Prayer, Prayerlessness, & The Souls of Men

Apologetics Live

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To answer your questions and challenges about God and the Bible, meet your hosts from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport, Dr.

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Anthony Silvestro, and Pastor Justin Pierce. Good evening, everyone.

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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.

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We're here to answer your questions and challenges about God and the Bible. I didn't know why that just played backwards, whatever.

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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,

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I think, two months ago, and we've had people ask in literally every single week, when's that show on prayer?

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When's that? Is this the week for it? Well, finally, this is the week for it. Before we get to our special guest, however,

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I do have a different special guest, who you probably have seen before a few times. Andrew!

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Andrew! Hey, how are you? I'm good. Not at my usual location. And so, yeah,

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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.

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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.

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And this is from Carol from a few weeks ago. She said,

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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,

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Mark Devere on parentheses. So I appreciate the answer that was give,

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I think, given. I do have a MacArthur Study Bible, and on further investigation,

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I realized that on my Kindle, I had downloaded MacArthur quick reference, the quick reference guide to the

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Bible several years ago. So I thank you for gentle reminders and helpful encouragement.

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I am reading through the MacArthur Daily Bible this year and find it hard to understand the whys and what's for so having more background helps.

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I have so blessed by the ministry of SFE and Apologetics Live.

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So thank you to all of you again in prayer, Carol. So that was one of the more pleasing letters we always,

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I like those letters, you know, you guys are a bunch of knuckleheads and don't know anything.

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We get those as well. I send those to Anthony. So info at striving for eternity .org, if you want to send those, you know,

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I will be happy to let Anthony read those all day long, but you can contact us at info at striving for eternity .org.

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And I told you I wanted to, I want to just plug something really quick and then

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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,

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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

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.st and then it's 26A2DA80.

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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.

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Okay. This is the page that it'll take you to. On Indiegogo.

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I am an investor in this company, so I should put full disclosure there. But this is what they're, there's two products that they're trying to get fundraising for.

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And as you can see, the fundraising is well over what was, what was planned.

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I mean, 2 ,821%. So this is definitely went over and above.

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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.

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That is what is called Xtreme. This will actually charge three phones at once or three devices.

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You can, 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.

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It'll actually do like 20 jumpstarts on a full charge. So I'm going to be,

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I'm going to be keeping one of these with the, with the, in each of my cars. So if I ever need a jumpstart,

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I don't need to worry about cables and finding somebody else out. The other thing that they have is these

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Lux cables, which is what Anthony absolutely needs because this is the only cable

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I know that comes with a lifetime warranty, which Anthony is bad with cables.

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And that's, I don't understand how I break these all the time. It's incredible how good

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I am at breaking iPhone cables. So you do, I'm looking forward to getting this myself.

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So they are not cheap cables, but they're cables that they don't kink. They have a lifetime warranty.

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If you look there on the, on the right here, they come in two forms. One with the, the, what really is the future, the male and female two forms actually, no, they're male on each end because that's the, you know,

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I, there's a design for that because it goes into a device that just, so you don't have something protruding from it.

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I know you'd like that in, in, in nature, it works male and female, but with computers.

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Okay. So, but it comes in either, if you have like a iPhone, you can get the lightning port.

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Or if you want, you know, most of the newer devices are all having the USB -C, but it does come with, if you, if you have the old style

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USB, it has a connector that will go USB to the old, you know,

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USB, what's called the A to USB -C. So this is, this is, this will only be, there's 13 days left on this.

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So want to encourage you guys to all check that out. Um, I just wanted to real quick mention that and, uh,

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I'll be checking out the show later. Um, and, and I'm very, I'm very excited about the guest, but, uh, you know,

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I, I like to do this every once in a while as well. Oh, there he is. Look at that. He's reading his own book.

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Josiah Nichols reading his own book. He was caught. He was caught reading his own book. Yeah. So with that,

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I'll, I'll catch you guys later. And do you, do I, do you want to do your famous commercial? Cause you do it better than the rest of us do.

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Okay. Well, I actually, actually, I've, I have had a struggle this week, Anthony. I really have.

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I should update people on, on anyone's been following me on social media. So, uh,

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I went for an ATV ride with a friend of mine, Thomas. And basically what happened was, is 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.

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And so I thought he went straight. And so as I came out of the dust cloud,

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I realized there were trees in front of me. And I tried to make a very quick, sharp left turn, instinctively mistake.

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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.

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Well, the result was the ATV went one way, but my body had enough momentum to go the other way.

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And as I fell off of the ATV, uh, I broke a rib, that rib punctured a lung.

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Um, and so I got to spend a, a night in the ER, uh, as they did some exam, examinational, the rib, the, the lung has, has healed.

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The hole is closed up the, the, uh, and I can't pronounce it properly, but the new

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Thorax or however there's air in the lungs that has dissipated.

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So there's no sign of that. So I should be able to fly, which will be good. Um, and so, so you're still gonna be able to make it to ambassador's

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Academy because we're both leading teams. Well, that is the plan. But the doctor here said,

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I need to, when I get home, get an x -ray done to make sure that there wasn't some air that did, that they didn't see.

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Cause at, you know, at an altitude of a plane, if there is air there, it's going to expand.

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And so I won't be really cleared to fly. I'll be, I'm cleared to fly home.

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I'm just not clear to fly to California yet. So we'll find out if I have double the workload by taking all your, uh, you still may get my whole group.

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We're hoping not, but here's the thing with it though. I have not able to sleep in a bed yet.

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I have to sleep in a, in a recliner and I'm glad that the place I'm staying has a recliner, but, uh, if you need a good way to sleep, if you're able to sleep in a bed, you know, like normal people, um,

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I brought my, my pillow here with me. Josiah is going to get his, uh, I brought my, my pillow here and I have,

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I have planned on sleeping with it. There's Josiah's. Um, and it is, it is a great pillow there.

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Uh, I have found I've been wearing their slippers all summer long and they do not get too hot, which is really,

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I don't know how, cause they're, they're furry, but, uh, I've been loving it. Yeah.

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So if you want to get any of their products and they actually, I have to go to their website cause there's some new products they have that they just came out with.

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But, um, if you want to check out their products, go to mypillow .com and use the promo code

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SFE. It stands for striving for eternity or call 1 -800 -873 -0176.

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And again, use promo code SFE to get discount. What that does is not only give you a great discount, but it lets them know that, that you heard about it here.

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So they keep sponsoring the show. So we appreciate that when you do that. Amen. So, so the big takeaway is, is that, uh, for everyone that Andrew is challenged to a

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Brazilian jujitsu match, um, mixed martial arts match, and he says, I'm I'll roll with you and beat you.

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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.

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Yeah. I went while in the hospital, Thomas, I kept telling Thomas, cause he, Thomas actually asked the doctor, he's talking to the

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ER doctor. And he's like, you know, cause 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.

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And he's like, you're going to put them out. And he's like, oh yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll give him anesthesia. No, no. Put him out.

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Like you would like, you know, dead, like a goat, like, cause the doctor told us he has goats, like, you're just done, gone, you know?

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So I basically explained that I still think I could have taken Thomas and, and choking him out.

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But he said there's this button on my back that he could press that would, that would work. And I, my theory is

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I can, uh, I can just deal with the pain and choke him out and then deal with the pain after he comes to, but, uh, and Cole is saying here that, uh,

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I had a collapsed lung in 2012. No fun. I will agree with you. Uh, my friend,

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I I'm convinced that Anthony, everyone at this church wants to kill me. One person takes me ATV, but then

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Josh, who, you know, uh, Josh takes me up to, to without thinking.

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We just didn't think about it. Cause I, I shouldn't, I, I shouldn't fly for at least a week. Well, within a few days, he takes me up to a mountain peak, which was a great view, but it was 7 ,000 feet.

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And I was feeling it like a lot. I am glad that you are a lot better than you could have been.

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Cause there's, there's some danger at dangerous accidents. I've known people to get into with ATVs, including death.

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So everybody was telling me their, their stories. I mean, the whole night in the, in the ER, I, you know, I posted it and then everyone's telling me how people who died, who rolled over and I'm like,

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Oh yeah. And then here's Kofi, which I hope Kofi comes in and joins us in the second hour, because I know

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Kofi has 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.

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That's right. When I got into dentistry, when I, when I graduated dental school, I gave up skiing.

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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.

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Yeah. But I mean, your, your job requires it. Yeah, that's right. So without further ado, we'll get to our guest here.

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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, I'm really excited about the news you shared with me today and I'm sure

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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.

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It's a guy I've known for years. He comes, he goes to the same church that I'm a member of.

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And you know, when, when we planned on this several months ago to put together this show on, on prayer

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I, you know, I do my homework. I think everyone who watches the show knows that when

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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.

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So I asked Dan originally for some questions and, and you know, Hey, can you just prepare a few questions for me?

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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.

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Um, I got, I don't know, 50 some pages of, it's a absolutely impressive.

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So this show is either going to break records tonight to like three in the morning, or we're just going to have to have

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Dan on again. So, um, I'm going to say one thing, this is fascinating and then we're going to bring

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Dan on. So I have preached on evangelism for years in churches and I have constantly brought up Jonathan Edwards' sermon,

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Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, right? Josiah, I know you know that one. Most reformed guys knew that sermon.

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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.

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

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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.

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Several members of Jonathan Edwards' church had spent the whole night in prayer before he preached his memorable sermon.

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Think about that. I mean, we, we look at this sermon as, as being an unbelievably powerful sermon.

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And, and yet what do we ignore? The whole night of prayer. The whole night of prayer that was behind it.

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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,

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Lord, save us. We are slipping down to hell. And that the preaching of the sermon was the catalyst for the first great awakening.

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I mean, absolutely fascinating to understand a little, just a little bit of the history behind that sermon.

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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.

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And that is my motivation for this show tonight is because I'm sorry.

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

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Um, but I think most of us are really, really weak in prayer.

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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

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Dan. So let me bring Dan in. Dan, how are you doing tonight? Good to meet you.

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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.

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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 20 years.

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And, uh, my, uh, my occupation is, uh, business world and e -commerce.

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And, uh, like you, Anthony, 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

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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

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Lord, to be able to take and improve your prayer life, to be able to take and talk about it.

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And I think tonight, uh, my goal is that we, we not be hammered about our prayer life.

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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.

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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

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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.

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Yup. Amen to that. So a little bit of background, if you can give to us,

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I mean, you grew up in, in a very unique family, something that always fascinated me. I've heard this several times from you now, and you always give me more details each time, which is really cool.

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But, uh, so if you could just share a little bit about your background. Yeah. Was raised in a home where, where prayer played a key part in both of my parents' lives.

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And, uh, the outcome of it was, is my dad was just an everyday guy.

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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.

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I'm a Welshman. And, uh, my dad just was surrounded by some guys that led him to Christ that were men of prayer.

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And, uh, my dad was really burdened for, for lost people.

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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.

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And, uh, the stories were just amazing as we were kids growing up to be able to just constantly see people being born again.

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And people would ask us is we got older and kids and we became adults.

