Understanding His Will — Charles Anderson

Because I'm aware of the fact that some of you have not been with us before in our studies, please bear with me while I take a moment or two just to review the ground that we've covered and to bring you up to date so that you won't feel totally at sea as you think along with us this evening.

The Alps of the New Testament: Introducing Ephesians

I have suggested that in the sessions we have together, we should consider the wonderful blessed truths that are revealed in the book of Ephesians, Paul's letter to the Ephesian assembly, but we thought we would borrow a picture which someone has suggested and which I think is really true, that this portion of Scripture, this epistle, has been called the Alps of the New Testament or the Switzerland of the Scriptures, thus indicating that here perhaps is the highest level of spiritual truth revealed for Christian life and experience perhaps anywhere in all the New Testament.

I reminded you of the fact that there's nothing of a negative nature in this epistle. Paul is not trying to solve any problems that were extant in the Ephesian assembly, not that it was a perfect church by any means, but his purpose was not to try to correct them doctrinally or correct them in some aberration that they were experiencing at that time.

He simply wants to unfold, I think, God's grand and glorious purpose in a redeemed life. If I were asked to summarize the epistle, I think I'd have to say that's it. To me, it is the unfolding of God's great, grand, glorious purpose in a life of a person who is redeemed by the blood of Christ.

Now, I have suggested that we would seek in each of the chapters that we can consider, and we'll have to omit one, and I'll talk about that in a moment, that we would seek in each of these chapters to find the highest point of all, calling it maybe the peak, the mountain peak truth in that particular chapter.

Not that there aren't fascinating, interesting, vital, important truths elsewhere in the chapter, but merely we're seeking to reach the mountaintop of truth, of revealed truth in each of the chapters.

And, of course, we could pursue this little imaginative picture by giving each of those peaks a name. I haven't tried to do that, but maybe for just another moment of review, I ought to say what we said this morning.

The Mountain Peaks of Ephesians

What have the peaks revealed to us so far? Well, in chapter one, we noted that God indicates that he has a special hope in his calling of us out of our darkness and slavery to sin into his marvelous light and freedom, and that we are his precious purchased possession.

Therefore, we are God's inheritance. He's made an investment in us. He expects some return on his investment. He expects some dividends from what he's invested in us. And so, Paul, in his prayer for the Ephesians, calls upon them to remember this fact, that they are his inheritance in Christ.

And then, furthermore, in that prayer, he revealed that for the accomplishment of this purpose, in a practical way, God has provided all that we need, all the resources they have provided for us. The exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe is revealed as a limitless reservoir of strength and power so that we may be able to attain and accomplish what he's here praying for.

We saw that. It was a breathtaking view indeed. Then we moved into chapter 2, and there we were, for a moment, introduced to our former wretched and hopeless past. And then he revealed to us that our present position is a glorious one.

We are in Christ Jesus, and the benefits that derive therefrom are wonderful. We who are far off are now brought nigh. We are seated in the heavenlies with Christ. And furthermore, we are now the objects of divine work in our lives so that God is, as it were, making our lives a poem.

He's writing poetry in our lives. We are his workmanship, a clumsy word, better translation, we are his poem, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. And then we notice, furthermore, that all of this assured us of a wonderful and eternal future in which God was going to pour out the riches of his kindness and his love toward us in Christ Jesus.

Throughout all the endless ages of eternity, he would be pouring out toward us the objects of his love, his love for us. And then this morning in our study, from the peak that we sought to attain in that particular study, we saw that God reveals, from that vantage point, his eternal purpose, which is to bring everything and every creature in this universe into subjection to our Lord Jesus Christ.

That's God's eternal purpose. He's working all things toward it. And we fit into that purpose individually. And then he begins to pray that we might understand this and that, furthermore, as a result, first of all, we would be strengthened with spiritual might in our inner man, and the Lord Jesus Christ would settle down in our lives and feel at home there, nothing to hinder his enjoyment of his occupation of our lives.

And that somehow we would approximate an understanding of the incomprehensible love of God toward us in Christ Jesus. And then he came to what I thought was the peak in that chapter, so that we might be filled with all the fullness of God.

And an astounding thought that your life and mine, as common as it is, as ordinary as it might be, your life and mine would experience this strange thing, this almost indescribable thing, the fullness of God.

