(Mt Pleasant) 1. Introduction to Prayer — Gerhard Du Toit

I want to say to you what a blessing and an encouragement it is to be back here in Australia. There's one difference between today and nine years ago and that's that we all got older and some may be more mature and some of us are ready to go to heaven.

I remember a man in Northern Ireland once introduced me and he didn't know how to pronounce my name and he said, I don't know where this man is coming from but I know where he's going to. And I thought, you know, that's just the typical Irish way of doing this.

I will never forget, I think I was in Ballycraigie. There's so many valleys in the North of Ireland you never know where you are. But I stayed with an old Mr. and Mrs. Watson was his name. And when I arrived there, because I was from Africa, first of all they were astonished that I was white.

I think they expected me to be black. And then while I stayed with him, he had so many questions that he wanted to ask me about Africa. In fact, every time when we sat at the meal table, he would ask me these questions.

In fact, one of the times when we sat down, he said to me, do you eat with knives and forks in Africa? And you know, he was just asking me all these questions and I had to explain and explain. He was in his seventies and one day I just felt, you know, and I said to the Lord, God, I've had enough of all these questions.

And so he turned to me and he said to me, so do you eat a lot of meat in Africa? And I just thought, well, this is my opportunity. And I said, yeah, we eat a lot of meat in Africa, Mr. Watson. And he said, so what do you eat?

And I said, well, we eat this and this and this. And then I said to him, as a matter of fact, we eat a lot of the African people. And I said, we just don't know what to do with all the bicycles once we got them.

And this man was just stunned, you know. In fact, I could see him saying, I better watch it. I could be next in the list. And I thought, well, he got the message and I went further. I said, you know, there's certain parts of the body that is really great.

Well, he was ready to have a heart attack. You know, I gave him about five or ten minutes and then said to him, Mr. Watson, I was just pulling your leg. It was the last question he ever asked me. No more questions.

But it's wonderful to be back here. If you are new and you can't remember the years ago when we were together, if I speak to you with an accent, I don't have an accent. You've got an accent. And I remember my friend Harold Vaughn, who's been here.

We were together at the conference. Oh, I don't know how many years ago. And the acoustics of this place was quite a large conference, maybe five, six hundred people. And the acoustics of this place was just terrible.

And so the people came to Harold Vaughn and said, you know, we don't understand Gerard. We don't understand what he's trying to say. We don't understand his accent. And Harold Vaughn, in his typical way, turned to them and said, that's not the problem.

The problem is you do understand him, you know. But I'm really looking forward to these days. This is my third visit to Australia, first time when I was here. And two or three years ago I had a conference that we did for pastors in Sydney, in the Sydney area.

But it's great to be back. Let me give you an idea about the next three days so that you just have a sense of preparing your heart. What we have been doing for the last six years, and I have the joy of traveling to about 30 to 40 countries.

And mostly what we are doing is to share predominantly leaders in these countries on the subject of prayer. And that's kind of where my heart is. I learned to pray on a mountain in Africa where I was brought up with six black African pastors who taught me the secret of saying to me that if you can't get through to God, you're never going to get through to people.

Prayer as the Foundation of Ministry

Who would say to me that you can't walk with God on the basis of the things that you are doing for God. But ministry is the consequences of walking with God. Many would say to me, wherever you travel in the world, don't look for churches that will be full of people.

But look for churches that will be full of people that will be full of God. And men that would say to me that there is no power without purity and your relationship with God. And you need a thing that is called unction.

And unction is only coming through a life being separated into God and a life of prayer. And that's where I learned the first principles of discovering these men were students of the old Puritans. And men like Robert Murray McChain who used to say, how can the Holy Spirit in you criticize the Holy Spirit in me?

Men who used to say, so much of my time of praying is preparing myself how to pray. And because of that, they would emphasize the necessity that prayer is initiated by God. That God doesn't answer prayer necessarily because we are praying, but God answers prayer because He is a covenant keeping God.

And if we walk in the center of His will and we are submitted to Him. You know, one of the greatest statements on prayer in the Gospel of John that I have never heard someone spoke on is when Jesus said, the son can do nothing unless he sees the father doing it.

