Power in Prevailing Prayer — Bill McLeod

The Effectual, Fervent Prayer of the Righteous

James 5, verse 16, a well-known verse that says that the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. One translation says it exerts a mighty influence. It avails much. What kind of a prayer?

The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man. I'm speaking on the subject of prevailing prayer, and prevailing prayer is not necessarily long praying, it's rather praying that gets results. To some people, prayer is sort of a spiritual PT.

It's a good exercise for the soul, but it really doesn't accomplish anything other than that. I rather prefer somebody else's definition. I read it in a book on prayer. This brother said that prayer was backing a three-ton truck up to the warehouse of heaven and driving away with a full load.

Praying on the Ground of Salvation and Confession

First of all, we have to be, of course, on praying ground, which means that I must be saved. And it's very possible in a crowd this size that there are some who have never really been born again. In revival work it rather frequently happens that people, and sometimes office holders in churches, occasionally even preachers, will discover that they have never been born again.

And if I have never received Jesus Christ and do not have the assurance that my sins are forgiven and I am God's child, then I am not on praying ground. Then I must be walking in the light in order to be on praying ground.

Psalm 66, verse 18 says, "...if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.". One translation says, "...if I conceal iniquity, if I hide it in my heart.". What's the use of trying to hide my sins, my iniquities, when in Psalm 90 we read this "...thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins, in the light of thy countenance.".

So then with God there is no such thing as a hidden sin. It just aggravates our own sin to God, before God, that we try and hide it after we have done it. So the Bible says, "...he that or whoso confesses, see, he that covers his sins shall not prosper.

You may prosper materially, but spiritually you cannot, if you cover your sins. But whoso confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy.". And it's that combination of confessing, that is of admitting, acknowledging, as Jeremiah 3 .13 says, "...only acknowledge your iniquity.".

Or Hosea 5 .15 where God said, "...I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offense and seek my face.". The marginal reading says, "...until they be guilty.". Until we're willing to confess and forsake, I say again, that combination, admitting and forsaking, then we are on praying ground.

Trusting the Promises of the God Who Hears Prayer

And then thirdly, to be on praying ground, we have to know something of the promises of God. Psalm 65 .2, it's not exactly a promise, but you could claim it as that, it's sort of a title for God, and it goes like this, "...O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.".

The God with whom we have to do is a God who hears prayer. I repeat it again, "...O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.". In 2 Peter 1, beginning from the third verse, we read these words, "...according as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him who has called us to glory and virtue whereby, or by whom are given unto us, exceeding great and precious promises, that by these, that by these, you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.".

Then he goes on to talk about adding to your faith virtue. Well, when he talks about faith at the top of the list there, of course he's taking us back to the exceeding great and precious promises. You know, there's a beautiful thought over in Genesis, when Joseph's brothers came back to their father Jacob and said, "...Joseph is yet alive, and he's a ruler in Egypt.".

The Bible says that Jacob's heart fainted, and he believed them not. But when he saw something, it says, "...the spirit of Jacob, their father, revived.". Do you remember what it was that caused his heart to revive?

It says, "...when he saw the wagons.". What wagons were these? These were the wagons that Joseph had sent with his brothers back to carry Jacob and his household into Egypt again. And those wagons, to me, they represent the promises of God.

A wagon may be slow, may be a little dusty, and they may be going by you in LTDs and whatnot, but I'll tell you something, they'll get you there when the car won't get you there. The promises of God, exceeding great and precious promises of God, and these promises we ought to plead back to God in believing prayer.

Conversational Prayer and Pouring Out the Soul

What about conversational prayer? There's a place for that. I don't think we have to always very formally address God. Sometimes when we're praying, we're just saying words. We're not talking to God. We may be talking to the people around us, or perhaps even talking to the chair.

But there's something in the Bible that needs to be understood. First Chronicles chapter 17, and then in Daniel chapter 9, people say when you pray, you shouldn't keep on saying, God, Lord, God, Lord, Jesus, Lord, God, Spirit.

