Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

Wait on the Lord Pt.4

Hallelujah! Amen. You'll want to continue to pray for Richard. He's feeling better but still very weak, just looking for the Lord to touch him, raise him up, and bring that refreshing into his life. Janet's here this morning with us again in the back. Her counts are very, very low at this particular time, and with all the hacking going on around here...it got humorous during prayer. I think tonight maybe everyone needs to wear some surgical masks in here and keep your germs to yourself. But just continue to pray and believe God. We're looking for the miraculous, amen? We're expecting that, and we look to the hills from whence comes our help, the Scripture says. We know our Father is the Giver of every good and perfect gift, praise God, so we seek Him and are excited. That's what we're doing here in these last sessions, just talking about prayer and the power of prayer and the necessity that you and I have of coming into that communion and that fellowship with our Father so that we could partake of His glory and men might see then the fruit of it, the works, and glorify our Father which is in Heaven.

We're going to look today and tonight at that particular aspect, to go into the presence of God with a jealousy for God to be glorified. Not just for our circumstances to change. We want to be healed, we want to be delivered from the oppression of the enemy, but it's not about us as we've talked so often, it's about the glory of God. If you can really be truthful with your own heart and ask yourself, "Am I praying, is my prayer motivated by God being glorified, by the best being given to God regardless of my circumstances when this is over? I may perish, everything that I have may be taken from me, but is God glorified in the end?" So we're looking for that as the source. And we're going to then talk about that and how to put that in proper understanding with the promises of God so that we can pray in faith and expectation of God's promises in our lives. So we're going to talk about that over the next couple of sessions.

We saw in our last session, of course, and as we started our study off in Luke 18:1, "...that men ought always to pray, [the Master said] and not [what?] faint." We're talking about the fact that too many Christians faint. We give up too soon on the promises of God, or because things don't begin to materialize the way that we think they should, we would come to the conclusion that God's promises are not so, but every promise of God is yea and amen to the glory of God by us. Amen? So, God is not a man that He can lie. His Word is sure to a thousand generations. Heaven and earth will pass away, God's Word will not pass away. So when we go to the promises of God's Word and we understand the surety of them, then when we're not seeing the promises manifest, we're required to come into an examination of our own hearts and ask ourselves the question then, are we trying to hold God to our perception of His promises, to our understanding, to a temporal application instead of an eternal application? Because the fact of the matter is, God is true and let every man be a liar. Amen? So His Word's true, His promises are yea and amen, they are sure to a thousand generations, and when you pray, you need to pray with that understanding and that confidence and "...this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him" (1 John 5:14, 15). So effectual, or effective praying has to be in line with the will of God. We can't pray outside of the will of God. We're going to talk a little bit more this evening about the need to know His will, to know His Word, to have our hearts that are purified and prepared to access God's presence. But the Master said we're to pray always and not to faint.

The Apostle said in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 that we're to pray without ceasing. Of course, years ago we were sharing with many of you the fact that to pray without ceasing, then, is not talking about a continual articulating of promises or praise or petition, but to pray without ceasing is an attitude or an awareness of the presence of God, and we said it this way, prayer is practicing the presence of God. And that's praying without ceasing. We're aware always of God's presence. We're aware always of God's desire to express His will in our lives. So the prayer life then is constant, we're always looking for the mind of God, we're always aware that the steps of the good man are being ordered of the Lord, or being set right; so we're rejoicing in that, and we're boasting in the guidance of God in our lives. So prayer then is able to in everything, what? Give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning us in Christ Jesus. So even in adverse times we give thanks unto God, and we understand that He is leading us into the paths of righteousness for His name's sake, that we are traveling the highway of holiness as the Scripture says, and that because God is for us, nobody can be against us. We rejoice in the fact that He's gone before us and prepared a way, and that His glory is our rearguard, and so we delight in that and we practice the presence of God, the awareness that everything in my life is orchestrated by God, so we give thanks in all things, and this is the will of God concerning each and every one of us in Christ Jesus.