Incidentally, if you study the prayer life of Christ in the four Gospels and you study those verses in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You will discover that Jesus virtually never ever spoke about prayer not being answered.

Why did He do that? Because prayer to Christ was the unfolding of the will of His Father. That's why He said, lo I have come to do your will, O God. And one of the things that we are going to do in the next few days, I am trusting God that we won't plow so deep into the subject that it will become so overwhelming to you that you would say, you know, I don't even know where to start as it relates to prayer.

Growing in the Knowledge of Prayer

Let me encourage you tonight. My brother and sister, you never get to the place where you really know how to pray. You never in your life come to that place. I am so frightened by people who would come and they would speak about prayer.

They will give you a perception that they've got this thing all together. To me, prayer is like running into the ocean. And when you get to the place where you've gone so far, you feel I can't go any step further.

And you look back, you discover the water has just gone to the ankles. You've hardly started when it comes to prayer. But on Saturday and on Sunday, tomorrow I want us to spend, unless the Lord directs us in a different direction, but I would love us to spend tomorrow in the free sessions and explore those 879 verses in the Gospel of John and just take the key concepts out of those 21 chapters.

And then on Saturday, God willing, I want us to explore the Old Testament. We only have two sessions and I know what's going to happen these days is that when we come to the end, by Monday morning, that we have just scratched the surface as it relates to this great subject of prayer.

But Saturday morning and Saturday night, I want us to explore the Old Testament. Eleven wonderful words in the Hebrew language that is speaking to us about prayer. Sixteen moral imperatives of God as they relate to prayer.

The different kinds of Old Testament prayers that we discover and how they are speaking to us. And then take specific passages and really ask God to open those passages for us. And then on Sunday, God willing, in our free sessions together, I want us to explore the New Testament.

You know there are 7957 verses in the New Testament as it relates to prayer. And when you study those verses and you go to the Gospel of Mark and you discover those 678 verses and you go to look to the Acts of the Apostles and the Apostle Paul and you explore them, they are taking you to 248 possible prayer passages in the New Testament.

And those passages, as you study them, they explore or they give you 12 aspects of New Testament prayer. And I am looking forward on Sunday. You know when we talked about a life of prayer, the issue is not that we are not saying to people that prayer is everything.

But what we are saying to people is that everything needs to come through prayer. And to me, when we are speaking about prayer, brother and sister, what we are dealing with is that we cannot go from our experiences with God as it relates to prayer to the exposition of Scripture.

You cannot interpret God's Word in the light of experience. Because if we are going to do that, is there the possibility that you will isolate the Scripture and you will interpret Scripture in the light of experience.

And you can't do that. So what do we have to do? We need to go to the Word of God and we need to let our experiences flow out of the totality of Scripture. You say, why do you say that, Gerard? I am saying that to you because we are born with a personality.

But God is in the process of building up Christian character. And so 75 of our growth as Christians is depending upon what you read. I don't know if you realize this. If you spend a tithe of your time every day on the New Testament, you are going to be able to go through the New Testament about 40 times every year.

Saturating Life in Scripture

You know, I have got the privilege of spending 80 to 90 days of the year sitting in airports and in planes. And I always say to God, I don't want to waste my life sitting at an airport looking at people or sitting in planes and don't watch all the junk that they have on these planes today.

And so you say, what have you been doing? You know, for the last 25 years, I have been reading books onto cassette. And one of those people that I don't just want to read something, I want to listen to it.

48 books of Dr. Andrew Murray, Oswald Chambers. And so what I have been doing through the years, I read these books onto cassette and then I download them onto a computer. And today, with the technology of today, you get the thing that is called an iPod.

You can get one that covers 160 gigabytes. And I am downloading this and on a 13 or a 14 hour flight, you can listen to 3 or 4 of the books of Andrew Murray. And just systematically listen to them. And as you listen to them, they become part of your life.

And the same with the New Testament. Those 7 ,957 verses, depends on if it is the Greek New Testament, you will be able to listen through it in 24 hours. And our King James Version of the Bible, 17 hours takes you through all of those verses in the New Testament.