You shouldn't do that. I've read books that say you shouldn't do that. You should always talk conversationally to God. But dear people, that's not the teaching of the Word of God. In First Chronicles chapter 17, in a prayer that takes less than two minutes, David used the name of God 17 times.

Oh God, oh God. And Daniel did the same thing in the ninth chapter of his book. By reading the book of Jeremiah, Daniel came to understand that the 70 years that God had said he would visit his people in captivity in Babylon were just about ended, and so he began to pray to call upon God to fulfill his word to his own people.

And in that short prayer, which doesn't occupy two minutes, he used the name of God 18 times. Oh Lord hear, oh God hearken, oh God forgive, defer not. He calls upon God with all his soul. Now that's not what you call conversational prayer.

And there are times, dear people, when you pour out your soul to God in importunity because your soul is so burdened, there's no other way you can pray. You cannot talk conversationally, and there ought to be many times in a person's prayer life when this is so.

Perseverance in Prevailing Prayer

Now what are some characteristics of prevailing prayer? Well I'd say first of all, perseverance. And I think here of Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 18. Praying, it says, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.

You know sometimes we teach people, well now just pray once, take it by faith, and you've got it. That's not necessarily true. What about all perseverance? It's not that God forgets, I understand that, but there are some things for which we may have to pray a long, long while, watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.

And then Paul adds, and for me, there's the element of perseverance. The first year I was out preaching as a very young preacher, we got into a kind of a revival situation. I think there were 70 people saved.

I had an evangelist come to my church. We had to move to a larger building, and of all things I was the song leader. Can you believe it? They were really hard up. Anyway, we were having a great time, and one night a young man from our church came down the aisle, got saved.

Then he said to me, let's go and get my brother Abe. He's up in the balcony. So we went and got his brother. I mean, we got him on his knees, and he professed to accept the Lord. Then the two of them said, will you come on home and talk to Dad?

And I knew their dad was a hard cuss, and I didn't want to talk to him. Oh, I said, it's 10 o 'clock at night. He said, Dad doesn't go to bed until 12. So I was sort of trapped. I was a young preacher, scared.

My heart was pumping and jumping, and I went home with these two fellows, and we walked in the front door, and the father was sitting there reading a newspaper, and when the three of us walked in, he never looked at me.

He looked at the one son. He looked at the other son. He quietly folded his newspaper and dropped on his knees and called on God. Then there was a girl sitting over here, a kid about 12, and she was reading a book, and the old book began to shake.

And so I got to talk to her, and she fell on her knees and started to call on the Lord. And the mother, oh, she said, she was just so happy, she was literally dancing around the room, clapping her hands, and she said, I've been praying for years for God to work a miracle in my family.

He's doing it. He's doing it. Brother McCloud, she said, there's two more upstairs. Go and get them. So I flew up those stairs, and these two kids, they were about 17, 16. When I got there, they were already kneeling by their beds.

They'd heard the racket downstairs, and they were already on their knees receiving the Lord. But that mother prayed for years. I had nothing to do with it. If I'd have had my way, I wouldn't have even been there that night.

Importunity and the Parable of the Friend at Midnight

Perseverance with all perseverance, that's an element of prevailing prayer. And then importunity in that parable Jesus told us in the 11th chapter of Luke. It was his response to the disciples' request for him to teach them how to pray.

Importunity. The little parable, it's very simple. Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and shall say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine in his journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.

And that's where prayer starts. When you tell God, I don't have anything, God, I'm absolutely empty. I'm a hole in the ground. I don't have any power, no influence to these people at all. God, I have nothing.

You've got everything. A friend of mine has come to me in his journey, and I have nothing to set before him. And he from within, here's God's first response, maybe God's initial response to your prayer to mine.

He from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give thee. Now there's the simple story. Then Jesus Christ said, I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend.

