Given to Prayer and Study II

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Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast, I'm Jon Snyder and today you get to listen to the second half of a talk given by a

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Canadian pastor, Hugh Morrison. He pastors on the island of Cape Breton and he's linked with HeartCry Missionary Society and their work there.

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Hugh was with us preaching on prayer and last week if you heard the podcast you know that he preached a number of times on prayer when he was with us here in New Albany, Mississippi.

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So you can find links to all those sermons in the show notes, but last week you were given the first half of a two -part sermon on devoting ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word where Hugh spoke to spiritual leaders or those aspiring for spiritual leadership in the church about this matter of devoting ourselves to prayer.

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And brothers don't we want that the hand of God with us? I know I do and don't we need it?

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Don't we need the Spirit of God with us? Can we really go forward in the work?

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When Jonathan Goforth went to China and Hudson Taylor was there and he was going into an unreached area,

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Hudson Taylor wrote him a note and this is what it said, you will only go forward in China on your knees.

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You'll only go forward in China on your knees. Don't we feel that today? I mean how are we going to go forward?

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And I know down here it's a different environment than where we are. There's a great, you know, lostness and very few churches, but isn't it still true?

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I mean can we raise the dead? You know, can we, you know, unstop deaf ears or open the eyes of the blind, set captives free?

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I mean how can we do it? The work we're up to is beyond us, every single one of us. And there are many people who preach, you know, the preaching of the word of resources about the

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Bible. They abound everywhere. North America is full of Bibles, full of, you know, Bible colleges, full of radio programs, full of churches.

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And yet, is our society being one to Christ? Are missionaries going into unreached areas all over the world?

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No, we're not seeing that. But what is being neglected? I think we could say in North America prayer has been greatly neglected.

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But when we see men of the past in the Bible, and men and women of God through Christian history, this one theme is, you know, undergirding their whole lives.

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They were given to God. They were devoted to prayer. They persisted obstinately in it. They adhered firmly to this place of prayer.

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And so, you know, what about us? Would those who know us say we are men of prayer and devoted to it?

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And I think we need a fresh view if we, you know, come back to God's estimation of prayer.

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And the New Testament bears this out. You know, and why has maybe prayer, you know,

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I'm not saying theoretically or in our minds we believe in prayer, but practically, you know, none of us would say, well, no,

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I don't think we should pray. I think all of us would say, you know, we need to pray and we need to pray lots. And we have this belief here, but practically from here to the, you know, practical outworking of it, something breaks down.

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And you know, as I was thinking about this, you know, the Lord brought a few things to my mind. I think unbelief has crept in, in regards to that we can actually pray and God will listen and He will respond.

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I think unanswered prayer for a situation or for a person or in our ministry has struck us and unbelief, we haven't guarded our hearts, unbelief has crept into our lives.

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And that unbelief, it paralyzes us in prayer. It really does.

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We can't, I mean, you know, the Bible says, have faith in God, according to your faith, be it unto you, you know, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God.

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But when he asked, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind.

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That man should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. When we allow doubt to creep in, it robs us of prayer and of effective prayer.

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And just like Jesus in his hometown, he could not do many miracles there, could not, not would not.

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I mean, you just think of it, Jesus, the son of God could not. That's quite a, that's quite a word.

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And why was it? Because of their unbelief. And I wonder, does that plague, you know, the

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North American church today? We have cried out or we have prayed and it seems the answer hasn't come.

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And Satan has tempted us and whispered in our ear and said, God's not listening. You know, nothing's changing.

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You're praying. And, you know, what's happening? Where is God? He's abandoned you. And slowly but surely, prayer, though in our minds we know we should, it goes to the background.

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And it dries up in our lives. And we become unfamiliar with it. And that place that is supposed to be so precious to us, you know, we wonder at it and we just think, you know, we can't find that place to be prominent in our own lives.

