the ear of men, the eyes of men, it will not be of faith and therefore we will not be able to believe and therefore the prayer will be of little value. And one of the biggest things in prayer, one of the biggest dangers in prayer is showmanship.

That's why some of you pray so well when you're in a group. Oh my, this isn't too good. And all this is a rebuke to me.

Oh my, how I bend when I read these words about getting into the closet in prayer. And I believe that this is telling us in a real way that the first thing in prayer, the most important prayer is the prayer between you and God alone in your closet. I believe in group prayer.

I believe in praying two by two. The Word of God clearly teaches it and we'll see that as we go through the Bible. We're not sharing an individual prayer life with God unless we're meeting God daily in the closet, in communion, in prayer.

I believe it's a proof that we've found a little reality in prayer. How about it? It's all right to talk about it. It's all right to tell how God used this woman who prayed.

It's all right to tell how God has wrought miracles because of the nights of prayer and because God has taught us a little bit of prayer. But who needs your prayer life right now? Maybe you've heard our sessions three times. Maybe you've been to Mexico three times.

Maybe you've been to Europe. But how much power are you seeing manifest today through prayer? How many answers to prayer have you seen this week? Has God given you a soul this week in answer to prayer? Has God given you a blessing in answer to prayer this week, this day? Not 10 years ago. Let's not talk about what God did six years ago in Mexico.

God came this past summer, prayed Him for it. We need to rejoice over it. We need to thank Him for it.

One of the big mistakes in prayer, one of the things that proves the superficiality of our prayer life is that we pray so much for something and then when it comes we forget about it. But we need to praise and thank God as much as we pray. In fact, more.

Many times for something we only need to pray once and believe and that settles it. But let's not look back at past accomplishments. Let's not talk about Mexico in 1958.

Let's not talk about Europe in 1963. What about 1964 and 1965? What about this Christmas? What about this summer? This is the real thing we need to go to prayer about now. And the fact that we've had perfect prayer meetings in the past and the fact that we have had nights of prayer in the past in which God has moved upon us, in which God has broken us and poured out his spirit upon us gives us no, no guarantee that it's going to be that way tomorrow.

Oh, might each one of us take the word of Jesus seriously. Let us not be as the hypocrite seeking the honor of men, but let us withdraw into our closets of prayer seeking the honor of God alone. I could speak all for hours on this subject of not seeking the honor of men.

It's the thing that's crippling us, this thing of status seeking, desiring to be recognized, desiring to be in the limelight, desiring for people to pat us on the back, desiring for people to recognize us as dedicated or as good preachers or as good literature distributors or whatever it is. But might we abandon it all? Might we leave it all and cling to Jesus seeking the honor of God alone, seeking the well done of God alone, seeking recognition from God alone? Of course, psychologically we need recognition. Emotionally we need love.

Emotionally we need to be recognized. We can't live without it. But let's get all our honor from God.

Let's get all our recognition from God. Let's get all that we need psychologically and emotionally and physically. Let's get it all from God.

As we come to prayer seeking the honor of God, as we come to prayer seeking the glory of God, seeking to praise God, oh might we get the vision of saturating our prayer with praise. It's a praising heart that can believe God in prayer for great things. Remember that.

Write it down. It's a praising heart that can believe God in prayer for great things. Read the Psalms.

Oh my, when you get in your cronies, make them sessions of praise. Read the Psalms together. Praise Him for His mighty acts.

Praise Him for His mercy and His love. Praise Him for the creation. Praise Him for all that He is.

Praise Him for His attributes. Praise Him for His works to the children of men. And as you're praising, and as you take time out to praise Him, and thank Him and worship Him, you'll find that your faith will build up, your fire will increase, and then you'll be able to believe in for great and mighty things.

Better it is to spend 20 minutes of praise and 5 minutes in prayer and see something happen than spend 25 minutes in prayer only to twist our Protestant rosary chains and go through our Evangelical crown wheels. Oh might God deliver us as Jesus exhorts us here of vain repetitions. Going through the same old prayers.

And it's just a form of godliness and it denies the power thereof. So when we go to prayer we need to believe that God is going to work. Oh so flippantly we get up before our classroom sessions.

