The Secret Weapon of Prayer

The Secret Weapon of Prayer

Well, it's great to see you here tonight. And I've met people tonight that I haven't seen in 40 years. That'll shock you. And you say, man, he looks old. And then you feel like you should say, go look in the mirror.

But they've been good years. And with much praise to God for seeing some of you haven't seen in so long. And great memories. And thank you, Amy, for that beautiful music. Brought tears to my eyes just singing with you.

She's awesome in it. You know, there's a lot going on in the world. When you have a meeting like this at night, together from all these different places, God's sovereignly bringing each one together here.

And we hear the word. Like, I had something nice and all put out for tonight, ready to go. I felt like I'd been praying over it for a few days. And then this afternoon, we were praying right here for this meeting tonight.

And the Lord just broke my heart and said, I want you to talk on this. I hate it when he does that. But yet, I get excited because I know that when you hear God's word from your pastor or from your study or in your Bible reading, and the Lord speaks it to your heart, the stakes are high.

Called to Pray in a Troubled World

Especially today, the stakes are very, very, very high. When you meet people every day, God has arranged for us, you and me, to be on this planet at this particular hour. Just like Esther, who knoweth but that you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this.

And people say, I pray for divine appointments. And they say, I wish I had more. You have more than you could ever imagine. We just walk right by them. We're not really paying attention. So I'm praying that tonight the Lord will speak to us.

I pray he'll speak to me. I've been desperate. Can you feel everything shaking around you? Do you know what's going on globally? I mean, I get calls. I mean, I've had the privilege of going to a lot of nations and meeting a lot of people.

And I get a lot of calls. We had a Zoom call the other night from like six different time zones. It was Korea and Malaysia and Australia and Egypt. I'm just all these different, all at the same time, all different, and time was no more.

But you get calls from people. And the same thing that are beginning to make people panic in certain ways around us are happening all over the world because the world is in labor preparing to meet the returning king.

And so this means these are not normal days. It's almost impossible to think about the future without thinking in a wartime mentality. I'm not talking about like in Ukraine. I'm talking about the weapons of our warfare are mighty through God.

To the tearing down of things that have been hindering the church forever. So I believe that we start tonight where God starts, and that is with prayer in our heart to really make things happen. Let me just pray before we start.

Father, teach us to pray. Thank you for the time on the Zoom call we had together with some of these people here where we looked at Lord, teach us to pray. You are the teacher. Holy Spirit, you take the things of Jesus and no one prayed like him.

You lead us into them and lead us into the truth. So we pray tonight that you will show us the secret weapon of prayer. And may we embrace this, the secret part of prayer and embrace it and may we see the glory of God take place in our own heart if not tonight as a result of the seeds you sow tonight.

So we just give you our families. We give you our churches represented here. We give you our hearts and our life. We ask you to seal your word to our heart tonight as we look at your precious word and hear your call.

Prayer as God's Chosen Instrument

And we can sense your warning to the world. Make us part of all of that right in the center of your will. In Jesus' name, amen. You know, God is looking. His eyes in 2 Chronicles say, go back and forth across the whole earth looking for a heart that's right toward him that he can show himself strong through.

God has chosen in his sovereignty over and over in scripture to, we see him choosing to often limit his workings in our situations to the degree and revelation of the prayers that we really pray. I mean, he knows our needs, but he says, you have not because you ask not.

And if you will not call upon me, then I'll let you have your way. So this is what's happening in our nation, our confidences are being shaken and eroded. And God is looking for people that he can use to change the world around us in these coming days.

And I believe we're gonna see two things before that great day of the Lord. It says in the New Testament, it says, don't be mistaken about this. Before that day comes, there'll be a great falling away.

But at the same time as there's a great falling away, there's gonna be a global harvest. On the other hand, at the same time, and there are gonna be some strange things happening that we can't figure out if we're prayerless, because prayer is the bridge through which God speaks to us.

The first, just think of this, you hear the gospel, you believe the gospel, does that save you? No, you pray in your heart and you get in contact with the living spirit of God and he comes in and you're saved, you're born again.

And we know inherently, the new nature has in it like a baby crying to call upon the father and make himself known to us. Well, we talked about Luke 11, when we talked about the disciples are only recorded as asking the Lord Jesus to teach them one thing.

