A Personal Journey, Learning To Pray — Carter Conlon

All of you so many people to take your afternoon to come out and be part of This church gathering because you really do care about prayer. You know, I've found over the years that a lot of people don't pray because they don't understand what prayer is they have a Concept and notion there's been a lot of teaching on the topic of prayer and some of it is is true.

Some of it is has a margin I guess the truth in it and a lot of it is really deficient. I want to share with you today a personal journey my journey and learning how to pray. It's been the quest of my life.

As a matter of fact, I ended up after Entering into what I call the victory that I found in prayer. I wrote a book called. It's time to pray. I brought some copies here with me. They're in the back I I don't.

Everything that I Write and everything that we sell goes into a fund for human suffering. So I really would like you to get a copy and to read it it might encourage you if you can't afford it just take one and Just remember me when you come into your kingdom and if you can just make a donation whatever the Lord puts on your heart and knowing that what you do donate goes to various causes throughout the world.

For example, we Funded an organization in the Middle East that is helping girls that were taken as sex slaves when Isis took over that part of the world and there's Christian organization there that Brings these girls and leads them to Christ and is helping them in the obvious healing that they're going to need.

So there are great causes throughout the world that where people have suffered and we consider it a great privilege to to help and to support that so as I said if you can't afford to make a donation go ahead and if you can't just take a book and When you come into your kingdom, remember me, that's all I ask.

My wife Teresa is here with me and she's the president of our Bible school started by David Wilkerson in 1994 and it's called summit international school of ministry. It's really worth checking it out.

Young people from all over the world are coming there plus missionaries and others who just need a sabbatical time are coming and it is a very very very special place the presence and power of God are there and If you know young people that really need to find out who they are in Christ and learn what it means to stand and have the courage and strength to pray and Defend the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We'd encourage them to consider replying. There's information about that on the table as well and then we have Ross and Sarah kibbutz. Oh here with us and Ross and Sarah were pastoring and Sarah came down with an illness that put her in a wheelchair with the prognosis that she would never walk again so they came to us kind of hurt I guess can I say that and Really needing healing from God and boy.

Did they ever get a healing from God? They got a touch from heaven and Sarah Even though she had a diagnosis. She'd never walk again. Got up out of her wheelchair and is walking today and we just it's a modern-day miracle.

Prayer for the Church, Nation, and Those in Need

It really is. So we're going to be able to hear that story and and I trust it will give courage to everybody's heart. So father, I just want to say thank you for being here today. I thank you Lord for the the precious souls that you have gathered in this room.

Men and women young and old that we are concerned about prayer. We care about the future of this nation. We care about the condition of our towns and cities and our families my God and our youth. And so Lord here we are we come to your throne.

We're not the the biggest and best there ever has been in your kingdom but God we come and we identify with the weak and the maimed and the struggling and the broken and bruised at this world and We just thank you that you have invited us to the throne of grace to find help.

Not when we're strong, but in our time of need. That's what you told us to do. Would you would you would you help me to convey this journey that you've taken me on for all these years? Will you taught me what it is to pray?

Thank you Lord for all the journey. Thank you for all the instructors that have been along the way, but Oh God I thank you for your voice more than anything else. How merciful you have been to me God Oh Jesus and I thank you that you have delivered me from a prayer life.

That was a burden and you brought me to a place where it's a delight. God, I thank you with all my heart. Oh Lord Jesus. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for just helping me to learn to understand what it really means to pray.

From Formulaic Prayer to a Personal Quest

I give you praise and I give you glory for it in Jesus name. You know, it was the quest of my my whole life my whole life from the time I was a Christian. I was saved at the age of 24. I was a police officer in Canada.

It was another police officer that led me to Christ and started attending church started reading the Bible and I saw portions like If you if you believe you can pray and mountains can move. And Jesus talked about when you pray when you fast all these things about prayer in the Bible but I didn't understand what prayer was what I came from a Very nominal church background and the the little bit of prayer that we did do was all formulaic stuff you know you've kind of memorized it and you The more you said it the more you hoped in the sense that God was hearing you and God was going to answer it.

