Prayerless and Powerless: Why Prayer Is Essential in Evangelism - Paul Washer
00:00:00.000 | Welcome back, everyone. Welcome back. We're going to begin with a song. We're going to
00:00:19.520 | begin with a song on the Great Commission, one of the great mission hymns of history
00:00:23.120 | written by a pastor who had moved to plant churches in China and written for some of
00:00:30.640 | the many martyrs that had given their lives in the early 20th century. It's called Facing
00:00:37.140 | a Task and Finish. Let's stand up. Facing a task and finish that calls us to our
00:01:01.140 | feet. God be glad that we've finished. Reduce our soft beliefs. We who rejoice to know thee
00:01:13.140 | revealed before thy throne the solemn pledge we owe thee to go and make thee known.
00:01:27.140 | When other Gods beside me hold their unhindered sway, when forces that defy me defy thee still
00:01:47.140 | today, with none to heed their crying, for I am love and light. A number of souls are
00:01:59.140 | dying and passing to the night. We go to all the world with kingdom hope and world. No
00:02:13.140 | other name has power to save but Jesus Christ the Lord. And we bear the torch that flaming
00:02:27.140 | fell from the hands of those who gave their lives proclaiming that Jesus died and rose.
00:02:39.140 | Our tears the same conviction, the same promising joys. Fight by the same ambition to thee we
00:02:53.140 | yield our powers. We go to all the world with kingdom hope and world. No other name has
00:03:07.140 | power to save but Jesus Christ the Lord. O Father who sustained them, O Spirit who
00:03:25.140 | died, Savior whose love has trained them to toil with steel and iron. From cowardice defend
00:03:37.140 | us, from lethargy awake. For from thy merits send us to labor for thy sake. We go to all
00:03:53.140 | the world with kingdom hope and world. No other name has power to save but Jesus Christ
00:04:05.140 | the Lord.
00:04:09.140 | Wonderful. We've been having the privilege of talking with many of you here involved
00:04:21.140 | in church worship every week and singing. One of the concerns is always to find songs
00:04:26.140 | that have energy but also equally with content. And a number of our writers last year started
00:04:32.140 | to look at the concept of the Apostle Paul and boasting in the cross. And Matt Boswell
00:04:39.140 | primarily along with Matt Papa and Brian Fowler created this song called All My Boast Is In
00:04:44.140 | Jesus which we hope is going to be helpful. If you don't know it, John are you going to
00:04:49.140 | sing the first verse? Is that right? John's going to sing the first verse and we'll take
00:04:52.140 | it from there. Here we go.
00:04:53.140 | What wonder of wonders that love is this that Christ would die for me. His goodness, His
00:05:10.140 | merit, His righteousness. The sinner's only plea. Oh foolish friar, be crucified. The work
00:05:22.140 | is finished. All my hope is in Jesus. All my hope is His love. And I will glory forever
00:05:36.140 | in what the cross has done.
00:05:40.140 | Wonderful. Can we go back to verse 1? Verse 1.
00:05:44.140 | What wonder of wonders what love is this that Christ would die for me. His goodness, His
00:05:55.140 | merit, His righteousness. The sinner's only plea. Oh foolish friar, be crucified. The work
00:06:07.140 | is finished. All my boast is in Jesus. All my hope is His love. And I will glory forever
00:06:22.140 | in what the cross has done.
00:06:26.140 | Now fully forgiven my life is filled with grace that's undeserved. For mercy that flowed
00:06:41.140 | down that sacred hill that raises now return. Rise up my soul and bless the Lord who else
00:06:53.140 | is worthy. All my boast is in Jesus. All my hope is His love. And I will glory forever
00:07:08.140 | in what the cross has done.
00:07:25.140 | Praise the one forever blessed. Him alone my heart adores. And I will boast in nothing
00:07:46.140 | less than the love of Christ my Lord. Praise the one forever blessed. Him alone my heart
00:08:06.140 | adores. And I will boast in nothing less than the love of Christ my Lord.
00:08:26.140 | I boast not in graciousness, strength, or might but in the grace of God. I glory in
00:08:35.140 | weakness to live is Christ in plenty or in want. That I may know that all may see His
00:08:46.140 | power within me. All my boast is in Jesus. All my hope is His love. And I will glory
00:08:59.140 | forever in what the cross has done. Now I stand in His freedom, ransomed clean in His
00:09:12.140 | sight. Oh and I cannot be ashamed for my boast is Jesus Christ. My boast is Jesus Christ.
00:09:25.140 | My boast is Jesus Christ.
00:09:31.140 | [applause]
00:09:45.140 | Oh to see the dawn of the darkest day, Christ on the road to Calvary. Tread by sinful men,
00:10:04.140 | torn and beaten then, nailed to a cross of wood. Oh to see the pain written on your face,
00:10:21.140 | bearing the awesome weight of sin. And every bitter thought, every evil deed, crowned in
00:10:37.140 | your bloodstained brow. This the power of the cross. Christ became sin for us, took
00:10:56.140 | the blame, and bore the wrath we stand forgiven at the cross. And now the daylight flees,
00:11:18.140 | now the ground beneath quakes as its maker bows his head. And curtain torn in two, dead
00:11:33.140 | ribs to life finish the victory cry. This the power of the cross. Christ became sin for
00:11:54.140 | us, took the blame, and bore the wrath we stand forgiven at the cross. And oh to see
00:12:16.140 | my name written in those four through years of suffering, I am free. And death is crushed
00:12:30.140 | to death, and life is mine to live, one through you selfless love. This the power of the cross.
00:12:49.140 | Son of God, saved for us, what a love, what a cost we stand forgiven at the cross.
00:13:12.140 | [applause]
00:13:17.140 | When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of Glory died,
00:13:45.140 | my riches gained, I count the loss,
00:14:00.140 | and for content all my pride.
00:14:22.140 | [applause]
00:14:30.140 | [silence]
00:14:56.140 | I'm going to be preaching from Mark chapter 1. Mark chapter 1 and verse 29.
00:15:10.140 | And immediately after they came out of the synagogue, they came into the house of Simon
00:15:15.140 | and Andrew with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law was lying sick with a fever,
00:15:21.140 | and immediately they spoke to Jesus about her. And he came to her and raised her up,
00:15:27.140 | taking her by the hand, and the fever left her, and she waited on them.
00:15:32.140 | When evening came, after the sun had set, they began bringing to him all who were ill
00:15:39.140 | and those who were demon-possessed, and the whole city had gathered at the door.
00:15:44.140 | And he healed many who were ill with various diseases, and cast out many demons.
00:15:50.140 | And he was not permitting the demons to speak, because they knew who he was.
00:15:55.140 | In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house,
00:16:03.140 | and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.
00:16:08.140 | Simon and his companions searched for him. They found him and said to him,
00:16:12.140 | "Everyone is looking for you." He said to them,
00:16:16.140 | "Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also,
00:16:21.140 | for that is what I came for." Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
00:16:37.140 | Father, I come before you in the name. His name. I know that you hear me.
00:16:55.140 | I love you, and I praise you, and I magnify you.
00:17:01.140 | For there is none like you in the heavens, or the earth, or under the earth.
00:17:06.140 | You raise your hand, and no man can hold it down.
00:17:10.140 | You lay your hand on the table, and no man can pry it up.
00:17:14.140 | You and you alone are God.
00:17:19.140 | And all the gods of this world are vanity and nothing.
00:17:26.140 | Father, we are so small. You know.
00:17:32.140 | We are so very small.
00:17:36.140 | So many words. So little power.
00:17:43.140 | Oh God, we need you.
00:17:46.140 | The men gathered here need you.
00:17:50.140 | We need the wisdom of your word.
00:17:54.140 | But we also need the power, the life of your spirit.
00:18:02.140 | What are we, Lord, that you would ask men like us to take your gospel to the ends of the earth?
00:18:20.140 | Help your people.
00:18:25.140 | And let your power in them.
00:18:30.140 | Be as high as the commission you have given them.
00:18:38.140 | Help us, Lord. In Jesus name. Amen.
00:18:47.140 | Before I look at the reason for which I was brought here,
00:18:51.140 | I want to say something.
00:18:54.140 | Conferences like this are wonderful.
00:18:58.140 | And they're helpful.
00:19:03.140 | I've been both behind the pulpit in conferences like these.
00:19:09.140 | I've been a missionary on the foreign field who came into conferences like these and just felt lost and small and unseen.
00:19:26.140 | Let me give you something of a philosophical question.
00:19:32.140 | Why would God plant the most beautiful rose that he ever created in a forest through which neither man nor angel would ever walk?