So this is part of our prayer life, and we've come through a decade or so of an understanding of prayer from the perspective, and it is biblical, of the rest of God, the rest of prayer, resting in the promises of God. And it's a very biblical doctrine to rest, to be able to declare what God has said and rest in that, and just speak it and believe that God's Word is going to come to pass, that He watches over His Word to perform it. Part of the reason that this was so emphasized in the last couple of decades is because those of us that have an understanding of fundamental Christianity, and especially those of us that are Pentecostals, our heritage was one that emphasized something other than the rest of God. And the old saints that some of us remember would use terms about praying through, and some of us that are younger here may never have even heard that term before, and yet it was probably the most common terminology of those of us who have been around for a few years. The fact of the matter is the Church has really lost some of the understanding of what it means to "pray through". Let me give you a definition. Basically, praying through is praying until you're through, praying until you've touched God, God's touched you, the awareness that God has placed within you the faith necessary to stand and not faint. So, you get up assured that even though things haven't changed, God's promises are yea and amen and you've prayed through and you're able now to rest.

But there's a lot of work involved in prayer that, frankly those of us of this instant generation have lost sight of, and that's why we want to emphasize the other aspect of prayer, and we're going to be talking about not the rest of faith, but the fight of faith. There's the rest of faith, and there's the fight of faith. We've emphasized for decades now the rest, and tragically we're bringing up a generation who doesn't know anything about the fight and we're going to talk about that some and emphasize it over these next sessions so we can have our balance in our walk of faith and the understanding of what God's Spirit and His Word are working in our lives. We can understand, then, the prayer without ceasing and the fact that we're to always pray and not faint, praying always, the Apostle says in Ephesians 6:18, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. So we're going to talk about praying in the Spirit a little bit here in the next couple of sessions.

This morning we want to talk a little bit about the effectual, fervent prayer that James speaks of, making reference back to the prophet Elijah. He says, "...The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (James 5:16). Look over at James for just a second, chapter 5, and we'll start there for this morning. James, chapter 5, a passage that so many of us are familiar with. I don't know that we're going to be able to, this evening, get into the second part of our study. We're talking about the promises that accompany prayer, the practical application of prayer; and then in our next session, and it probably will be next Sunday, we want to talk about who it is that qualifies to appropriate the promises, because the promises that so many people want to apply in the Scriptures are not unconditional, and that's where many people get confused, and they say, "Why isn't God answering my prayers?" The question that has to be asked is, "Do you have a valid right to have your prayers answered?" So we'll discuss that in our next session.

But in this James passage for this morning we understand that we're to be a people of prayer, verse 13 of the 5th chapter of James says, "Is any among you afflicted? let him pray...Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up...." Then he says in verse 16 that you need to realize this, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Then he gives us an example of this and he says in 17, "Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are..." He was a human just like you and me, subject to all of the same temptations. As we study his life, we see that he was overcome by fear, we see that he was a man who fainted in his own strength and was ready to die, he was wishing for God to take him, and the committing of suicide. Discouraged just like you and I become, he was a man of like passions, but he prayed earnestly. Now where do people that are so frail and so needy and so fleshly as you and I are, where do we get this ability to pray fervently? It doesn't come from within does it? It's not innate within us, so therefore it has to be the Spirit of God praying through us.

What we're going to see is a need to get ourselves in the proper environment and the place to where God can place that faith into our hearts, where we are always candidates for the visitation of the Holy Spirit to pray through us with groanings which cannot be uttered, to realize also that we can hope for that visitation, and that God can take people as frail as you and me and glorify His name in us. Is that your expectation when you go to prayer? We're not boasting in our own ability, our own righteousness, but we're aware that as earthen vessels the glory of God tabernacles in us, and at any moment that rhema can come forth and heavens be shut up or open, mountains cast into the sea, praise God! In one moment all of that labor, all of that toil, nothing happening, and in one moment, praise God, eternity's changed because you prevailed with God, because you wrestled with God. A man subject to like passions didn't quit, but continued to pray. So we realize that that's who this man Elijah is, a man just like you and me. And he prayed earnestly, he prayed in faith, he prayed by the anointing of God, he prayed by the heart of God, he prayed by the initiation of God. He was a man, then, used of God to pray effectually.