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My, my brother and sister and I, that what, what was, what was it with Eddie Llewellyn?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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And he would just cry out and it wasn't casual. And it happened, uh, in his, it started in his twenties and literally carried, carried through to, uh, when he died in his early eighties.

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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.

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And he told me a story and he was in his early eighties. He said, Dan, I spent time with the

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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.

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Now this is a guy that's 80 years old. So he went and drove, rode his bike down on a trail by the

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Allegheny river. And early, early in the morning, there was fog and out of nowhere under a picnic pavilion.

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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.

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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.

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And literally we saw, we saw over a course of time, just hundreds and hundreds of people come to Christ.

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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've seen that is really missing within the body of Christ, unless you really have read books or people have talked about it.

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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.

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Anthony started out with one that gave an example. And what I'd like to do is

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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 know the names really, really quick.

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And so what I want to do is take us through that journey. We'll spend maybe 15 minutes and I'll give you some of those narratives.

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What I want to do too, is I want to talk about the great awakening that happened in the

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U .S. in the place that the prayer played in that literally millions of people came to Christ and were born again.

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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.

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And then I want to zip it forward. And I want us to talk about the state of the church today and the state of believers when it comes to prayer.

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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.

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And we're going to connect some dots there through prayer to God using his power and us really having a real burden for lost people.

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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.

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It wasn't something they worked up. It wasn't something that was they had to muster up.

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The Holy Spirit in them like Paul gave them unceasing anguish and great sorrow for the souls of men.

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And it's a one to one with their prayer life. You know, there was one guy that we know and it's

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Spurgeon. And one of the things that he was really passionate about is about prayer in the church.

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And one of the things that Spurgeon said is a prayerless church is a dead church.

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Man, that just pulled me 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.

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It is little prayer. And that's what we're going to talk about is we pray, but there's little prayer.

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And the prayer that we have is it lacks passion. It lacks fervency.

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And it was just sobering to hear that from Spurgeon. There's a guy that you might have heard.

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Somebody hold, cut you off right there for a moment. I mean, so what you're talking about is not just being in prayer, but like that we're actually talking to God.

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We're actually having emotion about it. That we're actually, I mean, because it's easy for us to say prayers, right?

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

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

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But there also should be a corporate level. So like, for instance, a number of the churches

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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.

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We're talking five, 10 minutes worth of prayer, which

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I find fascinating. I mean, the churches I see that tend to be more engaged and closer to God, it's at least it seems that way, are people that are in prayer more, right?

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So corporately, but I'm sorry, I'm going to let you keep going. No, let me answer it in two ways.

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So I gave a bold statement that Spurgeon said that a prayerless church is a dead church.

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You know why I said that? Spurgeon attributed all of his success in preaching, and history says that he is one greatest preachers in recent times that has ever lived.

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When people would come to visit Spurgeon in the church, he would point to the people that would pray.

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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?

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And Spurgeon walked him 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.

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So when Spurgeon says it, it's just not a jab of a theologian right toward the church.

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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.

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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

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Holy Spirit with conviction of sin and of judgment and of righteousness. So Spurgeon definitely knew the power of prayer.

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And he is the guy that said a prayerless church, and I don't mean where there's no prayer, but relatively little prayer is a dead church.

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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.

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His name was Leonard Ravenhill. And Ravenhill was pretty, he was pretty passionate about prayer and prayer connected to revival.

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And Ravenhill says that no man is greater than his prayer life. And you know what?

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No man is greater than his prayer life. And it makes me want to crawl under a rock.

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He said, no man, I don't care how colossal is intellect. No man is greater than this prayer life.

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And that's where I want to ask us tonight. Do we really, really believe that, that no man is greater than his 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

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Christ and the fellowship of his suffering and to be made conformable to his death. How are those things appropriated?

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How are those things appropriated? There's over 3000 promises in scripture. Those promises aren't meant to be read.

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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.

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Moses is a great one that took the promises of God and stood on them. And the measure of a man, a man is no greater than his prayer life.

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Josiah, Anthony, what do you guys think about that? Well, so I, I know your notes well enough that while you're doing this all the time off the top of your head,

31:04

I'm going back to, to see everything that's been written. I mean, I was,

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I was stricken by or struck by Leonard Ravenhill's quote.

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No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing. The people who are not praying are straying.

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We have many organizers, but few agonized. There's many players and I'm like, this is, this is unbelievable.

31:30

What do I think? This is why we're having this show, right? I feel like a lot of us, again, intellectually, we really are enjoying our, our reading our

31:42

Bibles and getting to know God better, um, more and more as we're reading our

31:47

Bibles. And yet we're missing such a critical component here. And so, um, obviously

31:54

I'm really looking forward to later on in the show as we talk the practical application of this.

32:01

Um, but so yeah, so do I have to say, I mean, we all like to quote all these old guys, right?

32:07

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.

32:18

And it reminds me of, um, Robert Gray, who's a well -known street evangelist in our circles.

32:24

Um, a ministry partner of Mike Stockwell. And, and I've, I've talked to Robert Gray on 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.

32:39

And I'm like, wow. I mean, if anybody who knows

32:44

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.

32:51

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.

32:59

Um, but we're even more lacking in the prayer that goes along with that evangelism.

33:05

So, so that's, those are my thoughts. I don't know, Josiah, if you've got any thoughts. I got a few, uh,

33:12

I, what you were saying is, is reminding me how woefully terrible a certain season in my ministry was.

33:20

Um, I was just studying to get by, I was studying to write sermons.

33:25

I was, I wasn't really in my word, like I should be. And I was acting horrible to my wife, to my kids.

33:34

And, uh, I, it's, God kind of struck me there, uh, revealing to me, your prayer life is non -existent.

33:44

You, 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.

33:54

You're just wanting to say what it says and move on. And when

33:59

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.

34:20

I mean, I'm, 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's doing things

34:30

I thought weren't going to happen because, you know, I'm trusting in the power of his word.

34:37

I'm seeing people's lives changed. Um, people who I thought were against me, um, tend to be, have been for me.

34:46

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.

34:58

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

35:04

I come and come to his word. Yeah. Amen. Here's a couple of comments backstage.

35:10

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.

35:15

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 think,

35:22

I think the vast majority of us are, are not in prayer the way we are supposed to be.

35:29

I think the way that God intended us to be, um, so that that's why we're doing the show. You know, um,

35:35

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?

35:44

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?

35:56

I mean, think about that, right? We're seeing, I want to, I want to grab what Christine said. Yeah. I'll go back.

36:01

I'll go back to that. Yep. And then, and then tag on with, uh, with Drew, Christine, you, you, you are absolutely right.

36:09

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.

36:30

There's a conspiracy of silence. Nobody really wants to, to talk about the real issues.

36:36

And let me tell you something. There's a, there's a guy that I really come to, uh, to, to really listen to closely.

36:44

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.

36:55

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.

37:08

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.

37:14

And we desperately need spiritual awakenings that are supernatural and bring both incredible conviction of sin and marvelous release from the bondage of corruption.

37:28

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 in the gospel?

37:42

Because that's the question. That's the question. Then you take what, what drew said, right?

37:48

Is that intimacy that's there? And let me tell you something. Andrew Murray answered that question.

37:54

Why is the reason that many millions of Christian workers and churches in America don't have greater influence for the cause of Christ in the gospel?

38:03

Listen to Murray's answer for this. It's, it's, it's funny. He answered the question.

38:09

He said, it's nothing save this, 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.

38:29

The sure promise of the Holy spirit and power from on high. Listen to what he ends up saying.

38:35

It is nothing but the center prayerlessness, which is the cause of a lack of, of a powerful spiritual life.

38:43

The indispensable thing is not preaching. It's not pastoral visitation.

38:50

The indispensable thing is not church work, but fellowship with God, exactly as drew said fellowship with God in prayer, intimacy until we are clothed with power from on high to be prayerless is to be powerless, powerful, powerful words.

39:12

And what's interesting is this was, this is many, many decades ago that he said it.

39:20

Let me tell you something. My, my heart and my passion in my journey is crying out to God, not to be spiritually impotent and not to be spiritually impotent and dead in our churches, because I'll tell you what's at stake.

39:38

And this is where we're going to go in our, in our journey. And our time is we are called to be a part of rescuing the souls of men from the dominion of darkness.

39:50

We are, we've been given the ministry. We've been given the message of reconciliation and God has made us ambassadors.

39:58

And guess what is ambassadors. We live our life in the fruit of us in our life.

40:05

We're not seeing people come to Christ. Our churches aren't seeing come to Christ. There's cobwebs in our baptistries across this country.

40:15

Individually, we are not seeing people that in the power of the

40:21

Holy Spirit and us sharing the gospel, the simple ministry and the message of reconciliation and ministering to people and ambassadors, we're powerless and we're impotent and we're not seeing the fruit that John tells us, right?

40:36

That those that aren't my disciples, we are going to bear much fruit showing ourselves to be your disciples.

40:44

And right after that, he links it to prayer. And he says, if you ask anything in my name, according to my, according to my will,

40:53

I hear it and I'm going to answer it. And so in relation to the gospel proclamation, that's right.

41:00

And yeah, no, I absolutely agree. I'm amazed at how many people don't evangelize today, right?

41:07

And so when you talk about this link, the vast majority of Christians are in 100 % sin by not evangelizing, right?

41:17

I mean, we have a great commission. We have a command from God to evangelize. When you're not evangelizing, you're in sin. Sorry. Scripture is really, really clear about this.

41:25

And usually the excuse that's used is, well, you know, I'm just not been given the spiritual gift.

41:32

I'm not good at it, or I don't know what to do. Well, you know what? Pray. How about you pray that God gives you the boldness?

41:39

How about you pray that God gives you the words to say by the power of the spirit? How about you pray for all this stuff, right?

41:46

Because we're commanded to do it. So if you feel ill -equipped, then pray that God equips you to go do this.

41:55

And yeah, I think that this lack of evangelism absolutely is tied to the lack of prayer, the lack of trusting

42:04

Christ in this ability to go out and do what we are called to do. And, you know,

42:10

Dan, you hit on another subject, baptistries being full of cobwebs. I am amazed at how many people

42:16

I talk to in churches where the baptisms that are occurring in churches by and large today are—in good churches, right?

42:25

I'm not talking about false conversions in bad churches. I'm talking about good churches. The vast majority of baptisms that are occurring are not the result of evangelistic efforts and people getting saved, bringing them to church, and getting baptized, right?

42:40

We're seeing people rededicating. We're seeing people who maybe were false converts and going to church for years, but we're not seeing a lot of this from evangelism.

42:50

At least that's what I'm hearing from a lot of people. So, I mean, I think you're touching on something that a lot of pastors and churchgoers are recognizing.

43:00

That's, yeah, the baptistries are—they're not being used as much as they should be. So I'm going to take what you just said in the last little snippet.

43:11

And there's a guy that is great to read. His name was Oswald Chambers.

43:16

Oswald Chambers said this, prayer does not fit us for the greater works, the greater works of evangelism, the greater works inside of the church.

