Pineland - Part 2

Heavenly Father, we want to thank you so much this evening for these tremendous, precious times that we have been able to spend together. Thank you for the sense of anticipation and expectation that you have created in our hearts as you have allowed us to contemplate this weekend. Thank you for the encouragement.

Lord, it's so seldom that you give me the privilege to come into a community or a fellowship like this where I find myself being so blessed in my own heart by being able to not just share and communicate these biblical concepts as it relates to a life of prayer, but where my own spirit has been just gloriously refreshed by the sense of receptivity in the hearts of your people. I thank you for the encouragement that this church has become to me and the inadequacy of my own understanding, Father, of what prayer is all about, and just the blessing for us to be able to sit at your feet. We are so grateful this Saturday night that we will never be able to come to the place where we will really know how to pray, but that the exploring of a life of prayer is something that God, on a consistent basis, just needs to burn into our hearts.

And the hunger and the thirst and the possibilities of serving a prayer, answering God, is something that you want to install onto us, Father, on a consistent basis. And we want to pray again this evening with the early disciples when they saw you praying at a certain place, and when there was a sensation of desperation upon the hearts of those early disciples, and when they turned to you and said, Lord, will you teach us to pray? And Father, I'm always so convicted by that statement, because I need to ask myself, when last did someone come to me and said, will you teach me how to pray? And yet this Saturday night and Sunday evening, we want to focus on the New Testament. And there are so many wonderful concepts as it relates to the understanding of prayer.

Yet, Father, we want to pray, but somehow that you will just minister to our hearts. Now, many of us, we sat through the intensity of those three hours this morning, and many of us, Father, we have felt the strain of being in a day like this, where so much has been coming to us. And yet this evening, I want to ask you that you will bring to us the freshness of mind and of spirit, that you will quicken our bodies, that when we take this 40 minutes or so, and just explore aspects of the New Testament, God, that the Holy Spirit will be able to come.

And we ask of you again this evening, that we will not just be informed by Scripture, but, O God, we want to be inflamed. We ask you tonight that it will not be a situation where we will listen and create and discover a deeper knowledge of prayer and the Word of God, but we pray that the Scriptures will discover us, and that the Spirit of God will take these biblical truths, and that you will burn it into the development of Christian character, and that you will create in us such a hunger and a thirst after you. Lord, I've come to the place at the very outset of this conference on prayer, where I just felt I wanted to get alone with you, find myself underneath a blanket and spend these extended times of just lingering in the presence of God.

Your Word is saying unto us that how can two walk together except they agree? Your Word is saying unto us, ask and it shall be given, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened. Your Word is saying unto us, be careful or be anxious of nothing, but in everything by prayer, by supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. Father, your Word is saying unto us, where two or three are gathered together in your name, where there are you in the midst of them.

You have promised to us in the Old Testament that you said to us that you will seek me, and you will find me, and yet you will seek after me with all of your heart. You have said unto us the effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much. God, we are surrounded with thousands of promises that is coming unto us out of the reality of scripture, and I pray this evening that somehow as a result of these times together, that you will give in our hearts a deeper thirst for the reality of this scripture.

You are the one that has said unto us that heaven and earth shall pass away, but my Word shall abide forever. You are the one that said to Joshua in the Old Testament that this book of the law you shall meditate upon this day and night. You are the one that has said to us wherewith shall a young man keep his way clean by taking heed according to my Word.

I repeat thy Word in my heart that I might not sin against thee. You are the one that has said unto us, is my Word not like a hammer that breaketh a rock? Is my Word not sharper than any two-edged sword? And you have said to us, all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and it is profitable for reproof and for correction and for instruction in righteousness. You said to Timothy, study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman not needeth to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

God, it has been the burden of my heart that somehow in this weekend, oh, that we will not just listen to these understandings, these concepts of developing an intimacy with God that will demand a supernatural explanation, but it has been the burden of our hearts that somehow that God will come to us and that you will take possession of our lives in such a way and that we will become so saturated and immersed in the presence of God and that there will be an intoxication of a fragrance and a transparency that will bring to us the supremacy and the priority of the greatness of the life of Christ that will never allow us ever to be the same. God, I really believe that in the midst of all this, that the God that we are serving is the God of revival, and there is the possibility that you have said to us, I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground, that there is still the possibility that somehow that's again. God, I really believe tonight that 20 minutes of an outpouring of the Spirit of God in this fine and Baptist church will probably do more for us than the last 20 years of our own stuff that we have tried to bring to God.