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And I think unbelief will do that. And unless we deal with unbelief, brothers, we will be paralyzed in prayer. We must deal with it.

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And by the spirit of God, we can and through Christ, unbelief can be dealt with. Absolutely. We don't need to stay there. We can come freshly to God with a renewed heart and the spirit of God can give us this every day.

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Paul said, outwardly wasting away, but inwardly being renewed day by day.

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God can renew us day by day spiritually and in faith toward Him. And we must have that because the things that are facing us today are, you know, incredible.

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I think another reason why prayer goes to the background, self -sufficiency, you know, in a sense it can be at an all -time high, has crept in.

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We don't feel the need of God. We have so much. We have resources. We have

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Bibles. We have conferences. We have the best of books. We have the best of theology and the doctrines of grace and we have it.

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And if I just preach this book, God will work. And self -sufficiency, you know, doesn't move us toward prayer.

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And yet we so desperately need God. So unbelief, self -sufficiency. And lastly,

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I put pride of doctrine and eloquence in the pulpit have replaced the humble work of prayer.

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You know, prayer, you get down, right? Daniel got down on his knees.

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It's a humbling work. But pride of doctrine, and that can abound in our circles, eloquence in the pulpit, taking pride in our preaching.

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That I preach chapter by chapter, verse by verse, or, you know, I've taken five years to go through the, you know, the book of Jude.

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And we think, right? I mean, it's true, we can take pride in these things. And when we do, pride doesn't cause us to feel the need of God.

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I'm doing good. I'm doing well. People, you know, oh, that was a great, I can't believe what you got out of that text.

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And I never saw that before. And we're built up, I forget who it was that the door, or, you know, when you, you know, go to the back and you shake hands and people go out or whatever.

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And I think it was Martin Luther said the exaltation of the worm, right? Oh, good sermon, good this, and that was the best sermon

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I ever heard. And, you know, you're going to be whatever. And it just, it drives prayer up in our hearts, because God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

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But what is God's estimation for verses in the new Testament that should show us God's esteem of prayer.

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And because if we have, if we have a low view of prayer, yeah, it won't be in the foreground of our hearts and lives.

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Philippians 4, 6 brothers, great little verse, the anxious for nothing, but what in everything by prayer, everything.

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So what's God's estimation of prayer? We're to pray about everything.

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So how does God view the need of prayer? Everything, just think of that in everything by prayer.

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So it's wherever I, you know, every need, everything I'm to cover and bathe in prayer.

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So how much time do I have to give to it? Do I intend to obey that verse? Everything by prayer. You know,

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Oh, I need a sermon. Oh, by prayer, I'll get it. Or by commentary, no, by prayer, everything by prayer, getting up into the pulpit.

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Oh, I got it down here. I can do this. I took preaching 101 and 102 and, you know,

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Oh no, by prayer and afterward that it would have its effect. Oh, by prayer. And, you know, for this, you know,

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Oh, the sheep that's hurting, Oh, by prayer or that family need. Oh, finances.

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Oh, by prayer, everything by prayer. Is that how we think? Or do we often turn to ourselves or the arm of flesh or this or that, or we can do it.

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But what's God's estimation? You need me in everything. Be turning constantly, continuously to me in prayer.

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Everything needs to be prayed over. Is that how we see things? And so we must devote ourselves.

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We will devote ourselves. God calls us to pray in everything. How am I going to do it? Apart from a resolve to obey the

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Lord in everything by prayer. Look at first Thessalonians 5 17 and all these are very familiar verses to us, but we have, have we ever really considered them?

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First Thessalonians 5 17 pray continually pray without ceasing.

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So what does that tell me of God's estimation of prayer? And what does it tell me about God? That he's a prayer loving

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God, that he loves, delights in to hear the prayers of his people so much that he would tell us never stop praying to me, that he would want a chorus of prayer going up from my life continually day and night.

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I mean, do you ever get to a place, you know, in relationship, I know I have five children and three at home now, and, you know, two daughters, 18 and 16.

