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Good morning. I'm glad that you're joining with us. I mean, I don't know if it's morning where you are, but it is morning here in Sioux City, and I'm wearing a heavy sweatshirt. Welcome to the freezing north. We had four inches of snow, and since I don't go out much and I don't drive anymore, it doesn't bother me like it used to. the slip and slide stuff. Well, today is really probably one of the most important days of the series on prayer. Now, where are we going after this? I'm not sure yet, but I know we're not done. So we'll just keep adding different aspects of praying. And today is about abiding. And there's some wonderful verses in scripture about abiding. in the Lord. But I wanted to share something with this kind of important. It's the prayer of beginning again. I'm a doer. I love doing, I love running around the world, not anymore, but I did. I love going to different countries and speaking and just having, it was just so wonderful. but I needed prayer support. And I had a prayer partner, my wife, who was a godly woman of prayer. You know, she said, Jim, we need to pray. And I go, has it come to that? She wanna crown me with many crowns, like with her Bible. Yes, we need to be praying more. So she, I know what it's like to be around someone who prayer is the first and foremost important thing in their life. She was such a prayer person that when she ended up in the, an old folks home or what do you call it, you know, and she prayed so much there that the people that work there It was amazing. They would come in quietly in dust because they knew she was praying. After she died, I found many spiral bound books with prayers that she wrote to the Lord and she wanted them destroyed because it was her private in her life. And I let one of my daughters read one of them before I destroyed them all. And she said, I knew mom was godly, but when I read that book and her relationship with the Lord Jesus, she was truly deeply in love with him. And she should be teaching you on prayer, not me. Because I would be committed again to praying. I'd be studying scripture and go, I need to pray more. So I had the prayer of beginning again. I know how to pray that prayer quite a bit. And maybe you're the same, but that's okay. And the second thing I wanna say about prayer is to pray as you can, not as you can't. And I had a difficult time when I came to this area and it was, I don't know how many years, it was way over 30 years ago. The guy who was over the ministry was Mark Bubeck and we have him on our website and you can listen to him teach on prayer or even hear him pray. But we would go to his house every Thursday morning and pray. The staff and some of the elders of the church would come because this was connected with the church in the beginning. And it was, You know, when he would pray, I felt like I can't pray. This guy has the most phenomenal prayer life and prays so beautifully. And, you know, I'm more a prayer person for the cowboys and loggers rather than the city slickers. But, you know, don't compare. Mark was called to be a man of prayer. And there are, I've met others down through my life that were people whose life was prayer. That was it. Their whole life was praying. And that was the most important thing. And prayer is important, but I enjoy meeting people and working with people in all of that too. And so I found the importance of my wife. I tried to get her to go on trips to different parts of the world with me because it'd be paid for. We didn't have the money to travel to these exotic places. But she said, no, Jim, you go and I'll pray. And it really made a difference. And one time her praying, being sensitive to the spirit, we were in Nigeria. And we had just had a ministry to Christian leaders from 10 Western African countries. And it was wonderful and had the privilege of counseling most of those leaders with issues of evil spirits and things like that that they were dealing with. But when we got to Nigeria and we were really in the heart of Nigeria, not you know, sort of on the edge of the Sahara Desert, not quite that far yet, but in that direction. And there was an attempted coup of the president. And so somebody or some group tried to kill the president. And all of a sudden we're told that the airports are closed, the roads are closed in and out of the country. that if you're on the street after dark, you'd be shot. And I looked at the soldiers and most of them hadn't started shaving yet. And it was rather spooky. There were these young boys with submachine guns all over them. The day before, there wasn't a soldier anywhere. The next day, they were everywhere. And it was really quite a spooky experience. And yet God had called us there. But I know that we were so well protected because of my wife's praying. That's what she did. And she was crying out to God and she hadn't even heard, you know, in those days, you didn't get the news as fast of what was going on. But God had told her that our whole group was very possibly going to be in trouble. And she was crying out to God for it. And so I know, and it's wonderful to be that kind of a person that God can trust you with his secrets, but we all need a secret place. And I wanted to talk about that because we mentioned it, but what really is a secret place? What is that place? Well, number one, it's a place where we meet God. It's a place that is rather protective. Years ago, they made a Christian movie and I think it was called The War Room. And it's about