And I had this question in my heart. I said God Teach me how to pray. I want to know how to pray. I want to know what prayer is because your disciples said teach us to pray. I want to know how to pray.

I I think everybody here is like that. Aren't you? I want to know what what what is prayer anyway? And and how do I pray and and why did you why do you're calling us to pray? Why is it an integral part of our relationship with you?

And I read every book I think that's ever been written on the topic of prayer. Reese howell's intercessor Praying hide and all I could just name Ian bounds all of these books and andrew murray and and most of them just convicted and then condemned me Praying.

I went praying hide and I couldn't get my head praying at the same time. I uh, I I tried everything I I attended either in person or Online or whatever the seminars on prayer. You remember? I don't know if any of you ever attend.

There's seminars all over the place on prayer and the the formulas that came from these seminars of I remember one guy. It was all about uh, you started in the outer court. Remember he had the I don't know some of your old folks might remember this like me but they you start in the outer court and you you kind of do your thing in the outer court and you you humble yourself you kind of beat yourself up and then you You get to the laver and you wash it the laver and all this stuff.

Finally by the time you get Into the holy of holies. You're absolutely exhausted from all this other stuff that you had to do and went nowhere. I tried all of the formulas of prayer. You you try to pray this way.

Um, you know, some of them were just you you pray fast. You shout as if god is deaf you you whisper. You you pray with passion. I prayed. I prayed with such passion. I'd go to prayer meetings and I prayed so hard one time.

I burst a blood vessel in my eye. That's a fact. I mean, I just because it had to be effectual it had to be Fervent and so we we create our own definitions of what that looks like you know that you just got to put everything you got and you pray with such passion because.

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much and then there's others that believe that prayer should be just meditation. And I it was years I even started a club called the five o 'clock club in canada.

The five o 'clock it has to be five o 'clock because if it's not early, of course, it's not it's not holy. Isn't that right? You know, it has to be early and there has to be a great measure of self-sacrifice in prayer.

And so I started the five o 'clock club where where we were calling it your men would call each other and you know I'd call you and wake you up and you'd call him and he'd call him and it would just kind of spread all over the place.

And then then we would get up and I would go into my living room. And I would get on my knees because you all know that if it's not early and you're not on your knees. It's not really prayer. It's not holy.

You know that right? No, you shouldn't know that anyways, and I would get on my knees and I still remember the couch. It was a green couch and I would get on my knees and put my it was five o 'clock. I put my face down In between the two cushions because my face fit there.

It fit really nice between the two cushions and I would generally wake up about seven o 'clock and. But I had been on my face for two hours. I could legitimately say i'd been on my face for two hours before God and there was a constant prayer that I would pray.

It was jesus help me. You know, you can pray that prayer nine different ways. Did you know that it's factorially you three times and you divide it? You can pray at nine. You can say jesus help me jesus help me.

Jesus help me jesus help me you can pray and that was my constant prayer. I used to jog every day. I used to work out in the gym and stuff and the whole time i'd be saying jesus help me. Jesus help me because it seemed to be the only prayer that he answered.

And and as i'm trying to learn how to pray as and i'm i'm trying to pray. I'm praying this prayer and as i'm praying it the kingdom of god is moving forward. We're seeing miracles around us. We we are.

We're in a community of 40 square miles with no christian testimony as we knew for a hundred years. And while we're praying jesus help me. Doors are beginning to open buildings were bought for a dollar and one one we got for a tax receipt.

Churches were established people are getting saved. But yet i'm still crying out jesus help me. Help me to pray. I don't know how to pray. I want to pray and I put everything. That I was into learning how to pray and there was not a seminar.

I didn't. I was at prayer meetings. I'd be the first one there. I'd be the last one to leave and then one day I opened my bible and first thessalonians. And my whole prayer life was exhausting. You ever been there?

You get down on your knees and you pull your laundry list out of your back pocket and pray for. For frank and betty and don and amy's parrot and everything else you got on there. You pray for all this stuff and you just keep adding to it.

