Prayer, Prayerlessness, & The Souls of Men

Prayer as the Missing Engine of Evangelism and Revival

To answer your questions and challenges about God and the Bible. Meet your hosts from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport, Dr. Anthony Silvestro, and Pastor Justin Pierce.

Good evening, everyone. Just when we thought that I was going to learn how to open a show properly,.

Of course, somehow, something goes wrong, just like that. We're here to answer your questions and challenges about God and the Bible.

I don't know why that just played backwards, whatever. So anyways, I'm so excited for the show tonight. I know a lot of us have been looking forward to this on prayer. And we announced this, I think, two months ago.

And we've had people ask in literally every single week, when's that show on prayer? Is this the week for it? Well, finally, this is the week for it. Before we get to our special guest, however, I do have a different special guest who you probably have seen before a few times.

Andrew!

Hey, how are you? Not at my usual location. And so, yeah, I won't be able to be here for the whole show. I would love to say it's because my prayer life is so perfect that it doesn't need any help. But yeah, I think lying is a sin.

So I will have to listen on podcast. But we did get an email that I sent to you to read, but I'll read it since I was able to get in. And this is from Carol from a few weeks ago. She said, Andrew, and those involved at Striving Fraternity about three weeks ago, I asked a question on Apologetics Live about who or what resources is best in the wokeness of today?

Parentheses, Mark Dever on parentheses. So I appreciate the answer that was give, I think, given. I do have a MacArthur study Bible. And on further investigation, I realized that on my Kindle, I had downloaded MacArthur quick reference, the quick reference guide to the Bible several years ago.

So I thank you for gentle reminders and helpful encouragement. I am reading through the MacArthur Daily Bible this year and find it hard to understand the why's and what's. So having more background helps.

I have so blessed by the ministry of SFE and Apologetics Live. So thank you to all of you again in prayer, Carol. So that was one of the more pleasing letters. I like those letters. You guys are a bunch of knuckleheads and don't know anything.

We get those as well. I send those to Anthony. So info at strivingfraternity .org. If you want to send those, I will be happy to let Anthony read those all day long. But you can contact us at info at strivingfraternity .org.

And I told you I wanted to just plug something really quick, and then I'm going to have to get going. But I put up there for those watching the video, and I'll try to make sure that when the podcast is up, I'll put the link in.

And this is only good for the month of August for 2022. But if you go to magfast .kckb .st, and then it's 26A2DA80. But let me share with you what that's going to take you to. That's going to take you to an Indiegogo page, which is one that Anthony really needs to get to.

This is the page that it'll take you to. On Indiegogo, I am an investor in this company, so I should put full disclosure there. But there's two products that they're trying to get fundraising for. And as you can see, the fundraising is well over what was planned.

I mean, 2 ,821%. So this is definitely went over and above. But you can read through and listen to all the stuff. There's two products that you see up here. One is that one tall bar. That is what is called Xtreme.

This will actually charge three phones at once or three devices. And that's wirelessly. You can charge, I think, like nine different ways from that bank. You can also jumpstart your car and like 20 of your friends.

It'll actually do like 20 jumpstarts on a full charge. So I'm going to be keeping one of these in each of my cars. So if I ever need a jumpstart, I don't need to worry about cables and finding somebody else out.

The other thing that they have is these Lux cables, which is what Anthony absolutely needs. Because this is the only cable I know that comes with a lifetime warranty, which Anthony is bad with cables.

I don't understand how I break these all the time. It's incredible how good I am at breaking iPhone cables. You do. I'm looking forward to getting this myself.

So they are not cheap cables, but they're cables that they don't kink. They have a lifetime warranty. If you look there on the right here, they come in two forms. One with what really is the future.

Male and female? Two forms? Actually, no. They're male on each end.

There's a design for that because it goes into a device so you don't have something protruding from it. I know you'd like that. In nature, it works male and female, but with computers... It comes in either...

If you have an iPhone, you can get the Lightning port, or if you want... Most of the newer devices are all having the USB-C, but it does come with... If you have the old-style USB, it has a connector that will go USB to the old...

What's called the A to USB-C. So this will only be... There's 13 days left on this, so I want to encourage you guys to all check that out. I just wanted to real quick mention that, and I'll be checking out the show later.

I'm very excited about the guest. I like to do this every once in a while as well. There he is. Look at that. He's reading his own book. Josiah Nichols reading his own book. He was caught reading his own book.

Yeah. So with that, I'll catch you guys later.