And so we want to ask you, create in us the first, create in us a hunger, create in us a passion to be able to trust God for that which seems to us utterly impossible. We want to thank you tonight that we are serving a prayer answering God. We want to thank you this evening that you do not answer prayer necessary because we are praying, but oh God, that you are answering prayer because that you are a covenant-keeping God.

Father, in these times, in these sessions together, what we have been trying to communicate to one another is not saying that everything or prayer is absolutely everything, but what we have been saying is that everything should come through prayer. And so we ask you that somehow in our last day together tomorrow morning, when probably half of the church who has not been in this weekend will be in the morning service, tomorrow night when we come together for our concert of prayer, try to plow deeper into the Scripture. Oh God, we pray that you will give us a brokenness, and we pray that you will give us a burden, and we pray in Jesus' name that after this weekend, not because of a speaker, because of a conference, but after this weekend, because of the possibilities of God coming to us, that our lives, Father, will never be the same.

And that's the burden of our heart. Now Lord, as we contemplate in this last few minutes of this night the wonders of Scripture, we pray with Augustinus of old that when the Scripture speaks, that's when God is speaking. So minister to our hearts, we pray, in Jesus' name.

Amen. I want you to open your New Testament, if you will, and I want you to turn with me just to two passages of Scripture in the New Testament. We're going to read from Matthew chapter 6, and then we're going to read a few verses from Luke chapter 11.

So turn with me to Matthew chapter 6, if you will, and to Luke chapter 11. Matthew chapter 6, and then Luke chapter 11. Matthew chapter 6, verse number 5. Jesus said, and when you pray, you will not be as the hypocrites are, for they like to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, so that they may be seen of men.

I say unto you that they have received their reward, but when you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your doors, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who is in secret shall reward you openly. But when you pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard because of their much speaking. Be not therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask him.

So after this manner therefore pray, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses. And then look at chapter 11, verse number one. The Bible says, And it came to pass that as Jesus was praying in a certain place, that when he sees that one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.

Now verse number five, And Jesus said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend? And he will go to him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine in his journey has come to me, and I have nothing to say before him. And he from within will answer and say, Tell me not, the door is now closed, and my children are not with me, and better. I cannot rise and give it to you.

I say unto you, though we will not rise and give it to him, because he is his friend, and because of his opportunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needs. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given to you. And the seeker you shall find, not, and it shall be open unto you.

For everyone that ask will receive, and he that seek find, and to him that knock, it shall be open. The son shall ask bread, if any of you that is the father, will he give unto him a stone? Or if he shall ask for a fish, will he for a fish give unto him a serpent? Or if he shall ask for an egg, will he offer to him a scorpion? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those that ask him?" This morning in the two sessions that we spent together, we tried to concentrate on four or five Old Testament concepts as they were relating to prayer. And what we tried to do was explore the ministry and the work of the Holy Spirit as it relates to learning the language of prayer.

We tried to explore the understanding of the fact that God answers prayer on the basis of us coming to Him on the basis of His righteousness. And when we are rightly related to God, then there is the sense of obligation that we discover in the life of Christ when He said to His Father, Father, I thank you that you always listen to me. We also looked at the end, just for a moment or two, on this understanding of the burden of God.

And I wish we would have had hours to explore those concepts that is coming out of the Old Testament theology of prayer and how the burden of God brings a life of brokenness. And as a result of the brokenness that God is bringing into our lives, there is a sense of purity that is coming upon us because brokenness set us apart unto God. And then God begins to sanctify and cleanse us so that we can be rightly related to God and discover the Spirit of God not just being resident in our lives, but the Spirit of God becoming president.