Oh, what a thought that was. We left that this morning from that point of view. Now, we come tonight. I have to leave out one chapter somewhere. We only have one more session, and Paul, unfortunately, wrote six chapters in this book.

He didn't think that we were going to just consider the chapters that we have. So, I have to omit one, and I'm going to have to omit chapter four. Now, it's a great chapter. Don't misunderstand. There are great peaks in that particular chapter, wonderful ones.

But tonight, I want us to consider chapter five and the mountain peak that's found in it, for it is one of the highest points also. Maybe this mountain is equal in its height above sea level to the mountain we considered this morning.

I don't know whether one is higher than the other, that we might be filled with all the fullness of God. We saw from that yonder peak, this one now talks about this. Please notice verses seventeen onward in chapter five.

Understanding the Will of the Lord

Let me read just a couple of verses. Wherefore, be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is, and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

This is a great passage indeed, and it's one that I think needs some thought, especially in the days in which we're living. The apostle says that we are not to be unwise, but wise, understanding what the will of the Lord is for us.

Now, when we speak about the will of God, sometimes it appears to me as I listen to preachers, teachers, even Christians talking, read some of the articles and periodicals and so on, it sometimes seems to me that the will of God is made to appear to be some mystic will-of-the-wisp thing which is rather difficult to find, and you must pursue it and hope that you will somewhere, somehow discover it.

How many times have you heard some Christians say, You know, it's difficult to know the will of God. I've heard that expression a lot of times, and I've often wondered why that's so. Now, maybe if they are just saying it's difficult for me to make a decision as to whether I should live at Park of the Palms or in Boca Raton and I can't find out which place the Lord wants me to live in, I could settle that for you without any difficulty.

You wouldn't have to do much praying. You don't agree with me, but I think Boca Raton would do. Now, if you're simply talking about a choice and you cannot quite make up your mind as to whether that choice would be the thing God would like you to do, well, then indeed it might be difficult for you to find God's specific will in those matters, that type of thing.

And that might depend not even upon merely prayer, although that's important. It might just depend upon plain old horse sense, common sense, measuring things one against the other. But if you're talking about what God specifically wants of us, what God's plan is for us, what will please God in our Christian life and experience, it is quite remarkable how clearly the will of God is delineated in the Holy Scriptures.

Try it for yourself sometime. Go through your New Testament and write down on a piece of paper every place where the Scriptures speak saying, this is the will of God, or indicates that this specific thing is the will of God.

You will be surprised how many areas of life are clearly indicated and how the will of God is also indicated in each of those areas. Paul here says we must not be unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

Henry Drummond a long time ago said, and he was a great preacher in his day, he said the maximum achievement of any man's life after it's all over is to have done the will of God. No man or woman can have done any more with a life.

How very true that is. To have done the will of God, to have discovered God's plan for your life, and then to pursue it with all the vigor of your soul, and to have accomplished that will for you be to have accomplished the highest possible thing you can do with your life.

That's desperately important. I suppose that some of us who sit in this audience this evening would have to say, I wish I had discovered that a long time ago. It may be a bit late for me now. Too much time has slipped under the bridge of time, and I've missed the road maybe here or there, and I haven't really pursued the will of God.

I didn't find it in time. Maybe I pursued my own plan, my own will. Well, Henry Drummond was right. To which the Holy Scriptures themselves add this solemn substantiation, the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, as well as its honors and glories and awards and praise, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.

1 John 2 .17. And then Paul himself adds his own testimony. He says that when I was converted, among the earliest instructions that were given to me were these. And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldst know his will.

That's it, his will. To know God's will. Nothing is more important than that in life, and to pursue it is the highest pursuit of life. Do you remember that parable in the 21st chapter of Matthew's Gospel about the man who had two sons?

And he gave them instructions, and he said, Go do this. And one said, I will, and he didn't. And the other said, I won't, and he did. And the Lord asked the pertinent question, Which of these two do you think did the Father's will?

Well, it seems to me that in one simple statement there in that parable, Son, go work today in my vineyard. Those eight words suggest some important aspects of God's will for each believer. Let me tick them off for you.

The Parental and Personal Nature of God's Will

First of all, we learn from these words that God's will is parental. Son. Son. God never reveals his plan, his will, other than the plan of salvation to a sinner who wants to hear and to believe. But God doesn't reveal his plan, his will, his purpose, to one who's not related to him in a family relationship.