00:19:46.140 | How does God get glory from that rose?
00:19:51.140 | He gets glory from that rose because he sees it.
00:19:56.140 | We live in a world today, a Christendom, that somehow thinks that you only have an importance before God if your church is so large.
00:20:09.140 | Or you've authored a book.
00:20:12.140 | Or, heaven forbid, you have a podcast.
00:20:21.140 | Or you get to preach in places like this.
00:20:24.140 | And that every man that's in this pulpit this week would tell you that is not true.
00:20:31.140 | There are some of you out there that have pastored for 40 years, 35 people.
00:20:37.140 | And you have forgotten more about God than I will ever know.
00:20:42.140 | And before the throne of God, you have a better name than I.
00:20:47.140 | Do not judge with earthly judgment.
00:20:51.140 | Judge with righteous judgment.
00:20:54.140 | And for you young men, I give you a warning.
00:20:58.140 | I would dare say again that every man that's been in this pulpit, they went through years and years of anonymity.
00:21:07.140 | I know I did.
00:21:09.140 | No one knew my name.
00:21:13.140 | Ministry appeared to be a failure.
00:21:16.140 | Three steps forward, two steps back.
00:21:19.140 | Struggles.
00:21:20.140 | Three steps forward, two steps back.
00:21:22.140 | And I'm sure there are times on the mission field wanting to write the supporters and say, just stop.
00:21:29.140 | I'm not worthy of the $350 a month that you're sending.
00:21:36.140 | And I fear for some of you young men.
00:21:41.140 | You get straight A's in Bible college.
00:21:44.140 | And then straight A's in your master's degree.
00:21:47.140 | Department.
00:21:48.140 | And then, I don't know, you take a big church or, again, heaven forbid, your podcast.
00:21:59.140 | And your followers.
00:22:00.140 | I fear for you.
00:22:02.140 | I fear for your soul.
00:22:06.140 | You are nothing except what you are before God in the righteousness of Christ.
00:22:11.140 | And you are nothing except what you are before the throne in prayer.
00:22:17.140 | And you are nothing except what you are to the smallest saint in the congregation.
00:22:25.140 | I hear so many men today that talk about how they love the church.
00:22:29.140 | They love the church.
00:22:30.140 | And I look at them and I must say, I don't think you love the church.
00:22:36.140 | I think you love your ministry in the church.
00:22:39.140 | Do you want to know how much you love the church?
00:22:43.140 | You love the church as much as you love the smallest saint in that church who can least contribute to your vision.
00:22:56.140 | As you have done it to the least of these, my brethren.
00:23:01.140 | When I was in Peru and I was pastoring, there was people that had come from the mountains in order to escape the war.
00:23:08.140 | And there was this one little lady.
00:23:10.140 | She was about four foot ten, mountain woman.
00:23:14.140 | And every time I came down from the pulpit, she would be there to lecture me.
00:23:19.140 | She told me I was wrong, that women can pastor because Rachel was a shepherdess.
00:23:29.140 | And one day after she talked to me at length, one of the deacons came and said, "Pastor, why?
00:23:40.140 | Why do you stand there every Sunday and listen to her?"
00:23:47.140 | And I said, "Sometimes when Jesus comes to church, he dresses in very strange clothing."
00:23:55.140 | And that's true.
00:23:58.140 | If there is one text that is scalded upon my mind and engraved in my heart,
00:24:05.140 | as you've done it to the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me.
00:24:11.140 | I just wanted to say that before the sermon.
00:24:16.140 | Now, you saw maybe on the handout, it said, you know, why?
00:24:22.140 | About missions, what makes missions so difficult. And then there's the Ephesians 6 passage.
00:24:28.140 | "We wrestle not with flesh and blood, but powers and principalities, mites and dominions."
00:24:35.140 | What we need to understand is this.
00:24:38.140 | The Great Commission, conversion itself is an absolute impossibility.
00:24:47.140 | It's an absolute impossibility.
00:24:50.140 | You must understand that there are no carnal means that you can use to pry open any gate, any door.
00:25:01.140 | The heart of a man and the world itself is like Jericho.
00:25:05.140 | It is tightly shut up. None come out and none go in.
00:25:09.140 | If only we had to deal with the radical depravity of man's heart, we would be impotent.
00:25:15.140 | But it goes far beyond that. Ephesians 6, 1st Timothy, chapter 4, 1 and 2.
00:25:25.140 | We cannot deny that there is an evil one who rules over this world to some degree.
00:25:32.140 | And you and I are impotent before all these things. We are impotent.
00:25:39.140 | And that is why I always tell young men, the more you lean upon the arm of the flesh,
00:25:47.140 | the more, the less you will see the power of God.
00:25:52.140 | And you can lean upon the arm of the flesh even though you are a great Bible scholar.
00:26:00.140 | And you possess all wisdom and all knowledge.
00:26:03.140 | But you can still lean upon the flesh by leaning upon your intellect and by leaning upon your eloquence.
00:26:13.140 | You know, I think we've redefined powerful preaching in a disgusting manner.
00:26:21.140 | We seem to have come to believe that powerful preaching is this.
00:26:25.140 | A man stands before a conference of pastors and preaches with such an intellect,
00:26:32.140 | with such eloquence, with such style,
00:26:36.140 | that it causes all the pastors to put their head in their hands and lament the fact that they're not as gifted.
00:26:42.140 | That is not powerful preaching.
00:26:47.140 | Do you know what powerful preaching, how you can find it, discern it?
00:26:54.140 | Two ways. Usually both ways are not found in a single man as it was in Charles Spurgeon or Martin Lloyd-Jones.
00:27:01.140 | But two things. Number one, souls are converted.
00:27:08.140 | Souls are converted. They're actually converted under the preaching.
00:27:13.140 | And number two. The smallest saint is fed. Nurtured. Grows. That's powerful preaching.
00:27:33.140 | Now, neither the conversion of a soul or the edification of the church is a possibility that belongs to us.
00:27:42.140 | If we are to be used in any one of these two endeavors,
00:27:45.140 | then you and I must cling to the wisdom of God and the power of God.
00:27:50.140 | And we must do nothing separate from Him.
00:27:55.140 | You know, sometimes I think, you know, when the disciples came to that little demon-possessed boy
00:28:03.140 | and they couldn't cast out the demon.
00:28:06.140 | And in one place it says it's because their lack of faith.
00:28:09.140 | In another place it says, you know, this kind only comes out by prayer.
00:28:13.140 | And I've often wondered, what's really going on there?
00:28:16.140 | Because Jesus gave them authority over the demonic.
00:28:21.140 | And this is what I've come to believe.
00:28:24.140 | They thought that whatever authority they had, that it resided in them as though it had permanent residence.
00:28:32.140 | What you have to understand is John chapter 15.
00:28:37.140 | He is the vine. We are the branches.
00:28:41.140 | Authority. Power. Wisdom.
00:28:46.140 | It's not something given to a man or that he attains by the time he's in his 60s.
00:28:52.140 | It is something that flows from the throne of Christ.
00:28:57.140 | This continual abiding in Christ.
00:29:01.140 | And young man, you can have really good theology and still not be abiding in Christ.
00:29:07.140 | You can become so talented, so knowledgeable, that you no longer, and yes, I'm going to use the word,
00:29:13.140 | you no longer feel your need of Him.
00:29:18.140 | Every trial, every war, every reckoning, every breaking that goes on in your life
00:29:27.140 | has one purpose, to drive you into ongoing communion with Christ.
00:29:33.140 | Not just through studying good books, but on your knees.
00:29:40.140 | When we come to the book of Mark, it begins in chapter 1.
00:29:44.140 | Look at verses, look at verse 15 or 14.
00:29:49.140 | And after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee,
00:29:53.140 | preaching the gospel of God and saying, "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.
00:29:59.140 | Repent and believe the gospel, the beginning of the great commission."
00:30:04.140 | The beginning of the great commission.
00:30:08.140 | And if you look down in verse 38 of chapter 1,
00:30:10.140 | "He said to them, 'Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby,
00:30:14.140 | so that I may preach there also, for that is what I came for.'"
00:30:19.140 | I hear today about preaching, and preaching, and preaching,
00:30:23.140 | and teaching men to preach, and teaching men to preach.
00:30:26.140 | Wonderful, but there are some things you cannot teach a man.
00:30:31.140 | There are some things you cannot give a man.
00:30:35.140 | Through any amount of seminary training,
00:30:38.140 | and that is for that man to feel his need of Christ.
00:30:47.140 | And to walk fearfully in dependence upon him.
