Welcome back, everyone. Welcome back. We're going to begin with a song. We're going to begin with a song on the Great Commission, one of the great mission hymns of history written by a pastor who had moved to plant churches in China and written for some of the many martyrs that had given their lives in the early 20th century.

It's called Facing a Task and Finish. Let's stand up. Facing a task and finish that calls us to our feet. God be glad that we've finished. Reduce our soft beliefs. We who rejoice to know thee revealed before thy throne the solemn pledge we owe thee to go and make thee known.

When other Gods beside me hold their unhindered sway, when forces that defy me defy thee still today, with none to heed their crying, for I am love and light. A number of souls are dying and passing to the night. We go to all the world with kingdom hope and world.

No other name has power to save but Jesus Christ the Lord. And we bear the torch that flaming fell from the hands of those who gave their lives proclaiming that Jesus died and rose. Our tears the same conviction, the same promising joys. Fight by the same ambition to thee we yield our powers.

We go to all the world with kingdom hope and world. No other name has power to save but Jesus Christ the Lord. O Father who sustained them, O Spirit who died, Savior whose love has trained them to toil with steel and iron. From cowardice defend us, from lethargy awake.

For from thy merits send us to labor for thy sake. We go to all the world with kingdom hope and world. No other name has power to save but Jesus Christ the Lord. Wonderful. We've been having the privilege of talking with many of you here involved in church worship every week and singing.

One of the concerns is always to find songs that have energy but also equally with content. And a number of our writers last year started to look at the concept of the Apostle Paul and boasting in the cross. And Matt Boswell primarily along with Matt Papa and Brian Fowler created this song called All My Boast Is In Jesus which we hope is going to be helpful.

If you don't know it, John are you going to sing the first verse? Is that right? John's going to sing the first verse and we'll take it from there. Here we go. What wonder of wonders that love is this that Christ would die for me. His goodness, His merit, His righteousness.

The sinner's only plea. Oh foolish friar, be crucified. The work is finished. All my hope is in Jesus. All my hope is His love. And I will glory forever in what the cross has done. Wonderful. Can we go back to verse 1? Verse 1. What wonder of wonders what love is this that Christ would die for me.

His goodness, His merit, His righteousness. The sinner's only plea. Oh foolish friar, be crucified. The work is finished. All my boast is in Jesus. All my hope is His love. And I will glory forever in what the cross has done. Now fully forgiven my life is filled with grace that's undeserved.

For mercy that flowed down that sacred hill that raises now return. Rise up my soul and bless the Lord who else is worthy. All my boast is in Jesus. All my hope is His love. And I will glory forever in what the cross has done. Praise the one forever blessed.

Him alone my heart adores. And I will boast in nothing less than the love of Christ my Lord. Praise the one forever blessed. Him alone my heart adores. And I will boast in nothing less than the love of Christ my Lord. I boast not in graciousness, strength, or might but in the grace of God.

I glory in weakness to live is Christ in plenty or in want. That I may know that all may see His power within me. All my boast is in Jesus. All my hope is His love. And I will glory forever in what the cross has done. Now I stand in His freedom, ransomed clean in His sight.

Oh and I cannot be ashamed for my boast is Jesus Christ. My boast is Jesus Christ. My boast is Jesus Christ. Oh to see the dawn of the darkest day, Christ on the road to Calvary. Tread by sinful men, torn and beaten then, nailed to a cross of wood.

Oh to see the pain written on your face, bearing the awesome weight of sin. And every bitter thought, every evil deed, crowned in your bloodstained brow. This the power of the cross. Christ became sin for us, took the blame, and bore the wrath we stand forgiven at the cross.

And now the daylight flees, now the ground beneath quakes as its maker bows his head. And curtain torn in two, dead ribs to life finish the victory cry. This the power of the cross. Christ became sin for us, took the blame, and bore the wrath we stand forgiven at the cross.

And oh to see my name written in those four through years of suffering, I am free. And death is crushed to death, and life is mine to live, one through you selfless love. This the power of the cross. Son of God, saved for us, what a love, what a cost we stand forgiven at the cross.

When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of Glory died, my riches gained, I count the loss, and for content all my pride. I'm going to be preaching from Mark chapter 1. Mark chapter 1 and verse 29. And immediately after they came out of the synagogue, they came into the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John.

Now Simon's mother-in-law was lying sick with a fever, and immediately they spoke to Jesus about her. And he came to her and raised her up, taking her by the hand, and the fever left her, and she waited on them. When evening came, after the sun had set, they began bringing to him all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed, and the whole city had gathered at the door.

And he healed many who were ill with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he was not permitting the demons to speak, because they knew who he was. In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.

Simon and his companions searched for him. They found him and said to him, "Everyone is looking for you." He said to them, "Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also, for that is what I came for." Let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Father, I come before you in the name. His name. I know that you hear me. I love you, and I praise you, and I magnify you. For there is none like you in the heavens, or the earth, or under the earth. You raise your hand, and no man can hold it down.

You lay your hand on the table, and no man can pry it up. You and you alone are God. And all the gods of this world are vanity and nothing. Father, we are so small. You know. We are so very small. So many words. So little power. Oh God, we need you.