They needed to learn a lot, but teach us to pray. It's a plural, us, not just teach me. Teach us to pray, not how to pray. Teach me to do what I know inherently is most important. And that is to pray, to open my heart up and listen to the spirit of God and let him speak.

And so right after that, the Lord gives them a model pattern for prayer, the Lord's prayer as we call it, or the bride's prayer, praying to him. And then he gives a parable. And the parable doesn't seem like it fits there exactly.

It's a man who has nothing to feed visitors at midnight. He comes and knocks on his neighbor's door and keeps on coming and asking because of his opportunity and the need to give him some bread. And he did give him bread because of his opportunity.

That seems strange to me to include after he says, teach us to pray. But then he goes and he gives a promise. It's a pattern and a parable and a promise. And the promise is, he says, listen, which of you having, if a son asks bread of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?

If he asks for a fish, will he, instead of a fish, give him a serpent? He's revealing his heart. And he's asking, when we ask to be taught to pray, when we ask to know him, will God, I mean, would I give my son a snake if he says I want a scrambled egg?

Well, if I did, I'd be a really bad dad. I'd be a wretch. Really? Well, how much more it says here, if you then, just being fallen, being a fallen man, evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly father, it's not a matter of sonship here, not a matter of being born again.

It's a matter of, it's how much more shall your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? So Father God wants us to ask him to lead us into the things that take the Spirit of God to lead us into.

Lord, open my eyes and let me see. So he wants to give you the spirit of prayer. It's in the same context here. Teach us to pray. If you ask the Lord for the spirit of prayer, he'll put it in you. And that's what we're gonna talk about tonight a little bit.

But seven chapters after that, Jesus, I think they're still in that learning mode for all of this, of course. And in chapter 18 of Luke, verse one, listen to this, he spoke a parable to them to this end or this goal that men ought always to pray and not to faint.

And I think you have there two alternatives for the days ahead for us. You'll either continue and learn from him how to pray and what to pray and really to be expanded in this whole glorious thing. Or you'll end up fainting like the rest of the world for looking at the things coming to pass on the earth.

Man's heart's failing them for fear and for looking at things coming to pass upon the earth. And fear and unbelief are gonna have a rampant time in the days ahead, especially if we're prayerless. But see, prayer has no rival.

Persistent Prayer and the Unjust Judge

In this particular parable here that Jesus gives about a little widow, he says there was a city, a judge there, and he didn't fear God. He could care less. He was secular to the core. And he didn't regard man.

He wasn't feeling sorry for anybody around him. He wouldn't take their case because they needed him. And there was a widow in that city and the same came to him saying, avenge me of my adversary. Nobody was taking care of this little woman.

She didn't have anybody. And this judge had everything in his hand. And she came and said, do the right thing. Avenge me of my adversary. Who's weaker than a widow? And who's more powerful than a judge like that?

And so he would not do it for a while. But this is a kind of intensive thing. She kept coming and saying, avenge me of my adversary. And in the picture there is a little woman with an umbrella shaking at a judge saying, do the right thing, coming out of the courthouse.

Do the right thing. Mr. Judge, do the right thing. And it began to get on this judge's nerves. And he says, listen, though I fear not God, well, he wouldn't do anything for a while, but afterwards he said within himself, though I fear not God and I don't regard man because this widow troubles me.

I will avenge her lest by her continual coming. See, it's just like that knocking at the door. Continual coming. She wearies me. And it literally says in the Greek language, it's kind of like he's afraid she's gonna give him a black eye, a little widow.

And the Lord said, listen to what? The unjust judge says, he gives in like that. Shall not God avenge his own elect like his child back in chapter 11? Shall he not avenge his own elect which cry to him day and night though he makes them wait a while?

Why does he make us wait on big things like this? Because the benefit's not just the answer. The benefit is in the praying and being molded and brought into the understanding of our heavenly father. Praying is good for us.

It brings us into the heart of God and God wants a heart that he can use. He says, how much shall not the Lord avenge his own elect who which cry day and night to him? Not just nighttime, but all day.

This burden is on their heart and they keep coming and they keep coming and they keep coming. And though he makes them wait a long time, I tell you, God will avenge them speedily. The time comes suddenly.