00:30:54.140 | I read you two texts, both of them have to do with the great commission.
00:30:57.140 | They're prominent, they're strong.
00:30:59.140 | Couched in between that is also a great amount of ministerial activity.
00:31:06.140 | But the pivotal point,
00:31:10.140 | the truth of this passage is to see the prayer life of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
00:31:19.140 | That he, proclaiming that he had come to inaugurate the kingdom,
00:31:24.140 | that he had come to preach, and yet we look at him,
00:31:28.140 | prayer, prayer, prayer, prayer.
00:31:32.140 | I have found that even in reading the scripture,
00:31:37.140 | and studying the scripture,
00:31:40.140 | there can be flesh and pride.
00:31:42.140 | Because at least when I get in a conversation,
00:31:44.140 | I can show everyone how much I know.
00:31:48.140 | But in prayer, secret abiding prayer,
00:31:53.140 | there is no glory before men.
00:31:56.140 | There is only glory from God.
00:32:00.140 | This great commission is not going to go anywhere
00:32:03.140 | with all your expounding, and all your preaching,
00:32:07.140 | and all your diagramming.
00:32:09.140 | It's going nowhere without prayer.
00:32:13.140 | And I would say with Charles Spurgeon,
00:32:15.140 | I would rather teach one man to pray,
00:32:18.140 | than ten men to preach.
00:32:21.140 | I'd rather teach one man to pray,
00:32:24.140 | than ten men to preach.
00:32:26.140 | Now I want you to look at something here in the book of Mark, chapter 1.
00:32:31.140 | We're going to go through this chapter 1 rather quickly,
00:32:35.140 | and we're going to focus on just one word.
00:32:37.140 | Immediately.
00:32:39.140 | Mark, chapter 1, verse 12.
00:32:41.140 | "Immediately the Spirit impelled him to go out into the wilderness."
00:32:45.140 | Verse 18.
00:32:47.140 | "Immediately they left their nets and followed him."
00:32:50.140 | Verse 20.
00:32:52.140 | "Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat
00:32:56.140 | with the hired servants, and went away to follow him."
00:33:00.140 | Verse 21.
00:33:02.140 | "They went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath,
00:33:06.140 | he entered the synagogue and began to teach."
00:33:09.140 | Verse 28.
00:33:10.140 | "Immediately the news about him spread everywhere
00:33:14.140 | into all the surrounding district of Galilee."
00:33:17.140 | Verse 29.
00:33:18.140 | "And immediately after they came out of the synagogue,
00:33:21.140 | they came into the house of Simon and Andrew."
00:33:24.140 | Verse 30.
00:33:25.140 | "Now Simon's mother-in-law was lying sick with a fever,
00:33:28.140 | and immediately they spoke to Jesus about her."
00:33:35.140 | I believe that if you read through the book of Mark correctly,
00:33:39.140 | you will be out of breath.
00:33:43.140 | Many New Testament scholars tell us that Mark is simply like taking snapshots of Jesus.
00:33:52.140 | Immediately.
00:33:53.140 | Immediately.
00:33:54.140 | Immediately.
00:33:55.140 | We can also see here an amazing amount of ministry.
00:34:02.140 | As you know, if you're preaching, if you're counseling,
00:34:06.140 | if you're praying for people, something like virtue goes out from you.
00:34:13.140 | Sometimes we make our way back home and our wives say to us,
00:34:17.140 | "How are we doing?"
00:34:19.140 | "Honey, I'm war to the bone.
00:34:22.140 | There's nothing left of me.
00:34:25.140 | I can hardly breathe."
00:34:29.140 | Spiritual ministry to advance the kingdom of heaven
00:34:35.140 | and fighting against the kingdom of darkness will wear a man to the bone.
00:34:41.140 | It's why most of us die young.
00:34:45.140 | It will wear a man to the bone.
00:34:48.140 | And we can see this here with Jesus.
00:34:50.140 | Now, I'd like to go through this whole passage, but I don't have time.
00:34:54.140 | But I want us to look at verse 32.
00:34:56.140 | "When evening came, after the sun had set,
00:35:00.140 | they began bringing to him all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed."
00:35:05.140 | Now, I want you to look at something.
00:35:08.140 | And Mark is doing this on purpose.
00:35:10.140 | "When evening came, after the sun had set."
00:35:15.140 | Sometimes I will read through the New Testament with my children
00:35:18.140 | and I'll always ask them this question.
00:35:20.140 | "Was that good grammar?"
00:35:22.140 | And the other day we were dealing with this.
00:35:25.140 | And I asked my daughter, "What we just read, does that appear to you to be good grammar?"
00:35:29.140 | Or, "Would you get an A?"
00:35:31.140 | And she said, "No."
00:35:32.140 | And I said, "Why?"
00:35:33.140 | "The repetition, the repetition, the repetition."
00:35:36.140 | But in the New Testament, borrowing from the Hebrew,
00:35:39.140 | repetition has a purpose, doesn't it?
00:35:42.140 | It's to emphasize and emphasize again and again
00:35:46.140 | to show the force of what's going on.
00:35:49.140 | And so we look here.
00:35:50.140 | "When evening came, after the sun had set,
00:35:54.140 | after he had gone through all the things I briefly mentioned to you in chapter 1,
00:36:00.140 | evening has come, the sun has set, it's late at night,
00:36:04.140 | and only then did they begin bringing to him
00:36:07.140 | all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed,
00:36:10.140 | and the whole city had gathered at the door."
00:36:15.140 | Now, when we read this in the New Testament,
00:36:19.140 | many times we have this, and it comes from medieval art, actually.
00:36:26.140 | We probably have this picture of Jesus standing there calmly with his hands folded
00:36:31.140 | and people very orderly in a line, patiently waiting for their turn.
00:36:38.140 | Years ago, there was a conference in Santa Rosa in Piura in the north of Peru,
00:36:45.140 | and a friend of mine who was a doctor was visiting me.
00:36:48.140 | And so I took him up that mountain to the conference.
00:36:53.140 | And there were about 1,500 people gathered.
00:36:56.140 | Many of them had walked three days to get there.
00:36:59.140 | And we had had conferences like that very often,
00:37:02.140 | and it was always beautiful, and the people were peaceful.
00:37:06.140 | And it was just a wonderful time of preaching and fellowship.
00:37:11.140 | But they found out that a doctor was present.
00:37:15.140 | And even though he had almost nothing with which to treat them,
00:37:23.140 | they became almost violent.
00:37:26.140 | These are people with great pains and ailments, no medicine, no doctor.
00:37:32.140 | I ended up spending three days inside of an adobe hut,
00:37:36.140 | translating person after person after person, day and night.
00:37:42.140 | Sick babies with pneumonia, men with great pains, people with infections from cuts.
00:37:49.140 | And the people who were normally gentle and kind became angry with us and angry with one another.
00:37:56.140 | They were violent, desperate people driven by their need.
00:38:01.140 | It was absolute chaos.
00:38:03.140 | And at the end of those three days, I thought,
00:38:06.140 | "I can't make it back down this mountain. I can't walk."
00:38:10.140 | That's what's going on here.
00:38:13.140 | Let me submit something to you.
00:38:15.140 | First of all, most of us need to repent of our busyness.
00:38:23.140 | Most of us need to repent of our busyness.
00:38:27.140 | You desire so much to be seen before men that you're rarely seen before the throne of God.
00:38:37.140 | But here we do see a picture of the perfect man who shows us that it's sometimes in ministry,
00:38:44.140 | it is busy and there's nothing you can do about it.
00:38:50.140 | And so we see Jesus doing all these things.
00:38:55.140 | Night comes, it's dark now, maybe seven, eight, nine o'clock, and they begin bringing people to him.
00:39:03.140 | I've known times when I couldn't get in bed before three in the morning.
00:39:09.140 | This began at night. When did it end?
00:39:12.140 | As a matter of fact, I'm surprised that he was even able to maneuver his way out of the house to an isolated place to pray.
00:39:22.140 | But he did. Look what it says.
00:39:26.140 | In 32, when evening came after the sun had set, verse 35, in the early morning, while it was still dark.
00:39:40.140 | Maybe an hour, maybe an hour and a half.
00:39:45.140 | And never forget, we have a true incarnation here.
00:39:51.140 | We have a true man, God in the flesh, absolutely.
00:39:58.140 | But Philippians 2 makes it clear, a true man who was doing what he did in the power of the Holy Spirit and his physical body suffering from it.
00:40:11.140 | Tired, war, worn out, painful, and yet he gets up.
00:40:19.140 | Now, I'm not saying this in order to advocate an absurdity that men of God should not sleep.