So flippantly we get up here and there and say oh let's have a word of prayer and we bow our heads and no one's listening. Half the people are thinking about something else. And we put prayer into our life as sort of a little extra.

It's sort of like a little good luck charm. You want to tag it down and hang it on the table before you eat. And you want to have it before you have your little session there in the classroom.

And wherever we go we want to say well let's have a word of prayer and we pray for 5 minutes and it means nothing half the time because it's superficial. Our heart isn't in it. We are really thankful.

We are really grateful for what God has done and what he will do. We get in a classroom and we pray and we say well do we really believe that there in that classroom where we are going to open maybe a book of the Bible to study it or we are going to do this or we are going to do that do we really believe that God is going to move? And if we don't then what's the purpose of the prayer? Prayer isn't a good luck charm. Don't we hang on the beginning and the end of everything we do in order to keep it just so? Oh my God deliver us from vain repetitions.

Now don't start judging people. When you see someone who doesn't seem to be praying very fervently and when you see someone pray what seems like a superficial prayer don't start judging them. There is always a danger after hearing these sessions there is always a danger after becoming gripped with the reality of the word of God to move into the realm of judging into the realm of criticism into the realm of phariseeism.

Beware at your school at your university at your Bible college wherever you are listening to my voice you can move out of phariseeism in one realm maybe in the realm of prayer only walk and plunge right into it in another realm of judging other people's prayer lives. Beware God looks at the heart you can only see the outward appearance. What might seem to be a superficial prayer what might even seem to be a non-biblical prayer might be very close to the heart of God because God sees the heart.

That's why I'm thrilled when I hear a new babe in Christ stumbling along in prayer.

And I hear young people a lot of times they pray in their prayers in our prayer meetings something that isn't very theologically sound and you're going to have this at your prayer meetings someone will come forward with a prayer that maybe you don't think is very biblical don't let it upset you don't let it get you all worried but commit it to God and let love remember this in your praying let love cover a multitude of sins and if you think it's a serious error and you feel that someone needs to be corrected the word of God says you're to go to him alone in gentleness and meekness and long-suffering this is the pattern when you have problems there in your group wherever you are you're not to make a public display of them you're not to blast them out over the campus or over the place where

you're meeting but you're to go to that person individually in gentleness and meekness and love and if you can't go in love, don't go because all you'll do is cause trouble if you can't go in meekness and loneliness and mind don't go this is the way we straighten out our difficulties and then with that person the first thing to do is to pray how we need to pray with one another this will be the backbone of the coming thrusts into the Muslim world into England, into Europe, into Mexico meeting together in prayer and I believe meeting two by two is more important than meeting in groups just as meeting God alone is more important than meeting two by two and so let us get together whenever we can with individuals when the work was growing rapidly at Moody Bible Institute we used to pair off

in partners and some of us used to have several partners and meet at various times for prayer and this was one of the greatest causes of unity and it was a thrill to me to be able to meet with all the different people going on the crusades individually in prayer find someone near you who is like-minded and get together with them in prayer find someone where you work and get together with them in prayer share what God is doing and pray together let's have less discussion sessions and more prayer sessions how much better it is to get together and pray and believe God for great things than to just get together and argue over doctrinal differences and split hairs over controversial Bible verses oh might God cause us to put first things first in these days might God bring us into grips with

reality that there's no time for secondary matters we're entered into a warfare where prayer is prayer and we cannot lose precious fighting time in non-essentials in secondary matters and that's the big problem with many of our lives it's not that we're involved in doing a lot of evil things it's that many secondary matters have crept into our life and they're at school and they're at work and they're at home secondary issues, good things but things that no real soldier would be involved in and there's lots of good activities on your campus there's lots of good activities wherever you are but let's beware of the good activities and let's get engaged in that best activity of worship to God of praising God and of entering into a life of prayer and I'll tell you if you don't enter into this

life if you aren't willing to enroll in this school if you aren't willing to by faith even now say God I want to enter the school of prayer I want to enter the closet of prayer I want to learn to pray if you're not willing to do that I beg of you not to go to Mexico Operation Mobilization I beg of you not to think about any of these crusades because it's prayerlessness that brings disunity it's prayerlessness that allows unloving spirits to come in it's prayerlessness that leads to all kinds of problems and difficulties and unless we're willing to learn the life of prayer unless we're willing to just forget about talking about it and start doing it we're not going to see victory in the coming years oh my God granted let's turn on now our time is passing let's look at Matthew 9 many of us