Then you don't know what to say after you've kind of rattled this off for 35 minutes or or you or you get down and. You try to pray and you look at your watch and you know. All you can think of is the words of jesus to peter.

What could you not watch with me for one hour? And you look at your watch and it seems like forever. It has been 12 minutes. And you say what am I going to say now? Who am I going to pray for now? And what am I.

And you get up after an hour and I would be exhausted. There'd be sweat and I would be pushing it. I even read about david brainerd going out into the snow. And praying for the indian people and kneeling down and the folklore at least says the snow around him melted.

So I gave that a try and the only thing that melted was my resolve to ever try to do that again. There was absolutely nothing. I didn't try in trying to pray. And all of it seemed to be like a dead-end street.

And one day I opened the bible in first thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 17 where paul says pray without ceasing. I still remember the words that come out of my mouth in heaven's name. How do you do that?

How do you pray? I can't even pray it. I it's good if I can pray an hour. But how do you pray without ceasing and I find prayer to be such a labor. It's so hard. It's so heavy. Is that really what you meant it to be and and it seems to be that I I had I had just gotten down to To to a place of exhaustion and sometimes when we get there.

That's when god can start to speak to us now. You have to understand as i'm going through this struggle in this battle things around me are continuing to grow. I'm i'm speaking. In more and more places more and more people are getting saved even though Inside I have this struggle.

God teach me how to pray for how can I even lead a church if I don't know how to pray. I I want I want prayer to be something more than we just Gather together and take out our our handkerchiefs and begin to weep before the lord.

There's got to be something deeper about prayer than this. And when I finally got to the place Where I felt like I I'd hit a brick wall and I was exhausted. It's almost as if it's then that god can speak to us.

Prayer as Conversation With God

Isn't it amazing when we just stopped all our Activity we stopped trying to be Something in our own strength and here's what he said to me. He said carter I had a friend. His name was adam. I created him in my image and I would come down into the garden in the cool of the day.

Because I wanted to be with him and I would talk to adam and our relationship was Was like this. I would I would bring animals to him and say adam. What are we going to call this? And adam would give it a name and the bible says in whatever adam called those.

Those animals that's what they're still called today. So you just got to imagine This is a type of prayer god coming down into the garden. He's calling to his friend. And he brings he starts bringing these animals to his friend said what are we going to call this?

And adam gives him a name and This is a type of prayer and the lord said to me carter. I lost my friend. And I lost his children and I lost all of his descendants and I missed that time. And so I came back down to the earth to get them.

And to bring them back to me again. He said carter. I just want You to talk to me. Now that shouldn't be a revelation. But it is that's the way I have learned to pray now without ceasing. I all throughout the day I can talk to him.

I talk to him when i'm having a coffee. I talk to him when i'm brushing my teeth. I talk to him when i'm getting dressed. I talk to him when i'm walking down the road. You know, I think pastor theresa and I were separated from uh, I mean separated because of ministry.

She was Over the bible school and I was uh at the church in new york city. So a good part of the week she would be there and I would be in new jersey when she'd come home. I think she started to worry about me because she'd hear me talking all the time downstairs.

And one day she said to me who are you talking to down there? I said i'm talking to god. I've learned to pray. I've learned to pray without ceasing. You know the book of proverbs says don't lean on your own understanding in all your ways.

Acknowledge him and he shall what direct your path and it means I don't have to shout to a god Who's in the cosmos out somewhere and he's he's a kind of arm folded and indifferent and I have to kind of please a reluctant god.

To do the things that i'm asking him to do. The reality of the situation is in the person of god's holy spirit. God has already taken up residence inside this earthen body. So he is with me everywhere I go.

He's with me when i'm driving in my car. He's with me when i'm walking down the street. He's with me standing here right now. He he is with me and I can talk to him any time I want to. And he's not offended by ordinary conversation he's not offended by by me saying I just don't know what to do about this or Uh, just just talking about and you know what I started to do in new york city.

Is in new york city, you can put one of those white things in your ear, you know. The little ipods you can walk down the street talking out loud to god and everybody thinks you're on the phone and I think it was just awesome.