Nevertheless, when the son, this is odd to say here. Nevertheless, when the son of man comes, shall he find that kind, it says, that kind of faith on the earth? So he's saying it way to the future. In the days when the son of man comes, is he gonna find that persistent, insistent, consistent, persistent, pressing in prayer that will not be put away?

Is you as weak as a widow and as powerful as a Supreme Court judge, you keep on coming and you keep on bringing it because God says the time will come that that kind of burden for prayer, I will answer.

A Testimony of Twenty-Six Years of Prayer

You know, I prayed every day for my dad for 26 years. My kids, after they came along, began to say, you think pop will ever be saved? I prayed every day for him and then they prayed. And one day, you know, my friend, it's a long story, but the Lord saved my friend's father who we'd been praying for him the same way and the same kind of direction.

And I said to myself, I said, Lord, you did that for my friend's dad. Now you gotta do this. We kept praying and I got a phone call when I was in Michigan to come quickly because my dad had a ventricular tachycardia and he was in the hospital in Chapel Hill where I grew up.

And I had to get on a jet and go down there and all the way I was saying, Lord, keep him alive. We'd prayed for this other guy, that the Lord would keep him alive just until he could hear the gospel one last time.

And I remember my friend, we walked into his dad. He was like a skeleton with rubber stretched around it, laying on the bed. He'd been in a coma for three days. We said, Lord, keep him alive till he hears the gospel one last time.

And the Lord gave me the thief on the cross as the picture of getting down and whispering in his ear the gospel. And we walked in and Jeff's sister had been a vice president of Coke. And when we got there, they all left and left Jeff and I.

He walked in and touched his dad and his dad went like this and he kind of came to. And I got down in his ear and I said, Mr. Williams, Mr. Williams, you've been an unbeliever your whole life, but now you're at the crossroads.

You're gonna pass into eternity. And I told him about the thief on the cross and can you just trust Jesus now? Everyone's praying for you that you'll let Jesus have your life. And he went, I got down beside him and he went, Jesus, and the room like filled with warmth.

It's all I can describe like water. And we began to praise God. Jeff picked up his dad's shirt and began to rub his stomach and said, dad, I'm so glad you've come. We wept and we wept and we wept together.

And then he said to him, dad, I'll see you later. We gotta go. We walked out and five minutes later, he went back into a coma and passed into eternity. Well, that's when my dad had that trend. A couple of years later, I said, Lord, you gotta do this for me, same way.

And I went there and he was there, had that Braxton Hicks. Is that the right word Greg is saying? Chainstokes, that's not, that's labor. Sorry, we've had so many, we've got 20 grandchildren. I should know that.

But I got down beside him and he was unconscious. And I said, pop, I know you can hear me. And I began to talk in his ear and I gave him the same thing. And I said, you know, you've been a geneticist and a scientist, smartest man I know, but you've been stupid in this area.

You're on your way to hell and you know it's true. You've seen us all changed by the gospel. And can you just let me know, I'm putting my hand in yours and let me know that you're gonna admit you're a fool and trust Jesus, the priest at it.

And squeeze my hand, let me know. And it went like this, you know, pulled up like this. And then I got excited, but I waited a little bit more. And I did it again. I said, do it. And he did it again. And I said, wow.

And the next morning, my wife drove down from, anyway, she drove and we went in to see him and my daughters were there and they sang to him. And he was there and my mom was there. And she said, I got some water and put it on his lips.

And he went like this. And he looked at me with big blue eyes. And she said, she called him Mari. Mari, did you trust Jesus last night? Al said, you trusted Jesus last night. I wasn't even gonna say any of this, but maybe you have a loved one like this.

And he kind of started to fade out again. I put some more water on and she said, did you trust Jesus? And he reached his hand over like this and got my hand and pulled it over his chest. And he did like this with his hand and pointed up.

And I said to myself, 26 years of prayer. He made me wait a long time. And I was preaching that next Sunday up in Dalton, Georgia. And I didn't have time to prepare a message. And I got up and I said, I don't have time to prepare a message this week for you.

I didn't have time, but this week a message prepared me. And here it is. Maybe you've got loved ones you've given up on. Maybe you've found it to be impossible. George Mueller prayed for 62 years for his brother to be saved.