The men gathered here need you. We need the wisdom of your word. But we also need the power, the life of your spirit. What are we, Lord, that you would ask men like us to take your gospel to the ends of the earth? Help your people. And let your power in them.

Be as high as the commission you have given them. Help us, Lord. In Jesus name. Amen. Before I look at the reason for which I was brought here, I want to say something. Conferences like this are wonderful. And they're helpful. I've been both behind the pulpit in conferences like these.

I've been a missionary on the foreign field who came into conferences like these and just felt lost and small and unseen. Let me give you something of a philosophical question. Why would God plant the most beautiful rose that he ever created in a forest through which neither man nor angel would ever walk?

How does God get glory from that rose? He gets glory from that rose because he sees it. 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. Or you've authored a book. Or, heaven forbid, you have a podcast.

Or you get to preach in places like this. And that every man that's in this pulpit this week would tell you that is not true. There are some of you out there that have pastored for 40 years, 35 people. And you have forgotten more about God than I will ever know.

And before the throne of God, you have a better name than I. Do not judge with earthly judgment. Judge with righteous judgment. And for you young men, I give you a warning. I would dare say again that every man that's been in this pulpit, they went through years and years of anonymity.

I know I did. No one knew my name. Ministry appeared to be a failure. Three steps forward, two steps back. Struggles. Three steps forward, two steps back. And I'm sure there are times on the mission field wanting to write the supporters and say, just stop. I'm not worthy of the $350 a month that you're sending.

And I fear for some of you young men. You get straight A's in Bible college. And then straight A's in your master's degree. Department. And then, I don't know, you take a big church or, again, heaven forbid, your podcast. And your followers. I fear for you. I fear for your soul.

You are nothing except what you are before God in the righteousness of Christ. And you are nothing except what you are before the throne in prayer. And you are nothing except what you are to the smallest saint in the congregation. I hear so many men today that talk about how they love the church.

They love the church. And I look at them and I must say, I don't think you love the church. I think you love your ministry in the church. Do you want to know how much you love the church? You love the church as much as you love the smallest saint in that church who can least contribute to your vision.

As you have done it to the least of these, my brethren. When I was in Peru and I was pastoring, there was people that had come from the mountains in order to escape the war. And there was this one little lady. She was about four foot ten, mountain woman.

And every time I came down from the pulpit, she would be there to lecture me. She told me I was wrong, that women can pastor because Rachel was a shepherdess. And one day after she talked to me at length, one of the deacons came and said, "Pastor, why? Why do you stand there every Sunday and listen to her?" And I said, "Sometimes when Jesus comes to church, he dresses in very strange clothing." And that's true.

If there is one text that is scalded upon my mind and engraved in my heart, as you've done it to the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me. I just wanted to say that before the sermon. Now, you saw maybe on the handout, it said, you know, why?

About missions, what makes missions so difficult. And then there's the Ephesians 6 passage. "We wrestle not with flesh and blood, but powers and principalities, mites and dominions." What we need to understand is this. The Great Commission, conversion itself is an absolute impossibility. It's an absolute impossibility. You must understand that there are no carnal means that you can use to pry open any gate, any door.

The heart of a man and the world itself is like Jericho. It is tightly shut up. None come out and none go in. If only we had to deal with the radical depravity of man's heart, we would be impotent. But it goes far beyond that. Ephesians 6, 1st Timothy, chapter 4, 1 and 2.

We cannot deny that there is an evil one who rules over this world to some degree. And you and I are impotent before all these things. We are impotent. And that is why I always tell young men, the more you lean upon the arm of the flesh, the more, the less you will see the power of God.

And you can lean upon the arm of the flesh even though you are a great Bible scholar. And you possess all wisdom and all knowledge. But you can still lean upon the flesh by leaning upon your intellect and by leaning upon your eloquence. You know, I think we've redefined powerful preaching in a disgusting manner.

We seem to have come to believe that powerful preaching is this. A man stands before a conference of pastors and preaches with such an intellect, with such eloquence, with such style, that it causes all the pastors to put their head in their hands and lament the fact that they're not as gifted.

That is not powerful preaching. Do you know what powerful preaching, how you can find it, discern it? Two ways. Usually both ways are not found in a single man as it was in Charles Spurgeon or Martin Lloyd-Jones. But two things. Number one, souls are converted. Souls are converted. They're actually converted under the preaching.

And number two. The smallest saint is fed. Nurtured. Grows. That's powerful preaching. Now, neither the conversion of a soul or the edification of the church is a possibility that belongs to us. If we are to be used in any one of these two endeavors, then you and I must cling to the wisdom of God and the power of God.

And we must do nothing separate from Him. You know, sometimes I think, you know, when the disciples came to that little demon-possessed boy and they couldn't cast out the demon. And in one place it says it's because their lack of faith. In another place it says, you know, this kind only comes out by prayer.

And I've often wondered, what's really going on there? Because Jesus gave them authority over the demonic. And this is what I've come to believe. They thought that whatever authority they had, that it resided in them as though it had permanent residence. What you have to understand is John chapter 15.