And so when God's Word becomes part of your life, brother and sister, as it relates to any aspect of the Christian life, one of the greatest blessings to me, and I have made a commitment for 10 years to every year, go through the New Testament so many times every year.

And one of the greatest encouragement of my own Christian life. And we are teaching pastors in the world to do this. You say, what? If you write out 15 verses of the Old Testament every day, by hand, every 4 years, you've written out the whole Old Testament.

If you write out 15 verses of the New Testament, by hand, every 18 months, you've written out the whole New Testament. Now, I've been doing this for years. And so with my right hand, I write out the Old Testament, and because I've got arthritis, I write out the New Testament with my left hand.

You know what Janice, my wife, said to me? She said, Daddy, you are developing this part of your brain. Of course, you know, she's a Canadian, so you never know what comes out of this Canadian's mouth.

But you know the blessing of just, brother and sister, saturating yourself. Last year, when I came to the end of November, I've gone through the New Testament all the times that I'm committed to do this, over a period of 10 years.

And I turned to my wife and I said, you know, I've got 4 weeks in December. And I said, I'm done with the New Testament. And she said, what are you going to do? I said, Janice, this is going to be fascinating.

So she said, what did you do? You know that last 4 weeks, going through the New Testament, every 7 to 10 days. You know what I did? I went to the first chapter of every book in the New Testament. You will have no idea how the first chapters of every New Testament book would minister to you and your relationship with God.

So there are 4 of those 27 books, who only have one chapter. And so when I came through the second time, I went through the second chapter. And then the third time, through the third chapter. And she said, what did you do with the Scriptures?

Well, let me explain to you. I asked myself a question, and I would say to myself, what is the New Testament, or what is this chapter, telling you about the life of Christ? Just in the first chapter of every one of the New Testament books.

And so when you've gone through it once, you've got 23 books left, with 2 chapters and more. And you ask yourself the question, what do I discover about the life of Christ? What do I discover about God?

What lesson is here for me to apply? And you have no idea the blessing. And so you say, what happened when you were through that? You know what I did? I took the last chapter of every New Testament. I mean, that's 4 weeks, you know.

And I said to my wife, this is tremendous. So, you say, why are you doing this? I'm trying to memorize the New Testament. And my wife said to me, I said, Jonas, I want to try and memorize the New Testament before I'm 75.

And she would say, well, when you get to that place, how many in the mental institution will come and listen to you? Well, you know what I would say to her? I said, there will be 5 from my congregation.

She said, who will they be? I said, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, you and me. And she said, what will I do there? I said, the Bible says, let that which God hath joined together, let no man separate. I said, welcome to humanity.

Prayer in the Will of God

You're going to be with me. The brethren said to them, you know, I'm so much looking forward to these next few days. Because we're going to plow into the Scriptures. We're going to discover what does it mean to pray in the will of God.

Why was it that Jesus was the only one that was ever able to say, Father, I thank you that you always listen to me. Why was it that the Old Testament prophets, when they prophesy about the Messiah, coming in the New Testament, three times in the Old Testament, when they prophesy about the coming of Christ, that they use one of those 11 Hebrew words, and they looked upon the life of Christ.

And do you know what they called Him? They called Christ a prayer. And so when He came, and He became the manifestation of God as it relates to prayer, and when He said in John 17, He said, Father, I have manifested Your name.

And you go to every one of those Hebrew names of God in the Old Testament, and you discover the manifestation of God through those names, and you study prayer in the Old Testament, and you discover how Christ became the personification and the manifestation of God in prayer.

And then you discover that He prayed within the will of His Father. And then the Apostle John, who was so close to Christ, I said to Robert and Karen last night, it's amazing when you study those 7 ,957 verses in the New Testament, and you discover that three men in the New Testament dominated 80 of New Testament writings.