I I would just be walking and I would say Uh lord that that guy on the street there. He looks so down. Maybe nobody's ever prayed for him before I'm asking you to be merciful. I would go down into times square which is almost like walking into downtown sodom today.

And I would just pray for people and pray for groups of people and do it out loud, but just talking to him. Just talking to him. As natural as talking to you. I don't have to to come up with king james vernacular.

You know the way some people pray To god if our children talk to us like that we would take them to a psychiatrist to find out what is wrong with them. You imagine if your child came into you every day.

Pulled out it comes in for breakfast pulls his list out of his pocket and says are you going to get me the code? For christmas you promised to get me the code. Father father father father father father father.

You promised and you look and say what is wrong with my kid? Why can't he just talk to me? Normally we see we have a tendency in our humanness to make prayer into something that is unnatural. Now I still go to corporate prayer.

Do you understand? I still go to corporate prayer meetings and still pray with other people. I started this morning with prayer before we even left to come here. I pray with uh, several of the pastors and leaders in our church and in new york city.

We uh teleconference each other for an hour usually in the mornings from tuesday to friday. I start that way. That's one type of prayer and then i'll go to a corporate prayer meeting in the church and you just kind of go.

With the flow of the meeting but personally as a christian man. I have learned how to talk to god. And with god, it's absolutely amazing. And it took prayer out of the realm of being a labor and brought it into the realm of being a relationship with god absolutely amazing.

After all these years of struggling I finally found the key. Talk to me the lord says. It's that simple and we have a tendency to want to make it into something so complicated. And i'm beginning to find out that the the christ who lives in me Is anxious to answer my prayers.

Anxious for me to ask him, you know. He said if you if you abide in me and my words abide in you you will ask what you will and it will be done For you. And i'm finding as I love him as I spend time in his word I get to know the mind of god by reading the word of god.

And I find that I can start speaking in line with what he has already spoken. Start declaring the word of god start start agreeing with him about the future of my family about my own children and grandchildren and friends and neighbors and extended family.

All I can tell you is that prayer has become the delight of it was the burden of my life. For years, but now it has become the delight of my life. I left off all of the formulas. And all of the striving and all the pushing and just entered in To a relationship with god now I can pray for an hour and it seems like nothing.

Because i'm not looking at my watch anymore. I'm just simply talking to god. The beautiful thing about prayer at home during the day for example is that you can. You can spend five minutes talking to god and then go on and make your sandwich and then talk to him again.

He's never left. He's never gone. You don't have to redo all the formulas and work your way through the labor and all this other stuff to talk to him again. That's all hogwash. All of that stuff is hogwash.

There's nothing to do with god. It's christ in me now and christ in you that is the hope of glory. You ever thought of that? That when you're sitting here god is with you when you leave here. God is with you when you go home.

God is with you when you read a book. God is with you when you make a coffee. God is with you. He doesn't depart from you when you walk out of the church. He lives in you you are now the temple of the third person of the godhead the holy spirit the temple.

You are the temple of god. So you bring god everywhere that you and I go we so we are at liberty to talk to him anytime we want to. And prayers don't have to be an hour long. You know have you ever been at a table with somebody that just never shuts up and you just wish.

That they'd let you have a two-way conversation with them. And a lot of our prayers are like that. We just we're just rattling this stuff off. Wrote and repetition and just instead of a conversation with god and instead of taking time to to be quiet.

And listen to what he has to say. I love to pray in the mornings with an open book an open bible. So i'll be reading for example, give you an example like where that where david said in the psalms, for example.

You know search me oh god and and try me and see if there'd be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way Of life everlasting. I I then i'll stop and i'll meditate on that and then talk to the lord and say is there any.

Is there is there something in me that is deficient? It's short of what my life should be. It's it's hindering me. Is there something in me that might lead me astray in the long run? I and I so i'll just take time and let him let him begin to speak.