So we want to talk about what this effectual fervent prayer is all about. The word "effectual" here is very interesting; it means to be divinely energized. The effectual prayer: to be divinely energized. For our prayer to be successful, all of our prayer has to be divinely energized. Our words are worthless. The great prose and poetry of men are worthless. It's not the phrasing, it's not the grammar, it's not the philosophical truths, it's not even the accuracy of the quote of the eternal truth of God's Word; it's the presence of God that divinely energizes the words that are coming out of our mouth. It's based on relationship. It's based on communion. So Elijah was a man who was able to be infiltrated by the Spirit of God. And the Scripture says to us here that the divinely energized--earnest is what the word fervent is speaking of here: effectual, divinely energized, fervent--earnest prayer of a man who has a right to be in the presence of God will avail every time. So when our prayer isn't effectual, it's not working, then it must not be divinely energized. How many times have you found yourself praying rote prayers, praying out of habit, but not fervently? You see, what the word fervent speaks of here, earnestness. How many times do we pray but it's not in earnest, it's in habit, it's out of obligation? We pray so often and we fail to realize that repetitious prayer is blasphemy. It's vanity! Repetitious prayer that is not in earnest, is using the Lord's name in vain. So to be able to just in rote as we talked about praying the "Our Fathers" or whatever, it's vanity, it's a blasphemy! Whenever you can pray and you're just praying out of your head, and at the same time that you're praying you're going over all of the other secular things, it's an abomination to God! So we want to talk about that earnest praying that's so necessary to see the hand of God.

We taught a couple of sessions ago out of Acts chapter 12, you remember that? Turn back again. We're talking about the intercession that was going on for Peter when he had been imprisoned. As we were studying that, we were looking at a couple of very interesting things. We were first of all looking at the sovereignty of God and how James was killed. A man of prayer, and in the sovereignty of God he was allowed to be killed. Peter was taken and put into captivity, and the Church was praying. The Bible says in chapter 12 of the book of Acts, verse 5, "Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him." "Prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him." "Without ceasing" is a very interesting phrase, and really when we're looking at this, it's interesting as you begin to look at the wording that's used here. It's kind of an interesting word that's used. We would think, then, that it talks about the duration of the prayer, "without ceasing," that they just continued to pray. It's really a misapplication of this word that's used by the Holy Spirit, because the word doesn't really mean the duration, it's talking about the intensity of the prayer, the intensity of the prayer. It's the exact same word that's being used in Luke 22:44 when it says that the Lord Jesus prayed more earnestly. The Greek word means, and this is literal. When you take the Greek and you put it into a literal phrasing--you might want this for your notes, it will help you understand and you can see why they interpreted it "without ceasing" in the King James--It literally means a stretchedoutedness, or stretchedoutedly. They prayed stretchedoutedly. You say, "Uh huh, what are we talking about here?" You can see stretchedoutedly might mean for a long period of time or the duration, but it's really talking about the intensity. It's talking about the same thing that Paul makes reference to when he's talking about the prize that he was in pursuit of, and the striving to enter in, and the full extension or a full effort of ourselves to reach out and accomplish the task. It's not duration; it's the intensity. And it's really kind of interesting that a literal rendering of this would be probably better this way: The intense earnest prayer. Intense earnest prayer was made. Now, as we begin to look at our own lives let's ask ourselves this question--the effectual fervent prayer, or the intense earnest prayer.