Just because God is my friend doesn't mean God's going to answer my prayer. There's another element that has to enter into it here. Yet because of his importunity, and somebody has called importunity shameless asking, or asking that will not be denied.

That's importunity. Yet because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needs. And I say unto you, Jesus went on to say, and I say unto you, ask, and it shall be given you. Seeking you shall find not, and it shall be opened unto you.

And the context closes with the 13th verse, where he says this, If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

If you and I are ever to have an effective prayer life, we're going to have to have a prayer life, as Brother Bill Lang was saying at the close of his message this morning, a prayer life in the power of the Holy Spirit.

He's going to have to be the author of my prayers. That's what it's all about. When they said, Jesus, teach us how to pray as John taught his disciples, he said, you'll have to learn something about the power of the Holy Spirit.

You'll have to learn how to pray importunately. The initial response from God may seem like, no, as if God isn't listening and nothing is happening, but keep on praying. It's a very important element in prevailing prayer.

Wrestling with God and Spiritual Opposition

And then there's wrestling. And there's wrestling. This has to be looked at from two angles. You remember how that Jacob, it says there wrestled a man with him. A heavenly visitor came and wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.

And God has to wrestle with you and I before we can wrestle with those demons. He talks about there in Ephesians chapter 6, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness or wicked spirits, one translation says, in heavenly places.

But before we can wrestle effectively in our prayer life, in our work for God against the powers of evil and darkness, God has to wrestle with us. You know what was wrong with Jacob, of course, was he was so strong for self.

And you know what the Lord did to grind him down? You know Jacob was something like a big grindstone, and God brought him up against another grindstone just as tough and hard as he was, a man called Laban, who had all the characteristics that Jacob had.

And many times when God wants to show you what self looks like, what you really look like, He'll bring you into a relationship, sometimes a very close relationship with a person just like yourself, until you see yourself in that other person, and then you realize what the self thing is all about.

And God ground him down year after year, seven years, fourteen years, longer than that, with a man just as cunning, and just as self-centered, and just as grasping, as materialistic as he was. And then there finally came a night of decision, and there wrestled a man with Jacob.

And I have no doubt God is wrestling with hearts here, because self doesn't die easily. It's very, very strong. It takes God Himself to wrestle it down. You can't do it. You can try. You can be willing.

But God has to do it. They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the passions and lusts. But other hands have to nail you and I to the cross. I cannot do it myself. I can by faith implore my God to do it for me, and my God will.

But God has to wrestle that self down. I like something Charles Spurgeon said about self. He said, self is like the sucker that winds itself around the plant and robs the plant of nourishment so the plant is always weak and sickly.

And he said this. He said, where self is strong, faith will always be weak. And he said there's only one way to deal with a problem of self, and that is cut it up. Cut it up. But only God can do that.

I can be willing to say, God, I want to die, and then I put it in the hands of God by faith, and then God will begin. Maybe God will start immediately. Often, I think almost always, He does. But He may do, as we know that He did in the case of Jacob, bring you into contact with circumstances and people just to make you see what self is all about.

It isn't going to happen overnight. You can claim it in a matter of minutes. Then God has to work it out. So there's this element of God wrestling with me. Thank God He deigns to do it. Why should He bother?

The Bible says our God is so great He has to humble Himself to even look at the things that are going on in the earth. Does that speak to your heart? God is so great that the things that are happening on earth, it's no more interesting than a bunch of ants really running around on an ant hill.

How long would you stand beside an ant hill and watch the ants running around? Well, that's not very interesting. They're scurrying in all directions on top of an ant pile. That's not very interesting.

We're going to look at something more interesting than that. And dear people, as far as the things that are happening on earth is concerned, our God is so great. It's just like a bunch of ants or something even less than that running around on an ant hill.

He has to humble Himself to behold the things that are on earth. That's not all it says. It says He has to humble Himself to behold the things that are in heaven. Our God is so great that even to watch the things that are going on in the heavenly places to God, they're so mundane, so small, and so little in His sight that He has to humble Himself to even look at the things that are going on in heaven.