a lady that had a place that she set apart to pray and do real battle. And a lot of people were motivated by that Christian movie to have a place. But being motivated and doing it is two different things. And I know a person, he'll crown me now if he hears this, so don't listen to this video. He had a place built, and it's wonderful, and it's so nice, and it's still nice. He hasn't used it to be his war room. I mean, I know what it's like when you're around people of prayer, how they challenge you, not telling you, but just their prayer life challenges you. And so that's why I said the prayer of beginning again, I would be found guilty. I'm not praying enough. I enjoy people and being with them and sharing with them and preaching and all of that. And yet I'm short in the area of prayer. And so the prayer of beginning again, Lord, I'm sorry, I'm here again. And I need to get more serious about prayer. And I wanna start again. There's nothing wrong with that. Beginning again. Now, in praying in the secret place is the door. The door is a secret and Jesus said that. So the real secret of the secret place is the door. And what do we mean? It's the door where you can shut out the pressures all of the distractors of prayer that are going on. And you wanna shut the door, you wanna be shut in with God, shut out the world, shut out all of the, but, you know, and especially like shut out worry, tremendous pressures that you're under. It's amazing when you get serious about prayer, all the stuff that will happen, to keep you from praying. And they're important things. I'm not saying they're not important, but they're distractors. And the enemy doesn't want you to have a secret place. And so you're going to be in a spiritual battle when you start. Just expect that. All kinds of things are going to happen that normally don't happen. Your phone may ring more than it ever rings and all this. You just got to say, I'm not going to answer it. um, to do this video. Um, I just got a new cell phone, um, for myself and, uh, Paul had turned it off. So it wouldn't ring while I was talking to you. Um, because I wouldn't pick it up and want to talk to them. Cause that's more important than you are. But, but you know, I'm saying we know how the enemy loves to distract. He, he doesn't want you. on your knees and on your face before God. And he'll put all kinds of pressures on you. The second thing about shutting the door is learning to pray through. Now, this is not a statement that is said very much today. It's from when I was growing up as a new believer, they talked about praying through. And praying through is praying until the burden's lifted. And, you know, because most of us would have a prayer list so long we'd never get through it with all the things that are going on in people. And we pray until God has lifted that burden from us. We know that we have laid it before his feet. And then if we're to pray again, allow the spirit of God to bring that up. But we're praying through that. I think the second thing about praying that I want to share with you is the idea of the burden, and that has to do with praying through also. And that you pray until the burden's gone. You know, there was a song we used to sing years ago. I believe the answer's on the way. And that's the idea. I've prayed through and I know God has heard it. I know I've laid it before his feet and I can just leave it there now and go on. So you wanna, shut out all distractions and shut in into the presence of God. And you know that you're in his presence and then pray without the distractions. And when you shut in, you'll find that when the door is really shut, you enter into a deep peace. There's just a real peace. And it's it's wonderful. Now, how do you choose a place? I was thinking of a of a pastor. Paul really likes him and we have him on our website. But he was talking about they take the first month of the year and I think September the whole month. The church calls the church and the church is thousands of people to pray. And I mean, and he's talking about his his where he prays a comfortable chair. Always a cup of coffee. I mean, does God answer prayer without a cup of coffee? I'm sorry. I'm not sure. I don't know. Maybe he does. But, you know, the importance of a place where it's super comfortable. And if you doze, you doze. That's okay. But that kind of place is so quiet that there's no interruptions and you can pray through. And praying through is I pray until that burden that's on my heart is gone, that I've been able to lay it before the feet of the Lord and then go on. And sometimes you may have to pray through about many, many things over and over and over. You know, we need to, Psalms five, Psalms five, pardon me, Psalms 55, 22 says, cast your burdens on the Lord. What does that mean to cast my burdens on the Lord? The burdens are these things that are, that I'm troubled about and concerned about, but I cannot cast my responsibilities. That's very important. God has given us certain responsibilities and we need to fulfill those responsibilities. But the burdens are that which I can come before him. See, my concerns and the concerns that you have are our prayer motivations. How do I know what to pray? I'm really concerned about this. Yes. But worries are prayer killers. When a concern goes to worry, then you can't pray. You really can't focus. You're being drawn away from all the focus that you have and so on. So, see, if you have concerns, deal with them because those concerns will turn into worry. And when