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And, you know, we sit down at the supper table and I'm tired. It's just like, it's a nonstop course.

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It's like, you're just like, stop talking. Like, yeah, you don't want to hear any words. Just like,

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I just want to eat or, and yeah,

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I'm starving. And, you know, and yet here we have

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God saying to his people, pray continually. I am never tired of hearing the voices of my saints, of my people.

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I would hear your voice all the time. And just think about it. Not only my voice, but your voice and the voices of his people all over this world.

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How much must God love prayer and what it accomplishes?

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Well, why would he? Because it brings him into, it brings him into our lives. It calls upon him,

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Lord, step in. Come Lord, right? That's our cry and to commune with him and of course.

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So in everything by prayer and then pray continuously. So about everything and at all times.

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So here's God's estimation. One more, 1st Timothy chapter two and verse eight.

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Do we see it this way? And here's to the men and I think especially to leaders. 1st

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Timothy 2 .8, I want men everywhere or in other terms, I want men in every place to lift up holy hands in prayer.

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Lifting up holy hands in prayer. I want men in every place to pray. I mean, so every place.

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So here, God wants us praying. Oh, when we go home, God wants us praying.

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Oh, when we go into that house and we're visiting, God wants us praying. Oh, when we're driving in the car, oh,

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God wants us praying. In every place, I want men lifting up holy hands to God in prayer.

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That's what the Bible says. So do we see every place as a little holy place that we can come and commune with God and lift up our voices to him and unburden our souls and call upon him to come and intervene, just like I preached on Moses, the tent of meeting.

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Is every place for us becoming a tent of meeting where I meet with God? And it's not just one spot on the earth where Moses said, no, in Jesus, we have something better, that my home can be a tent of meeting, my car can be, my workplace, you know, the neighbor's home, wherever it is, can be a tent of meeting with God.

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I want men in every place to pray. That's what the Bible says. So in everything, pray.

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At all times, pray. And in every place, pray. What's God's estimation of it, brothers? And do we have this view of prayer or has it come way down in the background?

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If we read the New Testament, how can we possibly think that prayer is relegated to the background and the word of God is way up here and prayer is way back there?

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God couldn't emphasize prayer to us in greater ways, every place, at all times, and about everything.

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What's God calling us to, brothers? And do we think that we can pray for five minutes or 10 minutes here and that's fulfilling what the

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New Testament calls us to, this great work of prayer? God forbid that we should think that way. What is

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God saying to us? You need me. You need me in everything, in every place, and so call upon me continually.

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God's estimation of himself. And we can think that, oh, you know,

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I believe and, you know, behold your God, the low view of God, which prevails, that we have, oh, no,

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I have a high view of God. Is it possible to have a high view of God and prayer be in the background of our lives?

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There's no way on earth we're fooling ourselves. Prayer is communion with God, first and foremost, and the felt need of God himself.

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And it calls for him to be part of whatever it is we're doing. And so a true view of the greatness of God and who he is goes hand in hand with a high view of God and will draw us into prayer to this

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God. It would be like saying, you know, Tracy, you know, my wife, you know, you're so wonderful and so great.

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I have this great view, but, you know, it's, I find it hard to spend five minutes a day with you. Well, those two things don't go together, right?

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I mean, think in the early days and, oh, you were in love and it's just like every moment, you know, you were seeking to take up the moments with, you know, the girl you were dating or that was going to become your wife.

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And isn't it the great love of our lives? Doesn't that pull at us?

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And ought we not to spend, you know, as God, you know, calls us to? So I give you those.

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And then finally, Colossians 4 ,2, devote yourselves to prayer. And so this simple call, devote yourselves, devote yourselves.

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So, and I want to end with two thoughts and one is what will bring us to devotion to prayer? If prayer is in the background of your life, what will bring you to devotion?