Do you want to do your famous commercial? Because you do it better than the rest of us do. I could. Okay.

Well, I actually... I have had a struggle this week, Anthony. I really have. I should update people on... Anyone who's been following me on social media. So I went for an ATV ride with a friend of mine, Thomas.

Basically, what happened was he made a sharp turn, and in making the sharp turn, he kicked up a bunch of dust. But the way the dust was, it was moving forward. And so I thought he went straight. And so as I came out of the dust cloud, I realized there were trees in front of me.

And I tried to make a very quick, sharp left turn. Instinctively mistake, I hit the brake. And so the ATV started to skid. I knew that was wrong. Hit the accelerator to kind of pull out of that. Well, the result was the ATV went one way, but my body had enough momentum to go the other way.

And as I fell off of the ATV, I broke a rib. That rib punctured a lung. And so I got to spend a night in the ER as they did some examinational. The lung has healed. The hole is closed up. And I can't pronounce it properly, but the pneumothorax or however

Pneumothorax, yeah. Yeah, where there's air in the lungs that has dissipated. So there's no sign of that. So I should be able to fly, which will be good.

And so So you're still gonna be able to make it to Ambassador's Academy because we're both leading teams.

Well, that is the plan. But the doctor here said I need to, when I get home, get an X-ray done to make sure that there wasn't some air that they didn't see because in altitude of a plane, if there is air there, it's gonna expand.

And so I won't be really cleared to fly. I'm cleared to fly home. I'm just not cleared to fly to California yet.

So we'll find out if I have double the workload by taking all your

That's right. You still may get my whole group. We're hoping not. But the thing is, here's the thing with it though. I have not been able to sleep in a bed yet. I have to sleep in a recliner. And I'm glad that the place I'm staying has a recliner.

But if you need a good way to sleep, if you're able to sleep in a bed, like normal people, I brought my MyPillow here with me. Josiah's going to get his. I brought my MyPillow here. And I had planned on sleeping with it.

There's Josiah's. And it is a great pillow. I have found, I've been wearing their slippers all summer long. And they do not get too hot, which is really, I don't know how because they're furry. But I've been loving that.

They're amazing. Yeah. So if you want to get any of their products, and they actually, I have to go to their website because there's some new products they have that they just came out with. But if you want to check out their products, go to MyPillow .com and use the promo code SFE.

It stands for Striving For Eternity. Or call 1 -800 -873 -0176. And again, use promo code SFE to get the discount. What that does is not only give you a great discount, but it lets them know that you heard about it here so they keep sponsoring the show.

So we appreciate that when you do that. Amen.

So the big takeaway is that for everyone that Andrew has challenged to a Brazilian jiu-jitsu match, mixed martial arts match, and he says, I'll roll with you and beat you. Now is the time to take Andrew up on that.

And all she got to do is just press on that rib a little bit, and you're going to win immediately.

Yeah. While in the hospital, Thomas, I kept telling Thomas because Thomas actually asked the doctor, he's talking to the ER doctor, and he's like, because they're saying they may have to put a tube in me and they're going to have to do surgery to put me out so that they could put the tube into my lung and release the air.

And he's like, you're going to put him out? And he's like, oh yeah, we'll give him anesthesia. No, no, put him out like you would like a goat because the doctor told us he has goats. Like, you're just done, gone.

So I basically explained that I still think I could have taken Thomas and choking him out, but he said there's this button on my back that he could press that would work. And my theory is I can just deal with the pain and choke him out and then deal with the pain after he comes to.

Yeah, I know. And Cole is saying here that I had a collapsed lung in 2012. No fun. I will agree with you. My friend, I'm convinced, Anthony, everyone at this church wants to kill me. One person takes me ATV, but then Josh, who you know, Josh takes me up to, without thinking, we just didn't think about it because I shouldn't, I shouldn't fly for at least a week.

Well, within a few days, he takes me up to a mountain peak, which is a great view, but it was 7 ,000 feet. And I was feeling it like a lot.

Well, I am glad that you are a lot better than you could have been because there's, there's some dangerous accidents I've known people to get into with ATVs, including death.

Oh, yeah. Everybody was telling me their stories. I mean, the whole night in the ER, I posted it and then everyone's telling me how people who died, who rolled over. And I'm like,.

Oh, yeah. And here's Kofi, which I hope Kofi comes in and joins us on the second hour because I know Kofi's been studying prayer and he's going to add a lot to this show. So Kofi brother, I hope you come in second hour after we let our guests do some speaking, but being boring has its advantages.