you're in worry, then it's very, very difficult to really pray because worry is something that like eats on you and tears you up on the inside. I'm going to give you in a minute something that you ought to have wherever you pray. It's a list of nine things. And you need these nine things. And I will go over them twice. But before we get to these nine things, I want you to realize that if you don't have a time to pray, you probably won't pray. You need to have a specific time to pray. Now, since I'm not working eight hours a day, then it's easier for me, but maybe yours is going to be a Saturday. or it's going to be a Sunday afternoon, or some time that you're going to have where you're really going to focus prayer and to pray. Now, let's go to these things. And it's really nine reasons that I need to have in my mind when I go to shut the door and to pray. And those nine reasons are from Ephesians. I know there was one thing I wanted to share. I made a note of it. I'm looking here. Yeah. Philippians 4.6 is a wonderful call to prayer. And Philippians 4.6 says, worry is God's call for you to pray. There are Christians that don't believe in prayer. but they believe and worry. Are you one of those? Cast your burdens on the Lord. Cast those worries on the Lord and pray through. Now let's go over these nine things. And I've shared these with my church and anybody that wants to have a prayer life, you need these nine specific things. And they're from Ephesians 3.20, which is probably the most wonderful, powerful verse on prayer in the New Testament. So I need these things in my mind. When I'm going to meet with God, the first thing I need to know that God is able. Why do I go? Why am I having a secret place? Why am I going to carve out some time in my life? because the God I meet with, the God I'm laying these burdens out before him is able. That's number one. Number two, not only is he able, he's able to do. So I'm talking to someone that's able to do and to carry on. The second, the third thing is the word exceedingly. God is able to do exceedingly. I've got that, I know. The fourth, abundantly. And then five, above. Six is all. Eight, I mean six, is all, seven, we, eight, ask, nine, or think. So I'm going to God who is able to do abundantly above all that I could ask him or even think of laying before his feet. We're speaking to someone that can do something. And that's why we're in the secret place. and laying that before him. When I was pastoring my church, one of my churches, I should say, I believe it was a church in Tacoma, Washington, we were not having much of people coming to prayer meetings. You know, it wasn't really a prayer meeting. It was sort of a Bible study with prayer tacked on. And I found that in the other churches that I pastored also. And so I wondered, how can I get people interested in prayer? Now, I hadn't heard the Brooklyn Tabernacle and his neat stuff, and the church that Paul's brother was going to down in the South that has a huge prayer ministry, you know. So you see churches either have a great prayer ministry or hardly, you know, a few showing up to pray because they don't need nothing, you know, so why pray? Well, this was a blessing. And if you're a pastor or you have a prayer group, which was really important, I prayed and I asked God, because I didn't know, because remember, the prayer person was my wife. I was the doer and she prayed. So the Lord really, really helped me. And he gave me this idea. And so on Sunday night, I said, all right, when you come to the Sunday night service, we're gonna have testimonies to answer prayer. But the answer to prayer had to be within the last week. And I didn't know if they were gonna show me to the back door of the church or what. But somehow, it really grabbed the people. And then I gave them this. Why are we having a prayer meeting? Because we have a God that's able. We're not just talking to the wall or the ceiling. We have a God that's able to do exceedingly above all that I could possibly imagine. Unbelievable stuff that God is able to do. Will you believe that? And so we would also have take prayer requests. Someone says, you know, I'm really burdened to talk to so-and-so at work. I want you to pray so someone to raise their hand and they lead us all in prayer That they would be able to do that. Well now they had to tell us that the next week what happened Because we had prayed for them. So what happened? we got the whole church that to start praying and it it it caught fire because of I thought, are we gonna have more people come to the prayer meeting than we are coming to the church and hear me preach and be eloquent? That's not fair. Why should God get more than I do? That kind of thing. Well, anyway, so the people had this thing that when they're going, you need that verse. Who am I talking to? One that's able to do what? Above, you cannot put a fence around what God's able to do. And that's often what we do. What is he able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you could possibly ask or think? That's wonderful. So we shared this. And also at that time, we were encouraging our people not to get in debt, to try to get out of debt. That was what a trap it was. If God hadn't provided, then maybe you don't need it. And so we encourage people and most if they followed our teaching could get out of debt within a year. I'm not talking about a house. I'm talking about junk, toys for the kids and all this stuff that God hadn't provided and we're gonna get it anyway. Well, so we had a new couple