00:40:27.140 | We need sleep.
00:40:32.140 | But there is something that even triumphs over sleep.
00:40:37.140 | And definitely triumphs over ministry.
00:40:41.140 | It is prayer.
00:40:43.140 | Now, let's just stop.
00:40:46.140 | Let's just stop.
00:40:48.140 | I'm not preaching to hear myself think.
00:40:52.140 | Ask yourself.
00:40:55.140 | How much do I pray?
00:41:04.140 | How much do you pray?
00:41:07.140 | Ask yourself that question.
00:41:09.140 | Or as the old men used to, when they would see me coming.
00:41:13.140 | Young man, do we find you praying?
00:41:17.140 | Do we find you praying?
00:41:18.140 | How much do you pray?
00:41:20.140 | Brother, I don't want to hurt you, but I do want to hurt you.
00:41:28.140 | All these, I don't know what you would call them, all these trifling trinket kind of ministries.
00:41:39.140 | They're not necessary.
00:41:41.140 | Prayer is necessary.
00:41:44.140 | You say, well, the word too.
00:41:46.140 | You know that.
00:41:48.140 | And I know that.
00:41:50.140 | And you need to hear it.
00:41:52.140 | The word too, but more importantly, with men like you, you need to hear prayer too.
00:41:59.140 | Prayer.
00:42:01.140 | It's not by your mighty intellect.
00:42:03.140 | Sometimes I think that a lot of historians with regard to Charles Spurgeon
00:42:07.140 | are going to have a fight on their hands when they cross through the gates of glory.
00:42:11.140 | Somehow they attribute Spurgeon's preaching to his mighty intellect.
00:42:17.140 | Or to his memory.
00:42:20.140 | Those things he had.
00:42:22.140 | But he would fight you on that.
00:42:25.140 | I don't care how great your intellect or how mighty your memory.
00:42:28.140 | You can't do what he did.
00:42:30.140 | You can't look at Spurgeon's sermons.
00:42:32.140 | You cannot read them and find a natural explanation
00:42:38.140 | for the fact that that much material was preached
00:42:42.140 | and yet every paragraph seems to be gold.
00:42:45.140 | I have said to myself many times I could spend 10 years trying to fashion this paragraph
00:42:52.140 | and not be able to do it as he did it.
00:42:56.140 | He was a man of prayer.
00:42:59.140 | He was a man of prayer like his Lord.
00:43:03.140 | Bethany Jones said of Martin Lloyd Jones,
00:43:05.140 | "You will never be able to understand my husband as an evangelist
00:43:09.140 | if you first do not understand him as a man of prayer."
00:43:14.140 | He prayed.
00:43:16.140 | Now look at verse 35 again.
00:43:18.140 | "In the early morning, while it was still dark,
00:43:21.140 | Jesus got up, left the house,
00:43:25.140 | and went away to a secluded place and was praying there."
00:43:31.140 | When I went in as a young man at about 21 or 22,
00:43:36.140 | and I went into the pastor's office.
00:43:39.140 | I'll never forget, he was a big man, 6'6", silver hair, swept back.
00:43:45.140 | He was looking at a bookshelf. He had his back to me.
00:43:48.140 | And I said, "Pastor, God has called me to preach."
00:43:55.140 | He didn't even turn around.
00:43:58.140 | He just said this, "Boy, can you be alone?"
00:44:06.140 | And at first I thought that what he meant was if I preached the truth of God's word,
00:44:11.140 | people would not like me and they would leave me be.
00:44:14.140 | That did happen.
00:44:19.140 | But that's not what he meant.
00:44:24.140 | To kind of summarize it, it was while all the other young men
00:44:30.140 | are running around in bachelor packs,
00:44:33.140 | going on retreats,
00:44:35.140 | or having their great discussions about theology they don't understand
00:44:40.140 | in the hallways of the seminary.
00:44:43.140 | Can you depart from all that and just be with God?
00:44:49.140 | Just be with God.
00:44:53.140 | Just be alone with the Lord.
00:44:56.140 | Can you do that?
00:45:01.140 | Let me ask you, can you do that?
00:45:05.140 | Do you do that?
00:45:08.140 | An old man, old preacher, let me ask you a question.
00:45:12.140 | Do you do it now as much as you did it then?
00:45:17.140 | Or have you become less needful of him?
00:45:23.140 | I have found the very opposite of what I expected out of the Christian life.
00:45:29.140 | I expected that all my trials, all the severity, all the pain,
00:45:36.140 | that it would come in my early years.
00:45:39.140 | It did.
00:45:41.140 | But it just kept increasing.
00:45:46.140 | Every trial in your life is designed to show you your weakness.
00:45:53.140 | Every one of them is to show you your weakness, your need of him.
00:46:06.140 | You say, "Oh, Brother Paul, I know I need him."
00:46:09.140 | How much time do you spend alone in the word and prayer?
00:46:12.140 | And that will answer the question with regard to just how much you need him.
00:46:16.140 | I need him more.
00:46:20.140 | I'm a weaker man now than when I began.
00:46:24.140 | You know, with regard to sanctification, you know, if we did a graph,
00:46:28.140 | I always thought that when I started here that I would grow like this.
00:46:34.140 | But in fact, I've grown like this.
00:46:38.140 | But because of such struggles in sanctification,
00:46:42.140 | there's another aspect of sanctification that hardly anyone speaks of,
00:46:46.140 | and it has grown like this.
00:46:49.140 | It's that part of sanctification that is the recognition of our need of him.
00:46:56.140 | There are no great men of God.
00:46:59.140 | There are only tiny, weak men of a great and merciful, omnipotent God.
00:47:07.140 | Here in our passage, he says the kingdom of God is at hand.
00:47:11.140 | Repent and believe the gospel.
00:47:13.140 | Everybody pressing the tense here, spend the rest of your life repenting and believing.
00:47:19.140 | And the idea is simply this.
00:47:24.140 | One day as a lost man, I hear the gospel and I see God as I have never seen him before.
00:47:29.140 | Which in that light, I see me as I have never seen me before.
00:47:33.140 | Which leads to mourning.
00:47:35.140 | But in that revelation, I also see Christ as I have never seen him before.
00:47:39.140 | And my mourning has turned to joy.
00:47:41.140 | And then I go to bed and I wake up the next day and the process begins all over again.
00:47:45.140 | As I study God's word, as I grow in the scriptures,
00:47:49.140 | I see more of him, more of me.
00:47:53.140 | Greater mourning, greater weakness, but more of Christ.
00:47:57.140 | And at the end of my life, I'm a paradox.
00:48:01.140 | My mourning is greater than it had ever been.
00:48:04.140 | And my joy is greater than it has ever been.
00:48:11.140 | But the joy now is squarely founded upon the shoulders of Christ and has nothing to do with me.
00:48:17.140 | I've decided what I'm going to put on my tombstone.
00:48:21.140 | When you've gone through as much as me, it's pretty wise to think about that.
00:48:26.140 | This is what's going to be written on my tombstone.
00:48:30.140 | I've contributed nothing to my salvation, but my sin.
00:48:36.140 | And nothing to my ministry, but my weakness.
00:48:40.140 | Christ is everything.
00:48:44.140 | Christ.
00:48:47.140 | Christ.
00:48:49.140 | And your strength, your strength is no replacement for his.
00:48:57.140 | We look at him, we see him praying.
00:49:00.140 | Look at what it says.
00:49:03.140 | In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, went away.
00:49:08.140 | Do you see that repetition again?
00:49:10.140 | Getting farther and farther from men, leaving men, leaving men.
00:49:14.140 | Going to God, going to God.
00:49:17.140 | Went to a secluded place.
00:49:20.140 | Oh, the flesh hates going there.
00:49:23.140 | Because the flesh can't take any witnesses with it.
00:49:29.140 | As a matter of fact, I found out there's only one thing my flesh hates more than the study of Scripture.
00:49:36.140 | It's prayer.
00:49:38.140 | And was praying there.
00:49:41.140 | Now I want you to look at what happened to him and what happens to us.
00:49:44.140 | In verse 36, Simon and his companions searched for him.
00:49:48.140 | They found him and they said to him, Everyone's looking for you.
00:49:54.140 | Everyone's looking for you.
00:49:56.140 | Do you know what I read into that?
00:49:59.140 | Don't you care?
00:50:02.140 | Everyone, I mean.
00:50:05.140 | Jesus.
00:50:08.140 | There are people hurting.
00:50:12.140 | There are sick people.
00:50:15.140 | There are people in bondage to the enemy of Israel.
