leave you with a verse from Ephesians chapter 6 and verses 18 to 19. We've had this verse a number of times. I'm not so much going to expound the verse today, but use it as a starting off point, which I'll explain in a moment or two. But let's just read these words. Ephesians chapter 6, verses 18 and 19. Paul has been describing the importance of wearing the whole armour of God and how we need that against the wiles of the devil and all that's involved in that. And then in verse 18, he says this, praying, having talked about the importance of the word of God in verse 17, he then says in verse 18, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints and for me that utterance may be given to me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, and so on. And that's God's holy and inspired word to us today. And I think it's not without significance that Paul asks us to pray for the preaching of the word. I know we are praying for revival, but how does that come? It comes very often through the faithful prayers of God's people and also the faithful preaching of the Word of God. Now, I wasn't able to be with you for a couple of days last week, three days last week, because I was away speaking at a conference in this country. And it's a conference to do with historical Puritanism and a Protestant ministry. and we tried to cover historical subjects. And I gave two papers amongst the other papers that were given. One was on Calvin and worship. And then the second was on Philip Doddridge and his lectures on preaching. And as I was doing that, I'm not going to give you the lecture, bless you, it would take an hour and 10 minutes or so to give and I haven't got that time. But in the lecture on Doddridge, there is a section where I spoke about Doddridge's advice and directions for prayer. And that was only just a few minutes in the lecture because it was only a very small part of it. But thinking over these things over this weekend and preaching on the Lord's Day, this last Lord's Day, it seemed to me that it was very appropriate for our time of prayer that we consider something of the importance of preaching and Doddridge's directions for prayer, I think, are helpful here. Now, Philip Doddridge, 1702 to 1752, we think, well, that's a long time ago, but he has had a bad press over the years And even C.H. Spurgeon, who heartily recommended Doddridge as a family expositor, didn't consider that Doddridge was as bold and orthodox as he should have been. And because of that, and because of other things that have been said and written over the years, I think Doddridge has had a very poor press. When I did my MA, I did a thesis on Philip Doddridge, so he's one who's pretty close to my heart. The Zondervan New International Dictionary of the Christian Church says of him, Dodderidge, his alleged heresies are probably due to his lack of necessary mental equipment to articulate his thoughts clearly. Now, I think that's grossly unfair because the more we have studied Philip Dodderidge, the more we find that he was actually a brilliant mind. He was not only a good theologian, He taught students for many years in his academy in Northampton in Great Britain. He was also an eminent scientist. He was a member of the Royal Institution. He did scientific experiments. He presented papers on the science of the day. He was a faithful pastor and expositor. We would describe him, I think, in Britain today, if we really analyzed his life as a polymath. If you know what a polymath is, a man who is competent and authoritative in many, many disciplines. And he was also given in the days when nonconformists were not allowed to go to the universities in Britain because they were nonconformist. He was actually awarded a Doctor of Divinity degree by Aberdeen University, which was absolutely unheard of in those days. Now he was an incredibly spiritual man and I think his directions for prayer, although they were written for pastors, are extremely helpful for us and I think illustrate that verse in Ephesians that I read to you. Let me just give you one or two and I'll briefly comment on one or two of the directions that he gives for prayer. He gives a whole number of directions for prayer, 20 directions for prayer. I'm not going to go through them all, but just mention one or two. He begins with this comment, prayer is a matter of great difficulty and great importance to our usefulness and has a greater influence even on preaching than many are aware. And I think that's so important to remember that. I don't know about you, my friends, maybe you are all far more spiritual than I am, but I find at times that prayer is very, very hard. Many years ago, when I was first in the ministry, when I was quite a young man, I went to a meeting, I was advised to go to the meeting to hear this, what was in those days a very well-known preacher in our country, who was highly recommended And I remember going to this meeting and sitting in the meeting and listening to him, and he began his message by saying, well, of course, we all know that prayer is very easy and we never have any problems. And I sat there and I thought to myself, am I in the right business? Am I right to be a preacher of the gospel? I don't find prayer easy. I find it hard. And I still find it hard after all these years. I love praying. In fact, I've been in a prayer meeting this afternoon, and I've come back from that. I've not long come back from that. Sorry, I say afternoon, because most of you are morning, but it's evening for us here. And I love meeting with God's people and praying, but my friends, I don't know about you, but I find at times praying very hard. But it's a matter, as Doddridge says, of great usefulness. And so, my friends, I want you to encourage to keep on praying and not to give up. 921 days. Stephen, bless you, I'm not accusing you, but sometimes in your voice, I almost feel a slight, forgive me, a slight hint almost of despair. Can we keep this up? Can we keep this up? Oh, dear brother, Stephen. Yes, let's keep this up. It's hard, it's hard, but let's pray and pray. And as one of the old Puritans said, pray till it hurts and then pray. And I think that's so