get saved and started coming to our church. And they thought, this is kind of a weird church. They're telling people, you know, get out of debt and pray. Oh my, what did we get into? You know, but they got saved and they were really excited because they were hearing wonderful answers to prayer. They would have a prayer request by different people in the church on Sunday night, the next Sunday night, we would get the answers. We prayed. What had happened? How God answered prayer. And all of a sudden, I told you that meeting was more exciting than my eloquence on Sunday morning, because God was real. God really answers prayer. I mean, that's... Yeah, you go to the Brooklyn Tabernacle and study this stuff. Why do they have so many people coming out, standing in line before the door opens on prayer meeting night? People never stood in line to come to my church on prayer meeting night. You know, lining up down the street, you know, just it's, well, because you see that God is real. This is real. What the Bible says is true. I'm seeing God's word in action, answering prayer, and God doing impossible situations and so on. Well, anyway, this couple are brand new Christians. And one morning, the wife told her husband, we're out of toothpaste. And he says, well, go charge some. That's not a need. you know, to charge toothpaste to go with, you know, and you charge a bunch of stuff more than you're gonna get with toothpaste. But why don't we try what the church is teaching? Why don't we pray about it? Why don't we pray that God would answer our prayer for toothpaste? And the wife was really excited about it. The husband was, why would you want to bother God about toothpaste? Meaning the world's going to hell. Hey, we need toothpaste down here. I'm not being shot at, if you can hear that. They're doing some construction upstairs. But that's interesting. We're talking about prayer and about interruptions and we're being interrupted. Anyway, this lady and her husband, before he went to work, he worked for the newspaper there in Tacoma. Now we've got two guys. Oh, this is wonderful. See, not only does the enemy not want me to talk about prayer, he doesn't want you to hear it either. So anyway, what's interesting was they pray together and testing God. I mean, in a way, you know, if God answered our prayer, you know, we need toothpaste for the kids. They live in an apartment complex where you've got your mail in a steel, the steel, great big steel. Everybody goes and you have the key and get your mail out and you're standing there. She went, there was a lot of ladies and there was a free box of Crest, a little sample box of Crest toothpaste. And she goes, oh, God has his prayer, I got this. And the lady says, oh, the crest, I don't like that. Do you want it? So these ladies are giving her boxes of crest. I think she had over 20 boxes of toothpaste. She's standing in our church, the first time she ever really prayed about a need, and God sent her 20 boxes of toothpaste. After she had prayed, tears are running down her cheeks, and she made this statement to the church. Oh, why didn't I pray for steaks? I'm telling you. I mean, prayer meetings can be fun. You know, they can be exciting. God is alive. God answers prayer. You can't talk to that brand new Christian couple that God doesn't answer prayer. I said, well, how could he answer prayer? They hadn't even prayed. He said, before they call, I will answer. God knew that he's gonna lay it on their heart and that he needed to get the toothpaste there. And then they prayed about it and went and there was the toothpaste. Beloved, I'll tell you, you start getting and having a prayer life, seeing God answer prayer, seeing God intervene in situations that are impossible, then you know that my God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all I could ask or think. Go to the secret place, shut the door and pray to God in secret and he will reward you openly. Father, I pray that what I'm saying may motivate people and I could share so many wonderful answers to prayer. to have a place where they would meet you, a comfortable place. And they can have a mug of coffee. That's okay. God, you don't hate coffee. One pastor said he liked to have a candle, whatever. It's your place to meet God. Make it comfortable. And if you doze off because you're tired, praise the Lord. When you undose, pick up where you stopped praying and pray. just have that place, shut out the world, shut out all the distractions and shut in to the power and to an answer in God. Lord, I pray that you would use this, that people would be motivated to have a place to meet with you and to lay, to cast their burdens on the Lord and to see that you are a God who answers prayer and that you are alive and real. And so I thank you, Father, for the privilege of calling these people. And if you had a prayer life at one time and you don't have it now, then have the prayer of beginning again. Lord, I drifted, I got busy. And Lord, I wanna back, I wanna have that close relationship with you where I can share my heart with you and see you. answer my prayer cries. In Jesus' name we ask this. Amen.
Webinar 21 - Why Close The Door
Series Webinar
Join Dr. Jim Logan live on the topic of the secret place. Why does Jesus say that when you enter the secret place we are to close the door? What are we keeping out and in when we close the door?
Sermon ID | 102920191522805 |
Duration | 32:33 |
Date | |
Category | TV Broadcast |
Language | English |
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