Let him bring those situations back to mind or those those relationships that need to be healed. Let him bring those things back to mind knowing that if he speaks to me, I will Do to the the best of my ability to the things that he asks me to do.

It's uh, it was george muller that prayed that's where I first learned about he prayed with an open bible. And he had the faith to feed a thousand orphans by faith every day. And he loved to pray and it's a great way to pray is just open your your bible and just start reading and just stop meditate.

Talk to him. Because he's always speaking. And then it becomes a relationship and and then you're you're still going to have corporate times of prayer. Now, for example, I was walking down broadway just a couple of years ago.

And it was a particularly debauched night. Where there were naked people there and people are painting them. I use that I I don't want to describe all that goes on there because you might not be familiar with it.

But it's it's it's hell on earth. There's no other way to describe it and i'm walking down and i'm looking at looking this debauchery all around and suddenly. And i'm talking to god as i'm walking down the street and suddenly he spoke to me.

And he said carter. How many souls would you like? How many souls would you like what now? You know when the question comes from god, you're not trying to formulate it in your own mind your own heart.

It just comes to you because you're walking in relationship with him. And I I immediately thought of the the scripture you know where the elisha was speaking to the to the king on it and when elisha was on his deathbed and He said strike the arrow on the ground.

He only struck it a few times and elisha said you should have hit it five or six times. Then you would have completely destroyed your enemy. So I said god I'm asking you for 60 million souls in america.

60 million people. Before you return or you judge this nation. 60 million people who will either return to you. Who knew you or recommit their lives or come to you to be saved for the first time? You know, it's and it was just it's just a personal quest.

I am on 605 radio stations now across the country. Exhorting people to turn back to christ and turn back to prayer. So it's not out of the realm of reason that god could do. These things and and it shouldn't be out of the realm of reason.

We we we have to have faith when you begin to walk in relationship with god. There's something that comes into your heart. I just I just spoke at an event in florida that i'm told was streamed by 10 million people.

So why is 60 million? Out of range god can do marvelous things. And you know the beauty of it all is i've never left off my first prayer. I still pray jesus helped me all the time. Jesus helped me, you know, it seems to be it's the poor man's prayer, you know.

And uh, I know a little bit more today have done a little bit more traveled into a lot of new places. And old ones but the prayer jesus helped me is still at the forefront of my tongue. Because that is the prayer that god has always answered.

And now it's it's more or less transmitted to itself to jesus help them. Jesus help them. Jesus help the people are headed into an eternity. Without you and they don't know it have mercy god reveal yourself to them in dreams.

Standing in the Gap for Spiritual Awakening

Do whatever you need to do and then i'll remind the lord of what he's done in the past. When somebody just stood in the gap. Lately i've been so encouraged by this passage of scripture in ezekiel where the where the lord just outlines the the total debauchery of the nation he said the the the the prophets are are are literally destroying the people and the the political leaders are corrupt.

And stealing from the people for personal gain and then there's a a corrupt government. Then there's another ministry underneath that that is that is encouraging and bolstering the corruption in government.

And then the people are using robbery and speaking vanity and you look at it all and you just say god. What what is the potential hope for this nation? And you know, the lord's response is and I sought for a man.

I sought for a man to stand in the gap and make up the heads that I should not judge the nation. And you know in that I see the heart of god. He doesn't need a stadium full of people. He doesn't need a million people in the pyramid.

He needs a man. He needs a woman. He needs an ester. He needs a moses. He needs a david. He needs somebody again who's willing to stand up who knows his heart. I often wondered why is it in in israel at this time?

Why why? Why could he not find anybody in the most religious nation on the face of the earth? He was he was searching for somebody. Judgment was imminent judgment had to come because of the behavior of the people and he says but i'm i'm searching for One person to stay my hand.

Why why could he not find one person? I want to suggest that in all of the religious activity and even in the prayers in the temple. Nobody was talking to him. Everybody was talking at him, but nobody was talking to him.

If they had been talking to him They would have known his heart. There would have been dozens that raised up and say god. Let it be me. Let me stand in the gap. He's searching he's looking he's speaking, but nobody is listening because nobody knows how to pray.