And his brother was saved as they looking down at George Mueller's coffin. Because God is faithful to answer that kind of prayer. Prayer is as big as God and nothing is outside the reach of prayer except what's outside the will of God.

And for you, you need to learn to pray. I need to learn to pray. There's no realm where man is so quickly at the end of himself as in the realm of prayer. We've not even entered kindergarten to see, I mean, you read these books about people who changed the course of World War II by a small group of people that really got a hold of praying.

He can do that here in your church or the church where you go, your prayer meeting. You can see amazing things happen. It's amazing what God will let you see happen in prayer if you don't publish it and try to write a book about it.

Prayer as the Foundation of Church Life

Secret, secret prayer, awesome prayer. And it's so glorious to see it happening. So let me ask you this. If you knew you had one year to live, you knew that, how would you spend it? What would you do?

Would your priorities change if doctor said you have exactly one year to live and you knew it was true? Would your priorities change or would you just go on like you are? Suppose on the other hand, the Lord allowed you to be caught up to heaven like Paul was, the apostle.

And you saw the Lamb on the throne and the innumerable company of saints that are there and the angels praising him. And then he sent you back to earth, boring, but he sent you back and you knew. Would that change your life?

You think it would change the way you set your priorities every day? I mean, it might not, but would it change your prayer life? Would it affect your attitudes? Would it affect your motives, the way you treat other people?

Have you ever thought what your life or mine or your church's life would look like if God had his total way? Have you? His total way. What if you gave God his total way? How would things change? What do you think would really be the difference in your life?

And if you knew that you just were really able to control the levers of the universe in a sense that he shows you. Why do we not see his grace and power moving in our churches in this country? I mean, we do see some things, no doubt about it, but overseas you go there and you see amazing things happening because they're praying and they're calling on the Lord.

What's holding back God from acting on behalf of the church of the Lord Jesus and on the lost around us? What's holding him back? Why hasn't he taken the field? Could it be because we haven't asked and we don't believe God?

Could it be? Because I'll tell you, that's the first thing. The greatest factor in evangelism is prayer. The greatest factor in missions is prayer. The greatest factor in discipleship is prayer. The greatest factor in Bible study is prayer.

It's the foundation and the catalyst for everything that he wants the church to experience in terms of the things of God. It's the surest way for any person or any family or any church to become truly spiritual and not just activity oriented and service motivated, which are good things, but prayer will put you into the throne room of God and you'll come out with orders and the love of Christ, you see.

It's the key to church growth, that's prayer. And it's the way into revival. Revival will never happen, nor will it be sustained if we don't learn what it really means to pray, like the models of history of true revival.

I hope you know what I'm talking about, real revival. It's a dissolver of doubts, prayer. It's the best classroom you'll ever enter into. It's how to hear God's secrets. It's where vision comes from. It came to the people in the scripture.

Passion is born there in prayer. It's a prerequisite before any great move of God in our churches. It's got to happen. It's got to be so. So it's what the devil hates more than anything else. He doesn't much care how good an orator you are when you speak, if he can keep you prayerless.

He's not afraid of our bus ministries and all the other stuff. He's not afraid of our seminaries or anything else. But when the weakest widow begins to pray right, then he trembles and he hates it. So he'll do more than you can imagine.

But to stop it. So it's your most awesome privilege. And it's also your greatest responsibility to pray. Can you imagine praying over 20 grandchildren? Can you imagine how confusing that can be and how burdening and how it can destroy?

I mean, I told my wife not long ago, I said, you know, I'm having a hard time acting happy, walking around. I don't feel like just sitting down with the boys and just, just because I've got all these pastors calling me and all these people in countries and they're telling me heart burden and I see kids getting destroyed.

How could I giggle? I mean, I want to understand the burden of God. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Why do you think he did that? Why do you think it says in Hebrews, in the days of his flesh, he was heard in his crying, strong crying and tears.

He was heard by his father because he feared God. Why do you think that? I mean, I mean, was he just crying for emotions or I mean, has he changed? So heaven is just as full of blessings as it's ever been.