Let me ask you something. Have you ever had somebody get in your face that was a little intense? We know what intensity is. You see, this rest of faith has caused a lot of us to lose our intensity. We seem to think it's sufficient to just speak the right phrases or to recite the right promises, and that it's all a legal document and a legal action. So I come to God with my brief, I lay it down, I have all of the right issues addressed, and without any type of intensity, emotion, or energy expelled, I let the facts speak for themselves and I expect a legal response. Now we do relate to God on the legal basis of His covenant promises, but God expects within each and every one of us, because of His personhood, not stoic, but a personal encounter with God, based upon the beings that we are, who are moved by intent, and will, and passion. And He expects us to be as passionate about our prayer life as we are about many other things in our lives. How passionate are you about your hobby? How passionate are you about your job? How passionate are you about your pet? There are people more excited about coming home to their pet than they are coming into the presence of God. How passionate are you about your children? How passionate are you about your spouse? Then ask yourself how passionate you are about your prayer life and your communion with God. What that will do is it will put the worth of this thing into proper perspective. Then as we begin to pray, and especially in intercession, for the needs of the family, and we're a close-knit people and we are touched with the feelings of one another's infirmities, but I guarantee you in the natural you are going to be more moved about your children than somebody else's. Period. It's the facts of life; it's the truth. You might love my kids and pray for them, but I want to tell you something. You have more of an affinity towards your own. Period. But here's the good news: God doesn't. So when we pray in intercession, and the Spirit is praying through us, we can pray with equal intensity and passion for everybody's children, and everybody's need; because we've removed our own selfishness and self-will and perception out of our prayer lives. You'll find there's a spiritual passion and the heart of God begins to break our hearts, and then we can be moved upon and pray effectually.

Do you come to that in your prayer life, or do we come in here, for instance, with our little list and we just recite the list and we pray that the way so many people pray their prayers in the morning: "Lord bless us, and Lord bless the kids, and keep them safe today, Lord, amen," and you go on your way? There's not an awareness of the warfare and the desire of the enemy to kill your children and destroy the Kingdom of God on a daily basis. If it was visible around us and you could see the weapons visibly that were raised up against your household you'd be a little more intense in your prayer if you were aware of what's really going on in the heavenlies. And we're going to talk about that probably tonight. When God allows you to be finally crushed into a position to where it crushes the intensity out of you, then you finally have fellowship with God again and you stand in awe of the peace that can be in adversity, and yet that peace is available in tranquility if we'd seek God properly.

We realize, then, that this prayer is being made for Peter of the Church, this earnest, intense prayer, stretched out, extending ourselves fully. We all know that we don't always pray with that kind of an intensity. I don't. I would assume most of you don't and yet we need to make it more a part of our prayer lives. We need to understand that it has to do with volition, it has to do with a choice. Jeremiah says in the 29th chapter, verse 13, that when you search for Me with all of your heart, then what's going to happen? You're going to find Me. Have you purposed to search for God with all of your heart? It's something that's of our volition, it's a choice! Men ought always to pray and not to faint is the mandate. Now the choice as to whether we're doing that or not is personal, it's an individual choice, it's a momentary choice, choosing what we're going to fill ourselves with.

The thing that I want to emphasize for us this morning is to understand that we need to revive in our lives again--and if we've never had it, there needs to be an awareness of the flip side, this truth of walking in faith, and that is that there is the rest of faith and there is the fight of faith. In fact, the fact of the matter is, if you'll do a study you'll find out there's a lot more biblical evidence for the fight than there is for the rest. As you labor to do what? Enter into rest. You see, the rest is the fruit of the laboring, the fight. You've got to fight to rest. There is that place to where we come into that communion, where we see the direction of God in our lives. Why is it that the fight would be more prominent in the Scriptures than the rest? Because we're so carnal. It takes a long time to accomplish this death and this ability to enter into the rest. If you want to watch somebody who had more rest than fight, it would have been Jesus. Jesus slept in the back of the boat. Jesus stood and said, "Peace, be still." Jesus declared, "I thank You, Father, that when I pray, You hear Me." We only find in His life this fight and this agony in the final episode of the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Scripture shows us that by His victory we're capable of entering into His rest. But for most of us it's a process, and we made that distinction on Wednesday between His perfect humanity and our fallen humanity; and yet He needed to pray more earnestly and more intently at times in His life in perfect condition. How much more do we, in this condition that we find ourselves with this body of sin that the Apostle speaks of, that's going to be a part of our lives until we're changed, praise God, and all things truly, actually, factually pass, when corruption takes on incorruption and mortality takes on immortality. But until that time, we're at war!