So the first thing that is indicated here is that the will of God is parental. And then we also learn that God's will is personal. The Father spoke to his sons personally and individually. And then the third thing you learn from those eight words in that parable is that the will of God is plain.

Go work. Can't get any plainer than that. Go and work. You didn't have to be a university graduate to understand that. Simple, plain instructions. And then God's will is not only parental and personal and plain, but is particular.

Go work in my vineyard. See, that's the particular that God revealed. So we're taught that God has a place then for each of his children. And then those same words reveal something else, that God's will is something that's present.

Son, go work today in my vineyard. How simple then this parable is in explaining what God's will is for us. But now back to Ephesians. He says, be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

The Filling of the Spirit and the Charismatic Question

Well, what is the will of the Lord in the context here of Ephesians chapter 5? The will of the Lord is that we should be filled with the Spirit. Now, friends, I'm very much aware, and I'm sure you are, that we're living in a day of strange phenomenon that are occurring in the religious world.

I often am perplexed and troubled. I suppose no one is more rigid than I in my insistence upon doctrinal correction. I make no hesitation nor apologies for saying that I am a dispensationalist. I am a Scofieldian dispensationalist.

That's seven of them. I don't even agree with the ones that find eight. And I have trouble with those who can only find five or six. I am a Scofieldian dispensationalist. I am a pre-millennialist. I am a pre-tribulationist.

I often say I'm not post-anything. I don't even eat post-toasties anymore because I don't want anybody to get my breakfast food mixed up with my eschatology. I'm pre-everything, see? Doctrinally, I have all my life insisted upon truth as I see it and understand it here in the Word of God, and if it cannot be supported by Scripture, then I cannot accept it.

Now, having said all of that, and recognizing how rigid I am, and also how rigid some of you are, having said all of that, I am still very perplexed sometimes about some of the things that are happening in our world.

You remember how Jesus, when He was speaking to Nicodemus, spoke about the Holy Spirit, and He said, likening Him to the wind, He said, The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but thou canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth.

It's that phrase, the wind bloweth where it listeth, that has been intriguing me for a long time. It's God saying that His Holy Spirit is at liberty to do anything He wants, any way He wants to do it, and any time He wants to do it.

I think He's saying something like that. Obviously, what He does will not be in violation of what He has taught or what the Scriptures say, but He may not work exactly as you think or I think He ought to.

There are some times when I say, Now, Lord, are You sure You're doing it right? Really, that's not the way You know it ought to be done. You shouldn't be working over there. You should be working over here.

You shouldn't be giving those people so much blessing. You should be doing it a little bit over here, too. And I think things that have happened and are happening in our day. But I also have some difficulty accepting some things that people tell me are so.

Now, we're living in a day when we hear about the charismatic movements, and every assembly, every church that I know of, yes, even many brethren assemblies, have been invaded by the charismatic phenomenon.

Are you aware of that? There were some people here this week who approached me, and I found out that they were attending a charismatic church, and they were enamored of some things that were happening.

We didn't get into a heated discussion. We could have, because I didn't agree with some things that they, I'm sure, hold. For instance, now, if we're talking about the filling of the Holy Spirit, as this particular passage is, is this a phenomenon?

Is this an experience which must be accompanied, as some are telling us, by other things like the strange mystic gift of tongues? And if one does not speak with tongues, is that an indicator that one is not or cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit?

Is it so that to be filled with the Holy Spirit, one will do tremendous things? One will be able to sway multitudes, that one will be able to lead many, many people to Christ in a fresh and a new and different way, or be able to speak with greater unction and power than ever before?

Are those things indicators of one being filled with the Holy Spirit? Because I would argue this. If all of these things are necessary, then I would say that this filling of the Spirit must be reserved then for only a very few Christian people.

The Ordinary Believer and the Fullness of the Spirit

Let me give you a scenario. It's the plains of Iowa. For our dear British friends, that's plains, man. And that's out where there's nothing, you know. Miles and miles of nothing but wheat fields and whatever.

It's the plains of Iowa. And there's a farmhouse there. And the family that owns this farm, this is mythical, by the way, I'm making this up, I don't know anybody like this, but this farm is a 1 ,500-acre farm.