43:26

Let me repeat that. Prayer does not fit us for the greater works. Prayer is the greatest work.

43:34

And we need to take a look at, yes, scripture, but we need to look at men of prayer in history and recent history.

43:46

I'll tell you, Josiah and Andrew, I grind my teeth and at times

43:54

I get angry. And I have some friends that are on the call and they've heard this from me.

44:00

I hear in sermons and I hear in conversations, people quoted like you said,

44:07

Anthony, right? Names that we know like Whitefield, Spurgeon, Martin Lloyd -Jones.

44:13

We're gonna get on the list here in just a couple of seconds. And I grind my teeth because they're quoted and you were absolutely right.

44:21

Nobody knows the story behind them. Let me give you an example, Martin Luther, right?

44:28

Martin Luther. So we all know that this is what he said.

44:36

If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day.

44:44

I have so much to do. I cannot get on without spending three hours in prayer.

44:49

I'd heard that before, right? This is Luther. So the reformed guys, right?

44:55

Yeah, Luther, the reformation, all of those things that spurred, right? Go back,

45:02

Luther and his impact in the world, his impact for the sake of the gospel.

45:10

Yes, it was powerful in what he did and what he said, but he was a man that dropped to his knees and not casually, not casually.

45:19

When you go and then you look at, we talked about Jonathan Edwards and listen to what

45:25

Jonathan Edwards wrote directly to pastors. He said, pastors,

45:30

I want you to be much in prayer and fasting, both in secret and with one another.

45:37

Interesting, pastors praying with pastors. It seems to me it would become the circumstances of the present day.

45:45

If ministers in a neighborhood would often meet together and spend days in fasting and fervent prayer among themselves.

45:54

So it is God's will that the prayers of his saints shall be great and the principal means of carrying on the designs of Christ's kingdom in the world.

46:03

Did you hear that? Edwards said that prayer and prayer with pastors is the principal means of carrying on the design of Christ's kingdom in the world.

46:14

When God has something to accomplish in his church, Edwards said, it's with his will that they, that there should proceed it, the extraordinary prayer of his people.

46:28

Remember where I said... Say that quote again. I'm writing it down so I don't forget it.

46:34

It's in your notes, Josiah, page two. So remember this name guys,

46:41

John Knox. So everybody has framed up his famous cry out, give me

46:50

Scotland or I die. And Knox was serious about it. Scotland for the gospel, his intercessions, his selfless labor, it's an amazing story of John Knox that revival was brought by John Knox to Scotland.

47:09

And let me tell you something, you know who his chief persecutor was? Who is Mary Queen of Scots. You know what

47:16

Mary Queen of Scots said about John Knox? I fear the prayers of John Knox more than the assembled armies of Europe.

47:26

Tell you where my head went on that one, right? All through COVID, I hear all of the political bantering and the freak out that went on by churches, right?

47:39

What should we be doing? How should we be doing it?

47:44

How should we respond to government? All of those things are all great, two thumbs up and a whistle.

47:51

But I'll tell you something. You know how John Marks was marked? You know,

47:56

Scotland was turned upside down in revival in one of the most powerful political leaders of the day.

48:04

What was the referendum that she said? I feel it. I fear his prayers.

48:10

I fear his prayers. Does anybody, after all of the stuff with COVID and all of the stuff this went on with people poking at the church and us going and meeting, not meeting, et cetera, et cetera.

48:25

We're known by our confusion, right? But we're not known by our prayer. We're not known by our prayer.

48:33

And once again, it's not me poking, right? It's just taking, and you look at the life of a man, an ordinary man,

48:41

John Knox, that turned the world upside down for Christ. It was his niece that got the attention of one of the most powerful political leaders in the world that she said, you know what,

48:52

John Knox, I fear. I fear his prayer. I fear his prayer. Wouldn't it be great, or it wouldn't have been great if Anthony Fauci was saying that he fears the prayer of the

49:04

Christians. Amen. Back two years ago, right? Or Nancy Pelosi, I fear the prayer of the

49:11

Christians. Or some of these wicked leaders that have pushed abortion all these years, I fear the prayer of the

49:18

Christians. You know, your point is well taken, Dan, that they obviously don't fear us.

49:26

They don't fear us whatsoever. No. And there's really good reasons for it. You know,

49:32

I loved one of the things you put in here about Spurgeon, because I mean, I don't know if there's anybody in Christianity that is quoted more than Spurgeon today among reform guys.

49:45

And, you know, I loved this quote when he was asked, what is more important, prayer or reading the Bible?

49:50

His response, what is more important, breathing in or breathing out? Wow. What a great quote there.

50:00

He who knows how to overcome with God and prayer has heaven and earth at his disposal. Prayer has become as essential to me as the heaven of my lungs and the beating of my pulse.

50:11

I mean, where are these quotes, right? Why are we not throwing these things out here with everything else that Spurgeon has said so well over the years?

50:22

This was in the DNA of the greatest preacher that turned

50:28

Europe and came back in America and turned it upside down. That the power of God, just not tens of thousands, many tens of thousands of people came to Christ.

50:41

Yeah. And when Spurgeon said, I've been in frustrating conversations before, right?

50:48

What's more important, preaching or prayer? What's more important, preaching or prayer?

50:55

Because when you look across America today, for the most part, the prayer meeting within our churches of what it used to be, there's no such thing of it anymore.

51:05

Yeah. And let me tell you something. It is predominant in our churches today that our preaching, the word of God, and that's not to diminish it, is secondary to prayer.

51:21

And let me tell you something, the two go together. And we're going to look at that. Let me tell you something. Without prayer, there's powerless preaching.

51:29

I repeat myself. Scripture says it, and we're going to look at scripture. We'll see how far we get tonight.

51:37

I knew this is more than a two hour show. Without prayer, preaching is powerless and impotent.

51:45

Let me just give you my heart coming in, right? And my prayer over this time that we have together, right?

51:52

And the people that are listening. Paul said, I don't want my message and my preaching to be with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the

52:02

Spirit's power. So not a knock on apologetics. Not a knock on theology.

52:08

But he said, I don't want wise and persuasive words, my preaching and my message, my everyday conversations.

52:13

When he went, when Paul went down by the river and was talking with Lydia and the other ladies that were there, he had a conversation with them.

52:24

He said, so that men's faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power.

52:32

How do you get God's power? How do you get God's power? Well, it's the power of the

52:37

Spirit, right? And so you ask for it, right? Luke 11 tells us, right, to ask for the

52:43

Holy Spirit. And there's

52:48

David cried out, oh God, give me your power. Summon your power, oh

52:54

God. That's David's words right out of Psalm. I think it's, we're going to look at it a little bit later. I think it's out of Psalms 28.

53:00

Summon your power, oh God, right? Jehoshaphat crying out in the Old Testament, crying out for God's power when they were absolutely an overwhelming odds and going to get taken and wiped out.

53:13

We don't cry for God's power. When you look at, when you look at guys.

53:19

And I got to say something Dan here real quick, because you know, you and I have talked about this and this is what's really interesting is it can sound very

53:29

Pentecostal -ish, right? To which I, right? So we, we in the reform movement tend to be, okay, look, the

53:40

Holy Spirit, the third person, the Trinity, Holy Spirit, God, Holy Spirit, power,

53:46

Holy Spirit convicts of sin. Holy Spirit changes the heart of stone, the heart of flesh, right? Like we, we intellectually talk about the

53:53

Spirit, but then we get really shy because of how abusive, how abusive the

54:00

Pentecostal churches and others have been with the power of the

54:06

Spirit, right? And, and so, yeah, as Jason Cave says, Holy Spirit activate, right?

54:13

Thanks, Jason. I know a lot of reform guys get really, really nervous because we don't want to sound like Pentecostals, right?

54:23

We don't want to sound like we are trying to harness this special, you know, this special power, this special rub the genie in the bottle power.

54:35

So what is this proper balance scripturally? I know, again, you and I have talked about this, but this is something that we need to really put out here because the reform guys today are nervous about any time you talk about the power of the

54:50

Spirit. Yeah. So I just want to get the air cleared right now on, on all of that.

54:56

So probably a lot of comments will show up after, after I make this statement.

55:03

Around our country today and our evangelical churches, and I'm going to put a monitor there in reformed churches, it's

55:11

God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Word. And I'll tell you who's a distant third, the

55:18

Holy Spirit. You're absolutely right. And I'll tell you, I love

55:25

Justin, right? Who comes on and follow him and et cetera. Yep.

55:33

And, and, and yeah, embrace. I listened closely, but I'll tell you,

55:38

I'll tell you what's happened. And especially in reformed circles, we've allowed Pentecostalism and the charismatics to come and usurp the role of the

55:50

Holy Spirit and marginalize them. And I'll tell you what it is. It's related to our prayer life.

55:57

And we're going to unpeel the onion back a little bit more because this, the Holy Spirit is the spirit of supplication.

56:04

And I'll tell you something, the Holy Spirit has been grieved. He's been quenched buckets of water thrown at him.

56:13

Buckets of water thrown at him. And I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what else has grieved the Holy Spirit, our theology, because you really hit the nail on the head,

56:21

Anthony. So I'm not going to get into a discussion about cessationism, et cetera, but I'll tell you something.

56:30

The role of the Holy Spirit, where God promises us irregardless of dispensation, cross -dispensationalism, that God has promised us power in our lives connected to ministry and just not ministry in the church, but also our testimony, mark that, testimony.

56:51

And what has happened is we have allowed the margins to be able to take and the

56:58

Holy Spirit gets a backseat. Well, and that's why I'm asking about this because you're right.

57:05

As a card -carrying cessationist, as I am, Josiah is, I mean, most people on this show are, most people listening are.

57:13

We have done a really good job of speaking out against the crazy continuationists, the crazy stuff that they do.

57:24

And while we do that, we are ignoring what the Bible does teach about the power of the

57:30

Spirit in our lives, because I think we're so nervous about crossing that line, right?

57:36

We never want to look like one of them who are abusing the power of the

57:43

Spirit, so to speak, right? And so here's one, Leslie says this, everyday reform people have to be selective about when and where and how we talk about the

57:51

Holy Spirit. At least that's how I feel and think. I would absolutely— Leslie, oh my word.

57:57

Leslie, I'm telling you, I cross paths with a fair amount of pastors and even on a weekly basis,

58:06

I pray with them online. And I had a conversation with a pastor friend of mine within the last week.

58:16

And you know what he told me? He said, Dan, stop apologizing for the Holy Spirit.

58:22

Stop apologizing. And that's exactly what we do. We have so grieved and quenched the

58:32

Holy Spirit, just not by our prayerlessness, but by us marginalizing Him and totally taking

58:39

Him out of the picture. He's God. He's God. He's as much God as Christ.

58:44

He's as much God as God the Father. And we just take—and I believe and I am absolutely convinced that Satan has come in and he has taken and worked in our midst through prayerlessness and us not being connected and crying out to God and asking

59:10

God to give more of the Holy Spirit. Read Luke 11. Is it cut out of our

59:16

Bible that we're to be taking and praying for the Holy Spirit, for the fullness of the

59:23

Holy Spirit? God says, man, I'm not going to give you a snake. I'm not going to give you a scorpion, right?