God coming unto us and put the sentence of death upon the self-life, and installed unto us the burden for revival. And as a result of this brokenness, the Spirit of God becomes president and not just resident in our relationships with God. And the consequences in discovering the unfolding of the burden of God is that this purity in my heart and the fullness of the Holy Spirit brings upon my life a spirit of prayer.

And it prevails upon my relationship with God. And the consequences of the spirit of prayer in my life leads me to the will of God in prayer. And when we learn, brother and sister, what does it mean to pray in the will of God, we discover that when we pray in God's will, we just don't pray for the things as it regards or relate to the will of God, but we discover that God is more concerned with the worker than the work.

And He's more concerned about my relationship with Him. Because when I'm related, rightly related to God, the consequences is I can pray without hindrance, exploring the will of God. One of the greatest blessings that I find myself and us being in 30 to 40 countries and a number of years is to discover the will of God.

You say, where do you discover the will of God? You discover it in His Word. You discover the will of God for the church. Discover the will of God for the pastors.

Discover the will of God for the families. Discover the will of God for people who do not know Christ. And you pray according to the will of God, and you systematically dissect this burden of God, and systematically pray and prevail it through to God.

And so when this burden, brother and sister, come, and it's a wonderful word as it relates to intercession, because it's the Greek word, agonatsumai. It comes from the root concept in the New Testament that is the word agon. And it's a word that found its meaning within the Roman Empire of those days when the wrestlers wrestled, and the gladiators wrestled, and the presence of the emperor and those anti-theaters.

And as they were wrestling, or they were involved in what the Greek language referred to as agonos, or agonatsumai, and as they were wrestling, often they wrestled themselves to death. And what happened is that the Holy Spirit in the New Testament takes this word through those that were given unto us to write the New Testament, and they take this wrestling, and they bring it into the sense of the burden of God as we pray according to the will of God. And I want to ask you again this evening, have you ever asked God to give you a burden, a burden, a burden for our country, a burden for our people, a burden for my family, a burden for my responsibility? You know, if I may share this with you in my own times with God, and I don't have this thing of prayer together.

I need to tell you that. It's just a day by day, dying a thousand deaths to allow God to wash through our lives. But one of the things that I constantly, virtually day by day in my relationship with God, I sometimes would walk up and down in praying in the place where I'm spending time with Him, and I would say, God, I want You to break my heart for my relationship with You, because I cannot take people further spiritually than I myself.

God, I want You to break my heart for my relationship with my family, my wife and my daughter. I want You to break my heart for my relationship to the ministry. I want You to break my heart for my relationship to Your Word, that when I open the scriptures, that the Spirit of God will take it and apply it to my heart and bring a sense of brokenness.

Brother and sister, you can't separate the broken Christian life, and when I speak about brokenness, I'm speaking about this in a positive understanding of submissiveness to God. Brokenness is not tears or emotion. Brokenness is seated within the life of Christ, when He said, the son can do nothing unless he see the Father doing it.

And the doctrine of the submissiveness of the life of Christ comes to the surface when He said, lo, I've come to do thy will, O God. And when the epistle to the Hebrews is saying to us, for the joy that was set before Him, what did He do? He endured the cross, despising the shame, and sitting at the right hand of the throne of God, and the writer to the Hebrews said, consider Him. And if you can ask God to give you an insight into the sufferings of Christ, you will discover that the consequences of an understanding of the sufferings of Christ will give you an insight into the brokenness and the life of Christ, when He said, lo, I've come to do thy will, O God.

So what is it? Do we discover the will of God? Let me ask you a question tonight as a Christian. Are you concerned about the will of God for your life? Dr. Stephen Alford, who had such an impact on my life, used to say, we need to find the will of God, we need to follow the will of God, and we need to finish the will of God. And he would say, time is a piece of eternity.

And he would say, one hour outside of the will of God is wasted time. And so what happens, brother and sister? The burden of God brings us to this discovering of the will of God. And as we discover the will of God, we will discover that when we pray according to the will of God, you will discover that the will of God is surrounded with the promises of God.

And so when these promises become part of our relationship with God, we don't quote the promises. We don't stand upon the promises. You say, what happens? The promises come to stand upon us, you know.