00:50:19.140 | You have the power.
00:50:22.140 | And you're here alone.
00:50:25.140 | Don't you care?
00:50:30.140 | I cannot tell you over the last 42 years how many times I've heard that ringing in my ears.
00:50:38.140 | From the devil himself.
00:50:42.140 | Don't you care?
00:50:44.140 | You should do more.
00:50:46.140 | You should preach more.
00:50:48.140 | You should do this.
00:50:49.140 | You should do that.
00:50:52.140 | Yes, we should wear ourselves out in preaching and ministering and prayer.
00:50:59.140 | But Jesus, if he shows me anything here, he shows me I will be no good to any man.
00:51:08.140 | If I do not spend time before God.
00:51:22.140 | Peter preached one sermon and 3,000 people were saved.
00:51:27.140 | We preach 3,000 sermons and one are saved.
00:51:33.140 | Now, that can be taken wrongly.
00:51:36.140 | I don't want to press the point.
00:51:39.140 | But it's not just intellect.
00:51:42.140 | And it's not just correct doctrine.
00:51:52.140 | The power of God will be manifest in your life and ministry or your life and ministry will matter little.
00:52:01.140 | There's no way to move the needle.
00:52:05.140 | There's no way to advance the cause.
00:52:09.140 | Through your gifts.
00:52:18.140 | You have to lay aside, you have to identify and then lay aside Saul's armor.
00:52:24.140 | And take up the smooth stones of the gospel if you're going to kill these Goliaths.
00:52:34.140 | You have to walk in obedience to him if you're ever to see Jericho's walls fall.
00:52:39.140 | There are countries and people groups in such bondage to the devil.
00:52:52.140 | What power do you have?
00:52:59.140 | It's shunning the flesh.
00:53:04.140 | Lashing yourself down to scripture and living a life of prayer.
00:53:09.140 | Living a life of you say, well, I pray all the time.
00:53:13.140 | Well, let me ask you a question.
00:53:15.140 | Are you sure?
00:53:18.140 | All the old men that taught me said, boy.
00:53:23.140 | You can only learn to practice the presence of God and to pray without ceasing if you are setting aside time.
00:53:32.140 | To pray.
00:53:34.140 | It is there in the prayer closet that these things are cultivated.
00:53:39.140 | I beg you, young men, get away from all of this, get away, become old school.
00:53:49.140 | Get the mantle of a prophet, go away, seek God, throw stones at the gates of heaven, cry out until he hears you.
00:53:57.140 | Oh, God, whatever I have, it is not enough for this task, this challenge.
00:54:02.140 | I need you.
00:54:04.140 | I need to know you.
00:54:07.140 | I hear some people speak and they speak as doctors.
00:54:11.140 | If I take my wife to a doctor, I can assure you he knows everything about her.
00:54:16.140 | He knows more about my wife.
00:54:20.140 | How her hair grows.
00:54:23.140 | What gives nutrient to her skin.
00:54:26.140 | How her heart functions.
00:54:28.140 | He knows more about my wife than I do, but he doesn't know my wife.
00:54:38.140 | When you speak, can they see?
00:54:46.140 | He speaks of his beloved.
00:54:49.140 | He knows him.
00:54:52.140 | He walks with him.
00:54:56.140 | You must cultivate relationships with men.
00:54:59.140 | I have such friends back home.
00:55:03.140 | They mean the world to me and without them.
00:55:07.140 | But all the cultivation in the world with my friends, meaningless without cultivation of a relationship with God.
00:55:15.140 | And I know using that kind of language scares some of you.
00:55:20.140 | I want you to know.
00:55:23.140 | I love the scriptures.
00:55:24.140 | If you came up here and looked at my Bible, you wouldn't even be able to read it.
00:55:27.140 | It's so marked up.
00:55:30.140 | But I have more than a book.
00:55:33.140 | I have a person.
00:55:36.140 | I have God, the father.
00:55:38.140 | I have God, the son.
00:55:39.140 | And I have God, the Holy Spirit.
00:55:45.140 | Now, look what he says.
00:55:49.140 | Everyone's looking for you.
00:55:50.140 | Don't you care?
00:55:52.140 | He said to them, let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby so that I may preach there also.
00:55:57.140 | For that is what I came for.
00:55:59.140 | Here again, in Messiah, in that perfect man, we see the perfect balance.
00:56:05.140 | He's not someone who hides in a prayer closet either.
00:56:08.140 | But his relationship with the father was absolutely essential in the incarnation.
00:56:18.140 | And what he did, he did as a man in the power of the Holy Spirit.
00:56:21.140 | And there is so much in there that I can't unpack.
00:56:24.140 | And neither can any other scholar.
00:56:26.140 | But what we know is this.
00:56:28.140 | He is our master and he is our example.
00:56:33.140 | And instead of just trying to be a theologian, you might want to try being a disciple.
00:56:41.140 | A follower.
00:56:44.140 | An imitator of Jesus.
00:56:49.140 | Especially in the matter of prayer.
00:56:53.140 | Now, I want us to run over to the book of Luke for just a moment.
00:57:05.140 | So that you see that what happened in the book of Mark is not a fluke.
00:57:10.140 | Also, we need to understand something when we come to Luke.
00:57:13.140 | He is going to greatly emphasize the prayer life of Jesus.
00:57:19.140 | What else does Luke emphasize?
00:57:23.140 | The Holy Spirit.
00:57:27.140 | Brothers, I will acknowledge that in the West.
00:57:33.140 | There is aberrant teaching with regard to the Holy Spirit.
00:57:37.140 | Much of it, such teaching as we could rightly call it heresy and even blasphemy.
00:57:45.140 | But I am not going to allow the heresy of false prophets to rob me of my inheritance.
00:57:53.140 | I've read the fathers.
00:57:55.140 | I've read the patristics.
00:57:57.140 | I've read the reformers.
00:57:59.140 | And I most certainly have read the Puritans.
00:58:01.140 | And I can tell you their language was not limited with regard to the Holy Spirit or his power.
00:58:11.140 | I'm afraid for some of you.
00:58:15.140 | You're so afraid of heresy in this matter.
00:58:19.140 | That I think you would be afraid to pray to God.
00:58:24.140 | Fill me with the Holy Spirit.
00:58:27.140 | And you're going down a road.
00:58:31.140 | It's going to find you in a library somewhere touching no one's life.
00:58:41.140 | Never fall into heresy.
00:58:43.140 | Recognize that there's much being taught out there about the Holy Spirit.
00:58:48.140 | That is, yes, blasphemous.
00:58:53.140 | Here's false doctrine.
00:58:54.140 | Here's the truth.
00:58:55.140 | Make sure that some of you do not run past the truth into error on the other side.
00:59:01.140 | Because without the Holy Spirit, there is nothing.
00:59:05.140 | Nothing.
00:59:06.140 | And his name is not to be dreaded.
00:59:14.140 | How dare we?
00:59:18.140 | The father and the son dwell in us through the spirit of God.
00:59:27.140 | It didn't take me long in my Christian pilgrimage to know I didn't have much of an intellect.
00:59:42.140 | But through my dear friend George Mueller, I learned that I just might be weak enough to pray.
00:59:52.140 | And that the spirit of God can take a man with not much talent, not much knowledge, not much ability.
01:00:01.140 | And change him into something else.
01:00:05.140 | And I will never let go of this.
01:00:08.140 | Whether I'm never asked back here or not.
01:00:13.140 | The Holy Spirit is a person of the Trinity.
01:00:17.140 | Who should be, who should be the answer that comes out of our mouth every time someone says.
01:00:26.140 | How have you advanced?
01:00:29.140 | How did you preach that way?
01:00:31.140 | From where did your boldness come?
01:00:40.140 | Luke chapter 5.
01:00:43.140 | Verse 15.
01:00:44.140 | But the news about him was spreading even farther.
01:00:48.140 | And large crowds were gathering to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses.
01:00:52.140 | But Jesus himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.
01:00:58.140 | Do you know in many conferences of the old men.
01:01:02.140 | If they had a conference like this, they'd have a prayer tent set up.
01:01:05.140 | And some men wouldn't leave it.
01:01:07.140 | Would stay there 24 hours a day praying.
01:01:10.140 | That revival might break out.
01:01:12.140 | That men might be changed.
01:01:14.140 | That souls might be saved.
01:01:16.140 | Here we see news about Jesus is going everywhere.
01:01:19.140 | It's spreading farther and farther.
01:01:21.140 | Crowds are chasing him down.
01:01:23.140 | But Jesus would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.
01:01:28.140 | Look at chapter 6.