59:28

Like the guys up on stage, right? They blow, they fall down. He said, I'm not going to give you those things, right?

59:35

He said, come, come, ask me and I will give you the

59:41

Holy Spirit. Well, how much of the Holy Spirit does He give? A little? A lot? And what we've done is we have allowed our theology, even coming into the book of Acts, to be able to take and even marginalize the

59:56

Holy Spirit's role that He had in the early church. I hear pastors take and preach that in Acts 3 and in Acts 4, that power of the

01:00:06

Holy Spirit that came upon the early church, that came upon everyday guys and enabled those everyday guys.

01:00:14

They say, man, that's the model for the church today. It's the model for the church today. I've heard men that I respect, that I love, preach that.

01:00:24

Then we got to ask ourselves the question, if that's the model for the church today, where is the

01:00:30

Holy Spirit? Where do we see the power in our preaching, in our testimony, in the workplace?

01:00:38

Are we seeing unsaved peers, friends, and family members that are coming to Christ?

01:00:44

They are truly, truly coming to Christ in repentance from our testimony.

01:00:50

They watch how we live. The men, let me tell you something. John Wesley, we know the name, right?

01:00:57

Wesley literally led, was responsible for tens of millions.

01:01:02

It's so well documented. Tens of millions of people are a part of the

01:01:07

Christian faith because of Wesley and his fellow ministers. And you know what?

01:01:13

Wesley, he had a walk -in closet off his bedroom.

01:01:19

And you know what? Wesley spent two hours a day in that little room every morning. And you know what it was marked at?

01:01:26

It was marked, that little room was marked as the Power Health Methodism and was responsible for Wesley and his impact that is there on the gospel.

01:01:40

You look at guys like Martyn Lloyd -Jones that the Reformed guys love to lift up. And I love Martyn Lloyd -Jones.

01:01:46

Sharp, sharp, sharp. Love to listen to his, read his stuff, et cetera.

01:01:53

Listen to Martyn Lloyd -Jones. Prayer is beyond any question the highest activity of the human soul.

01:02:03

Interesting. Man at his greatest and highest is when he is upon his knees and he comes face to face with God.

01:02:11

And do you know what his wife said? No one will ever understand my husband unless they realize that he is first of all, a man of prayer and then an evangelist.

01:02:23

Interesting, eh? This is his wife, right? Right. Yeah. And I'm sure many other people recognize that too with him.

01:02:33

And you hit up on something about the early church in Acts. And while a lot of us card -carrying cessationists would say that the apostolic gifts are done away with, it doesn't dismiss the power of the same

01:02:52

Holy Spirit in us that now comes through the preaching of his word out to the masses.

01:03:01

And that's the same Holy Spirit that empowers us to go out and evangelize the world. So yeah, while the gifting might be slightly different, well, very different in terms of the apostolic gifts, it is the same

01:03:14

Holy Spirit. It is the same powerful Holy Spirit that's coming upon men to go out and carry out the work of God in this world.

01:03:23

So you're right. I think a lot of us do tend to shy away from even acknowledging this because we're so terrified of falling into the charismatic heresies that are out there today.

01:03:37

So it is very interesting to talk about. And this quote from Martin Lloyd -Jones is, again, people quote

01:03:45

Martin Lloyd -Jones a lot today. And but you don't hear about his prayer life.

01:03:50

You don't hear about his devotion to prayer that was behind everything he did.

01:03:57

So I know Josiah, you see, you're shaking your head a lot. I don't know if you've got something else to add there. Well, I'm trying to let you speak here and let our guests speak.

01:04:07

He's doing a phenomenal job. You're ministering to me. I don't know if you know this, but you're ministering to me because Anthony knows this, but I'm going through a really tough time in my ministry.

01:04:22

And one thing I've been asking people to pray for me, but I haven't been asking people to pray with me.

01:04:29

So this is something that is really ministering to me. I believe in the power of the

01:04:35

Holy Spirit. Like Charles Spurgeon said, as he would go up the pulpit, I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit.

01:04:41

I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. And why am I not listening to the

01:04:47

Holy Spirit? It's because I'm not in prayer with my brothers as I often need to be.

01:04:54

Trying to do this alone. Yeah. And clearly what Dan is not saying is that we need to reduce our love of the word.

01:05:06

He's just saying that why isn't the prayer life matching our love of the word, right?

01:05:12

I mean, right. They come together, right? I mean, how many of us, sincerely, how many of us are praying every single time before we open our

01:05:24

Bibles to read, right? Holy Spirit, will you please continue to enlighten my eyes to your word, right?

01:05:31

It's not the other way around. The word doesn't need enlightening. It's our eyes that do. Please enlighten my eyes to your word.

01:05:38

Give me a better understanding, a deeper understanding of what I'm reading today. I mean, are we doing this every time we read? I would love to say that I'm doing this every time.

01:05:46

It's my intention to do this every time. But this is where we're lacking as Christians, right?

01:05:55

With all this stuff. So, okay. KT and Jesus, I was thinking about it too.

01:06:01

So let's do it. Dan, would you like to lead a prayer for Josiah right now? Yeah. Just with what he's dealing with in ministry.

01:06:10

Father, I grabbed those two verses out of Isaiah 11, 1 and 2.

01:06:18

Father, would you pour out the Holy Spirit on Josiah, just like you did

01:06:24

Christ. The spirit of wisdom and knowledge and understanding and counsel and power and a renewed fear of you.

01:06:35

All of those you promised that you would give us through Christ and through the

01:06:40

Holy Spirit. Would you give that to Josiah right now? In Jesus name. Amen. I'm gonna tell you something.

01:06:47

Josiah, I wanted to hug you. I am walking with a missionary that is in the midst of massive attack, demonic attack and all out takedown.

01:07:08

We pray on Wednesday mornings. We have for years. There's great disunity within his organization, big time, big time.

01:07:21

I pray with the pastor's wife, my sister, who is needy in ministry and going through stuff.

01:07:34

I can go, people that are in ministry, pastors, leaders in ministry, elders, that I am coming across Josiah and guess what?

01:07:48

They're not praying together. I'm not seeing elders praying together, just not before church, 30 minutes before church, two thumbs up and a whistle on that and I'm not being cheeky, okay?

01:07:59

But to really take and cry out to God, cry out to God. Ministry is tough.

01:08:06

Make no mistake, make no mistake. For 20, 30 years,

01:08:11

I've been the confidant of people like my sister that are in ministry.

01:08:17

Man, you want to hear about tough. You want to hear about spiritual warfare and that's another thing that's got marginalized in reform circles, right?

01:08:25

We've let the craziness of spiritual warfare marginalized and Josiah, my guess is -

01:08:32

Okay, so I just got to stop right there because that's a whole other show. No, it is. It is.

01:08:37

You cannot believe how many people I've had conversations with privately. Yep.

01:08:44

Very, very well -known guys in Christianity, in reform circles, very, very popular names known worldwide who will never say it publicly because they're afraid of retribution but acknowledge the spiritual warfare but will not talk about this on air.

01:09:06

I mean, it grieves me. There are people that are on here tonight that I know that are on here tonight that within the last two to three weeks are in major spiritual warfare.

01:09:19

Josiah, I can tell you that you as a pastor, my pastor, I pray for him that God's hand of protection is upon him, his wife, his family, my elders in my church because make no mistake,

01:09:36

Satan is at work and Satan is interested in an absolute takedown.

01:09:45

In fact, we have a whole section. I can tell how we're going already that we're definitely going to just have to talk about how

01:09:57

Satan is really out to be able to take us down and specifically in our prayer life.

01:10:04

He doesn't want anything to do with it. William Cowper, this is one of the things that he said.

01:10:14

He said, Satan trembles when he sees the weakest Saint on his knees. Samuel Chadwick, that's a name we all know.

01:10:21

The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies.

01:10:27

He fears nothing from prayerless work. He fears nothing about prayerless religion.

01:10:35

He laughs at our toil and mocks our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray. Do we believe that?

01:10:41

Do we really believe that? If we did, it would change how we pray and it would change how we pray for our pastors.

01:10:54

Let me tell you something. I am convinced that the gospel moves like a snail when

01:11:00

Saints are not at prayer early, when the Saints are not at prayer late, and we're not praying together because I'll tell you, we need to realize that back in Ephesians 6, when we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against spiritual wickedness and high places, it goes through the armor and everybody focuses on the piece of the armor that we forget the bottom of that section that says that we are to be in prayer and praying in the

01:11:35

Spirit on all occasions because the effectiveness of the armor and the power of the sword and our ability to be able to take and wield the shield of faith against the fiery darts of the devil, they're directly related to prayer.

01:11:51

The scripture says that, not me. Yeah. So only because it's my beautiful wife who put this comment up.

01:11:58

She says, absolutely. So I have to put it up on the screen to show it. So she's listening in the other room on her phone right now with our son.

01:12:09

So no, absolutely, Dan. I completely, completely agree with you. Drew Vanita, as Paul Washer asks, who will stand to the night watches?

01:12:19

Yeah, amen. I'll tell you what, Washer is one of the guys that's impacted me, probably one of the top three to five guys that's impacted me in my walk in these last years.

01:12:34

And man, you want to dig behind Washer. What's interesting, there are a few times,

01:12:42

I can't remember one time of listening to Paul Washer where the power of God wasn't unmistakably upon him.

01:12:51

You're stirred. You know that the power of the Holy Spirit is on him. And where did it come from?

01:12:58

I can tell you, he said it comes from him down on his knees and crying out, right? And him being impotent and powerless and desperate, right?

01:13:09

Josiah, that goes, right, what you said. And being down on our knees and crying out to God, God, come and help us.

01:13:18

How much do we want to see in our sphere of influence and the people that are online and joining us?

01:13:28

And for your more questions, please, with the people that are online, how much do we really want to see

01:13:34

God work in our country right now? Tell you what, I see us so introverted and shelled more than any other time in my life now.

01:13:46

And I truly believe that COVID and Satan's working and et cetera, to just put the church in a box, put the church in a box.

01:13:57

Oh, it worked. I mean, not only did people not pray, but they covered up their faces with diapers. They hid in their houses.

01:14:03

They closed their churches. I mean. How many have ever heard of the 1857 revival that started in Manhattan?

01:14:12

Anybody heard of it? I'm not until I read your notes. I read it in your notes.

01:14:19

This is part of my angst and frustration in a good way.

01:14:25

We don't know our history and we don't know our roots. We don't.

01:14:31

Not in prayer. You're right. No, in 1857 in Manhattan, okay, there was a pastor who was frustrated.

01:14:46

And he was frustrated in ministry. And his name was

01:14:51

Jeremiah Lamphere. And he was working on behalf of the

01:14:57

Dutch Reformed Church on Fulton Street in Manhattan. They were suffering a decline in membership.

01:15:04

There was angst inside the church. And you know what? He was really ineffective to be able to take as a city missionary.