That's quite a piece of land. And the dear lady who is there in that farmhouse, the wife and mother, she's the mother of five children. And she has to bake bread, make the meals. She has to use all the materials she can gather from the farm for subsistence.

She has to even make the children's clothing. They have a tough time. Even though it's a big farm, they have a tough time making ends meet. And she's got to raise five kids. Her nearest neighbor is five miles that direction, seven miles this way, four yonder, and six miles that way.

She lives a pretty lonesome life. But she reads the Word. And she reads where it says, Be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And then she reads, And don't be drunk with wine wherein is excess, but now a commandment.

And that's what this is, a commandment. But be filled with the Spirit. And so she says, If that's for everybody, for all believers, it must be for me too. Now does it mean that if she experiences, however, the filling of the Spirit, she will suddenly be eligible to be Billy Graham's substitute in case he gets a sore throat some night?

And she can preach to multiplied thousands of people. Does it mean that this woman now suddenly becomes a great soul winner? She doesn't have an opportunity to do any of these things. Can she go on still living her ordinary kind of a life, raising her children, living a Christian woman's life there in that lonesome place, and still experience the fullness of the Spirit?

My answer is yes, she can. And none of these phenomenon that I have mentioned need accompany that experience. I think it's a grave doctrinal mistake. I'm not going to argue with people who tell me I have spoken in tongues, and I have experienced an unusual experience in the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

I say, God bless you, brother or sister. I won't argue that with you, because to do so might be to imply that I'm saying you're fabricating, you're not telling the truth, and I wouldn't dare do that. But if you want to debate with me the scriptural basis on which you're now arguing, I will lock horns with you any day, any time, anywhere.

Name the place. And I do think that I can hold my own. That you're wrong, dead wrong. Scripturally speaking, you're wrong. Now, I think that the reason... I didn't intend to do this tonight. I really didn't, and I'm off my outline.

So if you're looking for one, you say, where did I get off? Not you. Where did I get off? I just want to say one or two other things about this. I think that perhaps what has happened in our time is... and this is not a total explanation, but there has been for a long time an arid condition in the churches, spiritually.

A dryness. And there has been a hunger and a thirst on the part of multitudes of people for more of God's Word and more of God Himself. And they haven't been finding it always in the churches they've been attending.

Perhaps the fault lies mainly in our pulpits because we are not feeding the people on the Word of God, but we're filling our messages in our pulpits with so many other things. And so people have reached out by the multiplied thousands for something that would satisfy their hearts and their hunger.

And somehow the promise of this ecstatic experience seems to be a promise of something that will satisfy their needs. And let me say one more thing at this point. My limited experience with people in charismatic assemblies is this.

Really, you have to say, behold how they love one another. There is a demonstration of genuine Christian love that oft times is lacking in many of our other assemblies. It's wonderful to see it. And I think that a lot of people are hungering for this and they're finding it.

Furthermore, my dear friends, the more we recognize how little is our planet in the vastness of the universe, and the more we come to the conviction that we're the only tiny little thing in this vast universe on which there lives intelligent creatures who are able to comprehend God, do you know the bigger the universe gets, the lonelier inhabitants on earth become?

And that loneliness is apparent in so many ways in our culture and our society. People are lonely. And so they fill up life with all kinds of things to dispel that loneliness. And religiously speaking, they come along and they say this is the answer.

It's not quite the answer. And I fear that many of them are headed for disaster and heartbrokenness. More important than all of it, however, is, I think, a lack of understanding of what the Bible teaches about the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

People are confused about this. Now, inasmuch as I detoured there for a minute, I'll get right at the heart of something that I must say. There are some who say, well, you see, the baptism of the Spirit and the filling of the Spirit, they're all one and the same thing.

It's just two different terms for the same kind of an experience. Now, that's not acceptable to me. We are so orthodox on the matter of atonement, and yet we become so thoroughly heretical sometimes in the matters of our nomenclature concerning the Holy Spirit.

Have you noticed that? If we had a little time of public testimony and a fresh new believer should stand up here tonight and would say, I feel that I've been born again many, many times. I've been born again, again, again, and again.

You know what would happen? You brethren would back him in a corner after the meeting, and you'd straighten him out in a hurry, let me tell you. In spite of the fact that you may understand what he's talking about, you want him to get it straight and say it right.