01:01:30.140 | Verse 12.
01:01:31.140 | It was at this time that he went off to the mountain to pray.
01:01:34.140 | And he spent the whole night in prayer to God.
01:01:37.140 | He has to make an important decision with regard to those who he would call his apostles.
01:01:43.140 | And he spends the entire night in prayer to God.
01:01:47.140 | Did anyone have wisdom like Christ had wisdom?
01:01:50.140 | Did anyone grasp the will of God like Messiah?
01:01:55.140 | We know from Isaiah that God spoke to him in the mornings.
01:02:03.140 | No one ever had communion as he had communion.
01:02:06.140 | And yet he goes off to pray.
01:02:09.140 | Then go to chapter 9.
01:02:12.140 | And verse 18.
01:02:14.140 | And it happened while he was praying alone.
01:02:17.140 | The disciples were with him and he questioned them saying.
01:02:22.140 | Isn't that amazing?
01:02:23.140 | Another another prayer reference.
01:02:26.140 | Verse 28 of the same chapter.
01:02:28.140 | Some eight days after these sayings, he took along Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray.
01:02:42.140 | You may gather a group of young men to teach them to preach.
01:02:45.140 | And if you do that, you do well.
01:02:47.140 | Do it more.
01:02:49.140 | Do it more.
01:02:51.140 | But how often have you called their names and gathered them to pray?
01:02:58.140 | How often?
01:03:01.140 | Chapter 11.
01:03:03.140 | Verse 1.
01:03:06.140 | It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray.
01:03:16.140 | Just as John also taught his disciples.
01:03:21.140 | Do you know what's so amazing about this?
01:03:23.140 | It's what we do not see.
01:03:28.140 | Jesus did some amazing things, did he not?
01:03:33.140 | Isn't it amazing?
01:03:36.140 | That we never hear the disciples come to Jesus and say, teach us to teach like you teach.
01:03:43.140 | Teach us to cast out demons as you cast out demons.
01:03:47.140 | Teach us to walk on water as you walk on water.
01:03:52.140 | Teach us to raise the dead.
01:03:54.140 | Teach us to heal the sick.
01:03:56.140 | If I'm going to ask a man to teach me something, it's going to be the thing that I find most spectacular in the life of that man.
01:04:07.140 | I honestly believe that the most spectacular thing about Jesus was his communion with God in prayer.
01:04:22.140 | Senator Draven Hill one time shared with us about a man of prayer.
01:04:29.140 | That he came upon him while he was praying, came through the door and the man was praying.
01:04:36.140 | And he stopped dead in his tracks and he backed out of the room.
01:04:42.140 | And one young man asked him, why did you back out of the room?
01:04:46.140 | And he said, because you don't turn your back on royalty.
01:04:52.140 | I never identified that man or Leonard Ravenhill never identified that man, but I think I identified him.
01:05:01.140 | And I remember the first time I met him.
01:05:05.140 | Old man.
01:05:08.140 | And he heard that I had just pulled up in the parking lot and I had found out that he had a deep love for me, even though he never saw me.
01:05:16.140 | And he rushed out of the church into the parking lot as I'm getting out of my car.
01:05:23.140 | And he looked at me. And I just broke down weeping. The love. The life of Christ in him.
01:05:41.140 | Brothers. The Christian life is supernatural or it's not.
01:05:51.140 | And I have been I've had the privilege at times of walking with old men.
01:05:58.140 | Now I'm one of them, but I've not attained to what they attained.
01:06:04.140 | Such a fragrance of Christ.
01:06:08.140 | Such a beauty, such a brokenness.
01:06:13.140 | And such a power.
01:06:19.140 | I recognize that they had been with Jesus.
01:06:34.140 | The most spectacular thing about our Lord.
01:06:38.140 | Was his communion with the father.
01:06:40.140 | Oh, what what it would have been like.
01:06:44.140 | Such reverence and yet such familiarity.
01:06:50.140 | Beware, pastor. Beware.
01:06:55.140 | You walk up into the pulpit.
01:06:58.140 | You greet the church wonderful with joy, excitement.
01:07:03.140 | Brothers, it's great to have you here today.
01:07:05.140 | It's so wonderful to see all of you.
01:07:07.140 | I hope we have a wonderful time in the Lord.
01:07:09.140 | Now, let's pray our dear father, who when you do that, I think you do not pray much.
01:07:16.140 | I'm scared of you.
01:07:18.140 | I don't care what comes out of your mouth after that.
01:07:22.140 | Do you realize what you do you realize?
01:07:25.140 | You know, we talk about the irreverence of others. Physician, heal thyself.
01:07:30.140 | No, this is real.
01:07:34.140 | It's why sometimes many times when I pray, especially when I'm praying for someone who's who's sick or burdened.
01:07:40.140 | I say, oh, Lord, I know you hear me.
01:07:45.140 | This is not a small thing.
01:07:50.140 | I spent a big part of the afternoon on Monday with Dr. MacArthur.
01:07:55.140 | When I when I before I walked in, I settled my heart.
01:07:59.140 | Why?
01:08:03.140 | My honor of him.
01:08:08.140 | He's earned that in my heart.
01:08:11.140 | Watch your speech, Paul.
01:08:13.140 | You're often careless.
01:08:17.140 | He's one of God's.
01:08:19.140 | Do you see?
01:08:21.140 | It's the same way with prayer.
01:08:23.140 | Settle your heart.
01:08:26.140 | The wisdom of Ecclesiastes should be familiar to you.
01:08:37.140 | Be careful.
01:08:38.140 | Oh, in the presence of God and in prayer, there can be such joy.
01:08:44.140 | There can be such praise and such worship, but never forget.
01:08:49.140 | He is your father.
01:08:52.140 | But your father is the king of heaven.
01:08:56.140 | He's the king of heaven.
01:08:58.140 | Now, I want you to go quickly because I want you to see something in verse two, he says.
01:09:03.140 | And he said to them, when you pray, say, OK, now, brothers, look at me, look at me.
01:09:12.140 | Let's not be teenagers here.
01:09:15.140 | A teenager will ask the parent, Dad, how should I do this?
01:09:19.140 | The dad says very clearly do it this way.
01:09:22.140 | And then the teenager does not.
01:09:27.140 | So the only time in Scripture someone comes to God in the flesh and says, teach us to pray.
01:09:34.140 | And he says, pray then in this way.
01:09:37.140 | And very few people do.
01:09:40.140 | It's not that we are to repeat the words as though it was a pagan ritual.
01:09:46.140 | But our master.
01:09:50.140 | The great one who communed with God is now going to tell us how to pray and to get a full look at it,
01:09:57.140 | I want you to run over to Matthew quickly.
01:10:03.140 | Chapter six.
01:10:08.140 | Lord, how do we pray?
01:10:10.140 | Verse nine, pray then in this way.
01:10:14.140 | Is that not clear?
01:10:18.140 | Now, again, I want to iterate that it does not mean repeat these words, but he's giving us a structure for prayer.
01:10:28.140 | Pray then in this way, our father who is in heaven.
01:10:32.140 | Have you ever heard a preacher say, you know, Abba means daddy?
01:10:37.140 | No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't.
01:10:42.140 | No. I've seen some languages in which you can do that, particularly in Africa,
01:10:51.140 | where a term of endearment with regard to a father does not lose the reverence of the father.
01:10:59.140 | We say daddy. No.
01:11:04.140 | There's no way in this terminology to to exaggerate the endearment, to exaggerate the love of the father.
01:11:13.140 | There's just no way to do it.
01:11:15.140 | But at the same time, he is your father, but he is your father in heaven.
01:11:21.140 | And you must remember that and you say, well, how do I do this?
01:11:25.140 | You hold both things in attention and that tension seems to work itself out as you study scripture.
01:11:32.140 | And as you pray, as you understand more and more about the attributes and virtue and wonder and beauty of God,
01:11:38.140 | as you understand more about the power and place of our redemption, it just starts working itself out.
01:11:44.140 | But be very careful.
01:11:46.140 | He is your father, but your father is in heaven and he's the king of glory.
01:11:53.140 | There have been such times of joy in prayer that you would think we've lost our mind.
01:12:07.140 | And yet there can be a settled reverence in that.
01:12:13.140 | But he's our father who is in heaven and then one petition, three petitions, three in one.
01:12:21.140 | Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done.
01:12:30.140 | What's going on here?
01:12:32.140 | Well, first of all, let's just look at these separately.
01:12:35.140 | Hallowed be your name.
01:12:37.140 | Holy be your name.