He is the vine. We are the branches. Authority. Power. Wisdom. It's not something given to a man or that he attains by the time he's in his 60s. It is something that flows from the throne of Christ. This continual abiding in Christ. And young man, you can have really good theology and still not be abiding in Christ.

You can become so talented, so knowledgeable, that you no longer, and yes, I'm going to use the word, you no longer feel your need of Him. Every trial, every war, every reckoning, every breaking that goes on in your life has one purpose, to drive you into ongoing communion with Christ.

Not just through studying good books, but on your knees. When we come to the book of Mark, it begins in chapter 1. Look at verses, look at verse 15 or 14. And after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God and saying, "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe the gospel, the beginning of the great commission." The beginning of the great commission. And if you look down in verse 38 of chapter 1, "He said to them, 'Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also, for that is what I came for.'" I hear today about preaching, and preaching, and preaching, and teaching men to preach, and teaching men to preach.

Wonderful, but there are some things you cannot teach a man. There are some things you cannot give a man. Through any amount of seminary training, and that is for that man to feel his need of Christ. And to walk fearfully in dependence upon him. I read you two texts, both of them have to do with the great commission.

They're prominent, they're strong. Couched in between that is also a great amount of ministerial activity. But the pivotal point, the truth of this passage is to see the prayer life of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That he, proclaiming that he had come to inaugurate the kingdom, that he had come to preach, and yet we look at him, prayer, prayer, prayer, prayer.

I have found that even in reading the scripture, and studying the scripture, there can be flesh and pride. Because at least when I get in a conversation, I can show everyone how much I know. But in prayer, secret abiding prayer, there is no glory before men. There is only glory from God.

This great commission is not going to go anywhere with all your expounding, and all your preaching, and all your diagramming. It's going nowhere without prayer. And I would say with Charles Spurgeon, I would rather teach one man to pray, than ten men to preach. I'd rather teach one man to pray, than ten men to preach.

Now I want you to look at something here in the book of Mark, chapter 1. We're going to go through this chapter 1 rather quickly, and we're going to focus on just one word. Immediately. Mark, chapter 1, verse 12. "Immediately the Spirit impelled him to go out into the wilderness." Verse 18.

"Immediately they left their nets and followed him." Verse 20. "Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went away to follow him." Verse 21. "They went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and began to teach." Verse 28.

"Immediately the news about him spread everywhere into all the surrounding district of Galilee." Verse 29. "And immediately after they came out of the synagogue, they came into the house of Simon and Andrew." Verse 30. "Now Simon's mother-in-law was lying sick with a fever, and immediately they spoke to Jesus about her." I believe that if you read through the book of Mark correctly, you will be out of breath.

Many New Testament scholars tell us that Mark is simply like taking snapshots of Jesus. Immediately. Immediately. Immediately. We can also see here an amazing amount of ministry. As you know, if you're preaching, if you're counseling, if you're praying for people, something like virtue goes out from you. Sometimes we make our way back home and our wives say to us, "How are we doing?" "Honey, I'm war to the bone.

There's nothing left of me. I can hardly breathe." Spiritual ministry to advance the kingdom of heaven and fighting against the kingdom of darkness will wear a man to the bone. It's why most of us die young. It will wear a man to the bone. And we can see this here with Jesus.

Now, I'd like to go through this whole passage, but I don't have time. But I want us to look at verse 32. "When evening came, after the sun had set, they began bringing to him all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed." Now, I want you to look at something.

And Mark is doing this on purpose. "When evening came, after the sun had set." Sometimes I will read through the New Testament with my children and I'll always ask them this question. "Was that good grammar?" And the other day we were dealing with this. And I asked my daughter, "What we just read, does that appear to you to be good grammar?" Or, "Would you get an A?" And she said, "No." And I said, "Why?" "The repetition, the repetition, the repetition." But in the New Testament, borrowing from the Hebrew, repetition has a purpose, doesn't it?

It's to emphasize and emphasize again and again to show the force of what's going on. And so we look here. "When evening came, after the sun had set, after he had gone through all the things I briefly mentioned to you in chapter 1, evening has come, the sun has set, it's late at night, and only then did they begin bringing to him all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed, and the whole city had gathered at the door." Now, when we read this in the New Testament, many times we have this, and it comes from medieval art, actually.

We probably have this picture of Jesus standing there calmly with his hands folded and people very orderly in a line, patiently waiting for their turn. Years ago, there was a conference in Santa Rosa in Piura in the north of Peru, and a friend of mine who was a doctor was visiting me.

And so I took him up that mountain to the conference. And there were about 1,500 people gathered. Many of them had walked three days to get there. And we had had conferences like that very often, and it was always beautiful, and the people were peaceful. And it was just a wonderful time of preaching and fellowship.

But they found out that a doctor was present. And even though he had almost nothing with which to treat them, they became almost violent. These are people with great pains and ailments, no medicine, no doctor. I ended up spending three days inside of an adobe hut, translating person after person after person, day and night.

Sick babies with pneumonia, men with great pains, people with infections from cuts. And the people who were normally gentle and kind became angry with us and angry with one another. They were violent, desperate people driven by their need. It was absolute chaos. And at the end of those three days, I thought, "I can't make it back down this mountain.