Romans 15 shows us some of this as we see the need for intercessory prayer and the fervency necessary to effect this. Turn over to Romans 15 for just a second and listen to what the Apostle says, and then we're going to look down at Colossians for just a moment, and that's a powerful, powerful passage. I want you to see something here about Paul's understanding of prayer and intercession, and in both of these passages we're going to talk about true intercession, prayer for the ministry, and for the body of Christ, and it's interesting to see. In Romans, chapter 15, look down at verse 30 if you would. The Apostle's speaking here and he says, "Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, [beseeching you on behalf of the Lord and by] the love of the Spirit, [powerful phrases] that [you might] strive together with me..." The Greek word is agonizo, agony. Be in agony, contend, fight, is literally what this word means, the agonizing, a contending or a fighting. He said you're going to have to come to war; we're at war over this issue!

As I was sharing with the men yesterday at our breakfast, as we're warring in the heavenlies, and what God is doing here in our midst, and thank God, you know there are doors of utterance that are being opened to us continually as we're getting into rest homes and prisons and the work that you're doing on your jobs of sharing the gospel, the work that's going on overseas, and all of these different things. Let me ask you a question. Do you think the devil's just going to sit back and say, "Well, you know, there's nothing we can do about that. Those guys they just seem to be sharing the gospel and so maybe I'll go down here, down the street, and hassle these guys who aren't so diligent and so set on course to obey the Word of God." He's not worried about them. It's you and me he's going to put under attack. I mention the fact that as we're sharing the gospel in Africa, and one of things that's going to happen, I was sharing with some of the folks here, the reason some of you are losing your jobs is because we're reaching out to Africa. In any war, the first thing the enemy's going to do is try to cut off the supply lines. It's the obvious tactic! I want to tell you something: your job's not secure as long as you're seeking the Kingdom of God. Satan's going to try and destroy you and take that away as long as you want to honor God. You need to pray. You need to be aware of the war that's going on in the heavenlies, surrounding everything we do. Oh sure, you know the devil's going to sit back.

We're bringing our children up here and training them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord, another generation, a godly seed, praise God. Sure, the enemy's not going to bring opposition. Of course there's not going to be a solicitation of your children. Surely he's not going to try to reach into your home through the neighborhood kids and through television and through everything else. There's no need to pray. We come up here to school. Understand the warfare that's going on in the heavenlies, and Paul's saying, "Listen you guys, you need to understand, we need to strive together and be involved in this war called prayer, called intercession, and praying for the saints."

Look down at Colossians for just a second, and you'll see it again as Paul is speaking here concerning the ministry and the missionary team. Colossians chapter 4, verses 12 and 13, you all remember Epaphras? The Scripture says here in verse 12 of chapter 4, "Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, [Now, listen to what Epaphras is praying. This is a guy interceding for those in Colosse. It says he's laboring fervently for you in prayers] that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God." What a powerful phrase! Can I ask you something? When you're interceding for your brothers and sisters here, when you're interceding for the ministry here, is this the standard for which you're praying? Is there anywhere, then, to cease the prayer and the wrestling and the contending until we come to that perfection, until we're complete in how much--say it with me--all the will of God? "If you ask anything according to My will, I will do it." Are we praying about knowing the will of God? Are we doing that that's been revealed to us consistently? Are we requiring that as the standard of our homes and of our fellowship? You see, this is what makes effectual prayer. This is what makes the heart of God and the ears of God open to our cry. It's our obedience. It's our pursuit of His glory in our midst. It's our jealousy for the righteousness of God, laboring fervently in prayer.