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And one is to realize actually what the Bible says and what we're actually called to. Every single one of us here are called to the things, you know, that we just read.

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But I really believe, and as we read through the Psalms, a felt neediness of God.

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That is one thing that will bring us to God himself, a felt neediness of him.

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We're all needy of God, but who feels it? And who feels it enough to get down on their knees and spend the time that we need to before God and before his face?

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Who feels it enough to, you know, to set the alarm, like to get up early and seek him a great while before day?

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I mean, who feels it? Or do we, you know, oversleep and we rush into the day and we know we should have prayed more and we caught some, you know, well, we read, at least we read and we snatch five minutes in prayer and off we go.

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We're without strength, actually. And we might be doing the work of the ministry, but it's the hand of God in it.

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A felt neediness of God. Do you feel the need of God, brothers? Do you really feel the need of God?

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Do you need him? That will bring you to the place of prayer. It absolutely will. And God brings by his grace things into our lives that will bring us there.

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Secondly, walking in the spirit will bring us to a devotion in prayer. So if I'm walking in the spirit,

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I'm in step with the spirit. One, the spirit is the spirit of prayer. So if he's the spirit of prayer, will he lead me into prayer?

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Of course. As we see that as men walked with God and walked in the spirit, they were men and men of prayer.

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That's what they were. And doesn't the spirit, Ezekiel 36, I'll give you my spirit and cause you to follow my statutes and you'll be careful to keep my laws.

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Will not the spirit lead us into obedience? And so if I'm actually, let's not deceive ourselves.

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If I'm actually walking in the spirit in step with him, then he will lead me to obey

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God's word. And he will lead me to obey, oh, pray in everything. Pray without ceasing.

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I want men in every place, lifting up holy hands in prayer to God and devote yourself to prayer.

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If I am walking in the spirit, I will find myself being led to devote myself to prayer.

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Amen. That's obvious because he's the spirit of obedience. He's going to lead us into obedience to God. And this is, will he neglect this great call of God and especially on pastors and leaders?

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Will he leave that aside and, you know, well, he gets us into the word and whatever, but prayer is neglected.

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Is that the spirit of God? And will he cause us to be like that? Absolutely not.

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No matter what we think, if we're not moved in the direction of prayer, we're not walking in the spirit.

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That would be utterly impossible because the Bible calls us to be devoted to it. Thirdly, so I felt neediness walking in the spirit and then a love of God himself.

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And you know, we're to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. And as I said before, when we love someone, just the outcome of that is to want to spend time with them.

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Now we can love the study of God. We can love the doctrines of God and spend much time in that direction.

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As someone, you know, I listened to a preacher in person in British Columbia and he was introduced as the greatest teacher in Canada at the time.

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And I thought, oh, this will be something, you know, and he was a good teacher. But somebody asked him about prayer and he said, well,

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God has called me, you know, to teach the word. And, you know,

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I believe that other people, they're more given to prayer. I never forgot that he said that.

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Like I thought, so my study of God and his word, and this is about God himself, about his son,

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Jesus and the Holy Spirit. My study of him does not lead me to want to spend time in communion with him in prayer.

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I mean, that's something, isn't it? Like, wouldn't the Bible, if we're studying it rightly and with the spirit, won't it lead us to want to be with this

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God and to commune with him and like Moses to go out to the tent of meeting and meet him face to face and hear his voice and feel his touch?

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And wouldn't it want, doesn't it lead us to that? Do we read the Bible and we enjoy the bare word, but the

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God of the Bible we're missing? God forbid. If we love God himself, and this is the

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God we're learning about through his word and the revelation of himself, it's going to cause me not, I don't want to just read about the love of God.

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I want to know it. I want to experience it. I don't want to just read about the holiness of God. I want to know what it is.