01:15:13

And he was really frustrated. You know what he did? He put up and he made up some leaflets.

01:15:20

And he started handing out the leaflets around Manhattan to people.

01:15:26

Not people in the church, to people. And informed them of a location of a time of prayer meeting.

01:15:32

So guess what? Week one, Lamphere, he was alone for about 30 minutes.

01:15:38

And God brought in that day six people to pray with him in week one. Week two, there were 20 people that were present at the prayer meeting.

01:15:47

Week three, there were 40 people that were present. Early in the morning, before the workday, everyday people.

01:15:57

And by November of 1857, the Fulton Street prayer meeting began holding three simultaneous prayer meetings in different rooms in that church.

01:16:08

There was no preaching. It was just praying. And all of a sudden, the

01:16:13

Gothic Church in Brooklyn reported 75 conversions and a local revival. Yonkers experienced the revival.

01:16:22

90 people in the church were converted. And what's interesting, by February that next year, 1858, the deluge started.

01:16:31

The press began to take and write about it. The New York Times wrote an article way back then on it.

01:16:39

Listen to this. In April 1858, 10 ,000 businessmen were gathering daily for prayer in Manhattan, New York City.

01:16:50

And by May of that year, do you know what? There was over 50 ,000 people that came to Christ and were reborn again.

01:16:58

That revival that started in New York, you know what it did? It swept up through New England. It spread to the

01:17:04

West. It spreaded into Canada. And in 1857, a leading

01:17:10

Methodist newspaper reported on the features of the revival. Lay people witnessed.

01:17:16

Few sermons were needed. Seekers flocked to the altar. And not seekers the way that they are today.

01:17:23

Converts had holy boldness. And family altars were strengthened.

01:17:30

Listen to this. This is from the prayer that broke out.

01:17:36

Conversion soon became 50 ,000 weekly throughout the nation for a period of two years.

01:17:43

And by 1860, a million converts had been added to the churches in America.

01:17:50

Have you ever heard of that? Have you ever heard of it? In 1858 and 1860, that revival spread to England and Wales and Scotland.

01:18:01

And let me tell you who was influenced by it. Hudson Taylor, David Livingston, Charles Spurgeon, D .L.

01:18:10

Moody, and William Booth. Josiah, be encouraged.

01:18:16

Be encouraged. It's absolutely incredible. So I want to bring a couple of guests on. So first,

01:18:22

I'm going to bring Cole in. So I know you've been listening backstage. I don't know if you had any questions or if you're just kind of hanging out in the back.

01:18:30

Yeah, I'm kind of ministering to me too this evening. Because I come out of the charismatic stuff about a couple of years ago.

01:18:39

And one of the things that has been difficult for me has been getting back into prayer.

01:18:45

Because in the charismatics, it's everything. The worship team is praying backstage. You got small groups out during service.

01:18:54

Sometimes you have prayer. It's like as many times as there's somebody up giving some kind of liturgy during a reform service, the charismatics have a prayer time for it.

01:19:03

Like the equivalency. But you were talking about how they've marginalized and sidelined the

01:19:12

Holy Spirit. Not only is that sidelined for me at this point in my mind, it's also that I can see that connection with the prayer.

01:19:23

What advice or something could you give to get back into that? Because there's that thing, it's like that bad taste in your mouth after realizing all of the bad theology

01:19:33

I was participating in and doing things that were not the Holy Spirit, now trying to go to him and say,

01:19:40

I'd like some power again, but in a different way. I get what you're saying, and it's all ministering to me.

01:19:46

But I'll just leave it at that. So I think that,

01:19:54

Cole, your heart that you spoke is where we need to go.

01:20:04

The present status of our churches today, much of the church in America sleeps, sleeps.

01:20:12

Their spiritual lukewarmness is plaguing the church, and it's resulting in the infrequency of church attendance, declining churches, lagging.

01:20:23

We're powerless, we're ineffective in our evangelism. They're sagging, giving the generational disconnectedness that is there.

01:20:33

And we need to be a people that together, and Josiah, keep marking it together.

01:20:43

I don't want to pray anymore in my closet. I don't want to pray anymore with two or three guys,

01:20:50

I'll tell you. I'm a part of a group of guys that every,

01:20:56

I think it's every fifth week we get together, and there's about 15 guys that we get together.

01:21:03

And we get together early on a Saturday morning, and we just cry out to God, God, help us, give us power.

01:21:10

All of us have unsaved kids. We have unsaved family members. We have friends that are unsaved, and we're just crying out to God.

01:21:19

And Cole, don't let where you came from marginalize, because I'll tell you what,

01:21:26

God's heart is that we need to be crying out to Him for the souls of men.

01:21:32

We need to be crying out to Him for power. Amen to that.

01:21:39

Uh -oh. Oh, no, something just happened to Dan's... Oh, nope. Okay, he's...

01:21:46

Hey, you know what? My laptop went down.

01:21:52

Okay, so I'll remove that other stream then? Yep. Okay, so...

01:21:58

I came up on my mobile. I'm sorry. It's okay. No, no problem.

01:22:04

It happened for a reason. Yep. Yeah, so, well, you know, thankfully,

01:22:10

Cole is in a good church now. He's down at Joe Conkle's church in the

01:22:15

Mansfield, Ohio area, which I'll be there Sunday preaching, Lord willing. Are we still going to go to the

01:22:21

Pride event and talk to people? I am hoping to. I'm trying to figure out my schedule because I'm home very little this week before I've got to head back out again for Ambassadors Academy and then preaching at another church in the

01:22:35

San Francisco area. So we'll see. So thank you for your question,

01:22:42

Cole. I'm going to bring another guest in. I'll put you back in the background, Cole, so if you have any other questions, just hit us up in the private chat.

01:22:49

Thank you. Welcome. So Kofi. Hey. I'm doing well.

01:22:57

I'm doing well. I thought I'd jump in for a few minutes. I know it's been kind of a recurring theme tonight, but I've been listening, you know, just as I'm looking after my son today and just like being ministered to by this because I've landed in the same place where our brother is in terms of the importance of prayer, especially the importance of corporate prayer in the last couple of years.

01:23:21

If you don't mind, if I can just tell that story just a little bit of it. No, actually, I want you to because I've been watching some of your

01:23:27

Facebook posts lately, and that's why I told Andrew, I said, get Kofi on. Like, I want to hear his perspective.

01:23:33

If I wasn't listening, I wouldn't have been here, too. Yeah, so, you know, we planted the church that I'm now pastoring three years ago.

01:23:43

And, I mean, you know how we are in our circle. You know, we love the preaching of the word.

01:23:48

You know, we almost have this idea that as long as we do that right, everything else will fall into place.

01:23:54

That's the attitude. That's right. Yeah, and I'll admit it, that was my thinking. When we went into that church,

01:24:02

I was like, okay, look, we want there to be a solid Bible teaching, Bible preaching church.

01:24:08

And, you know, once we do that, people will come to it because people want to hear the word. All of that. It was very presumptuous.

01:24:14

And very quickly, we discovered that that wasn't the case. And I wasn't in leadership at the time, but was, you know, being,

01:24:22

I was in a position of influence. And so I'm talking to the leader at the time, like, okay, look, I think we need to, and another brother was with me and he agreed, you know, we need to start praying more.

01:24:31

We need to have a prayer meeting and make that a priority. You know, we can't just roll up on Sunday morning, get the room set up, and then just have a service and be on our way.

01:24:41

Like, this needs to be bathed in prayer. And so we kind of tipped our hat to it and we had a prayer meeting.

01:24:48

We didn't really push it. Attendance was bad. And then

01:24:54

COVID happens. And without going into a ton of detail, the founding pastor of the church resigned, now leaves this church about 15 people at this point.

01:25:06

You know, we decided to press on. You know, we come under the leadership of another church to give us some oversight, and, you know, we, again, thinking, okay, we start, hopefully we can repair some of the damage that's been done.

01:25:21

But again, it's like the connection had to be made that, hold on, we need to be praying more corporately.

01:25:27

And then we started to see in our fellowship and, you know, if Andrew were here, Andrew knows that story because I called him hundreds of times during that time.

01:25:35

You know, just so much carnality in terms of anger and division.

01:25:40

And I want things my way. Why aren't things being done my way? And he's like, the kind of thing that after a while,

01:25:48

I began to realize what is up with us? Because on paper, we believe all the right things.

01:25:53

We profess to love the scriptures. We profess to love the truth. Like on paper, we should be solid.

01:26:01

What on earth is happening to us? And finally, the penny dropped. We're not praying enough.

01:26:08

We're just not praying. Talked to the other brother I was leading with at the time. Okay, let's start a prayer meeting.

01:26:14

You know, and for me, let's make it serious. Not just, okay, 30 minutes before the service.

01:26:20

But let's dedicate an evening where we're going to have serious, intentional prayer.

01:26:28

Again, very little attendance. You know, all the excuses come out. Oh, we've got stuff going on.

01:26:34

But, you know, we kind of press through it. And just on my own personally, I began to dig a lot deeper into the subject of prayer.

01:26:43

And at the risk of alienating some of my more reformed friends in the room, or watching online,

01:26:50

I started reading a little bit outside our circle. Nothing ridiculous. But, you know, I went and got

01:26:55

Ian Bounds' complete works on prayer. And again, he was a Methodist, so he wasn't quite in our circle.

01:27:02

But at this point, I was like, listen, clearly we're not doing it well. Also, let me go find someone who has.

01:27:10

Brother Dan, you mentioned the story of the 1857 revival. I came across that in this time of research. I'd never heard of it.

01:27:16

And I came across that story. I was like, huh, what if God were to do that again?

01:27:24

Well, he could. So what was the difference? Oh, they were actually praying and we were talking about it.

01:27:30

Oh, okay. And so that's just where I've been for the last couple of years. And now, you know, our church is in a much healthier place.

01:27:37

But I'll be honest, the prayer side is still lacking for us. And so that's why I gave myself to a fresh study of now the corporate side of prayer, reading

01:27:45

Spurgeon's Only a Prayer Meeting and Dennis Gonderson's excellent book,

01:27:51

A Praying Church, you know, the importance of a corporate prayer gathering. You know, in reading this and being freshly affected by the fact that so much of the lack of health we see in our churches, even solid ones, so much of the worldliness and the carnality and the self -centeredness,

01:28:07

I think flows from the fact that we don't pray enough. You know, James says it.

01:28:13

You do not have because you do not ask. And when you do ask, you ask wrongly so that you can consume it on yourselves.

01:28:20

I think when we lose that spiritual emphasis, the fact that, listen, we can do nothing unless we cry out to God in prayer.

01:28:30

I can't preach week in and week out like I do if I'm not in the place of prayer. We can't evangelize and seek the lost if we're not praying for the lost.

01:28:40

We can't be seeing people raised up in our body to serve if we're not praying for God to send laborers.

01:28:46

All of these things will not happen if there isn't prayer. And, you know, that's where I've been in the last, you know, picked up again in the last six months.