That's right. When I got into dentistry, when I, when I graduated dental school, I gave up skiing. I gave up, what's those inline skates. I gave up a lot of stuff. I'm like, I don't want to fall and break a wrist.

Yeah. But your, your job requires it. Yeah, that's right. So without further ado, we'll get to our guest here. Andrew, thanks for coming in. And so, so Josiah, we're going to talk about your book a little bit later today, because I'm really excited about the news you shared with me today.

And I'm sure I'm excited about other news you share. We'll talk about it later too. Without further ado, I'm really excited to bring our guest in. It's a guy I've known for years. He comes, he goes to the same church that I'm a member of.

And you know, when, when we planned on this several months ago to put together this show on, on prayer, you know, I do my homework. I think everyone who watches the show knows that when I have a guest on, I'm, I've got questions ready, prepared answers.

I know that are coming, you know, so that the show goes really smooth. So I asked Dan originally for some questions and, and, you know, Hey, can you just prepare a few questions for me? And so it gets the conversation going.

I'll give you some more questions that I think would be helpful that I'm going to ask you as well. I got, I don't know, 50 some pages. It's a absolutely impressive. So this show is either going to break records tonight.

So like three in the morning, or we're just going to have to have Dan on again. So I'm going to say one thing. This is fascinating. And then we're going to bring Dan on. So I have preached on evangelism for years in churches.

And I have constantly brought up Jonathan Edwards, Edward sermon, sinners in the hands of an angry God, right? Josiah. I know, you know, that one, um, most informed guys knew that sermon. They've read it at least once, a very, very powerful sermon.

I wish pastors would, would do 10 of what that sermon does today in terms of being willing to preach that from, from the pulpit.

I've definitely preached, uh, the, uh, and quoted it in my sermons. Yeah. I've quoted it numerous times. It really is amazing.

His, his use of words in there. And, uh, one, one thing I found fascinating and going through Dan's questions and notes is, is this quote here. Several members of Jonathan Edwards church had spent the whole night in prayer before he preached his memorable sermon.

Think about that. I mean, we, we look at this sermon as, as being an unbelievably powerful sermon and, and yet what do we ignore? The whole night of prayer, the whole night of prayer that was behind it.

I mean, that is fascinating to me. Um, the, and says the Holy ghost so mightily poured out and God so manifest in holiness and majesty. During the preaching of that sermon, the elders threw their arms around the pillars of the church and cried, Lord, save us.

We are slipping down to hell. And that the preaching of the sermon was the catalyst for the first great awakening. I mean, absolutely fascinating to understand a little, just a little bit of the history behind that sermon.

And, uh, why don't we ever hear that? I've heard people quote this sermon many times and yet I've never heard about the prayer behind it. And that is my motivation for this show tonight is because I'm sorry.

I think as good of theology as a lot of us have in the reform movement, reform Baptists, um, and Presbyterians, if we really want to include them, um, we're, we're all really good with our, with our theology.

Um, but I think most of us are really, really weak in prayer. And, uh, and I know I want to improve on this greatly. And, uh, and I couldn't think of anybody better than my friend Dan. So let me bring Dan in.

Dan, how are you doing tonight? Greetings, everybody. Good. I, I, I think we need to get you a little close to your microphone just so you come up a little bit louder for us. Got it. So everybody can hear you.

So, uh, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? I'm a girl, dad, three girls, uh,.

And married for just over, uh, 20 years. And, my, uh, my occupation is, uh, business world and e-commerce. And, uh, like you, Anthony, my, my, my prayer life is something that is, uh, it is definitely something that I'm looking to, uh, to be able to take and improve and my intimacy with the Lord.

And when you and I talked about this, it's, it's pretty humbling to be able to take in when you're in a journey, in your relationship with the Lord, to be able to take and improve your prayer life, to be able to take and talk about it.

And I think tonight, uh, my goal is, that we, we not be hammered about our prayer life. We're going to, we're going to talk about some hard things in, in both our lives, the life of the church, but to be really encouraged that the heart of God with intimacy with us is something that shouldn't be frustrating to us.

Shouldn't be a struggle to us. And we're going to talk about how we can take and move toward that through the power of the Holy spirit and really, really change our intimacy level with, with God and, and see what the impact is in, in our lives and the lives of those around us.

Yep. Amen to that. So,.

So a little bit of background, if you can give to us, I mean, you grew up in a, in a very unique family, something that always fascinated me. Um, I've heard this several times from you now. Um, and you always give me more details each time, which is really cool.