There's not been a depletion. One bit of blessing have been depleted. God has never changed. He's the same and the same things he's looking for is what he's still looking for. Hearts who will pray and our lives and our work are just as dependent much more maybe in an hour like this than anybody you admires in history, than theirs depended on prayer.

The world is more aggressive and more evil and evil has fangs in our day. And it's after your children and it's after your siblings and your spouse. And the only thing is the weaponry and the arsenal of God.

We've got to learn how to use those weapons that God has given us and live in the power. So prayer is God's appointed way of drawing forth. Everybody's trying to redefine the church. Everybody's trying to get the church to relate to culture.

Listen, we're not to relate to culture, we're to confront it with the word of God. And we don't have to redefine the church because our Lord Jesus said, my father's house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations and I will build my church.

So that means he's looking for people that will say yes. You know, you don't just become an Olympic athlete because you watch the Olympics and you like standing on the podium and you wanna do that. You don't just become a soul winner by just reading books on soul winning, you have to surrender to it.

You don't become a prayer warrior just because you wanna be a prayer warrior. I mean, we all say we wanna go to a church that prays and we all want people that pray for us. But the question is, are we praying?

If you and I believed in prayer, we would go to prayer meeting. Don't you think? If you really believe, whatsoever you ask in my name, that will I do. So I asked them the other day, I said, ask yourself about your reputation or your churches.

How are we known by people around us? It's not the church saying we're a house of prayer, it's Jesus said that others will say that's a house of prayer. I was blessed to be at the Brooklyn Tab and we had a meeting with all their prayer people and we suggested that they go out and have a prayer booth and people walking by, they would ask him, can we pray for you?

And they began to do that and they began to pray and more and more of the people began to know this is where I go to get people to pray for me. And it's a beginning and it was a powerful thing. What is the main consciousness of your congregation?

Psalm 126 and the Harvest of Tears

I will build my church. Well, all of that, I'm sorry to say for you was just an introduction to where I'm going. I want you to turn in your Bible to Psalm 126, if you will, please. If you have your Bible, Psalm 126, and I want to read with you these verses, Psalm 126.

Let me just say tonight that I believe God wants to do something supernatural in our hearts. It may be quiet, it may not be something you can measure easily, but listen to this. Verse one, and I'm using an old version that you might not like, but I'll tell you what something means if we go over it.

It says, it's a song of degrees. It was one of those that they read on the steps of the temple, there's like these 15 steps and they would read this one and people would say amen. But it says, when the Lord turned again, the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream and that word is rejoicing like with protection of God coming over and making things really beautiful.

So when the Lord turned the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream. So does it seem normal to think of God's people being in captivity? And if they are in captivity, is it like King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon?

Are there things that can hold us captive that are not necessarily nations? Like Job, it says he was captive the whole book of Job, but nobody on earth was like him. Father God said three times, there's nobody like Job on earth, he's a righteous man, he fears God and he hates evil.

But yet all the book, he was captive. What was he captive to? It wasn't until the end of the book when Job got his mind off himself and prayed for, he first had seen God, then he got his mind off himself and then he prayed for his friends and it says, and the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends.

When we finally dealt with the I problem, when we finally like Isaiah, see the Lord and I am undone. See, God wants to remove from our hearts the idea that prayer is just to meet my needs, just to meet my church's needs because there's something much, much bigger.

The other night in a prayer meeting, an elder in a church, he held up a prayer list and he said, I've come to see there's much more to our praying together as men than just making a list of things we're asking here.

It's much bigger talking about getting down and listen for God's burden in the world and then praying that. Well, I know you're sitting there probably saying, wait a second, read the scripture, let's keep reading.

When the Lord turned the captivity again of Zion, we were like those people who dream so happy. And then when our captivity was turned was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing. And they said among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them.

See, the world notices supernatural joy. The world notices the presence of God in our life. But it says in verse three, the Lord has done great things for us whereof we are glad. Every one of us should be so thankful.

We were talking about last night about how many things we take for granted that are only being experienced because of the goodness of God to us. But then we get to the meat of it. Turn again our captivity, oh Lord, like those streams in the South.

Well, those streams is the word for wadis. It's, I was at Masada and a guide showed me the bus sitting there in one of those, it's a dry river bed, dry river gulsh. And there's a bus parked there. It doesn't normally rain down there.