I can't walk." That's what's going on here. Let me submit something to you. First of all, most of us need to repent of our busyness. Most of us need to repent of our busyness. You desire so much to be seen before men that you're rarely seen before the throne of God.

But here we do see a picture of the perfect man who shows us that it's sometimes in ministry, it is busy and there's nothing you can do about it. And so we see Jesus doing all these things. Night comes, it's dark now, maybe seven, eight, nine o'clock, and they begin bringing people to him.

I've known times when I couldn't get in bed before three in the morning. This began at night. When did it end? 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. But he did.

Look what it says. In 32, when evening came after the sun had set, verse 35, in the early morning, while it was still dark. Maybe an hour, maybe an hour and a half. And never forget, we have a true incarnation here. We have a true man, God in the flesh, absolutely.

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. Tired, war, worn out, painful, and yet he gets up. Now, I'm not saying this in order to advocate an absurdity that men of God should not sleep.

We need sleep. But there is something that even triumphs over sleep. And definitely triumphs over ministry. It is prayer. Now, let's just stop. Let's just stop. I'm not preaching to hear myself think. Ask yourself. How much do I pray? How much do you pray? Ask yourself that question. Or as the old men used to, when they would see me coming.

Young man, do we find you praying? Do we find you praying? How much do you pray? Brother, I don't want to hurt you, but I do want to hurt you. All these, I don't know what you would call them, all these trifling trinket kind of ministries. They're not necessary.

Prayer is necessary. You say, well, the word too. You know that. And I know that. And you need to hear it. The word too, but more importantly, with men like you, you need to hear prayer too. Prayer. It's not by your mighty intellect. Sometimes I think that a lot of historians with regard to Charles Spurgeon are going to have a fight on their hands when they cross through the gates of glory.

Somehow they attribute Spurgeon's preaching to his mighty intellect. Or to his memory. Those things he had. But he would fight you on that. I don't care how great your intellect or how mighty your memory. You can't do what he did. You can't look at Spurgeon's sermons. You cannot read them and find a natural explanation for the fact that that much material was preached and yet every paragraph seems to be gold.

I have said to myself many times I could spend 10 years trying to fashion this paragraph and not be able to do it as he did it. He was a man of prayer. He was a man of prayer like his Lord. Bethany Jones said of Martin Lloyd Jones, "You will never be able to understand my husband as an evangelist if you first do not understand him as a man of prayer." He prayed.

Now look at verse 35 again. "In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place and was praying there." When I went in as a young man at about 21 or 22, and I went into the pastor's office.

I'll never forget, he was a big man, 6'6", silver hair, swept back. He was looking at a bookshelf. He had his back to me. And I said, "Pastor, God has called me to preach." He didn't even turn around. He just said this, "Boy, can you be alone?" And at first I thought that what he meant was if I preached the truth of God's word, people would not like me and they would leave me be.

That did happen. But that's not what he meant. To kind of summarize it, it was while all the other young men are running around in bachelor packs, going on retreats, or having their great discussions about theology they don't understand in the hallways of the seminary. Can you depart from all that and just be with God?

Just be with God. Just be alone with the Lord. Can you do that? Let me ask you, can you do that? Do you do that? An old man, old preacher, let me ask you a question. Do you do it now as much as you did it then? Or have you become less needful of him?

I have found the very opposite of what I expected out of the Christian life. I expected that all my trials, all the severity, all the pain, that it would come in my early years. It did. But it just kept increasing. Every trial in your life is designed to show you your weakness.

Every one of them is to show you your weakness, your need of him. You say, "Oh, Brother Paul, I know I need him." How much time do you spend alone in the word and prayer? And that will answer the question with regard to just how much you need him.

I need him more. I'm a weaker man now than when I began. You know, with regard to sanctification, you know, if we did a graph, I always thought that when I started here that I would grow like this. But in fact, I've grown like this. But because of such struggles in sanctification, there's another aspect of sanctification that hardly anyone speaks of, and it has grown like this.

It's that part of sanctification that is the recognition of our need of him. There are no great men of God. There are only tiny, weak men of a great and merciful, omnipotent God. Here in our passage, he says the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel.

Everybody pressing the tense here, spend the rest of your life repenting and believing. And the idea is simply this. One day as a lost man, I hear the gospel and I see God as I have never seen him before. Which in that light, I see me as I have never seen me before.

Which leads to mourning. But in that revelation, I also see Christ as I have never seen him before. And my mourning has turned to joy. And then I go to bed and I wake up the next day and the process begins all over again. As I study God's word, as I grow in the scriptures, I see more of him, more of me.

Greater mourning, greater weakness, but more of Christ. And at the end of my life, I'm a paradox. My mourning is greater than it had ever been. And my joy is greater than it has ever been. But the joy now is squarely founded upon the shoulders of Christ and has nothing to do with me.

I've decided what I'm going to put on my tombstone. When you've gone through as much as me, it's pretty wise to think about that. This is what's going to be written on my tombstone. I've contributed nothing to my salvation, but my sin. And nothing to my ministry, but my weakness.