think about the missionary task of the world and we want to be engaged in it we want to be doing God's will to reach lost souls and some of us think it means joining a missionary society some of us think it means going here or there but I'll tell you if you want to carry out the supreme task of evangelizing the world you better obey the commission that came before the so-called Greek commission and this one's even greater here it is looking at the Lord Jesus in the 9th chapter of Matthew we see him going forth through every city and village verse 35 teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people but when he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered

abroad as sheep having no shepherd then said he unto his disciples the harvest truly is plenteous but the laborers are few the situation is tragic the amount of missionaries in the world today is shocking when you realize that there's more prostitutes in Paris, Amsterdam and London than there are missionaries evangelical missionaries in all the world you just realize just what the situation is when you realize that perhaps at any one time there's only around 20 to 25 thousand evangelical missionaries on the field with another 10 thousand or so on front of them you realize just how few there are and there's some areas in the world where there are no missionaries where there are no churches for thousands of miles but the situation is pitiful do we have to talk about it again do we have to

talk again about the 50% of the world who's never even received their first gospel tract do we have to refer to Turkey again where there's probably less than 25 born again Turks, real Turks all those Greek Christians but among the Turks there's probably less than 25 that are born again and baptized oh my God open our eyes and might we realize the harvest is plenteous and then might we fall down as the dear lady who brought this world into being fell down and believe God and believe God for great and mighty things in sending forth laborers into the harvest maybe you can't go to Mexico maybe you can't go to Europe but you can send others you can pray for others and I haven't up to now been able to get over to the Muslim world but I'll tell you when I go to pray I'm sending forth laborers

and it's a thrill to my soul to know that I can have a little part of God's plan of sending out missionaries and wherever there's 2 or 3 gathered together in prayer there is a mission born there is a real mission born sending forth missionaries believing God the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into the harvest what a thrilling task what an opportunity to send forth laborers into the harvest that's the ministry we need might God grant it might God show us from this passage of scripture that the greatest thing we can do is in love remembering verse 36 is with compassion pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers you see the motivation right in the middle of it and prayer without love is sounding bass and tinkling cymbals you get in a prayer meeting and you begin to pray

and you don't love the brethren who are in the meeting and you don't love the people you're praying for I'm not speaking about emotion I'm not speaking about a sentiment in which you feel like putting your arms around everyone I'm speaking about an act of the will in which we recognize our flesh to be dead our unloving sentiments to be dead our unloving spirits to be dead our inability to be dead to live in relationship with that person on a love level believing God to love him through us so often we're tripped up in our Christian lives because we trust feelings if you want to get fouled out in your Christian life if you want to get on a sidetrack if you want to end up on the shelf if you want to end up spiritually defeated trust feelings if you want a minimum prayer life if you want to

see the devil bombard your prayer life trust feelings when you get up in the morning you don't feel like praying and when you come to meet together in prayer there at your school or wherever you are you might not feel like praying and if you trust those feelings I guarantee you won't get very far and I believe sometimes God honors our prayers more when we don't feel like praying than when we do for what is more honorable to God praying when we don't feel like it stepping out by faith when all of our flesh seems to be rebelling against it meeting together for intercession with people who you don't exactly perhaps agree with and your flesh isn't very attracted to it but as you go into it and you believe God and you reckon yourself as dead on to sin and dead on to all these things isn't this

more pleasing to God of course it is whom God clearly says without faith not feelings, without faith it is impossible to believe God or to please God oh my God grip us with this tremendous need of reckoning our feelings as nothing and believing Him as an act of the will and loving the lost sheep and those that are scattered abroad as an act of the will my God granted now look at Matthew 17 Matthew 17 verse 21 albeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting there's not time to read the whole passage it's the story of the young lunatic and how God told him that they could not raise this young fellow up they couldn't do anything for him and He rebuked the disciples very bluntly and very clearly and told them that it was because of their unbelief and then He said that if they had