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Lord, meet me, show me your holiness, show me your love or the delight in God. I want the joy of the

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Lord in my heart. It's my strength, the Bible says. And I want to experience it. I want to meet

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God. I want to know him. And so, oh, well, I did my prayers or well,

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OK, did you meet with God? Did you actually have communion? Is there any fellowship there? Any, you know,

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John said in first John, our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. Is our fellowship with him?

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Do I fellowship with God and this love of God like David to gaze upon the beauty of the

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Lord? Then I want to meet him in that holy place. And I find God drawing near. I'm drawing near to him.

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He's drawing near to me. And I'm in fellowship with him. And out of that flow prayers, this communion with God and this compassionate

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God or God who has stepped into human history and still steps in. Am I meeting

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God there, brothers? You know, I felt neediness and a walking in the spirit and just the sheer love of God will draw us into the place of prayer.

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And, you know, I want to close with thoughts of what if we don't devote ourselves? And I think many people are there.

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This call of God on our lives, what if we say, yeah, no, I know I should. And we're there, you know, I know I should pray and I can't catch snippets of it.

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But am I really going to devote myself? Just consider if you don't devote yourself, if you don't persist obstinately or adhere firmly or give your attention to prayer, that it becomes a prominent feature of your day to day life.

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This is the outcome. The outcome is then if you don't devote yourselves, it is disobedience of the highest order.

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You're living in ongoing disobedience to God. That's number one. Well, at the same time, we would say we want to honor and glorify him in our lives and in our ministry.

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If we are not devoted to prayer, we are actively disobeying the call of God on every one of our lives.

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And so am I OK with that? Am I OK to actively disobey

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God? Well, you know, I preach the word faithfully. That's good. Praise God for that. And I would question, can you preach the word of God faithfully and not give much time to prayer?

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I don't think we're as faithful as we think because we must do it by the power of the spirit. And so are we content to go on in disobedience to be a hearer of the word, to know what it says and not a doer of it in regards to prayer?

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Secondly, I don't know about you, but I desire to see God in our ministry.

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And but if I don't give myself to prayer, I neglect the very means that God has given not only for communion with himself, but also for success in ministry.

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I mean, we read the accounts of men of the past and what do they say? You know, just say,

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I know I'm just it's prayer. You need prayer. Hudson Taylor to Jonathan Goffert, you'll only go forward on your knees.

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You want success. If we want the, you know, the end result of God's hand in our ministry, the spirit of God working and seeing, we're neglecting the very means that God has given for that purpose.

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We shoot ourselves in the foot. We're going against ourselves at the same one breath. We're saying, oh,

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I want to see God moving. But we're we're despising the means that God has given for that.

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And one of the great means is prayer and much time given to it. And I've read enough, and I'm sure you had of these men of God.

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And, you know, someone has asked, you know, can we seem see the same results with without the same attention given to prayer?

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Then we've discovered something that so many have never discovered because they also felt the need of much prayer and they gave themselves to it.

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And we need to learn from them. Thirdly, what if we don't devote ourselves? This might seem like a steric statement, but I've read it and I believe that we leave

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God out of our ministry. In a very real sense, you know, a lack of prayer says

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I don't really need God because if I need him, I'm going to come to him and call upon him.

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I'm going to cry for the spirit of God to be part of everything I do in everything by prayer. That means I need God in everything.

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And if we don't pray over our ministry and over our people and over evangelism, what am I saying? I can do this without God's hand, his spirit on me.

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I don't need it so much. I don't need to cry for God like others have. I know the word or I can explain.

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I can share the gospel. I'm good at apologetics. I can just win the argument or. No, we leave

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God out. And as we've said, you know, apologetics won't raise anyone from the dead.

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It might win their mind, but their heart is still in rebellion to God. Fourthly, if we if we neglect the place of prayer, we grieve the spirit and are out of step with him no matter how much we try to convince ourselves otherwise.

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Day to day, we actually grieve the spirit of God, because if we if we are in step with the spirit, he's going to lead us to prayer that day.