Christ is everything. Christ. Christ. And your strength, your strength is no replacement for his. We look at him, we see him praying. Look at what it says. In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, went away. Do you see that repetition again?

Getting farther and farther from men, leaving men, leaving men. Going to God, going to God. Went to a secluded place. Oh, the flesh hates going there. Because the flesh can't take any witnesses with it. As a matter of fact, I found out there's only one thing my flesh hates more than the study of Scripture.

It's prayer. And was praying there. Now I want you to look at what happened to him and what happens to us. In verse 36, Simon and his companions searched for him. They found him and they said to him, Everyone's looking for you. Everyone's looking for you. Do you know what I read into that?

Don't you care? Everyone, I mean. Jesus. There are people hurting. There are sick people. There are people in bondage to the enemy of Israel. You have the power. And you're here alone. Don't you care? I cannot tell you over the last 42 years how many times I've heard that ringing in my ears.

From the devil himself. Don't you care? You should do more. You should preach more. You should do this. You should do that. Yes, we should wear ourselves out in preaching and ministering and prayer. But Jesus, if he shows me anything here, he shows me I will be no good to any man.

If I do not spend time before God. Peter preached one sermon and 3,000 people were saved. We preach 3,000 sermons and one are saved. Now, that can be taken wrongly. I don't want to press the point. But it's not just intellect. And it's not just correct doctrine. The power of God will be manifest in your life and ministry or your life and ministry will matter little.

There's no way to move the needle. There's no way to advance the cause. Through your gifts. You have to lay aside, you have to identify and then lay aside Saul's armor. And take up the smooth stones of the gospel if you're going to kill these Goliaths. You have to walk in obedience to him if you're ever to see Jericho's walls fall.

There are countries and people groups in such bondage to the devil. What power do you have? It's shunning the flesh. Lashing yourself down to scripture and living a life of prayer. Living a life of you say, well, I pray all the time. Well, let me ask you a question.

Are you sure? All the old men that taught me said, boy. You can only learn to practice the presence of God and to pray without ceasing if you are setting aside time. To pray. It is there in the prayer closet that these things are cultivated. I beg you, young men, get away from all of this, get away, become old school.

Get the mantle of a prophet, go away, seek God, throw stones at the gates of heaven, cry out until he hears you. Oh, God, whatever I have, it is not enough for this task, this challenge. I need you. I need to know you. I hear some people speak and they speak as doctors.

If I take my wife to a doctor, I can assure you he knows everything about her. He knows more about my wife. How her hair grows. What gives nutrient to her skin. How her heart functions. He knows more about my wife than I do, but he doesn't know my wife.

When you speak, can they see? He speaks of his beloved. He knows him. He walks with him. You must cultivate relationships with men. I have such friends back home. They mean the world to me and without them. But all the cultivation in the world with my friends, meaningless without cultivation of a relationship with God.

And I know using that kind of language scares some of you. I want you to know. I love the scriptures. If you came up here and looked at my Bible, you wouldn't even be able to read it. It's so marked up. But I have more than a book. I have a person.

I have God, the father. I have God, the son. And I have God, the Holy Spirit. Now, look what he says. Everyone's looking for you. Don't you care? He said to them, let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby so that I may preach there also. For that is what I came for.

Here again, in Messiah, in that perfect man, we see the perfect balance. He's not someone who hides in a prayer closet either. But his relationship with the father was absolutely essential in the incarnation. And what he did, he did as a man in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And there is so much in there that I can't unpack. And neither can any other scholar. But what we know is this. He is our master and he is our example. And instead of just trying to be a theologian, you might want to try being a disciple. A follower.

An imitator of Jesus. Especially in the matter of prayer. Now, I want us to run over to the book of Luke for just a moment. So that you see that what happened in the book of Mark is not a fluke. Also, we need to understand something when we come to Luke.

He is going to greatly emphasize the prayer life of Jesus. What else does Luke emphasize? The Holy Spirit. Brothers, I will acknowledge that in the West. There is aberrant teaching with regard to the Holy Spirit. Much of it, such teaching as we could rightly call it heresy and even blasphemy.

But I am not going to allow the heresy of false prophets to rob me of my inheritance. I've read the fathers. I've read the patristics. I've read the reformers. And I most certainly have read the Puritans. And I can tell you their language was not limited with regard to the Holy Spirit or his power.

I'm afraid for some of you. You're so afraid of heresy in this matter. That I think you would be afraid to pray to God. Fill me with the Holy Spirit. And you're going down a road. It's going to find you in a library somewhere touching no one's life. Never fall into heresy.

Recognize that there's much being taught out there about the Holy Spirit. That is, yes, blasphemous. Here's false doctrine. Here's the truth. Make sure that some of you do not run past the truth into error on the other side. Because without the Holy Spirit, there is nothing. Nothing. And his name is not to be dreaded.

How dare we? The father and the son dwell in us through the spirit of God. It didn't take me long in my Christian pilgrimage to know I didn't have much of an intellect. But through my dear friend George Mueller, I learned that I just might be weak enough to pray.

And that the spirit of God can take a man with not much talent, not much knowledge, not much ability. And change him into something else. And I will never let go of this. Whether I'm never asked back here or not. The Holy Spirit is a person of the Trinity.