faith as a grain of mustard seed they could remove mountains and He says in the last part of verse 20 nothing shall be impossible unto you do you believe that? what a promise from the word oh there isn't time to dwell upon it there isn't time to say all that could be said about it nothing shall be impossible unto you but look at it albeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting mark it down underline it meditate on it and then look at verse 22 in chapter 21 coming right behind this story in chapter 17 here we read 21, 22 starting at the 21st verse is better Jesus answered and said unto them verily I say unto you if ye have faith and doubt not ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree but also if ye shall say unto this mountain thee thou removed and thee thou cast

into the sea it shall be done and all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing ye shall receive do you believe that? what a tremendous promise of the word of God all things that ye shall ask in prayer believing ye shall receive but some people say well I asked for things and I don't receive them I say did you believe? many times they say well I guess not others say well I asked for things and I believed I believed and I didn't receive them and I say uh-uh that can't be you see God is the author of faith and note this God is never going to allow you to believe in for something that's out of his will some people say well I asked for things and I prayed and I believed God for something but it was out of his will so he didn't give it to me nor did he give you the faith God always

gives the faith when it's in his will when you ask and it's in his will he gives the faith he gives the assurance that's why it's so important in praying concerning Mexico in praying concerning Europe because we've asked we've challenged you to pray in a certain amount of money and this is the real test whether they can really do anything through prayer whether they can really do anything specific through prayer we know it's God's will to go forward in these crusades and when you come to the conclusion and you know it's God's will for you to go then you know that he will supply and so you can ask anything in prayer believing and it will take place this is given even more strongly in Mark 11 look at Mark 11 24 oh there's never enough time to cover these verses Mark 11 24 here it is

therefore I say to you what things soever ye desire when ye pray believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them faith oh my God grip us with this tremendous weapon of prayer that we can believe and that settles it God said it I believe it that settles it that's how we need to pray that's why we need to do less rambling in our prayer oh how much better it is to unite our hearts over a few specifics and make sure that we're taking territory for God and I have people come to prayer and they pray for a thousand souls to be converted but they don't really believe it and so it will never happen and sometimes in their flesh they try to work up faith I believe I believe and they shout and they scream I believe I believe but that won't do it either we need to wait upon God notice Mark 13 33

for a divine principle Mark 13 33 here we see what we need to be doing look at it oh might God grant us this take heed watch and pray for ye know not when the time is and that's what we need in our praying we need to be watching we need to be waiting upon God watch and pray oh how we need to remember the words of the Old Testament that say be still and know that I am God waiting upon God gathered around his table and worship to him and praise to him waiting for him to reveal his will not barging into his presence and saying oh now God do this do that now God I want to go here I want to go there I want to do this I want to do that but waiting upon God through the whole world through other people waiting upon God watch and pray waiting upon God oh we see this word throughout the Old

Testament this thing of wait how we need to learn to be patient in prayer and to wait on God and to worship him and to be thrilled with him let that get captivated into the praying into the praying club and we become praying nuts we always want to pray to the end prayer is the means to the end let's not make the prayer meeting on God let's not substitute God for praying or praying for God let's realize that prayer is the means to getting through to God prayer is communion with God prayer is speaking with God prayer is loving God and fellowshipping with God and let's not have our morning quiet time because every good evangelical Christian has five minutes in the morning quiet time or a half hour in the morning or you need to pray at least an hour a day nonsense it's not prayer that's going

to help us it's God and if our praying doesn't take us through to God and if our praying isn't fellowship to God and isn't worship of God and isn't praising God if it isn't waiting upon God it will mean relatively little and we're far worse than those people we often criticize with our rosary beads and those who go on with their vain babblings let's beware of them those who worship him must worship how? the truth now let's look rapidly at Luke Luke 6.12 we see the Lord Jesus Christ doing something that oh how we need to do in these days Luke 6.12 Luke 6.12 now when he came nigh to the gate of the city behold there was a dead man carried out pardon me that's chapter 7 back one more chapter 6.12 and it came to pass in those days that he went out into a mountain to pray and continued all

night in prayer to God and Jesus needed to spend nights in prayer how much more do we? oh I know little of this but might we press toward the mark there isn't time to comment on it but what more do we need to do than to see Jesus Christ we see Jesus Christ going off to pray we see Jesus Christ with his disciples in prayer we see Jesus Christ in the wilderness in prayer we see Jesus Christ in the mountains in prayer what more do we want? he set the example how can we claim to follow him how can we claim to love him how can we claim to be concerned about him or to be his children and not want to follow his example in prayer and not want to follow him into the mountains to pray and not want to follow him into the wilderness in prayer oh how blind we've been we've said we follow Jesus but we