Why are we so orthodox when it comes to questions like that, and we're so loose and flabby in our vocabulary concerning the work of the Holy Spirit? I submit to you tonight that there is a great difference between the baptism of the Spirit and the filling of the Spirit.

A great difference. They are not one and the same thing. It may indeed well be that on the day of Pentecost, particularly that day, those disciples may have experienced both of them at the same time. They may have indeed experienced the filling of the Spirit.

I know they experienced the baptism of the Spirit. And it might be difficult to explain the difference between the two. It's somewhat like my dear black friend who was up for ordination, and one of those fellows who queried and questioned the candidate said to this rather humble black brother, he said, I want to ask you this question.

He said, Which comes first, regeneration or justification? And the poor black man stood there for a minute and he said, Well, I don't rightly know, but it appears to me it's like a cannonball that's gone through the wall.

I think the ball and the hole go through together. Now along will come some perfections who say no, the ball makes the hole and the hole follows the ball. Well, you can argue that all you want, but on the other end they both come through about the same time.

Baptism of the Spirit and Filling of the Spirit

So I think on the day of Pentecost those disciples, maybe not understanding all that was happening, they were filled with the Spirit and they were baptized with the Spirit. Now what do you mean by the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

I believe that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is an experience that happens only once. And it's an experience over which you have no control at all. You have nothing to do with it. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

You can't pray for that experience. You can't carry for it. You cannot wait for it. It happens to you the moment you are born again. Now you know it's interesting when you study the term baptism itself, you know, if you substitute the concept identification, every time you come to baptism you will find light coming when sometimes there's only darkness.

For instance, Paul talks about Israel being baptized into Moses and the sea. I had a Presbyterian once who hit me with that. He said, kind of dry baptism, wasn't it? You're a deep water Baptist. He said, it's kind of dry baptism.

And I almost said, I expect something like that from a Presbyterian. You know, you don't understand, sir. What does that phrase mean? They were baptized onto Moses and the sea. It means that in the Red Sea experience when God took His people through dry shod, that experience identified them from then on with the leadership of Moses.

See? They were identified. Leader and people were one via that experience. All right? Jesus comes down while John the Baptist is baptizing. And you know the story well. He said, I want to be baptized.

Do you, John? John said, no, I can't. I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy to loose the thong on your sandal. And the Lord Jesus, you remember, said, suffer to be sold. Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.

And John baptizing. What does that baptism mean for Jesus? Did it mean the washing away of His sins? No, of course not. It meant that in that experience He was identifying Himself with the sinful nation of Israel.

And He was prophetically declaring when John took Him down into the waters and He came up out of the waters, He was depicting His death, His burial, and His resurrection absolutely necessary to the redemption of this sinful people.

Sinners were coming. He identified Himself with those sinners by the baptism experience. Move on a little bit. Our Lord says, a little farther along in His ministry, certain things have happened and the disciples brought the news back and He said, I have a baptism to be baptized with.

And how am I straightened until it shall be accomplished? Wait a minute, Lord, You were baptized. Well, I'm not talking about a water baptism. I'm talking about that holy moment when I will be identified at Calvary with the sin of the whole world.

And I can hardly wait for that moment. I'm so eager to reach that moment to fulfill my Father's plan and my Father's will. That was His Calvary baptism. And at Calvary He became identified with sinners and the sin of the whole world.

What happens when a believer is baptized? Does his baptism contribute anything to his salvation? Not a whit. Not a thing. Absolutely nothing. What he is doing is this. When he goes down into the waters of the baptismal pool or stream or lake or wherever it occurs, he is saying, by this confession of my faith, I identify myself with one who was crucified for me who was buried for me and who rose again from the dead for me.

And this act of my baptism is an open declaration of my identification with Him by faith. So now you come to the last expression of baptism. The baptism of the Holy Spirit. What is it? It is that moment when a regenerated believer who has now been brought into life by the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit is taken by the Holy Spirit and added to the living, mystical body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is joined to the living Christ, thus becoming identified with the Savior. And where he is placed in that body is the sovereign choice of the Holy Spirit. And he may gift Him particularly to function in wherever the Holy Spirit places Him in the body.

But the baptism of the Holy Spirit then is that action of the Spirit of the living God that joins a regenerated believer to the living body of Jesus Christ. And over that, you and I have no control whatsoever.