But when it rains in Jerusalem, he said, water comes down that gulsh and it swept the whole bus away once I was watching it. So when the Lord turns the captivity of Zion, we were like those dry river beds where floods of living water sweep through the life and change everything.

And it turns things into torrents that were just trickles. Torrents is the word for streams. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. What does that mean? Well, may I suggest to you that you think of a prayer closet and you're in the prayer closet, like praying for your dad year after year or day after day or a child or some need and you're praying and as the Lord has you wait until you're brought into an understanding of how he feels about something and you can pray thy will be done.

But when it finally comes, tears begin to flow and you begin to sow the promises of God in tears in your closet. You're in there and you're, they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Lord, I want you to deal with this, oh God.

And like, I remember when there's some tragedies in our family, I remember being at night down on the floor and only thing was just the slivers of light coming through the shade, the blinds. And the Lord just said to me, lift up the rod.

I believe he did say it. And I reached down and I just held up the rod like that to him like what Moses did. And I said, Lord, he said, now you tell me what you want. And he showed me and I began to weep and I began to understand it.

I also had great fear. You have to be careful what you say when God says that. You don't just say, do what I want you to do. You want to do your will, Lord. And so he says, you're sowing in tears. You're claiming God's promises in tears.

And then it says, he that goes forth and weeps bearing precious seed. So here's a man that's walking out of his prayer closet and he's got those precious seed, the word of God, the grain that he scatters and he's going out.

He, without a doubt, he's leaving the prayer closet with those seed. He, without a doubt, will come again with rejoicing, bringing sheaves with him. So you get before God and you wait before him and you claim the word of God and you listen and you let his words abide in you and you abide in his words.

And he begins to condition your heart to where you're saying, Lord, thy will be done. And he gives you your part. And then you get up and you take those words out and you sow them and God brings the harvest or brings that person to himself in his timing.

You may wait a little bit. I remember when I heard a story about General Booth who started the Salvation Army, you probably heard of him. And the Salvation Army used to be, I don't know if they are now, but they used to be awesome.

They would go into a city after much, much prayer and organization and they learned how to do it. They'd go in and take the gospel to the underbelly of a city like New York. They knew how to do it. And so they were particularly in a Northeastern city Samuel Logan Bringle writes this account.

He was one of the top guys that would go into a city. And he writes about how they'd done everything. They went into this Northeastern city and they'd done all these things. They'd prayed, they'd organized, they'd taken collections.

They had everybody in place and they labored and labored and labored and nothing happened, nothing. And so they doubled their efforts and began to go out and kept doing more. And nothing was, there's no harvest, nothing.

And so they wrote General Booth. They wrote General Booth, they were forlorn. They said, they told him what had happened. And there's nothing in the letter that they can understand why this wasn't happening.

And they got a letter back from General Booth, had two words, try tears. And immediately they realized that it had been all emotion and all head and not enough heart. They hadn't gotten before God and felt deeply in their hearts what God wanted to say.

The greatest single factor in spiritual fruit bearing is spiritual, is not methodology. It's not money, it's not men, but it's prayer. And it's not just any kind of prayer. You can make prayer lists and all these things, but the question, is it effectual and is it fervent?

Is your heart involved? Are you available? And so this is what we're saying about trying tears. A lot of people today seek to be effective and they go forth and they labor, but they've left off the weeping in their closet and they've left off the sowing in tears.

Would you agree with that? I mean, there were 50 ,000 prayer meetings that took place on the National Day of Prayer, organized ones, two years ago, three years ago. I was in Washington for that meeting with the people there.

And they reported to us 50 ,000, only God can do that. But you see, all prayer is not necessarily effectual prayer just because we gather to say some prayers or it's gotta be spirit led by the spirit of God.

So the picture in the psalm, if it's right prayer, it's prayers that are involving the heart. So tears, I would say this, here's where we're going tonight, tears. Tears, you could call it liquid prayer.

It's the explanation, exclamation point of prayer. And it's not just activities and service, it's not building buildings, it's not anything else. It's getting your heart involved. And tears are the same in any language, they're universal.

You understand what someone's going through when you see tears. And I mean, you can go overseas and you feel like an alien, but you see someone weeping and you know immediately, you can hear what they're saying.