And they infiltrate our lives, and they flow through every aspect of our relationship with God. While you sit here tonight, you say, so what about the New Testament as it relates to the understanding of prayer? Oh, it's precious, you know. 7,957 glorious verses in the New Testament.

Every single one of them has been wonderfully inspired. How do we know that? Because Peter in his epistle made a statement and said, holy men prophesied as they were moved by God the Holy Spirit. And so you sit here tonight, and tonight and tomorrow evening, you say, how are we going to explore the New Testament as it relates to prayer? Brethren and sisters, I've discovered that for me personally, the best way to come to grips with the New Testament as it relates to prayer is that I studied the Gospel of Matthew with the little epistle of James.

There are 1,071 verses in the Gospel of Matthew, and the little epistle of James gives us 108 wonderful verses in the New Testament. You say, why would you study the Gospel of Matthew for the epistle of James? Because it seems to us, and the theologians are saying to us, that the little epistle of James is almost in commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. And he made this statement, and he spoke about the law being made perfect in liberty.

You say, what about the rest of the New Testament? I would take the Gospel of Mark, those 678 glorious verses, and it seems to us, theologically speaking, that in the Gospel of Mark, because it's so difficult to analyze it, because the key word in the Gospel of Mark is the Greek word euses, and there is this impulsiveness. Incident after incident would take place in the life of Christ, and it seems to us, theologically speaking, that the Apostle Peter had a massive influence in somehow dictating to this young man Mark, the Gospel of Mark, as you study it. And so, you say, how do you study prayer in the Gospel of Mark? I would take the Gospel of Mark, and the first twelve chapters are the Acts of the Apostles, that is dominated by the ministry of the Apostle Peter, and first and second Peter, and I study them together as they relate to prayer.

Then you come to the Gospel of Luke, and the Acts of the Apostles. Luke was a physician. I don't know if you are aware of this this Saturday evening, brother and sister, that the Gospel of Luke is almost giving us close to sixty percent more prayer information than in the Gospel of Matthew and Mark together.

You say, why do you say that? Well, let me explain to you. In the Gospel of Matthew, we discover Christ as King of the Jews. In the Gospel of Mark, we look upon Jesus as the Servant of God.

In the Gospel of John, we look upon Christ as the Son of God. How do we see Jesus in the Gospel of Luke? Those one thousand one hundred and fifty-one verses. How do we see Christ? We see Jesus as the Son of Man.

Brother and sister, may I say this to you this evening? Deity do not have a necessity to pray, but humanity has. And so when Luke gives us the life of Christ and the humanity of God, we discover that He's a man as He relates to prayer. Now, may I say to you this evening, I don't think it will be possible for you and for me to really understand the teachings of Christ as it relates to prayer in the four Gospels, unless we have come to grips with His own prayer life.

And isn't it amazing, brother and sister, that those early disciples never came to the Lord Jesus and asked the Lord Jesus how they would be able to preach the Gospel. They never did that. They never came to the Lord Jesus and said, is there a way that you can help us to become great missionaries? They never did that.

They never came to the life of Christ and said, can you help us and explain to us how we need to plant a church or how we need to raise funds? They never did that. But you know, the only question that they were asking is that they came to the Lord Jesus and they said to Him, Lord, will you teach us how to pray? Brother and sister, if I may say this to you, I don't think we will ever be able to understand the teachings of Christ as it relates to prayer, unless we have come to grips with His own prayer life. That's why we said this morning that those eleven Hebrew words in the Old Testament, that it's speaking to us about prayer, that three times in the Old Testament the prophets were so affected by the Messiah that was going to become a man of prayer, that three times in the Old Testament they used one of those eleven Hebrew words and they look upon the Lord Jesus.

And you know what they did? They called Him a prayer. And so Christ came. What happened? The Spirit of God came upon Him when He was anointed for service in the third chapter of the Gospel of Luke.

And what do we discover? The Bible is saying to us, the Bible says He was praying. In fact, the structure and the construction of the language in the Greek New Testament is that He was in a consistent spirit of prayer. Mark in his Gospel in the very first chapter made this incredible observation about the life of the Lord Jesus.