01:28:54

I've been studying, reading everything I can on this and putting it to practice in my own life. You know, not just when

01:29:00

I study at night for my sermons. And so when everyone's going to sleep is when I start working and starting studying, not with, okay, where did

01:29:09

I leave off last time in my notes? It's no, let's pray. Let's ask the Lord for illumination, for strength, for clarity of thought, clarity of expression, even before I've put a word down to preach to anybody else.

01:29:23

Like, I think if we get back to this culture of dependence, one of my mentors says that, that culture of prayer is a culture of dependence.

01:29:30

I think if we get back to that culture of dependence, am I saying it's going to be overnight? No, of course not.

01:29:37

But I do think it's going to have really, really, really serious implications for our churches in a positive way.

01:29:45

So that's all I want to say. Brother Dan, I've been listening and super encouraged by you. Thank you for being willing to speak to this subject.

01:29:51

And guys, this has been wonderful. It's been wonderful. Let me ask, before you go, Kofi, I want to ask you one question.

01:29:56

I mean, I respect you a ton. I know a lot of the listeners here do too. So as you are talking about corporate prayer, what does that look like within the church?

01:30:08

I mean, a church I just preached at a couple of weeks ago, out of state, before a conference we did, they actually take five to six minutes where the entire church is praying out loud.

01:30:22

You gather together with the people around, they're just sitting by, you gather around, and you're literally, everyone's praying.

01:30:28

And you hear all this praying going on five, six minutes before he kind of stops it.

01:30:35

And then another, he prays corporately for the church. And I found that to be just so refreshing, powerful.

01:30:46

I've seen that now in several churches. And that's kind of what I was referencing earlier is that the churches where pastors concentrate on prayer and evangelism, in addition to correct preaching of the word, are the strongest churches out there.

01:31:04

They're the people who have the most, they're the churches that are the most serious members of the church.

01:31:09

So I lay all this out asking you, like, where are you at now? And what are you trying to get to in terms of corporate prayer?

01:31:16

What does it look like in your church? Or what is it going to look like? That's a really great question. Part of what started this journey for me was reading

01:31:28

Acts chapter six, particularly Acts six, four, where the apostles say, it's not good for us that we should leave serving the word of God.

01:31:36

We all kind of focus on the deacon parts of that, pick these men, they're going to take part of this.

01:31:42

But there's a reason why the apostles say, go find these men and let them oversee this. They say that, and they say, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.

01:31:54

And it wasn't until recently where it hit me, the order of that is important.

01:32:00

The apostles didn't say, well, give ourselves to the word of God in prayer. It was, no, first we give ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.

01:32:09

It's both of those things together. And so, you know, in the corporate, the conviction I've come to is this, that I think in the life of the church, it's not enough to just have,

01:32:20

I think spontaneous times of prayer or, you know, more extemporaneous times of prayer,

01:32:26

I think are valuable. I like the idea of building that into the worship service. I hadn't heard that, but that actually sounds like a good idea.

01:32:35

I think where I'm trying to get our congregation to, just to give some context, we're a small congregation, we're about 35 people, 35, 40 thereabouts.

01:32:43

But where I'm trying to get our congregation to is that everything we do starts with prayer.

01:32:50

Amen, brother. And so, you know, wanting to, so the big thing

01:32:55

I want to start is a prayer meeting, a good solid half an hour. We meet in the afternoon because we rent a building, which gives us a bit of an advantage in that world.

01:33:06

So wanting to have a solid half an hour where, you know, one of the things I think that's helpful is recognizing the difference between what we do when we pray corporately versus what we do when we pray individually.

01:33:19

I think so many prayer meetings are ineffective because we're treating it like your personal prayer time versus, okay, we're praying for the church and we're praying for the advance of the kingdom and we're praying for, you know, souls to be saved and for laborers to be raised up.

01:33:36

We're praying for those who are serving on the foreign field. We're praying for our brothers and sisters who are serving on the persecution.

01:33:43

I think that what corporate prayer in the church looks like first and foremost is it looks like kingdom focused prayer.

01:33:51

That it's not prayer necessarily for me and my personal needs. That's my little one in the background, by the way.

01:33:58

It's not so much prayer for me and my individual needs as much as prayer for the things we see in the corporate prayer.

01:34:06

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. You know, those sorts of things, like that being the focus of our times of corporate prayer and just building them into everything.

01:34:15

So, you know, having an actual prayer meeting. We're starting small groups in the fall.

01:34:23

You know, our small groups are going to start with a time of concentrated prayer. You know, encouraging people in their families.

01:34:31

I know we're not talking about family worship. That's a whole other conversation to be had. But I think having prayer be the centerpiece of our times of family worship where we're and our families crying out to God.

01:34:42

And of course, individually. But again, I think from a corporate standpoint, for me, it looks like right now, encouraging the people of God to come together for really just the one purpose, not we're tacking this onto other things we'll do.

01:34:56

But the specific reason that we are here is to pray.

01:35:02

And I think that's foreign to some people. They've not been in churches where they have that. You know, prayers is kind of thing we need to open up, almost like it's a formality.

01:35:10

You know, we open up the service with that. We might pray one or two more times during the service. We'll maybe pray to close.

01:35:16

But in general, I want us to get in our church to a place where the lifeblood of what we do is prayer.

01:35:25

Everything starts with prayer. Prayers happening, whether it's a corporate prayer meeting in small groups, families praying together, couples praying together.

01:35:34

That's what I'm trying to get our church to at the moment. Just a regular understanding of the need to be always praying.

01:35:41

Starting with a corporate prayer meeting, which I think is vital because you kind of set the example that way. And then hopefully seeing that ripple out into every area of life.

01:35:51

Oh, yeah, man. That's really cool. Well, you know, Kofi, obviously, if you've been watching the entire show,

01:35:59

I have lots and lots of notes that we barely scratched the surface of from Dan.

01:36:04

So we're going to have to beg Dan to come back on on another show. And I would love to incorporate you and Andrew into it because Andrew's got a really interesting story.

01:36:16

His prayer, I'm sorry, his card, you know, you've seen his cards, right?

01:36:21

That he sells for a buck a piece on the attributes of God. That started because he was lacking in his prayer life.

01:36:30

And I don't know where he learned it from, but he decided, I need to start praying through the attributes of God. And so that was kind of the birth of that card that he now sells.

01:36:42

And so I would love to, I would love to us to devote an episode or even two on just the practicality of it all.

01:36:51

So we'll have to be in contact and plan when we can do that in the future. Definitely.

01:36:59

That is. Anthony. Yeah. I think some sticks of dynamite.

01:37:06

Kofi, brother, thank you. Thank you for your heart. We ask ourselves this question.

01:37:16

Why do we look at prayerlessness as a weakness rather than sin? I'm gonna repeat myself again.

01:37:23

Why do we look at prayerlessness as a weakness rather than sin? Tell you what, what you did is you sort of summarized in your little microcosm, right?

01:37:37

The state of the church. Andrew Murray echoed you. And he addressed the conference of ministers in South Africa in 1912 on the searching topic of the state of the church.

01:37:51

And he called them to repentance from a lack of power and a lack of prayer.

01:37:57

And Murray led them to repent from the sin of prayerlessness is one of the deepest roots of evil in the church.

01:38:05

I'm gonna say something. And this is where the sticks of dynamite will come out. But I gotta say it. Born again believers in our evangelical and reformed churches across America are reaping the impact of prayerlessness.

01:38:20

I'm gonna say it again. And I'm not gonna waffle from it. Born again believers in our evangelical and reformed churches across America are reaping the impact of the sin of prayerlessness.

01:38:36

The sin of prayerlessness. You know what Murray said? He published these messages given in South Africa in a book called

01:38:42

The Prayer Life. And I'm gonna give you just a couple of quotes. The sin of prayerlessness is one of the deepest roots of evil.

01:38:52

It is the only, it is only the prayerless that are too proud to own up to their prayerlessness.

01:39:00

In a meeting of ministers, there's probably no single sin which each one of us ought to acknowledge with deeper shame, guilty, verily guilty than the sin of prayerlessness.

01:39:13

It's not to heat coals on our heads and on our minister's heads.

01:39:19

It is seen and I believe that the sin of prayerlessness needs to be exposed in the church and called for what it is.

01:39:31

Not a weakness. Man, I really struggle in my prayer life. It is a sin.

01:39:38

And the reason that we don't gain victory over prayerlessness is because we look at it as a weakness rather than sin.

01:39:45

And we disguise the hideousness of the sin with excuses like lack of time, distractions, laziness.

01:39:53

I got my business world. And let me tell you something, prayerlessness is linked to the big sin, unbelief, idolatry of the flesh, lust and greed.

01:40:07

And scripture tells us, take care of my brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living

01:40:17

God. And let me tell you something, when we aren't spending time in prayer, in communion with Him, letting

01:40:30

Him, telling Him how much we love Him, how desperate we are in our lives, we fall away from the living

01:40:39

God. That's what Hebrews 3 .12 tells us. Pride. I don't need to pray. I can do it myself.

01:40:46

I'm a get it done guy in the business world. Companies hire me to get things done. I can tell you

01:40:51

I've had to take a step back and cry out, God, not by might, not by power, but through your spirit,

01:41:00

Lord, help me, help me. Guys, we suffer from unbelief. We really do.

01:41:07

And we don't think that prayer will make a difference in any way. And what we do is we just put our hope in what we can do.

01:41:18

And in prayerlessness, guys, it has the ill effect on our spiritual lives of effectiveness.

01:41:25

We're ineffective with the unsaved that are around us, our peers, our family, and our loved ones that are around us.

01:41:36

And you know what we have? We have barrenness in our souls in Reformed circles, big time. I see people when you talk about crying out to God for springs of living water to take and flow through us, it is like, what?

01:41:57

We don't talk about the barrenness that's in our midst and in our church, the barrenness in our souls.

01:42:04

And scripture tells us, and Kofi, you mentioned this, the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective, powerful and effective.

01:42:12

So what's it powerful for? What's it effective for? It's powerful and effective beyond Aunt Lucy's hangnail, right on her big toe on the left foot that we pray for in a lot of our churches in the past, right?

01:42:32

In our maladies, but the prayer of a righteous man is powerful. Is it powerful and effective politics?

01:42:41

Is it powerful and effective? Look at what Elijah did. That's who it's referring to. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

01:42:49

Look at in the book of Acts that I think it's in Acts 17, that they were coming,

01:42:57

Paul and Silas riled them up big time and they were coming to look for him. So Paul and Silas weren't, they were staying at Jason's house and they came to get him and they were gonna yank him through the magistrates.

01:43:13

Paul and Silas wasn't there. So they yanked Jason and they yanked the other believers in front of the magistrates.

01:43:20

And do you know what they said? These are the men that turn the world upside down. And now we're here.

01:43:28

What an indictment. Do they say that about us? These are the men that turn the world upside down.

01:43:37

Politics, all this stuff with COVID, right? Is that the narrative that they speak with us? These are the men that turn the world upside down.

01:43:44

I can tell you why they did, is that they were righteous men that prayed and were powerful and effective.