Oh, it ought to do something to our pride. It ought to. Well, this element of wrestling and then there's the, in this matter of perseverance or this matter of prevailing prayer, I have to learn how to wrestle.

The walls aren't going to go down overnight. The opposition we face is very cunning and it's very powerful and they're not going to give up overnight, but they will give up if you keep on praying and trusting God, calling on Him.

The walls will go down. If they don't go down, then your experience will be something like David's who said, by my God, have I leaped over a wall. Either the walls go down or you go over the top of them.

It doesn't matter which. God will do it either way. As you and I keep praying and trusting, it's part in a prevailing prayer, wrestling against the powers of evil and darkness. And they may win one battle, but then you'll win two.

They might win another, then you'll win three. And God will keep on. If you've allowed God to wrestle with the self-problem, then God will allow you to wrestle successfully against the powers of evil and darkness.

Fervency, Clear Channels, and Hindrances to Prayer

And then another element of this type of praying is just the element of fervency. I think it was Billy Sonny who used to say that the average Christian prays like a jackrabbit nibbling at a cabbage. And oftentimes that's how we pray.

There's really no heart in it. It's a sort of a form, but our text says, the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. But just be sure that the channels are clear when you pray. To come to that for a moment again, you read about something over in Malachi chapter 2, and if you took it out of context, it sounds like a real hot revival meeting, or a real hot prayer meeting or something.

Here's what it says. This have you done again, covering the altar of the Lord with tears and with weeping and with crying out. Now doesn't that sound like a good hot revival meeting of some kind, or at least a good prayer meeting?

Listen to it again. This have you done again, covering the altar of the Lord with tears and with weeping and with crying out, insomuch that He regards not the offering any more, nor receives it with goodwill at your hand.

God didn't like this kind of praying. He didn't want their weeping and their tears and their shouting and their groaning and their moaning. I wonder why. Well, the context explains why. Three times in the context, He accuses these people of dealing treacherously with their life partner.

And when that problem is not solved, you know, in 1 Peter chapter 3, likewise you husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered.

And then, if your relationship with your wife is not right, then your prayer life is crippled. No use to think about prevailing prayer. It isn't going to work. So you can pray and cry and shout and all the rest of it, and God won't listen until the channels are clear all around.

Sin, Fellowship, and the Timing of God's Answers

Then fervency in prayer has its proper place. Why does it take God so long to answer sometimes? Has it ever discouraged you? I think one of the main reasons why is because prayer is not to change God.

But prayer, as someone has said, is to change me so that God can, consistent with His own holy and moral nature, do the things He always wanted to do but could not do because my life wasn't right. If God answers prayers for me when I'm living in known sin, this would be encouraging me to continue on living the way that I am.

There's a verse in Psalm 66 that says, "...the rebellious dwell in a dry land.". And if you're rebelling against the will of God in some aspect or area of your life, then you'll have a very dry experience.

You can drill a hole 10 ,000 feet deep, you won't get one drop of water. It'll be everlasting drought until you deal with the problems that God is talking to your heart about. The rebellious, I say again, they dwell in a dry land.

The promise of the Lord Jesus in John 7, "...He that believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, out of His innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.". That's a wonderful promise, but it's qualified.

If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified that you bear much fruit, so shall you be My disciples. But dear people, we have to be walking in the light, walking in sweet fellowship with the Lord if we're ever going to prevail with God in prayer.

So one of the reasons why it seems to take God so long is because the old self is so strong and God, I say again, He doesn't want to encourage me in sin. He will not compromise with my sin. The Spirit of God has declared eternal, unrelenting war against sin in a Christian's heart.

It says so in Galatians 5, "...the Spirit lusts against the flesh.". That is the Spirit of God He wars against the flesh, against that self in you and I. That's the problem. It's not that God wants to keep us waiting, keep us dangling, it's not that at all.