Listen to what he said. He said, early in the morning, deep in the night, He went into a secret place and there He prayed. You know what Dr. Campbell Morgan said about the structure of the Greek language? He said it can be translated many times early in the morning, many times deep in the night, many times He went into a secret place, and many times the Son of God prayed.

Ah, you remember before He had to choose the twelve disciples in the Gospel of Luke in the sixth chapter, what happened? The Bible says that He spent a night in the presence of His Father. My brother and sister, He was God Himself, you know. But in the understanding of His humanity, He left unto us this incredible example of what does it mean for Him to become a man of prayer.

Ah, you remember in the Mount of Transfiguration. You see, the other Gospels never made reference to this understanding of prayer in this context. Matthew chapter 17, we read about the Mount of Transfiguration.

Mark chapter 9, we read about the Mount of Transfiguration. Not a word about prayer, but look because of His emphasis upon the prayer life of Christ. He made this observation and He said as Jesus was praying in Luke chapter 9, He said He was transfigured.

And so we discovered, and there in Luke chapter 11, those early disciples came, and what did they say? They said, Lord, will you teach us how to pray? Can I ask you a question tonight? When last did someone come to you and to me, and they asked us and said, will you teach us how to pray? You see, brother and sister, we speak about this fragrance of the presence of God, you know, this something. You know, we refer, I think, this morning to this man who was used to God in the Hebrides revival on the highlands, in the islands of the west coast of Scotland, and his name was Duncan Campbell. And Duncan Campbell was an amazing man.

When God sent revival to the Hebrides islands, and Duncan Campbell didn't bring revival to the Hebrides islands, and you often see that. But the reason what happened on the Hebrides islands is that there were two elderly ladies, and they made a covenant with God to pray. And they began to pray, and as they prayed, there was a night when they got through to God, because they made a covenant with God and said, we're going to pray from 10 o'clock at night until three o'clock in the morning, and we're going to pray because you are a covenant-keeping God, and we're going to trust you to send revival.

And brother and sister, there was a night when they got through to God for revival, and Duncan Campbell was asked to come to the island, and God poured out His spirit in the island of Lewes in the revival. I visited the island 35 years after the revival. I was speaking in the High Church of Scotland in Stornoway, and while I was there, I investigated and did research work on the Lewes revival, and after 35 years, you know what? I couldn't find one single backslider, not one.

You say, what happened? It's because it was prayed through. But you know this man, Duncan Campbell, oh, he knew this consciousness of God. And do you know what they said sometimes in the Lewes revival? There were times in these meetings, and they had meetings into the early hours of the morning as people were coming to Christ day and night in the Lewes revival.

And there were times that Duncan Campbell was praying at a place, and the elders would come, and they would come to pray with Duncan Campbell. And here was a man that was so sold out to God, and as they would pray with him, they would come out of this little room where he was praying, and their faces were just beaming. And people would say, what was it? And they'd say, something happened when he prayed.

And they would say, what was it? And they'd say, a fragrance came into this room. And people said, what do you mean? And they said, we could smell the presence of God. Oh, I wonder tonight if I can ask you, in your relationship with God, in my inadequate relationship with God, brother and sister, are there times when this fragrance, I'm not speaking about this illustration, but just this consciousness of the presence of God becomes a reality.

I spend 80 days of every year in airports and planes, and you know, it's no fun. Just a little while ago, I was flying out of the city of Tirana into the city of Budapest in Romania, and from Budapest came into London at Heathrow Airport, and had to take a flight the next day out to Vancouver to my wife and daughter. And that night when I came into Vancouver, into London Heathrow, I said to Janice, I'm just going to find a cheap room where I can just stay for the night, because the flight the next day was about 12 o'clock out to Vancouver.

And so when I came into Heathrow, I didn't realize that there were conferences within the area of Heathrow. There was a football game going on, and there was no rooms available. There was one room available at Gatwick about an hour away by bus for £369.

I mean, can you believe that? And so I just phoned my wife, and I said, my darling, there's no way that I would even think of something like that. And she said, what are you going to do? I said, I guess I'm just going to sleep at the airport. And you know what happened? I found a Starbucks that's open 24 hours a night.