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Every day he's going to lead us prayer. He's going to lead us into communion with God. Amen. I mean, the spirit of God is going to bring us into communion with God day by day.

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Christ has died to give us access to God in him. In Jesus, we have access to the father by one spirit.

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So if I'm not praying, you know, and the spirit of prayer, he's he's pulling at me, he's drawing me to to get down like Daniel to pray, to cry out to God, to commune with him, to go out to that spot and we pull back and other things.

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Well, I know, I know I should. But oh, and the phone and the other phone is dinging.

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OK, we're texting and and things pile into our lives and oh, our time with God. We've missed it and we're on into our day, we grieve the spirit because surely the spirit will lead us there fourthly or fifthly.

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And none of us want this, the arm of flesh will be all too prevalent in and through our work and the glory of God will not be manifest, but it will be the glory of self.

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And how true that is, the arm of flesh will be all too prevalent in our work. I mean, if we're not calling upon God, then who's going to do it?

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We're going to do it and the arm of flesh will go out. And I mean, don't don't we see that in so many places, the arm of flesh, what it can accomplish, and at times it's ugly.

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But if if we're not saturated in prayer and needy of the spirit and full of him, well, then it is going to be the arm of flesh, no matter how we painted or sanctified or no matter our theology or our doctrines that we hold to the arm of flesh will be prevalent.

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It's just that simple. It's the truth, brothers, and the arm of flesh is everywhere in the North American church.

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We're going to do it and we can do it. And we have the money. We have the resource. We have the church. We have the gymnasium.

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We have the whatever. We can do it and it doesn't get done.

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And so, you know, in closing, you know, what's our response to this?

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I don't know if you've ever faced that passage yourself or really thought through it. We will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.

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We will. And I believe that's the only response that God would have of us.

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And to feel that and then, OK, if that's yes, Lord, you know, yes,

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Lord, that's what you call me to. Then so be it in my life. Spirit of God, lead me into this and let me not neglect it.

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And then like Jehoshaphat, to set ourselves toward prayer, to think through our days, generally speaking,

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OK, Lord, just like our mealtime, I'm going to set the times of prayer generally.

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Some days it might not be like that. Yeah. And what does it mean?

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Let's say for me, oh, it means to set my alarm. Is that spiritual? Right.

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Jesus didn't have an alarm. But yeah, it's spiritual. I'm setting myself to obey the

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Lord. I'm going to get up. I find that to be, you know, like Jesus in Mark one. He rose a great while before day or before, you know, while it was still dark and to get up and go off to a solitary place.

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He intended to do it. It didn't just happen. He intended to do it. And he did it. And all of these men that we read about, they intended to do it and they did it.

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And the Lord was, you know, it was such a part of their lives, was that's why we read about them.

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God was with them. And I want to have the Lord with me. And I'm sure you want to have the

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Lord with you. We can't neglect this simple little passage. We can't neglect it. And we do it to our own demise.

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So let me just close in prayer. And then if there are any questions. Lord, you know, oh,

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God, some some verses are so simple and yet, Father, we can we can know it all.

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And yet, practically, we just we neglect it. Lord, we leave it to the side and we allow other things to crowd in into our lives.

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And prayer seems to go on the back burner. And God, I pray, forgive us. Forgive me. How often this has happened,

31:06

Lord. How often I've fallen short of this simple command. Devote yourself to prayer. God have mercy upon us.

31:11

Lord, we would be men of God. Men who walk with you and commune with you and enjoy you and know you,

31:17

Lord, and and walk in step with your Holy Spirit. And I pray that you would make us that. I pray you would seal this verse to our hearts and we would never let it go.

31:26

I pray you would put an intention, a resolve by the spirit of God into our hearts and lives. And Lord, draw us into it.

31:33

God, may we be men of prayer who truly pray, who meet with you, Lord, who have your hand upon our lives, who know what it means.

31:41

God, to cry out and receive answers. God, make us such men. Make us a blessing to our churches.