We take so long just to die, and so we prevent God from answering our prayers sooner. Then dear people, there's the problem of unbelief. Do you remember how the Lord Jesus in one chapter in one of the Gospels, He gave His disciples the power to cast out devils among other things?

And in the same chapter, the very same chapter, later on they tried to do it and they couldn't do it. It didn't work. Do you remember that? And to make it worse, in the same chapter, it says they saw a man casting out devils in the name of Jesus Christ.

And that really embarrassed them and mortified them. Here were twelve men. Jesus Christ had given them the power to cast out devils, and they couldn't do it. And here was a man to whom Jesus Christ had not given this power authority, and he was doing it, and they were mightily embarrassed so much so they told this man to stop doing it.

Oh, their ego was really hurt. And after Jesus cast the demon out, they said to Jesus privately, why could not we? And He said, because of your unbelief. Then He explained, this kind only comes out by prayer and fasting, and sometimes as we're thinking of prevailing prayer, we're going to have to add to our prayers the element of fasting.

Someone has called fasting praying without words. The verse in the Bible suggests that the Lord said, when they fast, I will not hear their cry. Well, it didn't say when they fast and pray. It says, when they fast, I will not hear their cry.

So fasting is praying without words. Of course, if the relationship is not right, fasting isn't going to help either. But there are times when our unbelief is strong, and fasting then, according to what Jesus Christ is teaching us there, is an antidote for unbelief.

I noticed Daniel praying over there in chapter 9 and chapter 10 of his book, how he fasted well for three weeks, he ate no pleasant food, flesh and wine didn't come into his mouth, he didn't anoint himself at all until three whole weeks were fulfilled.

He was calling upon God, and at the end of this three-week period, God came. God answered. In other words, He prevailed. So unbelief is often a problem. You pray for a few days, you pray for a couple of weeks.

And nothing happens. What do you do then? Well, oftentimes we conclude, well, I guess I shouldn't have started praying this way. It likely is not the will of God at all. And then we forget, and we start the same kind of a program all over again.

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. My unbelief must be dealt with. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

We know that verse. Here's a verse. Do you know this verse? It says, faith works by love. It comes by hearing the Word of God. But my dear friend, if the love relationship in my heart to other people and to my God is not right, then faith will not work.

I say it comes by the Word of God, but it only works in an element of love. And if that is not right, then God can't answer my prayer. So unbelief may be the problem. Jesus said, have faith in God. This was after the disciples had expressed great astonishment at something He had done in the area of the miraculous.

He said, have faith in God. He talked about unbelief. In the same context, read it. In Mark chapter 11, He said, what things soever you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them.

James chapter 1 puts it this way, if any man lack wisdom, and you could take the word wisdom out and put any word you want in there. If any man lack anything, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God that gives to all men liberally, and upbraids or reproaches not, and it shall be given him.

But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavers is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. And the next verse says, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.

So in faith, I am to pray. And I am to keep praying. If I am to prevail with God, there are these other elements then to consider. The problem of self, and the problem of unbelief, and in the problem of concurring circumstances, that is, God has to work things out for this prayer to be answered.

Faith, Circumstances, and the Salvation of Families

For example, Jewish people prayed for hundreds of years for a Messiah to come. But it says in Galatians chapter 4, when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son. He isn't going to make you wait centuries for answers to your prayers, but there has to be a working out of circumstances on God's part.

About a year ago, a mother came to me. Her family were all grown. Her youngest was 22. None of them in the house, meaning they were all away from home. She told me, she said, my youngest is an absolute rebel against the things of God.

I can't talk to him at all. And she said, I am brokenhearted. None of my children have professed the faith. She said, what's wrong with me? Well we talked about things. She experienced a renewal in her heart.

I explained to her how to commit her family into the hands of God, and how to take her hands off her family. I explained all that to her, and she saw it clearly. And we knelt and prayed together, and she put all her family in the hands of God.

Now remember, the youngest is 22, and he's the worst of them all. And then God, within about three months, began to work. And one day she got a phone call from the youngest saying, Mom, he says, I don't know, something's wrong with me.