You say, who were they? Luke the Physician, 1 ,151 verses in the Gospel of Luke, and 1 ,007 in the Book of Acts. The Apostle Paul, his epistles take you to 2 ,033 of those verses. The Apostle John, 879 verses in the Gospel of John, 404 in the Book of Revelation, 105 in 1 John 13 -14, and you bring them together, and they dominated 80 of the New Testament.

And so when you come to the Apostle John, what is he doing? He gives us the deity of Christ as it relates to prayer. And in 1 John 5, he made this great statement. This is what he said, and this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, I love the Greek New Testament as it relates to that, because you know what it said?

He is in the process of listening to us. That's what it means. This is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he is listening to us. And if we know that he listens to us, we know that we are the petitions of those things.

Brother and sister, you know, we can spend a day just on that one statement. What is the confidence that he has given unto us? Why did Jesus say in Matthew 6, when you pray, enter into your closet? When he wrote the Gospel of Matthew, predominantly were the Jews as his focus.

And the only thing that the Jew could think about in Matthew 6, when Jesus said, when you pray, and you go into your closet, the only thing that the Jew could think about was the holiest of all in the Old Testament.

And Dr. A .T. Pearson said in his little book on prayer, as they thought about the holiest of all, they would try to come to the understanding. What did Jesus mean when he said, you're going to go into this secret place, because that's what the four meanings in the Greek New Testament is saying to us about this closet.

And when he said that, and he died for us in the cross, and he cried out and said, it is finished. And the veil of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom. And the way into the holiest was open.

And the epistle to the Hebrews coming to us said, God has given us confidence to go into the holiest. And when the writer to the Hebrews said to us, having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest, how do we do that?

Through the blood of Jesus. By a new and a living way which he has consecrated for us, through the veil that is to say his flesh. And having an high priest over the house of God, he said, let us draw near.

And how do we draw near? With a true heart, full assurance of faith. And our hearts being sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. And Dr. A .T. Pierson said that when Christ said, you're going to go into your closet, all that the Old Testament you could think about, of those early disciples in the understanding of the Sermon on the Mount, and the law being made perfect, this is what he said, they thought to the holiest of all.

And ah, when John in his epistle came to us, and he said, God has given us confidence. The apostle Paul would come to us in Romans 8 and say, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Why? Because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and death. And here comes the confidence to come into the presence of God. And when you study just this one statement, what does it mean to pray in the will of God?

You say, what are we speaking about? Two aspects of praying in the will of God. The confidence that we have. That we have in what? The confidence that we have in Him. Why? Because we are sitting with Christ in heavenly places.

The confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask, what does this mean to ask? It's one of those six pillars in the Greek New Testament that is speaking to us about prayer. If we ask anything in His name, that's why John said in John 15, if you abide in Me and My Word abides in you, you shall ask whatever you will and it shall be given unto us.

And people say sometimes in North America in a flippant way, oh, I can ask whatever I want. I just staggered at those statements. And I said to them, you have no idea what you are speaking about. What are the conditions?

If you abide in Me and My Word abides in you. You know what will happen, brethren and sisters? You will never dare to ask anything outside of the will of God. You wouldn't think of that. You would not even consider that.

And so if we ask anything in His name, He hears of us. And here comes the rest of that twofold statement. And if we know that He is in the process of listening to us, we know that we are the petitions of those things that are asked.

Praying through to God. And I don't know here in Australia, I've been away here for nine years, but you know this term of praying through is something that we have no concept about anymore. It's so relevant in Scripture.

What does it mean? And I'm looking forward to those days as we go to explore the understanding of prayer. You know what's our problem, brethren and sisters? We know so much about the Word of God, but the Word of God knows so little about us, you know.

That's the problem today. And so when God's Word becomes part of my relationship with Him, and He brings this understanding that prayer is not the times that I spend with God, but you know what it is?

It's the time that God is spending with us. And brethren and sisters, when we discover that secret, it makes a total difference in our relationship with Him. I've got a book in my library. I'm collecting books on prayer.

I've got about close to 800 books in my library. And I mean, there are some of those books that are classics. I mean, there are some other books, I won't sell them for $500. Don't test me with a thousand, but I won't sell them for $500.