But, uh, so if you could just share a little bit about your background. Yeah. Uh,.

Was raised in a home where, where prayer played a key part in both of my parents' lives. And, uh, the outcome of it was, is my dad was just an everyday guy. He was blue collar, a pipe fitter living in Western New York.

And early on in my dad's life, he, his family came over from Wales. I'm a Welshman. And, uh, my dad just was surrounded by some guys that led him to Christ. That were men of prayer. And, uh, my dad was really burdened for, for lost people.

And when we were growing up, literally we saw hundreds of people come to Christ. And through our home, as a result of my mom and dad's ministry, they were lay people, but just seeing people come to Christ just constantly.

And, uh, the stories were just amazing. As we were kids growing up to be able to just constantly see people being born again. And people would ask us. Is we got older and kids and we became adults. My, my brother and sister and I, that what, what was, what was it with Eddie Llewellyn?

That's my dad. What was it that, that he was able to take and be such an influence for Christ and to literally, literally see hundreds and hundreds of people come to Christ, but just not come to Christ.

These people were going out into the mission field. They were becoming pastors. They were becoming people of influence within the body of Christ around the world. And us kids knew my dad would get up early in the morning, go out in the kitchen.

And, uh, that was his prayer closet. And he would be down on his knees and he would be in prayer, crying out to God for the souls of men and God, give me souls, give me souls. And he would just cry out and it wasn't casual.

And it happened, it is, it started in his twenties and literally carried, carried through to, uh, when he died in his early eighties. Tell one quick story and then, and then we'll, we'll take and move on.

I went home on a weekend and visited him in New York. And he told me a story and he was in his early eighties. He said, Dan, I spent time with the Lord time in prayer. And you know what? I just felt prompted after time of the word and time in a prayer to go in the garage, get the bike and go.

Now this is a guy that's 80 years old. So he went and drove, rode his bike down on a trail by the Allegheny river. And early, early in the morning, there was fog and out of nowhere under a picnic pavilion.

He saw a guy sitting on a picnic table by himself and he knew he just pulled up his bike, sat down and talked to him. And the guy was in dire straits and my father led him to Christ. And it was a direct result of his prayer life that day and spending time in the word.

And literally we saw, we saw over a course of time, just hundreds and hundreds of people come to Christ. So that's where my heart is right. Talking about prayer tonight. And what I want to do is one of the things that I, that I've seen that is really missing within, within the body of Christ, unless you really have read books or people have talked about it, we really don't, we really don't have perspective.

Just how significant prayer has played in, just not in scripture, but in the lives of greats that we know. Anthony started out with one that, that gave an example. And what I'd like to do is I would like to encourage us and just take a quick trip back through history and listen to the role that prayer played.

And some of the names that we know, and especially in reform circles, et cetera, you're going to, you're going to know the names really, really quick. And so what I want to do is take us through that journey.

We'll spend maybe 15 minutes and, and I'll give you some of those narratives. What I want to do too, is I want to talk about the, the great awakening that happened in the U S and the place that, that prayer played in that literally millions of people came to Christ and were born again.

And then what I want to do is I want to take it from the lessons that are learned in recent history from the 1800s, early 1900s. And then I want to zip it forward. And I want to, I want us to talk about the state of the church today and the state of believers when it comes to prayer.

And we're going to have a frank conversation around it. And then what we're going to do is take the state of the church today and then zip it into the role that prayer plays in evangelism. And that it has in soul winning in the church.

And we're going to, we're going to connect some dots there through prayer to, to God, using his power and us really having a real burden for lost people. One of the things that you're going to see here real quick in the next couple of minutes is that the men of God that we know, guys like Whitfield, Spurgeon, Martin Lloyd Jones, these men had a supernatural burden for lost people.

It wasn't something they worked up. It wasn't something that was, they had to muster up the Holy Spirit in them. Like Paul gave them unceasing anguish and great sorrow for the souls of men. And it's a one-to-one with their prayer life.

You know, there was, there was one guy that, that we know and it's Spurgeon. And one of the things that he was really passionate about is about prayer and the church. And one of the things that Spurgeon said is a prayerless church is a dead church.

And man, that just pulled between the eyes and what he means by prayerless. When you read the writings of Spurgeon is just not a church where there's no prayer. It is little prayer. And that's what we're going to talk about is we pray, but there's little prayer.