Nobody understands the heart of god. No, everybody maybe in our generation have have literally forgotten what the cross is all about god. So loved the world. That he gave his only begotten son. They've forgotten who god is.

They've forgotten that the heart of god is clearly revealed in scripture. I love the scripture in the old testament where the lord Says to moses these people are rebellious. He said now step aside I'm going to destroy them all and i'm going to make out of you a great nation.

Then he says these words now leave me alone. Imagine god says to you. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. But moses says but wait. Think about what will be said about your name. Think about how your name will be ill spoken of in the world that existed at that time.

People will say that you brought them out of egypt and you were not able to bring them in or. They will say you brought them out just to do mischief to them in the wilderness. In other words, they will impugn your character.

And god says okay. Okay. Come on now. Does that tell you something about him? Does that tell you something about prayer? Does that tell you something about the fact that one man can move the heart of god not to destroy a nation?

One man one man. One man who's in intimate friendship with god one man. Who's a another one like adam in a sense that god. You know the bible does say God called him his friend one man. That god says now what if god said to you leave me alone ross.

Don't talk to me. I'm determined to do this and you just because you're a friend. And you know his heart, you know, I see the one thing about a friend, you know, your friend's heart. But wait, he says.

Think about that. Think about the power that we have as god's people to move the hand of god in a different direction. Does america deserve judgment? Absolutely, there's no doubt about it. We are corrupt as a nation from the top to the bottom.

There's almost nothing left. That we could present to god to say listen, you shouldn't judge us because of this. There's almost nothing left. The one thing that is left is you hallelujah you the man the woman that has learned how to pray the.

If god should stay his hand in this generation if he should send a spiritual awakening to america. Oh, there'd be no shortage of people taking the credit and the glory you can be sure of that. Oh, yeah, they'll be in the news.

They'll be in the news and they'll be talking about how they did this and how they did That but when we get to heaven, we'll find out it's this little old lady that was alone in her apartment. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. This little old lady that was praying and saying god be merciful to the young people be merciful to our kids in our schools. It was the teacher that was brokenhearted over what's happening.

It was the the mom. It was the dad. It was the nobody it was the nothings In the world began to pray because they knew something about the heart of god that the formula people don't know. God moved his hand.

God moved his hand. I want to be one of those people. With all my heart I've thrown my hat into the ring. And my prayers are like the prayers now of moses. And others say god. I know you I know you you didn't come to this world to die for us.

Just so you could destroy us. And could it ever be said of you? That somebody rose up another one another one like ezekiel's time and stood in the gap and said I give my life for this cause and god whatever you.

You have would have me to do and whatever wherever you would have me to go I'll go. Could it be ever said of you. That you turned your back On the prayers of your friends. I don't think so. And this has been my prayer.

I travel a lot. I get to go to a lot of places and My prayer lately has been i'm now 68 and a half years old. Halves count after 65 and before 10 in case you didn't know that. Every six months is a victory when you get to be my age.

So halves now count but I get to travel a lot and go into a lot of places. But my prayer of late has been god. I'm not going if you don't go with me. Moses prayed that prayer and you were not offended by it.

I'm not going you got enough voices out there. There's enough people talking about you. I'm not interested in talking about you. I won't go if you don't go with me. And I have been on the west coast recently and i've seen god do something that.

That has just been amazing. I was in a in a meeting with 250 men. I was just a Passing by in a sense and they asked if I would speak at this men's. The conference that was already going on and so I just had a thought I prayed.

That's what I always do had a thought from the lord. I went in. I shared it for about 35 minutes or so. Closed my bible said thank you for having me here. The next thing happened. 250 men fell to their knees and for one solid hour cried out to god one solid hour men and boys.

Many fathers had brought their sons and they started crying out to god just a simple word from the lord. Delivering it and that's been my prayer. The next night there was again. I wasn't there to speak at these other events.

I was there to speak at a convention different two different conventions and They said there's a youth rally a youth meeting happening on this night. There's 300 kids teenagers signed up. And they said don't be discouraged.