Thank God for Starbucks. You say, what happened? It was 11 o'clock at night, and I walk into the Starbucks, and I said to the fellow, I said, how long are you open? He said, I'm open all night. And I said, you see those three chairs in the corner? He said, yes sir.

I said, how much will it cost me if I put those chairs, because I have to come home and fly out to Portland, Oregon after a day, to start with another conference. And I said to him, how much will you charge me if I sleep on those three chairs? And this young fellow just looked at me, he said, it's not going to cost you anything. He said, in fact, it will allow me to turn the lights off.

And he said, I'll wake you up five o'clock tomorrow morning with a cup of coffee. I mean, you can't get a better than that, you know. And you know, it's wonderful.

I just got on those chair heads, and I said to the Lord, I need to sleep. And you know, God put me to sleep for about five hours. I slept like a baby, which is wonderful.

And five o'clock, He woke me up, you know, with a cup of coffee. But you know what happened, brethren and sisters? I was so tired, but I always asked God and said, give me opportunities. Listen, God does not want us to have worldly friends, but if we don't have friends in the world, we're dead in the water.

And I always asked God, give me opportunities. But you know, that day, I was so tired, and I said to the Lord, Lord, can you give me a spot in this plane where I'd just be able to rest? And I went to the counter, and I said to them, would you mind to give me a seat at exit row in this flight? And she said, why? I said, I'm so tired, and I'm trying to rest, and I've got a busy schedule. And she said, oh, absolutely, she said, we do that.

And you know, by about 12 o'clock, we were boarding this plane. And as we were boarding this plane, I found my seat, and I was just taking out my New Testament to look at something. And this tall gentleman came and sat next to me, and I looked at him, and I could smell that he was a Mennonite.

I mean, you smell them at a distance, you know. And he just plunged himself next to me, and very nice gentleman, and he turned to me, and he said, what are you doing? And I said, well, I'm just looking at this. He said, what are you doing for a living? I said, well, I'm teaching theology, and then I find myself speaking in different places.

And so then, I said, what are you doing for a living? Well, he said, I'm a doctor. I said, oh, I said, that's interesting. And as this plane is taking off, he turned to me, and he said, can I tell you something? I said, what? He said, I nearly died six months ago of cancer.

I said, really? Yes, he said, he said, I, it came so close. I said, it's a miracle that I'm alive. And he turned to me, and he said to me, you know what? I said, what is it? He said, for the last six months, I've been trying to find God.

There goes the sleep. You know, it was wonderful, because you see, early that morning, there in Starbucks, in that corner, I took time to meet with God. The presence of God became real.

My life became broken, and I said, God, I'm at your disposal. Brother and sister, let me tell you something this evening. You know, God don't need any one of us.

He can do His work far better without us, you know. And yet, He doesn't want to do it that way. I mean, God can use a donkey, and when a donkey speaks, believe it or not, the man that the donkey speak to, he was able to fully understand the donkey.

In fact, he answered him back, you know. We sat on this plane, and for the next four or five hours, I got a freshness, basically, and for the next four or five hours, all I did was to answer questions. And it was fascinating, you know, because you are, have a captive audience.

The man and his wife were sat behind us. You know, if you have ever seen people in the realm of spiritual things, pluck out their ears from the back seat and put it in the front seat, that's exactly what happened. Next to me, there was a pilot sitting, and he was listening to every word, and for four hours, I just had an opportunity, systematically, to explain to him.

Let me tell you something. If I didn't meet with God that morning, if I was an old grump, and just couldn't deal with it, and just, you know, I don't have time, I wouldn't get back. Ah, you say, what's happening? Janice and myself, we are following him and his wife up, you know, because he's still not well.

I don't want to see him coming to the Lord Jesus. What was it? It was something that they saw, and they saw that something, and so what did they say? They said, Lord, teach us how to pray. So what did he do? He taught them how to pray.

Why did he tell them how to pray? Because he set the example, you see. There was something in his prayer. And do you know, brother and sister, what he did? He gave unto them what we would refer to as the Lord's Prayer.