don't follow him we've said we want to do what Jesus did but we don't do it we don't believe the miracles that Jesus did but there's still of us that want to pay the price that Jesus paid there's still of us that want to enter into the life that Jesus lived oh my God open our eyes mighty anoint our eyes and take away our blindness mighty take away my blindness today that I might see that if I am to follow Jesus it must be in a life of communion with the Father Jesus has said my meat is to do the will of the Father and we see the same thing emphasized again in Luke 19.46 here we read saying unto them it is written my house is the house of prayer but ye have made it a den of thieves the Old Testament said that God's house was to be a house of prayer Jesus in order to refresh our memories

quotes the Old Testament and says my house is the house of prayer not the house of preaching not the house of teaching not the house of evangelism or soul winning or any other of these good and important and essential activities but first of all my house shall be a house of prayer why is there so much powerless preaching simply because there's so little powerful praying why is it that there are few souls coming to Christ in many of our churches it's because there are few people out on the prayer meeting night when we should be going to God in prayer for great and mighty things and many times when we do have the prayer meeting it's dead and it's formal and it's cold and there's lack of love and there's no unity there's no power what is the sense of continuing in it what is the sense of

continuing having a form of godliness and denying the power thereof unless God moves upon us in power unless God changes our lives and gives us love for one another unless there's revival and reformation and revolution what purpose is there to continue as we look out upon this world and we see the cults and we see the communists and we see the Jehovah Witnesses all doing these tremendous things that we see them doing in advancing their cause without the power of prayer how much more should we be doing with the power of prayer is the devil stronger than God is the power of darkness greater than the power of light is the inspiration of Satan able to give more dedication of the Holy Spirit upon us of course not and just one look at the cults one look at these false religions should cause us

to fall on our faces before God and realize that we've been duped we've been tricked Edward R.

Murrow once said Billy Graham quoted him that we've been doped we've been doped how true it is spiritually we've been doped and we're dead to the movings we're gone and I'm not ever saying or ever recommending that we be inspired or motivated by what other groups are doing we don't need to look at the communists or the Jehovah Witnesses or any other group to receive our motivation we're to look to Calvary it's at Calvary that we receive the motivation we need when we see Jesus Christ laying down his life for us so that we should want to have a place in the house can you say that about where you're fellowshiping it's a house of prayer it's a place where men and women are meeting God in prayer again there's not time to dwell upon it meditate on it think upon it and now turn to the Gospel of John the 15th chapter as we come to a close of this session might our hearts be gripped afresh with the fact that all these things that we desire to do cannot be done by us, but must be done by the life of Jesus Christ working through us. And this is clearly seen in John 15 in relation to prayer.

Here we read John 15, 7. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Here again we see another one of the requirements that must be met in order to see answered prayer. We've already seen back in Matthew that to receive answers to prayer we must believe.

And in order to believe we must be praying in the will of God. And as we pray in the will of God, God will give us the faith and we can believe him for great and mighty things. That's how we'll take Mexico.

That's how we'll take the Muslim world. That's how we'll take Europe. As we wait upon God, he gives us the assurance that this is his will and then we can lay hold of by faith those things that must come to pass, whether it be funds or vehicles or manpower or a place to meet or anything else.

God will supply it. He says here, if ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask whatever you will and it shall be done unto you. What a tremendous promise.

What a tremendous promise. There's enough promise right there in that one verse to evangelize the world. What does it depend on? What does it hinge upon? It hinges on you and me abiding in Jesus Christ.

Are you abiding in him? This isn't something that comes one day and then it lasts forever in a sense. It's something that daily we must put into practice. Daily we must abide in Jesus Christ.