And the prayer that we, that we have is it lacks passion. It lacks fervency. And it was just sobering to hear that from, from Spurgeon. There's a guy that you might have heard. So somebody hold, cut you off right there for a moment.

I mean, so what you're talking about is, is not just being in prayer, but, but like that we're actually talking to God. We're, we're actually having emotion about it that we're actually, I mean, cause it's easy for us to say prayers, right?

We quickly say prayer before we eat our meals. We quickly say prayer before we go to bed. But, but, but a lot of those can be mindless prayers versus us, like actually communing with God in, in prayer, right?

I, I, it's, it sounds to me like that's what you're, you're getting at number one. And number two is that in church there is, there's the understanding that prayer should be happening on a personal level, right?

And, but there also should be a corporate level. So like, for instance, a number of the churches I I've spoken in even recently is churches during the church service. There is a time where people are praying together corporately during the service.

We're talking five, 10 minutes worth of, of prayer, which I find fascinating. I mean, the churches I see that are, that tend to be more engaged and closer to God. It's at least, at least it seems that way are people that are in prayer more, right?

So corporately, but I, I'm sorry,.

I'm going to let you keep going. No, let me answer. Let me answer in two ways. So I gave a bold statement that Spurgeon said that a prayerless church is a dead church. You don't want to say that. Spurgeon attributed all of his success in preaching and history says that he is one of the greatest preachers in recent times that have, that has ever lived.

When people would come to visit Spurgeon and the church, he would point to the people that would pray. And one person that came and was talking with Spurgeon and asking him questions, Hey, what is the reason that you can attribute such success for the gospel and seeing people born again?

And Spurgeon walked them downstairs and downstairs when he walked him was 400 people in his congregation there in London that were literally downstairs and praying, praying over him, praying over the service.

So when Spurgeon says it, it's just not a jab of a theologian, right? Toward the church. It was the heart and soul of who Spurgeon was is that literally he had hundreds of people. Every time there was somebody in the pulpit, whether it was him or whether it was somebody else, they were in, they called it the boiler room.

That's what the church called it. And crying out to God for her power in the pulpit, crying out for an outpouring of the Holy spirit with conviction of sin and of judgment and of righteousness. So Spurgeon definitely knew the power of prayer.

And he, he is, is the guy that said a prayerless church. And I don't mean where there's no prayer, but relatively little prayer is, is a dead church. You know, there's another guy that I have great respect for.

Paul Washer said, he's one of the men that have impacted him super greatly for the cause of Christ. His name was Leonard Ravenhill and Ravenhill was pretty, he was pretty passionate about prayer and prayer connected to revival.

And Ravenhill says that no man is greater than his prayer life. And you know what? No man is greater than his prayer life. And it makes me want to crawl under a rock. He said, no man, I don't care how colossal is intellect.

No man is greater than this prayer life. And that's where I want to ask us tonight. Do we really, really believe that, that no man is greater than this prayer life, the intimacy and your relationship with God.

And you're depending on him for everything in life, everything for life and godliness to be able to take and find in Christ and appropriate the power of the gospel, the power of the resurrection to know Christ and the fellowship of his suffering and to be made conformable to his death.

How were those things appropriated? How are those things appropriated? There's over 3000 promises in scripture. Those promises aren't meant to be read. They're meant to be appropriated. And as we look at, we look at men that have been great in prayer, in scripture, they took the promises of God.

Moses is a great one. They took the promises of God and stood on them. And, uh, the measure of a man and man is no greater than his prayer life. Josiah, Anthony, what do you guys think about that?

Well, so I, I know your notes well enough that, uh, while you're doing this all the time off the top of your head, I'm going back to, uh, to see, um, everything that's been written. I mean, I, I was, I was, stricken by, or struck by Leonard Ravenhill's quote, no man is greater than his prayer life.

The pastor who is not praying is playing the people who are not praying or straying. Um, we have many organizers, but few agonized. There's many players and, and pay. I'm like, this is, this is unbelievable.

What do I think? I, I, this is why we're having the show, right? I feel like, um, a lot of us, again, intellectually, we really are enjoying our, our reading our Bibles and getting to know God better.

Um, more and more as we're reading our Bibles and yet we're missing such a critical component here. And so, um, obviously I'm really looking forward to later on in the show as we talk the practical application of this.

Um, but so yeah, so do I have to say, I mean, we all like to quote all these old guys. Right. We love to quote the Spurgeons and the Calvins and, and, uh, and others. And yet again, we're missing a major part of what they talked about, which is, which is prayer.