Now, may I say to you something this evening? What we would refer to as the Lord's Prayer, and I don't want you to misunderstand me, I don't really think it's the Lord's Prayer. I really think it's the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray. And secondly, if I may make this observation, when he gave him this prayer, I don't think he gave him this prayer to simply to repeat it.

You say, why not? Because, you see, the prayer that he taught them to pray, and the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, brother and sister, it's not the same as the prayer that he taught them in the Gospel of Luke. And it's a beautiful phrase in the construction of the Greek language, because when he said, when you pray, it's the words in the Greek language, it means, pray according to these lines. And what you discover in what we would refer to as the Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter 6, is what he really did, is to give us the ingredients in the possibilities of developing a personal and a private prayer life.

And I just want to give it to you because our time is almost gone. You see, what happened? He spoke about the pertinence of time. He said, when you pray.

Then he would come and he made this statement. And he said, when you pray, he said, pray to your Father which is in heaven. So, he said, when you pray, you say, our Father which art in heaven.

You see what he said? That is the pertinency of God in prayer. He spoke about the priority of God in prayer. He said, our Father which art in heaven.

He spoke about the plan of God in prayer. He said, our Father which art in heaven. He said, hallowed be thy name.

He said, thy kingdom come. He spoke about the program of God in prayer. He said, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

He spoke about the provision of God in prayer. He said, give us this day our daily bread. He spoke about the pardon of God in prayer.

He said, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. He spoke about the preeminence. And you discover, brother and sister, there are nine glorious ingredients that Christ gave those early disciples.

And say to them, that if you look at these concepts, what is going to happen? It's going to allow you to develop this personal intimacy with God as it relates to prayer. And let me share with you one of those and tomorrow if time would allow us, we explore some of the others. And I don't know how we're going to do this because tomorrow evening, you know, those 248 prayer passages divide themselves into 12 aspects of New Testament prayer.

I've seen my wife say, I wish I can speak faster and I wish they can listen faster so that we can try to cover all this material. And let me just say this to you. You know, it's so precious.

You know what he did? He spoke about the fertility of God. He said, when you pray, you're going to say our Father. Brother and sister, do you know that the Hebrew or the Jew in the Old Testament never ever would call God Father? Never.

God was Father within the understanding of the nation. When the prophet Isaiah spoke about the Fatherhood of God, all that he did was referring to God as the Father of the nation. And so within the mind of the Old Testament Jews, this understanding of being able to call God Father was something that never ever existed.

In fact, the word Jehovah is the word that never really existed. You say, how did the word Jehovah came into being? What those Hebrew scholars did in the Old Testament is that they took the first name of God, which is really in the Hebrew language only four letters, but it's the word, the word Yahweh. And they took the second name of God, which is the Hebrew word Adonai.

And you know what they did? They took the vowels and the consonants, brother and sister, out of those two words. And as they took them out of those two words, they brought those two words together. That's where we discover the word Jehovah.

So they would never refer to God as Father. And do you know what happened? The Lord Jesus Christ came. And do you know what the Lord Jesus did? He introduced the Fatherhood of God.

Can I ask you this Saturday night, what is your understanding of the Fatherhood of God? You are in the Christian ministry, one of the things that just comes your way, you look at it or not look for it, it's Supreme Court counseling. And I want to tell you tonight, I really believe that the Holy Spirit of God is the best counselor, you know. So often we interfere with the work of the Holy Spirit as it relates to counseling.

But you know, one of the great things that I've discovered through the years is that when people discover the Fatherhood of God, brother and sister, we are not dealing with a slave driver, we're not dealing with a tyrant, we are not dealing with one who's standing there in the moment when you and I fail him, is ready to just whip us with the greatness of his judgment. No, no, no. What is it? He's lost, you know.

He hates sin, but he loves the sinner. And I wonder tonight if you would allow me to ask you, as it relates to prayer, have we discovered the beauty of the Fatherhood of God? Oh, if you have time, and you go to the Gospel of John, and you write out the Gospel of John by hand, and you always separate the two statements, that which Christ said about the Father, and that which the Father said about the Son, and you discover the beauty of the relationship, the Fatherhood of God. I can testify of this, you know.