Who should be, who should be the answer that comes out of our mouth every time someone says. How have you advanced? How did you preach that way? From where did your boldness come? Luke chapter 5. Verse 15. But the news about him was spreading even farther. And large crowds were gathering to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses.

But Jesus himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray. Do you know in many conferences of the old men. If they had a conference like this, they'd have a prayer tent set up. And some men wouldn't leave it. Would stay there 24 hours a day praying. That revival might break out.

That men might be changed. That souls might be saved. Here we see news about Jesus is going everywhere. It's spreading farther and farther. Crowds are chasing him down. But Jesus would often slip away to the wilderness and pray. Look at chapter 6. Verse 12. It was at this time that he went off to the mountain to pray.

And he spent the whole night in prayer to God. He has to make an important decision with regard to those who he would call his apostles. And he spends the entire night in prayer to God. Did anyone have wisdom like Christ had wisdom? Did anyone grasp the will of God like Messiah?

We know from Isaiah that God spoke to him in the mornings. No one ever had communion as he had communion. And yet he goes off to pray. Then go to chapter 9. And verse 18. And it happened while he was praying alone. The disciples were with him and he questioned them saying.

Isn't that amazing? Another another prayer reference. Verse 28 of the same chapter. Some eight days after these sayings, he took along Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. You may gather a group of young men to teach them to preach. And if you do that, you do well.

Do it more. Do it more. But how often have you called their names and gathered them to pray? How often? Chapter 11. Verse 1. 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.

Just as John also taught his disciples. Do you know what's so amazing about this? It's what we do not see. Jesus did some amazing things, did he not? Isn't it amazing? That we never hear the disciples come to Jesus and say, teach us to teach like you teach. Teach us to cast out demons as you cast out demons.

Teach us to walk on water as you walk on water. Teach us to raise the dead. Teach us to heal the sick. 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.

I honestly believe that the most spectacular thing about Jesus was his communion with God in prayer. Senator Draven Hill one time shared with us about a man of prayer. That he came upon him while he was praying, came through the door and the man was praying. And he stopped dead in his tracks and he backed out of the room.

And one young man asked him, why did you back out of the room? And he said, because you don't turn your back on royalty. I never identified that man or Leonard Ravenhill never identified that man, but I think I identified him. And I remember the first time I met him.

Old man. 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. And he rushed out of the church into the parking lot as I'm getting out of my car.

And he looked at me. And I just broke down weeping. The love. The life of Christ in him. Brothers. The Christian life is supernatural or it's not. And I have been I've had the privilege at times of walking with old men. Now I'm one of them, but I've not attained to what they attained.

Such a fragrance of Christ. Such a beauty, such a brokenness. And such a power. I recognize that they had been with Jesus. The most spectacular thing about our Lord. Was his communion with the father. Oh, what what it would have been like. Such reverence and yet such familiarity. Beware, pastor.

Beware. You walk up into the pulpit. You greet the church wonderful with joy, excitement. Brothers, it's great to have you here today. It's so wonderful to see all of you. I hope we have a wonderful time in the Lord. Now, let's pray our dear father, who when you do that, I think you do not pray much.

I'm scared of you. I don't care what comes out of your mouth after that. Do you realize what you do you realize? You know, we talk about the irreverence of others. Physician, heal thyself. No, this is real. It's why sometimes many times when I pray, especially when I'm praying for someone who's who's sick or burdened.

I say, oh, Lord, I know you hear me. This is not a small thing. I spent a big part of the afternoon on Monday with Dr. MacArthur. When I when I before I walked in, I settled my heart. Why? My honor of him. He's earned that in my heart.

Watch your speech, Paul. You're often careless. He's one of God's. Do you see? It's the same way with prayer. Settle your heart. The wisdom of Ecclesiastes should be familiar to you. Be careful. Oh, in the presence of God and in prayer, there can be such joy. There can be such praise and such worship, but never forget.

He is your father. But your father is the king of heaven. He's the king of heaven. Now, I want you to go quickly because I want you to see something in verse two, he says. And he said to them, when you pray, say, OK, now, brothers, look at me, look at me.

Let's not be teenagers here. A teenager will ask the parent, Dad, how should I do this? The dad says very clearly do it this way. And then the teenager does not. So the only time in Scripture someone comes to God in the flesh and says, teach us to pray.

And he says, pray then in this way. And very few people do. It's not that we are to repeat the words as though it was a pagan ritual. But our master. The great one who communed with God is now going to tell us how to pray and to get a full look at it, I want you to run over to Matthew quickly.

Chapter six. Lord, how do we pray? Verse nine, pray then in this way. Is that not clear? Now, again, I want to iterate that it does not mean repeat these words, but he's giving us a structure for prayer. Pray then in this way, our father who is in heaven.

Have you ever heard a preacher say, you know, Abba means daddy? No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. No. I've seen some languages in which you can do that, particularly in Africa, where a term of endearment with regard to a father does not lose the reverence of the father. We say daddy.