Then it goes on to say, "...I bear him record, that he hath a great zeal for you, and them that are in Laodicea, and them in Hierapolis." So we see, then, that here's a man that's being moved upon by the Holy Spirit, a man with great zeal. Interesting word, that word zeal there; it talks about painful laboring. An intense toil would be another way to say it. He has a zeal for you; his prayer is one of labor. Can I ask you a question? Have you ever prayed that way? Many of us have. You see there's a whole bunch in the Scriptures that imply this kind of an encounter with principalities and powers. There's a lot in the Scriptures that says we don't just come in here and recite a few verses and just wander on out. Have you agonized? Have you lost sleep over it, have lost weight over it, have you sweat drops of blood? Then maybe we haven't prayed in a way that touches the heart of God.

What about the faith, what about the rest in faith? That's another subject, we're not talking about that. We're talking about this. Of course there's a rest. Of course there's the obvious awareness that we can speak the truth of God, and it's truth whether we feel any different, whether we've experienced goose bumps, whether we've sweat drops of blood. I understand all that. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about this. When this seems to be the expression in Scripture to a greater degree than the rest, what have we done to prepare ourselves and discipline ourselves and walk in this type of a ministry? If Jesus agonized in prayer, then there's going to be times when you need to. So the question to ask yourself this morning is, do I approach prayer this way? Am I aware of the intensity and the work that's involved? You want to know why people don't pray? Because it's hard! Prayer is difficult; it's difficult to bring your mind into subjection, it's difficult to lay your flesh in the presence of God and not let it run around and do all the things it wants to do. The reason people don't pray is because of how tough it is to really pray.

There's just an interesting phrase as it concerns Moses as he went to seek God, and he said, "And as I did at the first, I came and lay before You for forty days because of the sins of the people." Try that one. Now granted we're not Moses, and granted it was all supernatural, are you a candidate? It's vital for each one of us to understand what God's desiring to do in each one of our lives.

Turn over to Ephesians chapter 6 for just a moment and we'll probably finish up with this for this morning. We see words like earnest, intense, agony, zeal, intense painful toil, in reference to prayer. How many of our prayer lives have been in and out, instant, a legal declaration and not a literal warring and struggling in the presence of God? Depends on the intensity.

Turn over to Daniel for just a second. Look over at Daniel. That's close to Ephesians, same Bible. There's something really cool about this in Daniel. We've got them in captivity. We see them having made their stand for the glory of God and they refused the king's dainties and they became 10 times better than all that had partaken of the natural methods. So they were placed within the king's counselors and the wise men. And then we know the king had a dream, you remember, and he wanted the interpretation and nobody could give it. And he said that since nobody can give the interpretation, kill them all. "They're no good to me. If nobody can give me the info I need, kill them." Daniel asks a great question here as you read this back into chapter 2, he says, "What's your hurry?"--verses 14 down through 16--he basically says, "What's your hurry, man. Don't just kill us all here. Don't get in too big of a rush." "Why is the decree [verse 15] so hasty...? Then Daniel went in, and desired of the king that he would give him time..." You see, Daniel knew that God didn't always instantly tell you what's going on. He said, "Give us a little bit of time here to seek God on this thing. You know you haven't checked with us yet. Give us some time and we'll go to God."

Then the Scripture says in verse 17, "Then Daniel went to his house, and [got the church together, the brothers] made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, [those who were] his companions: [and here's what he admonished them to do] That they would [do what?] desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret...." Don't get in a hurry! Now, let me ask you a question: How many of you think these guys were intense in their prayer? "If we don't get an answer; guess what, we die! No understanding, no interpretation of this dream, we're dead men." "Well since we're going to die anyway, why not go catch a movie?" "I'm going to die in my garden. I'm going to die hanging my wallpaper. I'm going to die reading the Sears catalog." It's time to seek the Lord. It's time to break up the fallow ground and seek the Lord that He might rain righteousness upon us.