And when we find ourselves moving into the realm of irritability or moving into the realm of impatience or moving into the realm of pride or moving into the realm of self-seeking or moving into the realm of an unloving spirit or moving into the realm of jealousy or moving into the realm of striving, the minute we feel ourselves moving into any of these realms, we need to realize that we're moving out of Jesus Christ. You don't move into sin without first moving out of Jesus Christ and pulling yourself away from the Savior. Of course there's another sense in which you can never pull yourself away from the Savior because he has said that he's dwelling within us, the Holy Spirit is within us, but you can't move into any of these realms of sin and selfishness, any of these realms of awareness and loneliness from God without first grieving the Holy Spirit, without first quenching the Spirit, without first turning the Spirit's work off in your life.

What a tremendous promise. And look in John 16, how real this is. John 16, 24, Heavenly Father, if you ask nothing in my name, ask and you shall receive that your joy may be full.

Oh how we need to realize God wants us to ask, He wants us to believe in for great and mighty things. He isn't a stingy old man holding back on his blessings saying beg another hour longer, pray another night longer and maybe I'll get it. But God wants to pour out a blessing, God wants to give us all that we need, God wants to do great and mighty things.

And the problem isn't that we have to beg Him, the problem is that God looks for a man who will be faithful. He looks for a man He can trust. And the reason some young people never pray on any money is because God can't trust to give them anything.

It'll go to their heads or they'll think that they're a man of prayer or they'll think that they've accomplished something. And it isn't that God doesn't want to give us the money to do the job, that God doesn't want to pour out financial blessing upon us so that literature can be printed and souls can be won. But He's seeking, He's looking for someone who will be faithful, for someone who will be honest, for someone who will be just.

He's looking for good stewards. Heather to you, have you asked nothing in my name? Ask and ye shall receive that your joy might be full. God wants to give us joy, God wants to give us an abundant life.

The life of a true disciple isn't a life of long-facedness, it isn't a life of sadness. It's a life in which the fruit of the Spirit joy is flowing through us, and we're rejoicing constantly in Jesus Christ, we're bubbling over constantly in the joy of God. Not a superficial, shallow laughing, but a realistic joy that comes from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

This is the joy that was evident in the New Testament church. And just in closing, let us read a few verses in the book of Acts. Look at Acts 1.14. Here we see the New Testament church putting into practice those things that Jesus Christ said and taught.

Acts 1.14. These all continued with one accord. Notice that, that's one of the keys to answered prayer. If you're going to receive answered prayer there in your prayer group, you must be of one accord.

These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brethren. And then in Acts chapter 2 starting at the 42nd verse, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and breaking of bread and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul and many signs and wonders were done by the apostles and all that believed were together and had all things common.

There's many who want to see the blessing of verse 41 where it says they were added to the church about 3,000 souls, but there's few who want to pay the price of verse 42 and 44 and 45. In verse 45 we read, and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need. And they continued daily with one accord.

There it is, one accord in the temple with breaking of bread from house to house did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be seen. And there's many who want to see that happen.

There's many who want to see verse 41 and verse 47, but there's not too many that want to pay the price that was paid by these people, the price of unity, the price of prayer, meeting together, loving one another at any cost. And as we look through the remaining pages of the book of Acts, we see the same thing over and over again. In Acts 4.31 we read these words.

And when they had prayed, the place had shaken, where they were gathered together and they were filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the word of God with boldness. And right on through the book of Acts, when Peter was in prison, when Paul was in prison, and the church prayed and they were released. And so the book of Acts is one picture of people obeying the principles of the Lord Jesus Christ, meeting together in love and in prayer and in unity and in one accord.

And in closing this message, I want to say, unless we're willing to do the same, unless we're willing to have all things common, unless we're willing to meet in love, unless we're willing to be of one mind and of one accord, unless we're willing to be shaken and filled with the Spirit, unless we're willing to bow down even when we're in the difficult spots as Peter was when he was in prison, unless we're willing to bow down in the midst of trials and battles and problems and enter into the life of prayer and into the life of praise and worshiping and praising and believing for great and mighty things, then let's quit now. Let's turn off the recorder now. Let's not go on any further.

For unless God builds the house, the house will be built in vain. All might God grant it. In Jesus' name, let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank Thee that Thy word is true. We thank Thee that You're a prayer answering God. We thank You that You're a miracle working God and You're able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think.

Oh God, we pray that Thou would make these verses from Thy word real in our lives, that we tonight, that we today might enter into the school of prayer and learning of Jesus, that in these days we might see great and mighty things for His honor, for His glory and for His praise. Amen.