And it reminds me of, um, Robert Gray, who's a well-known street evangelist in our circles. Um, it ministry partner of Mike Stockwell. And, and I've, I've talked to Robert Graham numerous occasions where he says that he spends twice the amount of time on his knees than he does out preaching.

In his street event, street evangelism. And I'm like, wow. I mean, if anybody who knows Robert would absolutely understand, I mean, I, I'm sure he's telling the truth, but that that's amazing to me to think about, you know, we all look at the evangelism side, right?

We all talk about, we need to do evangelism and we do, and the church is woefully lacking in evangelism. Um, but we're even more lacking in the prayer that goes along with that evangelism. So, so that's, those are my thoughts.

I don't know, Josiah, if you've got any thoughts.

I got a few, uh, I, what you were saying is, it was reminding me how woefully terrible a certain season in my ministry was. Um, I was just studying to get by, I was studying to write sermons. I was, I wasn't really in my word like I should be.

And I was acting a horrible to my wife, to my kids. And, uh, I, it's, God kind of struck me there, uh, revealing to me, Hey, your prayer life is non-existent. When you're in my word, you're not praying to understand it.

You're not, uh, you're, you're not being open to my word. You're just wanting to say what it says and move on. And when I, when I, I just broke down and got on my knees and, and, and begged for forgiveness and my, my preaching and my writing and my studying became devotions with God.

And my, my ministry started getting a lot better. I mean, I'm in a time in my ministry right now where I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm on my knees in prayer every day. And God's God, things I thought weren't going to happen because, you know, I'm trusting in the power of his word.

I'm seeing people's lives changed. Um, people who I thought were against me, um, tend to be, have been for me. People who, uh, were, uh, for me have revealed that they're holding grudges against me. And God's word is just keeping revealing that.

And it's because I'm, I'm surrendering to him in prayer and, and, uh, repentance, uh,.

When I come, come to his word. Yeah. Amen. Here's a couple of comments backstage. Um, Christine LaVallee wrote this a little bit ago. I find it really amazing that people like you men have a less than desirable prayer life.

I thought I was missing a lot in that respect, I guess, comparing myself with others. And that's why we're doing the show is because I, I think, I think the vast majority of us are, are not in prayer the way we are supposed to be.

I think the way that God intended us to be, um, so that, that's why we're doing the show, you know, um, Drew Bonita, who I know is one of the guys excited for the show tonight. He said this, we often neglect commuting with God through prayer, but how would that look in marriage?

If we got married in one of our separate ways after the marriage service, not a strong relationship. Could you imagine if your wife, how your wife would feel if you just stopped talking to her after you got married?

I mean, think about that,.

Right? We're seeing, I want to, I want to grab what Christine said. I'll go back. I'll go back to that. Yep. And then, and then tag on with, uh, with Drew Christine, you, you, you are absolutely right.

I, I am convinced that there is a conspiracy of silence within evangelicalism of really having smack talk about where we are, both as pastors, leaders, elders inside the church and people in the pew of where we are truly at in our prayer lives.

There's a conspiracy of silence. Nobody really wants to, to talk about the real issues. And let me tell you something. There's a, there's a guy that I really come to, uh, to really listen to closely. His name is Richard Owen Roberts.

And he, he had said that, you know what, man, there is a crisis in evangelical churches across America today. There's powerless sermons and there's prayerless churches. And he said, powerful sermons and praying churches.

What they do is they usher in spiritual awakenings. And isn't that what we want? I mean, look at the days that we're living in and all of what's going around us. And we desperately need spiritual awakenings that are supernatural and bring both incredible conviction of sin and marvelous release from the bondage of corruption.

And the reason that many of millions of Christian workers and churches in America, we need to ask ourselves the question, why don't we have greater influence for the cause of Christ and the gospel? Because that's the question.

That's the question. Then you take what, what drew said, right? Is that intimacy that's there? And let me tell you something. Andrew Murray answered that question. Why is the reason that many millions of Christian workers and churches in America don't have greater influence for the cause of Christ and the gospel?

Listen to Murray's answer for this. It's, it's, it's funny. He answered the question. He said, it's nothing. Save this, it's the prayerlessness of their service in the midst of all of their zeal and the study and in the work of the church of all of their faithfulness in preaching and conversation with people.

They lack that ceaseless prayer, which is attached to it. The sure promise of the Holy spirit and power from on high. Listen to what he ends up saying. It is nothing but the center prayerlessness, which is the cause of a lack of, of a powerful spiritual life.