Where do you find yourself today in this conflict with the spirit of antichrist and the world? How intense have you become in your opposition to everything that would try to choke the Word of God out of your lives? How great an intensity is there and a love for the presence of God and prayer when you compare it to all of those other things that we addressed earlier that occupy our thoughts and our time and our energies? At times like this, people, know what real prayer is all about. "Lord, if it's Your will, give us the interpretation. Thanks, praise God." "Where are you going?" "Down to the mall. I just prayed, I prayed and I said, 'Lord if it's Your will give us the interpretation, in the name of Jesus (I forgot that one), in the name of Jesus, amen."

We saw that the intensity of the prayer in Colossians was that they might know the will of God. I want to tell you something. You don't know the will of God by one of those little quick trivial declarations of a pursuit or desire to know the will of God, because you don't know your heart that well. "Lord, I want to do Your will." Really? Maybe you need to spend some time finding out whether you really do want to do the will of God or not. I'll tell you one of the ways to find out whether you want to do the will, and that's by whether you're doing the will. What are you doing with what you know? How successful have you been to hear? How dead are you today? And the fact of the matter is you need to die some more. Prayer brings an awareness of the need of death to self so that God can inject His life and His will into our hearts, and it's so vital for us.

Paul, as he's speaking over in Ephesians chapter 6 then, is giving us a little bit of insight into this same thing that David and his brothers were going through. He says in chapter 6, verse 10, "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore [so again I admonish you] take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." Put on the armor. And he goes through and he tells us what it is: loins girt with truth, breastplate of righteousness, feet shod with the preparation of the gospel, and above all things take the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked, and the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. Verse 18, say with me the next two words, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel."

So we want to talk about the armor of God for just a moment and the warfare that's taking place in the heavenlies, and this is what we're going to pick up on tonight. When we see the Apostle speaking here and the war that's at hand, and he speaks to us and he says, "You've got to understand we're not wrestling flesh and blood." So nothing that we do in the flesh, in our natural strength, with our natural intellect, none of this is going to avail. These weapons will not avail because it's a spiritual warfare. Those that worship God must worship Him how? In spirit and in truth. So the origin of all that we do has to be of a spiritual origin. The thing that I want to point out to you is this: when we talk about fervency, we talk about zeal, and we talk about laboring and toiling. There's a right way and there's a wrong way. The wrong way is to do it in the flesh, to get all worked up and frothing at the mouth and screaming in the flesh because you think this is what you have to do, and you think there's some merit in it, and it's what you are initiating to try to effect a result. Instead of it being the result of what's already been affected in you by the Spirit of God to where the flesh then begins to be used by the Spirit and properly motivated by the Spirit as the Spirit is praying through us with groanings which cannot be uttered, whether it be a groaning, a weeping.

When's the last time you agonized and wept before God in brokenness, aware of your absolute, absolute inability to effect anything of worth for the Kingdom of God; and an awareness of your total dependency, and not even a natural desire to make it right, and you're broken and weeping before God, initiated by the Holy Spirit's revelation of your heart's condition? So there's a right way and there's a wrong way. The wrong way of course is the works syndrome, we've spent so many hours on that, hopefully you can apply it. You don't come in here and try to work up the emotion. The emotion is a natural consequence of encountering the love of God, and the grace of God, and the mercy of God, and the absolute dependency we have on Him and the inability we have within ourselves. The true prayer is not, is not without emotion, is not without intensity. You can't find it in the Scripture. There must be in our lives the times of sackcloth and ashes and weeping and humility and soberness and awe of the majesty of our God. And so, many of us have become so familiar and so legal in our approach to God, that we've lost the relationship.

As we prepare for tonight, we see then that he says, "Take on the armor of God that you might be able to stand. Without it, you'll faint. Without it, your prayers will not be effectual. Without it, the words that you speak will be less than a sword. Without it, our children stay in bondage, our loved ones perish, and God's not glorified."

Father, we ask You to stir our hearts to understand the war that's at hand.