01:12:40.140 | So in all praying, the ambition, the singular ambition of every prayer we ever make is that his name be hallowed.
01:12:56.140 | And what does that mean?
01:12:58.140 | That it be separated.
01:13:00.140 | Have you ever heard someone say, keep God number one?
01:13:04.140 | That's a foolish statement because you're assuming God is number one in a long list of things.
01:13:12.140 | You should never say something like that because God is not in the same category with everything else.
01:13:19.140 | He's in a category all to himself.
01:13:22.140 | He's not at the top of a list.
01:13:25.140 | He's not on the list.
01:13:27.140 | And when we pray, hallowed be thy name, what we are praying is, Lord, I pray that your name would be separated from all other names and raised above them and esteemed above all other names.
01:13:42.140 | And I pray this for my heart.
01:13:45.140 | I pray this for my wife.
01:13:47.140 | I pray this for my children.
01:13:49.140 | I pray this for the church.
01:13:51.140 | And I pray this for the nations.
01:13:55.140 | That in the heart of every man, woman, and child, that in the beating heart, there would be one singular ambition.
01:14:05.140 | That they would see you and esteem you above all other things with no competing loyalties.
01:14:14.140 | And that's what purity of heart means in the Beatitudes.
01:14:18.140 | Blessed are the pure of heart.
01:14:19.140 | Blessed are those who have no competing loyalties in their heart.
01:14:24.140 | Do you see?
01:14:25.140 | That's a prayer for me.
01:14:27.140 | That's a prayer for my loved one.
01:14:29.140 | That's a prayer for the church.
01:14:30.140 | That's a prayer for the nations.
01:14:32.140 | God, in the grand scheme of things, in the gigantic list of everything I could ask of you, above all things, I desire that your name in the heart of all men be separate and exalted and highly esteemed.
01:14:52.140 | And then, along with that, because that name is the name of a king, your kingdom come.
01:15:07.140 | I want your reign to come in me in a greater way.
01:15:13.140 | Now, young men, let me share with you something.
01:15:15.140 | I, again, what I first believed as a young man has been proven wrong.
01:15:22.140 | And I guess it's because the more light in which you stand, the more darkness in you, you see.
01:15:32.140 | These last few years of my life, my sicknesses, my trials.
01:15:37.140 | They were all keys to open up chambers of my heart and remove idols.
01:15:52.140 | So when we pray thy kingdom come in me, Lord, all these little chambers, all these little idols, all this mixture be done with it, Lord.
01:16:07.140 | That every area of my life, every thought be brought into submission, that your kingdom advance through me, in me.
01:16:19.140 | Your reign, your sovereignty, your kingship.
01:16:23.140 | And my wife, my wife, oh, Lord, that the kingdom advance in her.
01:16:27.140 | And my children, my children also.
01:16:29.140 | Let it roll, Lord.
01:16:33.140 | And in the world.
01:16:37.140 | In the West.
01:16:40.140 | In Africa.
01:16:42.140 | The islands of the sea.
01:16:44.140 | Mongolia.
01:16:45.140 | Japan.
01:16:47.140 | Lord, don't forget Japan.
01:16:50.140 | China.
01:16:52.140 | Norway.
01:16:53.140 | Paraguay.
01:17:00.140 | Let everyone come under your kingdom.
01:17:05.140 | Be translated from a kingdom of darkness into a kingdom of light.
01:17:10.140 | You say, Brother Paul, that will never happen entirely.
01:17:13.140 | I'll let God decide that.
01:17:18.140 | Thy will be done.
01:17:20.140 | Because kingdom and will.
01:17:22.140 | A king has a will.
01:17:24.140 | And to be in that kingdom is to obey that.
01:17:27.140 | I want you to think about something that is spectacular when you understand this prayer.
01:17:32.140 | This should be you should be having prayer meetings in your churches.
01:17:38.140 | You should be having corporate prayer meetings in your churches.
01:17:41.140 | And how many of them start off by praying for ailments?
01:17:45.140 | Now, we need to pray for ailments.
01:17:48.140 | But the church needs to be taught.
01:17:50.140 | This is our great ambition that goes before everything.
01:17:55.140 | This is the type of praying that should be seen in congregational praying.
01:17:59.140 | This is the kind of praying that advances missions.
01:18:02.140 | God, I will have no peace.
01:18:06.140 | I will give you no rest.
01:18:09.140 | Until your name is hallowed in the heart of every man, woman, and child.
01:18:16.140 | Until your kingdom advances.
01:18:18.140 | Until your will is complete.
01:18:22.140 | This is my ambition.
01:18:26.140 | And then every other prayer.
01:18:29.140 | The prayer for an ailing church member.
01:18:31.140 | The prayer for everything in our life.
01:18:33.140 | The prayer in every trial fits into this.
01:18:37.140 | So that we say something like this.
01:18:41.140 | Father, I hurt.
01:18:45.140 | And I'm weak.
01:18:48.140 | And I wish you would take this away from me.
01:18:53.140 | And if by taking these ailments and these trials away from me.
01:18:58.140 | If by taking them away.
01:19:00.140 | Your name will be more greatly hallowed.
01:19:04.140 | And your kingdom will advance with greater speed.
01:19:07.140 | And your will will be more complete in me and everyone else.
01:19:10.140 | Then Lord, take it away from me.
01:19:13.140 | Take it away.
01:19:14.140 | But Lord, if through this ailment, if through this trial, if through these things.
01:19:20.140 | Your name is more greatly hallowed.
01:19:23.140 | And your kingdom comes with greater force.
01:19:26.140 | And even I myself am brought into greater subjection to your will.
01:19:31.140 | Then let it stay.
01:19:33.140 | Let it stay.
01:19:34.140 | Let it stay.
01:19:39.140 | You see that.
01:19:44.140 | When I see a sick child.
01:19:47.140 | I don't go thy will be done.
01:19:50.140 | Because I'm not taught to pray that way.
01:19:53.140 | I know I stand in that context.
01:19:57.140 | I know his will will be done.
01:19:59.140 | I trust in his sovereignty.
01:20:01.140 | But that's not the way children pray.
01:20:03.140 | I look and go Lord, I desire, I am burdened for them to be healed.
01:20:08.140 | And I will wrestle with this matter until you say no.
01:20:14.140 | We live a life of prayer.
01:20:17.140 | But here's what you need to see.
01:20:19.140 | We not only pray that his name be hallowed.
01:20:21.140 | We not only pray that his kingdom come.
01:20:23.140 | We not only wrestle that his will be done.
01:20:26.140 | But in that praying we have made a commitment to labor for it.
01:20:31.140 | To work for it.
01:20:32.140 | Remember the one who communed with his father in Mark chapter 1.
01:20:35.140 | Says let's get up and go preach because that's why I came.
01:20:39.140 | It's both things.
01:20:41.140 | You do not let go of the one to take hold of the other.
01:20:45.140 | But you do both.
01:20:48.140 | You do both.
01:20:50.140 | Now let me show you something that will transform your life and your church.
01:20:55.140 | It's verse 11.
01:21:00.140 | Give us this day our daily bread.
01:21:05.140 | And you say.
01:21:09.140 | If I had a dime for every time.
01:21:11.140 | The main point brought out of this verse was.
01:21:13.140 | He doesn't say give me my bread forever.
01:21:16.140 | He just says give it each day.
01:21:18.140 | That's not the meaning here at all.
01:21:21.140 | It's there.
01:21:22.140 | But it's not the truth to be conveyed.
01:21:25.140 | Do you know what it's saying?
01:21:27.140 | It's saying this Lord, the ambition of my life.
01:21:30.140 | And imagine when a preacher says this.
01:21:32.140 | Imagine when the entire church says this.
01:21:37.140 | Lord, the ambition of my life.
01:21:41.140 | All I care about.
01:21:43.140 | In all these other details.
01:21:45.140 | The only thing I am chiefly concerned about.
01:21:48.140 | Is that your name be hallowed.
01:21:50.140 | Your kingdom come.
01:21:51.140 | And your will be done.
01:21:53.140 | Now, Lord, as a man committed to live for these things.
01:21:59.140 | Provide for me what I need.
01:22:02.140 | So that I might serve thee.
01:22:04.140 | That is never separated.
01:22:06.140 | Give me my daily bread.
01:22:08.140 | Give me the resources.
01:22:10.140 | Provide for me.
01:22:11.140 | That is never separated from this great commission call.
01:22:15.140 | And this great commission prayer.
01:22:17.140 | To do what?
01:22:18.140 | To serve him.
01:22:20.140 | To make these things happen.
01:22:23.140 | Do you see that?