I mean, they are classics as it relates to prayer. People often say to me, how do I learn the language of prayer? And I often say to them, read the life stories of people. George Muller of Bristol, the man who had 85 ,000 answers to prayer.

Two books written about his prayer life. You say, what were those books? The first one had the title 35 ,000 Answers to Prayer in 24 Hours. There was another book with the title 50 ,000 Answers to Prayer that took him longer than 24 hours.

I don't know if you know this tonight, but the secret of the life of Charles Haddon Spurgeon was not predominantly his preaching. There was a man that taught him how to pray and his name was Muller of Bristol.

Spurgeon had a hard time praying on his own, you know. He struggled immensely with depression and he struggled immensely with prayer. And George Muller of Bristol influenced and mentored Charles Haddon Spurgeon as it relates to personal intimacy with God.

And you know the great statement when someone came to Charles Haddon Spurgeon one day and said to him, what's the secret of your ministry? He ministered to about 6 ,000 people in Spurgeon's tabernacle in London and came to him and said, Mr. Spurgeon, what's the secret of your ministry?

And Spurgeon turned to them and said, it's the heating system in my church. And they said, what do you mean? He said, come and see on Sunday morning. And they came on a Sunday morning to the church of Charles Haddon Spurgeon and he took them into the basement of the church and there were 400 people praying.

And Spurgeon said, this is the heating system of my church. This is why God is blessing the ministry that he has given to me. You know, I don't know about Australia today, but I need to tell you something about North America.

It's so unfortunate to say that my heart is broken for that continent because that's where we live and the lily grow where you plant them. But it takes 3 to 5 to 7 to 11 to 13 to 15 years to see the average evangelical church in North America becoming a house of prayer.

And so that's what it's taking. I was sharing with Robert today, we are involved with different nationalities. China and Vietnam, Cambodia, Eastern Europe, Africa, South America. And last year in January, I had the privilege of being in a church just outside of the city of New York.

He said, what kind of a church was it? It was a Korean church. The pastor went there 29 years ago with about 20 people. And for 29 years, he has been ministering. And that today is a church of about 6 ,000 people.

And every morning, these Korean people, I was the first non-Korean speaker that they ever allowed in that church. And every morning, 6 days of the week, this Korean church prayed from 5 o 'clock to 7 o 'clock in the morning.

I had to speak every morning from 5 o 'clock to 6 o 'clock on the Old New Testament theology of prayer. And by 6 o 'clock, they turned the lights off and about 1 ,000 Koreans would go on their knees and they all prayed out loud at the same time for an hour.

I mean, it was a tremendous experience. And so, I've never lost a burden in my heart for Australia, you know, because if it's not for the people of God, there's no hope for this country. It's exactly where we are in Canada.

Isn't it amazing that the Scripture said that the hand and the life of the king is in the hands of the Lord. And God has given us this great privilege, brother and sister. And I don't know about you. I don't know if you've come to this weekend because you come every year.

I haven't come to this weekend because I've got nothing else to do. So, why did we come? We've come to meet with God, you know. We've come to meet with God. The burden of my heart is, you know, and the Hebrew word is a wonderful word.

We can explore these words, you know. The Hebrew word for the word burden is the word Masah. And the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. It's based upon revelation. And so, when God gives us a burden, we need to climb underneath that burden of God.

And we need to explore it. And we need to systematically dissect the burden of God. And step by step, pray it through. And I'm just looking forward for us to spend these days together. Now, this is what we're going to do.

And I know you are tired. You had a busy day. You tried to put up tents and everything. But this is what we're going to do. And this is what we're going to do in every session. We are going to spend some time in prayer together.

And that's what I want us to do. And then I want us to turn to the Scriptures. Just spend a few minutes on two passages before we come to the end of this evening. This is what I want you to do. I want you to find three or four people.

And this is what I want you to do. We're going to meet in little groups. And I want you to turn to the person in front of you. And I want you to ask them a question. And you say, what am I going to ask him?

I'm going to ask you to ask him how I can pray for you. We're going to take some time just to share with one another about some personal things. We're going to do it right through the weekend. And then I will close our time in prayer.