And in the heavenlies around us rages 24 hours a day the battle for our minds. The idols of the world and the spirit of antichrist wars for our minds. Do we have the helmet of salvation in place? Are we broken and grieved by the thoughts that come to our minds that are not pulled down immediately and destroyed by the presence of the Spirit and washed by the blood of Jesus? Do we not agonize over the tendency to go back to the natural mind and to trust in our own intellect and in the understanding of the world's methods? We meditate upon all that opposes the truth and mock the truth by our failure to pursue it, pulling down every thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. That's prayer. It's tough to pull those things down and put them in subjection. It's tough to choose the invisible, the unseen; but what have you been proven with, the weapons of Saul or the weapon of David, the presence of God? What are you most comfortable in, the king's armor, or the praise and worship of the psalmist? What have you been proven in? Is your prayer life proven? Have you experienced the anointing when you encounter the lion and the bear and the giant, and so you can rest in those things or a trust in the rote intellectual, legal relationship with God? That's why the heavens aren't opened in our society today. That's why the tombs stay closed, and why God isn't glorified.

As we study tonight in Ephesians, we're going to see that purpose of the glory of God, a jealousy for the supernatural, that men would not be able to deny the notable miracles as we declare that God has raised Jesus from the dead.

Make us jealous for Your glory, Father, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.

Let's stand before the Lord. As Gary plays for us this morning, we take this afternoon to ask these questions: When's the last time I agonized? If you don't accept my word for it, study it out yourself and find out whether it's the rest of faith that's emphasized or the fight of faith. If there's not a rest of faith, then the fight is in the flesh. If there's a proper rest of faith, the fight will be in the Spirit. When's the last time you just waited upon the Lord, instead of come in, go through your spiel, and blow out? And you just wait because you don't know what to pray as you ought; and you wait because you know there's nothing in you that's going to make this prayer effectual. And you just wait and you deal with your weakness, but when you're weak, you're strong, praise God, and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit begins to groan within you, and you agonize in your own frailty, but you boast in His greatness and the Spirit speaks a word through you according to the will of God. It takes a long time to get quiet, to get all of that stuff in your flesh and in your mind quiet and humble and subservient. To purpose in your heart in reality and not just in rhetoric, "When You speak, I will do it; when I hear You, I will obey." It takes a long time to get to that place. Once it's all quiet, once it's all been offered up on the altar, once it's all dead, then God will speak and you can move.

When's the last time you wrestled with God all night? "I will not let You go until You've blessed me!" That does not mean I will not let You go until You give me my way. "I will not let You go until Your will has been effected in my life." As we shared on Wednesday, prayer is coming into God's presence as Jacob, the supplanter, the deceiver, the conniver, and leaving as Israel, a prince with God, a warrior for the Lord's host. "I will not let You go 'til You've blessed me, 'til You've changed me."

Let's sing it together. "Holy Lord, You Alone Are Worthy Of My Praise."

Thank You, Jesus! Hallelujah!

The messenger of God responded to Jacob saying, "I will not let You go," and the messenger responded to him and said, "What is it that you need, what is your name?" "I'm Jacob. I surrender. I'm Jacob. I know who I am. I'm a supplanter. I'm a deceiver. I'm a conniver. I'm selfish. I can't let You go. I can't go on in life this way anymore. If I let You go without changing, I'm going to die. My sins are ever before me. Esau waits at the gate. I choose today to be different. I surrender. My name is Jacob." Then Jacob asks His name. "Why are You asking My name? You're the loser here." The Victor doesn't give up or express any need. "If I was hungry I wouldn't tell you," God says. We don't need to know anything about Him answering His reasons, His purposes. We're the needy ones and it's absolute, unconditional surrender.

Make it so Father, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

Before you go, turn to somebody next to you, say, "I'm Israel, praise God." Go in peace, God's love go with you.

Back to Top | Audio   |   Purchase Audio   |   Bible Teachings   |   Print