encouraging. I'm not trying to beat a drum or anything like that or make you feel embarrassed. I'm trying to say, let's encourage one another in these wonderful things. Dodrich goes on, he says, furnish yourselves with a variety of matter proper for prayer. And he says, for this purpose, converse much with your own hearts, get well acquainted with the state of your souls, attend to your spiritual wants and weaknesses, and frequently recollect the mercies you receive from God and inquire what returns you have made, study the nature, the works and the ways of God and make yourselves familiar with his word. I think those are wonderful words of encouragement to help us to feed our minds in prayer and to seek to understand these things. Pray over what you have been reading and seldom close your Bible without a short prayer. coming from what you have read." Well, that's slightly updating his language, because his language is very old-fashioned, but that's the sense of what he's saying. And then he says, make a serious business of secret and family prayer. Labor hard to bring your hearts into a serious frame when approaching to God in them. Again, what an encouragement to us, not only to pray when we do here every day in the prayer call, but also in our private prayers as we seek to worship God. Now, he pours out lots of pieces of practical advice here. I'm not going to give with this. He says, guard against long sentences when you pray with other people. Better to be too short than to be too long. Well, dear brother Stephen, you've told us that a number of times, haven't you? And I think that's right, isn't it? And then he says, be generally careful to observe a method in your prayers. The principal parts of prayer are invocation with adoration, confession, petition, intercession with thanksgiving, and so on. And then he leads that on. And he says, thanksgiving may be full and come before confession sometimes, but don't forget the confession. And we need to do that, don't we? It saddens me sometimes when I sit in churches, when I'm not preaching maybe, and I listen to the, what we might call the pastoral prayer or the pulpit prayer. And in some churches, there's no confession. And I think, are we so good that we don't need to confess our sins? Well, of course we do. And the wonder is we are coming to the God who loves to hear us expose our souls to him. and say, Lord, we failed you this last week, but we've come to you to receive your blessing and your grace and your help to take us through the week and to serve you in a proper manner. I think Doddridge has put his finger on that so wonderfully in these words of advice. And then he says, remember, it is the peculiar, that is the special office of the Holy Spirit to help us in prayer. That's wonderful, isn't it? As we come to pray, it's not just our words, it is God's words and it is God's Holy Spirit who comes to help us. And while it's wonderful to be in a room with other people and pray together, well, we can't be in this, can we? But in a sense, as I look at all these little screens on my laptop here and think of you all, we are together, aren't we? We're together in prayer and we're uniting our hearts And we may be separated by thousands of miles, but our hearts are together and our minds are together and our prayers are together. And we're lifting up our hearts to the great God in heaven, who does all things well and with his glory and his blessing resting upon us. That's wonderful, isn't it? Well, I think it is anyway, bless you. And then he says this, begin lower at the new intent to proceed and somewhat slower. In other words, don't rush in as it were. But then when you get what he says, warm, take heed of being transported into raptures, even though you may be melted into tears. In other words, don't lose control. And of course we move to tears sometimes, but don't lose control. Make sure that you are following Clearly it's the Lord himself guides and leads you, and so on, and he goes on to speak about that. And then let me, I'm not going to say much more, but just to say, he says, when he says, he then says, don't forget what you do when you come to pray in public. And of course we here are praying in public. Now in times of private prayer, we have time, we can spend time with the Lord, and I hope you do that. But when you're praying in public, he says, don't forget the people who you're praying with and encourage them and help them. So speak, and I need to learn this because I get excited sometimes and my language gets too fast. But my wife says to me, she still says to me sometimes, Ian, you must slow down because we get taken out, taken up with these things. But be careful that we don't, go so fast that people can't follow us. And plead and pray. Pray for our own country. Pray for our land. Pray for the Jews. Pray for the Mohammedans, he says, those in Islam. Pray for the Papists. Pray for persecuted Protestants. Pray for your country. Pray for the king and the leaders. Don't forget the magistrates. And especially don't forget the ministers. And remember the wonder of God's grace in all of these things. Plead earnestly for unconverted sinners, seeing them on the brink of hell. Plead for them. It's often the means of their awakening. And in this respect, while we are yet speaking, God appears to hear, says Godrich. When he says appears, doesn't mean that only, sometimes what he means is that God appears for us. that he hears our prayers and he answers them and he does it. And then let the blessed work of praise have a large share in your prayers and use many scripture expressions in your prayers. And then his last piece of advice is this, take care in public that you don't pray too long. Now brother Stephen has said that, hasn't he? Short prayers, not too long. Make sure that in public, what you do in private is fine, but what you do in public, don't be too long because you can lose people and they can lose interest and they can turn off and things like that. Don't be too long. Pray with God's presence and God's encouragement and God's enthusiasm. As Paul tells us in these words, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. God bless you, my friends.