01:22:24.140 | Lord, I don't need to be rich.
01:22:34.140 | I don't need luxury.
01:22:36.140 | I don't need refinement.
01:22:39.140 | Lord, but I do.
01:22:43.140 | I have committed to your cause.
01:22:46.140 | And I do need the resources.
01:22:48.140 | Feed me so that I can labor for you.
01:22:51.140 | Clothe me so that I can labor for you.
01:22:54.140 | Lord, you've put it in my heart to help believers around the world.
01:22:58.140 | Lord, I petition you.
01:23:01.140 | Give me what I need.
01:23:03.140 | And I promise it will not stick to my hand.
01:23:05.140 | It will go forth and feed your people.
01:23:08.140 | Help me, Lord.
01:23:10.140 | So we're praying.
01:23:12.140 | But we're not lost in some monkish, super spiritual behavior.
01:23:18.140 | We're laboring.
01:23:20.140 | And then he goes on and he says,
01:23:23.140 | And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
01:23:27.140 | Verse 12.
01:23:28.140 | The only thing that can hinder you and me.
01:23:34.140 | And dare I say it?
01:23:37.140 | Not even principalities and powers and mights and dominions can hinder us ultimately.
01:23:45.140 | The only thing that can hinder us is sin.
01:23:50.140 | Unconvested sin that breaketh not the sinner.
01:23:55.140 | To be holy.
01:23:58.140 | Years ago, Leonard Ravenhill gave me a track.
01:24:02.140 | Said others can, but you cannot.
01:24:07.140 | Others may push their Christian liberties to the ultimate end.
01:24:12.140 | But if you want God's hand on your life, you cannot.
01:24:16.140 | If you want to be used of God, you cannot.
01:24:19.140 | But none of us have entered into what some wrongly call a perfection.
01:24:27.140 | And we will never enter into a perfection until we're called home to glory.
01:24:31.140 | But we can be broken.
01:24:33.140 | We can be God fearing.
01:24:36.140 | And we can be broken.
01:24:38.140 | And we can be transparent.
01:24:41.140 | And we can ask men to pray for us.
01:24:44.140 | And we can share with them our weaknesses.
01:24:46.140 | And we can just keep going forward in the grace of Christ.
01:24:49.140 | Broken men are dangerous.
01:24:54.140 | And then do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
01:25:00.140 | The same.
01:25:03.140 | Do you know what this means?
01:25:04.140 | You wake up in the morning, your eyes are opened.
01:25:07.140 | And you dare not move a quarter of an inch to the left or the right without crying out for grace.
01:25:12.140 | Because you even know that even in those first few seconds you could betray him.
01:25:18.140 | I need thee every hour.
01:25:22.140 | Your problem, brother, is not that you're too weak.
01:25:24.140 | Your problem is you don't know how weak you are.
01:25:28.140 | Your need of him to pray for grace.
01:25:31.140 | Pray for grace, especially if you've decided that you're going to enter into the battle.
01:25:37.140 | Pray for grace.
01:25:38.140 | Pray for grace.
01:25:39.140 | He hates you.
01:25:40.140 | He hates you.
01:25:43.140 | The enemy hates you.
01:25:46.140 | And make no mistake about it.
01:25:48.140 | He'll destroy you in a millisecond apart from this sustaining, empowering grace of God.
01:25:57.140 | Oh, how weak you are.
01:26:01.140 | Yet how strong can you be in the power of the Holy Spirit?
01:26:08.140 | Amen.
01:26:11.140 | For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
01:26:24.140 | How do I say it?
01:26:29.140 | I think sometimes with all our cold propositions and our lack of prayer, we've killed the wonder of it all.
01:26:39.140 | Glory bound we are.
01:26:44.140 | We serve a king who is incorruptible.
01:26:47.140 | Men were made to do this.
01:26:48.140 | We serve a king.
01:26:50.140 | Oh, a spectacular king whose beauty is so great if you catch one glimpse of it in prayer,
01:26:56.140 | it would fracture your psyche into 10 million fragments.
01:27:02.140 | The beauty, not just there's holiness, there's righteousness, there's power,
01:27:07.140 | but there's wonder and beauty beyond what the mind can conceive.
01:27:11.140 | Even the most sanctified mind will have to be transformed to behold his beauty.
01:27:16.140 | And we get to serve him.
01:27:18.140 | And then there's a kingdom, a kingdom that will never end.
01:27:22.140 | I think about the founders of this country and how much they gave to hope to build a righteous land.
01:27:29.140 | A few generations pass after their death, it crumbles into nothing.
01:27:33.140 | And even if it somehow finds a renewal, it will sooner or later crumble to dust.
01:27:40.140 | Man's days are like grass is the flower of the field.
01:27:42.140 | So he flourishes when the wind passes over him.
01:27:44.140 | He is no more in the place, acknowledges him no more.
01:27:47.140 | But we serve someone who has numbered every hair on our heads.
01:27:53.140 | We serve someone whose love.
01:27:59.140 | You know what, the preaching is painful.
01:28:02.140 | Do you know why?
01:28:04.140 | Especially when you talk about this one, of which I'm speaking now.
01:28:09.140 | Preaching is painful.
01:28:11.140 | I don't know how men do it.
01:28:16.140 | Because even the wonder that you know about him is nothing.
01:28:21.140 | But even that you can't explain with speech.
01:28:25.140 | I sometimes hate words.
01:28:27.140 | In the middle of the night praying, there's no language.
01:28:31.140 | And when you're preaching, words seem so feeble and just limping on.
01:28:37.140 | His glory, his goodness, his kindness, and what awaits you.
01:28:42.140 | If you could catch one glimpse of glory, you would die 10,000 deaths to make it back there for just one second.
01:28:51.140 | Oh brothers, you are dearly loved.
01:28:56.140 | You are so dearly loved that it pains me to tell you because I cannot tell you enough.
01:29:04.140 | Let me end by saying this.
01:29:06.140 | I want to correct something in your heart.
01:29:09.140 | If you hear nothing from everything that I've said, hear this.
01:29:14.140 | You need to understand.
01:29:16.140 | The Son of God did not become incarnate and suffer the wrath of God and die for the penalty.
01:29:26.140 | So that the first time you look at him in glory, you see a scowl of disappointment on his face.
01:29:34.140 | I know that's what you think.
01:29:36.140 | I know that's what you're tempted to believe.
01:29:41.140 | Oh, he will be so much happier to see you than you will be to see him because his capacity for joy is so great.
01:29:53.140 | He loves you.
01:29:54.140 | You must go in the strength of that love.
01:29:58.140 | You must go in the strength of that love.
01:30:05.140 | Sometimes people fix their eyes on a man who has an extraordinary love for their wife.
01:30:11.140 | And they attribute that extraordinary love to the man.
01:30:15.140 | Maybe he's not extraordinary at all.
01:30:17.140 | Maybe he has an extraordinary wife.
01:30:19.140 | And her extraordinary beauty and virtue draws out of his stony heart a passion like no other man.
01:30:26.140 | That's the same way.
01:30:27.140 | You see someone, a missionary, a preacher, that seems to just burn with a love for Christ.
01:30:34.140 | You need to understand that this person was born of the same fallen stalk of Adam as you
01:30:40.140 | and was regenerated by the same spirit.
01:30:43.140 | What I have found in church history is that those that seem to rise above others in regard to passion,
01:30:49.140 | there's only one reason.
01:30:51.140 | They've seen more of Christ than we have.
01:30:55.140 | Go after Christ.
01:30:58.140 | Do you want passion?
01:31:00.140 | You should come to a conference.
01:31:02.140 | It's absolutely wonderful.
01:31:03.140 | But all this preaching and all this music without the Holy Spirit can only wind you up like a toy soldier.
01:31:09.140 | And in three days you'll wind down and find yourself with the same apathy.
01:31:14.140 | Look for Christ.
01:31:16.140 | Look for greater and greater pictures of Christ in the Bible and in prayer.
01:31:22.140 | Seek Him. Seek Him. Seek Him. Seek Him with all your heart.
01:31:27.140 | Cry out to Him, "I want to see your face.
01:31:30.140 | I will give you no rest until I see you in a clearer light.
01:31:39.140 | I must have you.
01:31:41.140 | I must have you.
01:31:43.140 | I must have you."
01:31:48.140 | In such praying, He delights.
01:31:54.140 | In such praying, He delights.
01:31:58.140 | May God bless you with all the blessings that were purchased for you through the blood of Christ.
01:32:10.140 | Amen.
01:32:15.140 | [applause]
01:32:26.140 | [BLANK_AUDIO]