01:43:53

Much prayer, much power. Wow. So I gotta go back, Dan, to your statements that, yeah, we're guilty,

01:44:02

I'm guilty of it, right? Yep. Weakness and prayer, maybe we ought to call it sin, right?

01:44:09

Lack of evangelism, let's call it sin. Weakness in prayer, let's call it, I mean, let's call it for what it is, right?

01:44:15

I mean, we're called to pray and we're not doing it. We're sinning. And of course, when you said that,

01:44:21

I saw a pained look on Kofi's face, a pained look on Josiah's face. I felt pained.

01:44:28

Drew says, that I'll preach and then a moment later, ouch and amen. Jason, woe unto me.

01:44:36

Yeah, so yeah, I know, Dan, I know you feel the exact same way, even as you teach on this.

01:44:43

So Kofi and Josiah, I'm gonna let you guys kind of respond and talk about that too.

01:44:50

Oh, it breaks my heart. It just breaks my heart that he's right.

01:44:57

That's why, that's the state of the church is because we might be filling ourselves up with head knowledge, but are we asking

01:45:04

God to settle it in our hearts and to help it grow and to actually live it out so that we can not only just be obedient, but be obedient with the power of the gospel?

01:45:19

That, yeah, we'll say we believe that the cross is the power of God unto salvation.

01:45:27

We believe in the power of the cross and the blood of Christ, and we'll say it, but does it really affect our hearts?

01:45:37

Are we really praying that God will help us realize the reality of the cross?

01:45:44

The fact that we are wretched, horrible sinners that deserve the wrath of God and God in his love and his mercy died on the cross for our sin to make us, to not just save us, but to adopt us as his children.

01:46:04

And it's all by his love and his grace, his sovereign will.

01:46:10

Do we really believe that? And are we really preaching that or are we just saying the words?

01:46:17

Are we urging men to repentance or are we just saying the words? I can only see us being able to do that by praying and asking

01:46:28

God to grow in our hearts. Yeah, amen. So Kofi, what thoughts do you have?

01:46:35

Many. Go ahead, because we should probably pray for Dan's feed because he, something happened to his feet again.

01:46:44

So I asked you to bring him back on and look at that, he's back.

01:46:50

I did not plan it that way. I'm gonna add him back in and then Kofi, the floor is yours.

01:46:56

Sure, thank you. So absolutely, just the reality that,

01:47:03

I think sometimes we have such a high view of what we are able to do that we lack a high view of what

01:47:12

God is able to do. It's, I think it was John Bunyan who had one of my all time favorite quotes on prayer.

01:47:20

He said, we can do more than pray after we have prayed, but we cannot do more than pray before we have prayed.

01:47:31

So it's not just, okay, pray and then do nothing. Of course you can do loads of things after you pray, but don't for a second think you can do anything before you pray.

01:47:41

And I think at times, again, our brother said it so well, there's just a barrenness in our souls.

01:47:48

Just this idea that, and I think sometimes the barrenness looks like just believe in what, I know all the right things.

01:47:55

And since I know all the right things, I know all the right words to say, I know all the right techniques. And I am of course not bashing training and evangelism.

01:48:03

We had Andrew come out and do it for us. So I am not bashing any of that. All of that is necessary and vital.

01:48:11

And at the same time, I think at times we can start to think, cause I know what to do.

01:48:17

If I, you know, it's kind of like just, I like to cook a lot. If I follow a recipe, it's going to turn out fine.

01:48:23

If I pay attention to what they've said, I followed to a T, it will work. Well, that's not quite how this works.

01:48:31

You know, I think with, you know, the longer I've been in this church planting journey, the more

01:48:36

I've realized just the reality that you might think, you know, everything you know to do. And yet there is still a need for fresh equipping, fresh empowering, you know, and it's funny in some,

01:48:52

Cole talked about this when he came on briefly, just that, you know, I'm like him. I grew up in Pentecostal circles, um, left that in my late teens, but, you know, we get scared to almost talk that sort of way because, you know, heaven forbid, we'd be thought of as a charismatic.

01:49:10

Again, I'm a full Pentecostal. I own that, you know, I'm not now. And I think there was some issues there, which is why

01:49:15

I'm not one now. But at the same time I read the Bible and I see Paul talking about his own ministry and saying that it was not in persuasive words of man's wisdom.

01:49:26

It was in the power of the Holy Spirit. But where did that come from? It came from prayer. And I think one of the fascinating things,

01:49:34

I was talking to some of our guys on Wednesday after our Bible study. And I said, one of the things we see in the Bible over and over and over again is the fact that Paul, when he prays, prays for the same five to 10 things if you read his letters.

01:49:50

But it's always pray for me that utterance can be given me so I can proclaim the mystery of the gospel.

01:49:56

Pray for us. We have a door open. There are many adversaries. Pray for us that we would be faith.

01:50:01

The same sorts of things come up over and over and over again. And I think sometimes we don't pray in those sorts of ways precisely because we think we don't need it.

01:50:13

And, you know, my heart is grieved about that because we then look at the impotence in the church, the weakness in the church.

01:50:21

And I think some of us who are perceptive enough, we see it. But then we go in. If I can use the analogy, we go and grab

01:50:28

Saul's armor, thinking that's going to help us to fight the battle. Amen. And so rather than going back to, you know,

01:50:36

I love the Puritans and one of them is there was such a prayerful people. They preached on prayer.

01:50:42

They prayed. They wrote on. Everything was about prayer with them. Going back to some of these old paths, if you want to use that language, prayer and the word, like it's going back to that stuff that I think answer the malaise that we've seen in the last couple of years.

01:50:57

I don't think it's being more aggressive or being more belligerent or be more politically active. Not that any of that is bad.

01:51:04

I'm not saying Christians shouldn't care about any of that stuff. Of course not. But at the end of the day, where do we get our power from?

01:51:11

We get our power on our knees as we go before God and say, Lord, I have nothing. You have everything.

01:51:19

And I'm, you know, to use the old purity expression, I'm taking hold of God in prayer. If that doesn't happen,

01:51:26

I think our churches are going to continue to be incredibly impotent. And as days get darker, things aren't going to get better otherwise.

01:51:37

Yeah. Wow. You guys. Yeah. You know, I pulled up the passage,

01:51:43

Kofi, that, you know, Acts 6, 4. I'm just going to read a couple of verses out of this because I find this incredible because you're right.

01:51:53

It's so easy to miss this. Acts 6, verse 1. Now, in these days when the disciples are increasing in number, a complaint by the

01:52:01

Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. Verse 2.

01:52:06

And the 12 summoned the full number of the disciples and said, it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.

01:52:13

Verse 3. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.

01:52:21

Now, verse 4, which is what you're talking about, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

01:52:30

Verse 5. And what they said pleased the whole gathering. And then they went on to choose

01:52:36

Stephen, a man full of faith, a low spirit, and Philip, and Prochris, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch.

01:52:47

I mean, you're right. It's so easy to miss verse 4 in this. So, yeah, point well taken on that.

01:52:57

Dan, you set the fire off.

01:53:05

I did. And my laptop, my laptop died. And it's not that I'm totally going by my notes.

01:53:14

Let me tell you, when we clean next time, there isn't time to continue this because we truly are just scratching the surface and getting down to the gritty.

01:53:27

My heart for us tonight is if we, if one thing comes out of this, and one thing only, if we come to the realization,

01:53:41

Holy Spirit pricks our heart, that we have been calling prayerlessness a weakness and the

01:53:52

Holy Spirit convicts us that it is a sin. Scripture tells us that we are to love the

01:53:59

Lord our God with all of our heart, our soul, our might, and our mind. And let me tell you something.

01:54:05

We can read the word all we want, and I'm not downplaying the word and shoving that to the side, but the measure of a man is his prayer life.

01:54:16

Where are we at? Where are we at? If Leonard Ravenhill, and that was his words, those words ring true.

01:54:25

The measure of a man and a believer is directly correlated to his need.

01:54:33

Think about what's there. So my heart is this, because we got left, is my heart is this.

01:54:42

If we come to the realization tonight that we are at a place, and I am, and I did tonight before we got on, confess again to God the sin of prayerlessness, go above and beyond it, say,

01:55:00

God grant me repentance, grant me repentance. And how do you get a consistent prayer life that we both in our churches, we as individuals, as leaders within the body of Christ, what's in the seats, in the pews?

01:55:22

Let me tell you something, Holy Spirit that comes in and helps us. Holy Spirit is called the spirit of supplication, right out of scripture.

01:55:31

And what's the last root of the Holy Spirit in Galatians? Self -control.

01:55:38

Self -control, yeah. Self -control. Let me put this in our face as we start to wind down.

01:55:46

For months now, I've been plagued with a passage of scripture around the Holy Spirit in Galatians that says this, those that belong to Christ have crucified the sinful nature and his passions and desires.

01:55:59

The core root sin of prayerlessness, the root isn't a lack of faith.

01:56:07

It is that we're living in the flesh life and we're living carnal lives as believers, pastors, leaders.

01:56:14

We're depending on the flesh. Those that belong to Christ that have been bought with the blood of Christ have crucified the sinful nature and his passions and desires.

01:56:29

I'll tell you what I've been doing. I've been praying it over me, my church, a group of guys that we meet together.

01:56:39

And I have been crying out, Oh God, would you take and do the reverse in this?

01:56:46

Father, Lord Jesus, I belong to you. I bring to the cross my passions and my desires.

01:56:56

Father, I can't put them to death. There's no way. No way. I can't do it. I tried guys.

01:57:03

God, would you put it to death? Would you kill it? Kill it. Kill the self -life in me.

01:57:09

Kill the flesh life. Kill the carnal life, Father. Reverse it around.

01:57:16

Oh God, fill me with your passions. Oh God, fill me with your desires.

01:57:24

Oh God, what do you think happens if we were to cry out to God and say,

01:57:33

God put to death the sinful nature and his passions and desires in me. And oh God, I'm not letting you go until you fill me with your passions and your desires.

01:57:44

Let me give you a taste of what that looks like. I'll give it in the life of Paul.

01:57:52

Paul, somewhere in his closet was crying out like this to God. Here's what

01:57:58

Paul said and he described himself. I have unceasing anguish and great sorrow.

01:58:05

Unceasing anguish and great sorrow for the souls of my fellow Jews. Enough that he was willing to give up his eternity for the souls of men, for the souls of men.

01:58:20

Where in the world did that passion and that desire come from? Let me tell you something. It was supernatural.

01:58:29

It was from the Holy Spirit. It didn't come naturally. Yeah, Paul was a passionate man and he was passionate about his theology.

01:58:41

He was a passionate about his apologetics. He was passionate about taking and reforming the church big time.

01:58:52

But he said, I wake up.

01:58:57

From the minute I wake up to the time that I go to bed, I have unceasing anguish and great sorrow for the souls of men.

01:59:05

Do you know what? When we cry out to God, oh God, take my sinful nature, my passions, my desires, put it to death.

01:59:14

I can't. And we bring it to the cross and we cry out to God.

01:59:20

Let me give you a promise as we end because we're at 9 .59. We can go a couple minutes past.