That is the sovereign, loving act of our great God. The filling of the Spirit is quite another thing. Quite another thing. One may be baptized by the Spirit believer without being filled with the Spirit.

See? But, of course, its opposite cannot be true. One cannot be filled with the Spirit who is not already baptized by the Spirit believer. You see? Now, what happens? Maybe I can best explain it thus.

The Evidence of a Spirit-Filled Life

Paul is here saying, the will of God for you, my Ephesian believers, is that you shall be filled with the Spirit. And have you noticed that that's not the end of a sentence? In the Bible, there's a semicolon there.

The thought continues. Be filled with the Spirit. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. What is the inevitable signs of the filling of the Spirit according to this context? These things. Not some ecstatic experience. Not some overwhelming demonstration of power.

No. But in these, if you please, rather ordinary things that ought to accompany one who is filled with the Spirit of the living God. Now, I must conclude, but I want to give you some signs, I think, of the Spirit-filled life.

Here they are. I'll just list them. First of all, there's a deep sense of personal unworthiness. I think that comes. A Spirit-filled person is one who has a deep, abiding sense of his own personal unworthiness.

He's like John the Baptist who knew the filling of the Spirit when he said, He must increase, but I must decrease. Even such a person as John the Baptist, whom our Lord said was among those born of women, none is greater than he.

He certainly didn't wear that badge where people could read it. He was humbled in the presence of God. I think the second sign of being filled with the Spirit is a hunger for the Word of God. A continuing, abiding hunger for God's Word.

My friend, if that hunger, if that appetite for God's Word has diminished in your life, you need to see a spiritual doctor. Something's wrong. Something's begun to degenerate in your life. Third thing, I think those who are filled with the Spirit have a quickened realization of the presence of God.

Not that they were not aware of it before, but there's a quickening of realization of God's presence in the life. You see, that's the purpose in the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to make Christ known and Christ real to us.

That's His chief ministry to believers. To take the things of Christ and to make them known to us. And to reveal the Father as well. And another sign of the fullness of the Spirit is a desire for and a delight in prayer.

I have noticed in my travels around the country that if it's announced that on Saturday evening there's going to be a concert in our churches, what happens? Huh? You've got to bring your shoehorn along to get in.

The crowds are there. And in the next breath they say, we're going to have an all-night prayer meeting to pray that the Holy Spirit of God will shake us and do something. How many show up? Same old faithful, creepy brethren that come out here and pray off in the corner by themselves.

Just a little handful. Tragic, isn't it? We announce a prayer meeting. What else are you going to do? Just pray. You mean only pray? Not even eat? No, not going to eat either. Just going to pray. Oh, that doesn't seem too exciting.

Why is there so little desire for that? Maybe because we don't know or have not experienced or are not experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Many years ago in North Korea, whenever I tell this story, all the dear ladies get down on me.

I should save it until tomorrow so I can go home the next day and not have to face you ladies. There was a terrible spiritual dearth in North Korea. Only a handful of believers at that time. I'm talking about maybe 75 to 100 years ago.

And there was a missionary there who was about ready to give up, a Presbyterian missionary. His heart was broken, but he called upon a Korean pastor and said, let's pray. Let's pray until we break through and God does something.

Let's clear the decks of everything. I'll come to your house and we'll pray. We'll pray all through the night and tomorrow and the next night. And if we have to, we'll just keep on praying. My brother, my heart is broken and we have to get hold of God and we've got to get God to do something to shape this country.

The Korean brother said, come in. It was in the midst of winter and the winters are bitter in Korea and in North Japan. And this was an exceptionally bitter winter. Snow swirling outside, winds howling.

Well, the pastor had a small family and had a tiny baby, a little baby. It was only a couple of months old, I guess. Well, they began to pray. If you ever have been in an all-night or an extended prayer meeting, you know there are certain phenomenon you watch for.

In the beginning, in the first flush of the prayer effort, you can pray easily and a lot of things come to mind. But then after a little while, as time goes on, one by one the extraneous and the lesser important things begin to drop by the wayside and you find that you're sorting things out to pray specifically for because you've determined you're going to stay here on your knees or on your face before God until you break through and feel that God is really on a move on your behalf.

And then after a little while, you may come to the place where you can't even articulate your prayers. You can't speak. Then you begin to experience the groanings that cannot be uttered. See? And then there may be long silences when only the heart is crying out to God.