No. There's no way in this terminology to to exaggerate the endearment, to exaggerate the love of the father. There's just no way to do it. But at the same time, he is your father, but he is your father in heaven. And you must remember that and you say, well, how do I do this?

You hold both things in attention and that tension seems to work itself out as you study scripture. And as you pray, as you understand more and more about the attributes and virtue and wonder and beauty of God, as you understand more about the power and place of our redemption, it just starts working itself out.

But be very careful. He is your father, but your father is in heaven and he's the king of glory. There have been such times of joy in prayer that you would think we've lost our mind. And yet there can be a settled reverence in that. But he's our father who is in heaven and then one petition, three petitions, three in one.

Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done. What's going on here? Well, first of all, let's just look at these separately. Hallowed be your name. Holy be your name. So in all praying, the ambition, the singular ambition of every prayer we ever make is that his name be hallowed.

And what does that mean? That it be separated. Have you ever heard someone say, keep God number one? That's a foolish statement because you're assuming God is number one in a long list of things. You should never say something like that because God is not in the same category with everything else.

He's in a category all to himself. He's not at the top of a list. He's not on the list. 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.

And I pray this for my heart. I pray this for my wife. I pray this for my children. I pray this for the church. And I pray this for the nations. That in the heart of every man, woman, and child, that in the beating heart, there would be one singular ambition.

That they would see you and esteem you above all other things with no competing loyalties. And that's what purity of heart means in the Beatitudes. Blessed are the pure of heart. Blessed are those who have no competing loyalties in their heart. Do you see? That's a prayer for me.

That's a prayer for my loved one. That's a prayer for the church. That's a prayer for the nations. 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.

And then, along with that, because that name is the name of a king, your kingdom come. I want your reign to come in me in a greater way. Now, young men, let me share with you something. I, again, what I first believed as a young man has been proven wrong.

And I guess it's because the more light in which you stand, the more darkness in you, you see. These last few years of my life, my sicknesses, my trials. They were all keys to open up chambers of my heart and remove idols. 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.

That every area of my life, every thought be brought into submission, that your kingdom advance through me, in me. Your reign, your sovereignty, your kingship. And my wife, my wife, oh, Lord, that the kingdom advance in her. And my children, my children also. Let it roll, Lord. And in the world.

In the West. In Africa. The islands of the sea. Mongolia. Japan. Lord, don't forget Japan. China. Norway. Paraguay. Let everyone come under your kingdom. Be translated from a kingdom of darkness into a kingdom of light. You say, Brother Paul, that will never happen entirely. I'll let God decide that.

Thy will be done. Because kingdom and will. A king has a will. And to be in that kingdom is to obey that. I want you to think about something that is spectacular when you understand this prayer. This should be you should be having prayer meetings in your churches. You should be having corporate prayer meetings in your churches.

And how many of them start off by praying for ailments? Now, we need to pray for ailments. But the church needs to be taught. This is our great ambition that goes before everything. This is the type of praying that should be seen in congregational praying. This is the kind of praying that advances missions.

God, I will have no peace. I will give you no rest. Until your name is hallowed in the heart of every man, woman, and child. Until your kingdom advances. Until your will is complete. This is my ambition. And then every other prayer. The prayer for an ailing church member.

The prayer for everything in our life. The prayer in every trial fits into this. So that we say something like this. Father, I hurt. And I'm weak. And I wish you would take this away from me. And if by taking these ailments and these trials away from me. If by taking them away.

Your name will be more greatly hallowed. And your kingdom will advance with greater speed. And your will will be more complete in me and everyone else. Then Lord, take it away from me. Take it away. But Lord, if through this ailment, if through this trial, if through these things.

Your name is more greatly hallowed. And your kingdom comes with greater force. And even I myself am brought into greater subjection to your will. Then let it stay. Let it stay. Let it stay. You see that. When I see a sick child. I don't go thy will be done.

Because I'm not taught to pray that way. I know I stand in that context. I know his will will be done. I trust in his sovereignty. But that's not the way children pray. I look and go Lord, I desire, I am burdened for them to be healed. And I will wrestle with this matter until you say no.

We live a life of prayer. But here's what you need to see. We not only pray that his name be hallowed. We not only pray that his kingdom come. We not only wrestle that his will be done. But in that praying we have made a commitment to labor for it.

To work for it. Remember the one who communed with his father in Mark chapter 1. Says let's get up and go preach because that's why I came. It's both things. You do not let go of the one to take hold of the other. But you do both. You do both.

Now let me show you something that will transform your life and your church. It's verse 11. Give us this day our daily bread. And you say. If I had a dime for every time. The main point brought out of this verse was. He doesn't say give me my bread forever.

He just says give it each day. That's not the meaning here at all. It's there. But it's not the truth to be conveyed. Do you know what it's saying? It's saying this Lord, the ambition of my life. And imagine when a preacher says this. Imagine when the entire church says this.

Lord, the ambition of my life. All I care about. In all these other details. The only thing I am chiefly concerned about. Is that your name be hallowed. Your kingdom come. And your will be done. Now, Lord, as a man committed to live for these things. Provide for me what I need.

So that I might serve thee. That is never separated. Give me my daily bread. Give me the resources. Provide for me. That is never separated from this great commission call. And this great commission prayer. To do what? To serve him. To make these things happen. Do you see that?