Doctors don't know what it is. I can't hold down my job anymore. Can I come home and rest for a while? She said, certainly. Come on. She knew God was working. The circumstances were starting to work out now, see.

And he was lying there in his bedroom, and she said, Brother McLeod, she wrote me a letter. I have it on file. And she said, you know, I remembered what you said. You don't have to be belting the gospel into them all the time.

If you've told them once, they understand what it means to be saved. You don't have to tell them 50 or 500 times how to be saved. Then you pray. You leave them in the hands of God. So she said, I was just praising the Lord, leaving them in the hands of God, believing the Lord, praying about Him every day, but just believing, thanking God.

I knew God was working, and that she was prevailing in prayer. And one day, she said, I was walking past the bedroom door, and he called up and said, Hey, Mom, could you come in here and show me how to be saved?

And she led him to Christ. It only took God three months. She'd fussed over that, you know, all over all her kids for years on end, but she never ever committed them. And so the Bible says in Psalm 37, 5, commit your way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall, and He shall bring it to pass.

Sometimes we quote from Isaiah 44, 3 and 4, and then people interject a little question here. It's a promise. The Lord said, I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods on the dry ground. I will pour My Spirit on your seed, on your children, and My blessing on your offspring.

And people say, sadly, well, yes, God's kept His part of it. I know God has poured His Spirit on my children, but they haven't responded, and you can't do anything about that. So then I say, all right, let's look at the next verse, and it says, and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the watercourse.

That's all part of the promise of God. He'll pour water on my life if I'm thirsty, and He'll pour His Spirit on my children, and they will respond. They shall spring up as among the grass. If you prevail with God in prayer, put them into God's hands, and keep them there.

If it takes 15 years, just keep thanking God each day that you know He's working in their hearts. He has His hand on their life, and He's going to bring them to Himself. It's one of the great elements.

But it takes God a while to work circumstances out. So don't get discouraged because it seems to take a long while. I'd rather have God do a good work. Someone said the big trouble with the average Christian is, I'm in a hurry, and God isn't.

God isn't. It may take God time, but listen to this verse. It says, whatsoever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it, and God does it that men should fear before Him.

And I'd rather have God Almighty do it and do a perfect work than try and help it along myself and get it all fouled up. So it takes God a while for these reasons. In closing, to go back to John 15, 7 again, the Lord Jesus Christ said, If you abide in me, that means if I walk in a sweet, unbroken fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ, and my words abide in you.

Colossians 3, 16 says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom. Have I fulfilled the conditions there? Am I walking in a sweet, unbroken fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ? If I do sin and become aware of it, I confess it and forsake it immediately, am I living this way?

Abiding in Christ and Walking in the Spirit

They that dwell under His shadow shall return, they shall revive as the corn and grow as the vine, the center of shall be as the wine of Lebanon. You know, if you're living, dwelling in the shadow of the Almighty, living, walking in fellowship with God, truly our fellowship was with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

Notice what happens then, to go back again, Hosea 14, 7, They that dwell under His shadow shall return, they shall revive as the corn and grow as the vine. First of all, you return, then you revive, and then you grow.

It doesn't end with revival, it begins at that point. Then you grow. But it all happens, dear people, when we come into that sweet fellowship with our God. Song of Solomon, chapter 2, I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was sweet to my taste.

He brought me to the banqueting house, the marginal reading says He brought me, but the Hebrew says He brought me to the house of wine, and wine is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, and there's no way that you and I can be filled with the Holy Spirit if we don't have this sweet unbroken fellowship with Jesus Christ, because He's the one who gives us the Spirit.

And so they that dwell under His shadow shall return, revive, and grow, and as we sit down under the shadow of Jesus with great delight and eat the fruit that He brings, then He brings me to the house of wine.

He fills me with the Holy Spirit, and His banner over me was love. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you, herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, so shall you be, my disciples.