So, that's what we will do. You know, the burden of my heart is that God will give us a spirit of prayer. Brethren and sisters, when God gives us a spirit of prayer, hours become like minutes, you know.

We lose sight of what time is all about. I just came out of South America and we were in pastors' conferences and took 239 pastors and their wives into the mountains of the country of Peru. And some of them were on buses for 24 hours coming down rivers to be at this conference.

You say, what did you do? We took them for three days of prayer. Three days. Spending five to six hours some of those days in intercessory prayer and teaching these pastors how to pray. And that's what we did.

Praying together. So, let's do that. I want you to turn around, find three or four people. Turn to them. If you don't know them, introduce yourself and say to them, how can I pray for you? We're going to spend some time and pray together.

So, can we do that? Just form little groups of three or four. The young people right there and you find three or four people and that's what we will do. Heavenly Father, we want to come to Thee this evening and we want to thank You from the depths of our hearts for this Easter weekend that You have given unto us the privilege to simply be able to come to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God.

Revival Begins with the People of God

And Father, we confess tonight in Thy presence that if anything is going to happen in any one of our relationships with You, it's simply going to come because we have submitted ourselves to God's plan for our lives and our walks with You.

And Father, I want to thank You for the sense of expectation and the anticipation in the inadequacy of my own heart for us to be able not just to sit under the ministry of Your Word, but Father, to be able to trust You that somehow during these coming three days that there will be moments when the Spirit of God will be able to break into our relationships with You.

Lord, You said unto us in Your Word that if we walk in the light as God is in the light, we will have fellowship one with another. And the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, will be able to continue to cleanse us from all sin.

And we recognize this first night that there is maybe one initial encounter with the infilling of the Holy Spirit of God. And yet, Father, there are hundreds and thousands of subsequent infillings and cleansings when God would come to us and God will meet with us.

We thank You that Your Word has said to us that the fire must burn continually upon the altar. That the epistle to the Hebrews said to us that we have an altar and a place where God wants to come and give us a new revelation of Himself.

And Father, we acknowledge this evening at the very opening night of our days together that You have said unto us in Your Word that I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and I will pour floods upon the dry ground.

You have said unto us that blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. We are reminded that Jesus said to us on the last day, that great day of the feast, if any man thirst, let him come unto Me.

He that believeth into Me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water shall flow from the innermost of his being. And God, our Father, we pray that somehow in these hours and days to come that we will come to grips with the source of this river.

That we will come to grips with the force of the river of God. But most of all, that we will come to grips with the course of this river. And that somehow we will be able to experience the intimacy with God.

That we will sense these rivers of God flowing from the innermost of His being. Lord, I was reminded again of the words of Duncan Campbell when he so often said that we are full to the Spirit of God that we cannot be full to anything else.

And Father, it's the cry of our hearts that in these days before You pour out upon us a hunger and a thirst after Yourself, that somehow that You will empty us and that You will purify us and that You will cleanse us so that we will be able to be full to all the fullness of God.

Now, Father, we are in a public camp over a weekend like this. And my heart was so burdened as we arrived at this camp tonight because You do not want us to have worldly friends. And yet, God, You want us to have friends in the world.

And I saw a young man tonight walking and I sensed the desperate need of God in his life. And we're going to be surrounded by men and women, Father, who are on their way to hell in a basket. And they're lost in the presence of God.

And we want to say to you tonight, Lord Jesus, if You pour out Your Spirit upon this gathering, if You pour out Your Spirit upon us as Your people, as Evan Roberts used to say, that it will affect the man on the street when God sends revival.

And so, Father, we want to open our hearts before You. I'm so grateful, dear God, that I've never lost the burden for this beautiful land of Australia, that I've never lost the burden for this Adelaide Valley and the people within this part of this country.

And yet we ask that You will pour out upon us an amazing sense of the brokenness of God and that this brokenness will lead us to cleansing. And so that we will be able to be set apart unto You. And that we will be able to be baptized with a spirit of brokenness that will give unto us a perception of levels of intimacy with God.