You say, why? Well, you know, I had a wonderful mother and father. They didn't find Christ until the end of their lives, but mama and papa were great, you know. Deeply love him and appreciate him.

But I had a father who was an incredible man of determination. I've often said to my wife, the only reason why Rome wasn't built in three days, was because papa wasn't around. I mean, he was the man of absolute determination.

There was no such a thing that it will become light in the early hours of the morning, and you would still be in bed on the farm. It just didn't happen. And I had a father that would say to me, life is not controlled by desire, but life is controlled by determination.

And so there was this thing, we had to work. I mean, we were work orientated. We were just the way that we were.

And to know when I came to Christ, somehow this image of the preciousness of my own father affected my understanding of the character of God. And I thought God was just like that, and he wasn't, brethren. He was the gentle one.

He was the one that would come alongside and say, I know that you struggle with prayer. I know that you don't find it difficult. I know that there are mountains.

I know there are things that seems like impossibility, but I want you to know that I'm there. You say, what is it? It's the Fatherhood of God. And I wonder tonight if I can ask you in closing, do we know something of this beauty of this relationship? Isn't it amazing when Christ spoke about God the Father? Do you know what he did, brethren? He said, he didn't use the word in the Greek New Testament for the word Father, which is the word pater.

No, he didn't use that. He said, which is the word? He used the word Abba. That's the Aramaic word.

Now you go to Psalm 110 and discover this beauty of this relationship. That's why he said in Luke chapter 11, you know, if you then who are evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who... It's the greatness of his character. It's reliable.

It's consistent. He will not say something and then not do it. It's his character.

It's the Fatherhood of God. I want to close. You know, the great man of God with the name of Andrew Murray, they reckon that he prayed approximately something like 400 of his own descendants into full-time ministry.

If you go into South Africa and you look at the heritage of the Murray family, and you look it up, and in their family reunion, there are so many of them even today who are in ministry. I studied with a fellow with the name of Andrew Murray, and he was a great, great, great grandson of the late Dr. Andrew Murray, because Andrew Murray had such an incredible life of prayer. He just systematically prayed his family and his descendants into the mission field and into the ministry.

And yet, brother and sister, you know what happened? Andrew Murray and Emma Murray had a son that was rebellious from a very young age. God gave him these promises, and they prayed for their son. They asked God to work in his life.

But of all the Murray family, one after the other, most of them landed up in the ministry and the mission field, and all of them were serving God except this one son. And Andrew Murray, if you read the old copy of his life story, he could not understand it. Here God was blessing, God was working, and yet he had this son who had absolutely no interest in the things of God.

But you know what happened? God gave him and Emma promises. But he was going to save his son, and yet he grew up into his young life, and became a young adult, and he became a young man, and he never gave his life to God. And the war broke out in southern Africa at that time, and his son was called to go to the war.

And while he was in the war, he was in a trench, and he was wounded, and he died in action. And Andrew Murray, and it is so unique, Andrew Murray said, I didn't know if he came to Christ, because I wasn't there. I didn't hear anything, but I had the promises of God.

And he said when he died, those promises of God didn't lose their place. I had a sense that those promises of God were given to us. But you know what happened? Six months later, he was in the city or the town of Graf Rienet, in the eastern, in the northern Cape.

And six months later, there was a knock at the door of the Parsonage, of the Dutch Reformed Church there, and Andrew Murray opened the door, and a man stood in front of him. And he turned to him and he said, Are you Dr. Andrew Murray? And Murray said, Yes. And he said, Murray said, Can I help you? He said, Yes.

He said, I've come to talk to you about your son. And he said, What about my son? He said, I was in the same trench when he was shot. And he said, Your son died in my arms.

And he said, For the last five minutes of his life, he was in my arms, dying. And he said, Sir, I need to let you know that I'm a Christian, and I led your son to Christ when he was dying. And Andrew Murray said, I knew that I would never question the promises of God.

Can I ask you tonight? You know what happens to us sometimes? We take offense in God, you know. We trust God to do things in our relationships with Him, and they don't happen. Because it's not His time, and sometimes it's not His will, you know.

And we take offense in God. And so Andrew Murray said, I was never able to ever question the greatness.