01:59:27

It's okay. Yep. First John 5 tells us this and I'm paraphrasing it because I don't have anything up in front of me, right?

01:59:33

I don't have my Bible. Do you want me to read it for you? Yeah, I'm going to give you the gist of it.

01:59:38

Okay. First John chapter five says, if we ask anything, if we ask anything in his name, according to his will, he hears us.

01:59:55

Now this is the kick. Listen to this. And we have what we have asked.

02:00:03

That's one of the most mind -blowing prayers in all of scripture. We have it. Not expect it.

02:00:09

Not expect it. We have it. When we pray and we ask God's will and for him to do that and accomplish his will, he says, and scripture says in first John 5 that we have it.

02:00:26

We need to cry out to God. Oh God, I cry out. I confess the sin of prayerlessness.

02:00:32

Grant me rest. Grant me rest. And God, I know that the heart, I know that the

02:00:40

Holy Spirit enabling me to pray. Oh God, would you do this? Would you do it in me?

02:00:46

And claim that promise. Stand on it. Stand on it. Say, God, this is your word and be bold in prayer.

02:00:53

God, you said that you would do it. I believe it. And I'll tell you something. It's not like we get a tingly feeling and we get a hot flash, et cetera.

02:01:03

It's when we step out in faith. It's when we step out in faith and we get down on our knees.

02:01:11

And that's when the Holy Spirit comes beside us. And the Holy Spirit enables us and prays in us and through us with groanings that cannot be uttered.

02:01:21

When we can't get the words out, the Holy Spirit is the one that comes inside of us and he groans.

02:01:28

Have you ever groaned in prayer? I've had it happen to me a couple of times. I couldn't get out the words. I couldn't get out the words.

02:01:35

And I would just groan and I would groan. I couldn't get out the words. God wants to come to us as fullness.

02:01:45

He wants to come in as fullness. I want to encourage us as we leave. And there's a verse in Ephesians that says this.

02:01:53

Now unto him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us to be a glory in Christ Jesus.

02:02:09

Guys, those that are on the call, let's cry out.

02:02:16

To you who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can imagine.

02:02:24

Kofi in our churches, Josiah, all those that are on, man, there's pain.

02:02:33

There's struggles in our churches. There's this unity in our churches. There's all kinds of stuff

02:02:40

Satan wants to kill, steal, and destroy. Josiah, Kofi, I'm with you, man.

02:02:47

Let's be men. Let's be women that within our sphere of influence that we say no more.

02:02:54

No more. No more, O God. We're naturally taken with your passion and your desire for intimacy with yourself.

02:03:04

Because that's what it is at the end of the day. A lot more to cover. Anthony, I'd love to come on another time, but we barely scratched the surface.

02:03:15

I know. You know, we got through a quarter. I have a feeling we're going to need to plan multiple episodes over the next couple of months as your schedule, my schedule allows to really get through this.

02:03:32

Deep Dive Discipleship says this is the kind of teaching we need in our churches. Amen to that.

02:03:38

You know, I can only imagine, you know, how prayerless have our churches become when are we praying for the sick in our churches?

02:03:55

Do we have prayer chains going for when people get sick or hospitalized where the church is immediately notified to pray for our brother or sister that just got hospitalized?

02:04:07

Are we praying for the people in our church that are members of the church going out and doing the work of the ministry?

02:04:16

Are we praying for our church's Bible studies? Are we as church members praying for our pastors and our deacons?

02:04:26

Are these things happening? Obviously, by and large, they're not.

02:04:38

It's a show like this was fantastic. So thank you for being on,

02:04:44

Dan. But there is so much more that we need to really discuss because really, it's about the practical side, right?

02:04:53

What does this mean that we are supposed to be doing that we're not doing right now?

02:05:01

And I have to believe that the more we scratch past the surface, the more we're going to recognize how lacking we are in our prayer lives in so many areas.

02:05:18

I kind of shudder to think about it, really.

02:05:28

Yeah, I don't know what else to say. Well, I don't know if I can speak for everybody, but this is kind of giving me an idea of I've been praying to God, show me the next steps, show me the next steps, show me what

02:05:49

I need to do next. And this is the next step.

02:05:56

We need to be coming together for prayer. Prayer for each other, prayer for our communities, prayer for the salvation of souls and God's glory to be shown and done on Earth.

02:06:11

So that's what we need to be doing. And I'll tell you, the last couple of years, we've all given lip service to it, right?

02:06:16

I mean, we need to pray for our leaders, pray for Joe Biden, pray for Nancy Pelosi. I mean, are we actually on our knees praying for their souls to be saved, praying for revival in this country?

02:06:30

I mean, are we actually doing these things, or are we just giving it all lip service, right? And Kofi, I thought, said it best earlier.

02:06:38

In church, prayer feels to me to be a formality, right?

02:06:47

I mean, you say your prayer to start, maybe in between your songs, you formally pray, maybe right before the sermon, you pray.

02:06:58

Right at the end, you pray so the worship team can get back up there and do their last song. And it just all seems to be this programmed formality versus where is our belief that God hears our prayers?

02:07:16

Where is our belief that God does something with our prayers? Where is our belief that there's power in prayer in the

02:07:25

Holy Spirit? I don't know. Maybe I'm just speaking for me right now. But I feel like this is probably something that if we would all sit back and actually examine ourselves, that we would see this lack of prayer in so many areas.

02:07:48

You know, I'm amazed, as I get a chance to travel and preach in conferences and churches, and a huge blessing for that,

02:07:59

I am amazed. I mean, again, you know the churches where they devote serious time to not only study, but also to prayer.

02:08:08

And to be able to hear, like, I'll get texts on occasion from pastors who have preached at sometimes months ago.

02:08:16

And they say, hey, I just want to let you know, Anthony, our church has been praying for you, praying for the ministry, praying for you and Andrew, praying for you and Mike, praying.

02:08:25

I mean, when you hear this stuff, you're just like, wow, this is absolutely astounding.

02:08:34

And, you know, and just what it makes you feel like, right? Knowing that somebody is praying for you, praying for the ministry, praying for the evangelism outreaches.

02:08:47

It's a powerful thing just to hear that from somebody. And I wish everybody was doing this, right?

02:08:57

And I wish myself I was doing this, right? I mean, yeah, there's times I reach out to Josiah.

02:09:03

Am I faithful every day to ask how it's going and praying for you? I mean, when something's going on in your life, like when you're hospitalized, sure.

02:09:12

But are we are we devoting ourselves to this prayer? Is this at the front of our minds the way that obviously it was in the reformers?

02:09:21

It was in the Puritans. It wasn't all these Christian greats that we talk about. It was certainly on the mind of Paul as Kofi talked about, as Dan has talked about.

02:09:36

We've got a major problem on our hands. I have a verse from Eddie Llewellyn, my dad.

02:09:45

It was burned with one of those irons that you burn in wood.

02:09:51

A buddy of his burned it into a piece of wood and hung in our house. And I'm going to close us with this verse.

02:09:59

It's 1 Samuel 2, 3 says, talk no more so exceeding proudly.

02:10:06

Let not arrogance come out of your mouth. For the Lord is a

02:10:11

God of knowledge and by him actions are weighed. Talk no more so exceeding proudly.

02:10:17

Let not arrogance come out of your mouth. For the Lord is a God of knowledge and by him actions are weighed.

02:10:24

My dad used to say we need to be a people that walk the talk. That walk the talk.

02:10:31

I'm going to close us in a word of prayer, Anthony. So before you get to that, Dan, I want to throw one comment up here.

02:10:39

And then yes, I'll have you close this out and we'll end the show. Drew wrote this, at Shepherds Conference each member of Grace Community Church prays for each man on the registry that's going to attend the conference.

02:10:52

John MacArthur's church has over a thousand people in their church volunteer to do something during those three days of the conference.

02:11:02

Plus the days before that and the days after that for both the setup and the cleanup. There's like,

02:11:08

I want to say seven to eight days worth of work that happens on that campus.

02:11:14

Again, over a thousand volunteers. One of the things they do is, as Drew pointed out, is every attendee is prayed for by somebody.

02:11:28

And let me tell you, so thank you, Drew, for bringing this up. Let me tell you what a blessing it was in 2020.

02:11:37

This was the week before the shutdown of COVID. We were at Shepherds Conference.

02:11:43

The last travel a lot of us did for quite some time was coming back from Shepherds Conference.

02:11:50

And I went and got, I'm not a big coffee drinker. If anybody knows me, I don't drink a lot of coffee. For whatever reason this day,

02:11:57

God's providence, I went to go get a coffee. And it was right before they closed the tent, this one tent with a coffee in it.

02:12:07

And one of the ladies looks at me and she goes, I've been praying for you.

02:12:15

And I said, what? Like, I was just taken aback.

02:12:20

She not only was praying for me, she was praying that she would get a chance to meet the person that she was praying for, for this conference.

02:12:35

And what a blessing it was, I know to her, but what a blessing it was to me to be able to meet her and hear the heart of this person who had been praying for me in coming to the conference and being edified at the conference.

02:12:55

And it was just amazing. Deep Dive Discipleship says, it's true.

02:13:02

I've had people walk up to me and say you were on my card. Yeah, just amazing. So on that,

02:13:08

Dan, I'm going to let you pray and close us out. I'll say good night and that'll be a wrap.

02:13:16

And we will make sure that we do this again in God's grace a couple times coming up here.

02:13:24

Father, you've heard our heart tonight. You've heard our conversation. We come to you and we confess the sin of prayerlessness.

02:13:34

We come helpless. Father, your word says, not by might, not by power, but through my spirit, says the

02:13:42

Lord Almighty. Father, we lay down our might, our power. Oh God, we cry to you as Lord God Almighty.

02:13:52

Father, I just ask that, oh God, that we would be a people of action.

02:14:00

We would walk the talk. Your word says, talk no more so exceeding proudly.

02:14:08

Let not arrogancy come out of your mouth. The Lord is a God of knowledge and by him actions are weighed.

02:14:15

Oh God, would you make us a people full of action with prayer.

02:14:23

Father, make us the people that are pleasing to you and not talk it, that we walk it.

02:14:30

Father, enable us through your Holy Spirit. Pour him out on us in great abundance in Jesus name.

02:14:37

Amen. Amen. Well, Josiah, thank you for being on the show tonight.

02:14:45

Cole, thank you for being on and recording it for Andrew in the background since I can't figure out my roadcast or how to do that stuff.

02:14:53

Kofi, thank you for being on. Great, great discussion. Everyone in the comment section,

02:15:00

I've been reading them and reading as much as I can out loud, but thank you for all the comments.

02:15:06

I mean, Dan, I can't even tell you, I mean, I don't know if you've been able to see the comments or not, but there are a tremendous amount of people who've been watching tonight.

02:15:15

Lots of people who have obviously been blessed with this show and excited for another one.

02:15:23

So brother, thank you for being on and I'm really looking forward to the next several that we're going to do going forward.

02:15:34

So on that, everyone have a great night and we will see you next week.