Lord, I don't need to be rich. I don't need luxury. I don't need refinement. Lord, but I do. I have committed to your cause. And I do need the resources. Feed me so that I can labor for you. Clothe me so that I can labor for you. Lord, you've put it in my heart to help believers around the world.

Lord, I petition you. Give me what I need. And I promise it will not stick to my hand. It will go forth and feed your people. Help me, Lord. So we're praying. But we're not lost in some monkish, super spiritual behavior. We're laboring. And then he goes on and he says, And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Verse 12. The only thing that can hinder you and me. And dare I say it? Not even principalities and powers and mights and dominions can hinder us ultimately. The only thing that can hinder us is sin. Unconvested sin that breaketh not the sinner. To be holy. Years ago, Leonard Ravenhill gave me a track.

Said others can, but you cannot. Others may push their Christian liberties to the ultimate end. But if you want God's hand on your life, you cannot. If you want to be used of God, you cannot. But none of us have entered into what some wrongly call a perfection. And we will never enter into a perfection until we're called home to glory.

But we can be broken. We can be God fearing. And we can be broken. And we can be transparent. And we can ask men to pray for us. And we can share with them our weaknesses. And we can just keep going forward in the grace of Christ. Broken men are dangerous.

And then do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. The same. Do you know what this means? You wake up in the morning, your eyes are opened. And you dare not move a quarter of an inch to the left or the right without crying out for grace.

Because you even know that even in those first few seconds you could betray him. I need thee every hour. Your problem, brother, is not that you're too weak. Your problem is you don't know how weak you are. Your need of him to pray for grace. Pray for grace, especially if you've decided that you're going to enter into the battle.

Pray for grace. Pray for grace. He hates you. He hates you. The enemy hates you. And make no mistake about it. He'll destroy you in a millisecond apart from this sustaining, empowering grace of God. Oh, how weak you are. Yet how strong can you be in the power of the Holy Spirit?

Amen. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. How do I say it? I think sometimes with all our cold propositions and our lack of prayer, we've killed the wonder of it all. Glory bound we are. We serve a king who is incorruptible. Men were made to do this.

We serve a king. Oh, a spectacular king whose beauty is so great if you catch one glimpse of it in prayer, it would fracture your psyche into 10 million fragments. The beauty, not just there's holiness, there's righteousness, there's power, but there's wonder and beauty beyond what the mind can conceive.

Even the most sanctified mind will have to be transformed to behold his beauty. And we get to serve him. And then there's a kingdom, a kingdom that will never end. I think about the founders of this country and how much they gave to hope to build a righteous land.

A few generations pass after their death, it crumbles into nothing. And even if it somehow finds a renewal, it will sooner or later crumble to dust. Man's days are like grass is the flower of the field. So he flourishes when the wind passes over him. He is no more in the place, acknowledges him no more.

But we serve someone who has numbered every hair on our heads. We serve someone whose love. You know what, the preaching is painful. Do you know why? Especially when you talk about this one, of which I'm speaking now. Preaching is painful. I don't know how men do it. Because even the wonder that you know about him is nothing.

But even that you can't explain with speech. I sometimes hate words. In the middle of the night praying, there's no language. And when you're preaching, words seem so feeble and just limping on. His glory, his goodness, his kindness, and what awaits you. If you could catch one glimpse of glory, you would die 10,000 deaths to make it back there for just one second.

Oh brothers, you are dearly loved. You are so dearly loved that it pains me to tell you because I cannot tell you enough. Let me end by saying this. I want to correct something in your heart. If you hear nothing from everything that I've said, hear this. You need to understand.

The Son of God did not become incarnate and suffer the wrath of God and die for the penalty. So that the first time you look at him in glory, you see a scowl of disappointment on his face. I know that's what you think. I know that's what you're tempted to believe.

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. He loves you. You must go in the strength of that love. You must go in the strength of that love. Sometimes people fix their eyes on a man who has an extraordinary love for their wife.

And they attribute that extraordinary love to the man. Maybe he's not extraordinary at all. Maybe he has an extraordinary wife. And her extraordinary beauty and virtue draws out of his stony heart a passion like no other man. That's the same way. You see someone, a missionary, a preacher, that seems to just burn with a love for Christ.

You need to understand that this person was born of the same fallen stalk of Adam as you and was regenerated by the same spirit. What I have found in church history is that those that seem to rise above others in regard to passion, there's only one reason. They've seen more of Christ than we have.

Go after Christ. Do you want passion? You should come to a conference. It's absolutely wonderful. But all this preaching and all this music without the Holy Spirit can only wind you up like a toy soldier. And in three days you'll wind down and find yourself with the same apathy.

Look for Christ. Look for greater and greater pictures of Christ in the Bible and in prayer. Seek Him. Seek Him. Seek Him. Seek Him with all your heart. Cry out to Him, "I want to see your face. I will give you no rest until I see you in a clearer light.

I must have you. I must have you. I must have you." In such praying, He delights. In such praying, He delights. May God bless you with all the blessings that were purchased for you through the blood of Christ. Amen.