Came to pass that he was praying in a certain place. When he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, And there's some things that come natural to folks, and a certain part of praying comes natural to people. Even saved people will pray when they get into a real jam. But while there's some things that come natural to us, most things in life are a learned skill. Driving is a learned skill. You don't start out knowing how to drive. And I've traveled enough, and it's fascinating to me, when I pastored in Chicago and we had people from all over the world, I could watch somebody driving and just about tell you what part of the world they're from. because they learn to drive differently in different parts of the world. And Cindy and I'd be following somebody, I'd say, you know, if we catch up with them, so that'll be an Eastern European. That'll be a Filipino. That'll be a Mexican, just because of how they drive. You learn to drive differently. And it's scary to drive. When Brother Brown and I went to England and Wales together, he did all the driving, which was just fine with me, because I don't adjust well to other types of driving. A lot of things are learned skills. God calls somebody to be a preacher, but preaching is a learned skill. You have to have a gift that God gave you, but then you have to learn how to use it. Parenting is a learned skill. You may be biologically capable of playing a part in the conception of children, but that doesn't mean you know anything about parenting. Parenting's a learned skill, and it's one of the crises of our day, is people are not being taught how to parent. Well, praying is a learned skill. That's what's made clear to us in verse one, when the disciples said, teach us how to pray. And so there's some things here that make up element of praying. By the way, Brother Brown, when should I be done? Okay, yeah, I won't go that long. I'm a good independent Baptist. I preach 40 minutes. But that's, you've seen the meme on Facebook where the pastor is saying, you know, I won't preach long today, and then immediately posted underneath that it says, independent fact checkers have determined that this is a false statement. teach us to pray, that's what they asked the Lord Jesus. So he said some things to them, and he said unto them, when ye pray, here's the first one, he says, when ye pray, say, our Father which art in heaven. That's how you start praying, and the idea is simply this, this should be personal. We're not praying to some far-off God in the vain hope that somehow we get a message to him. I've been to a big Buddhist temple in Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City, they call it now, but I've been there and they have all sorts of praying stations and they all involve paying some kind of money. You go to one place and you buy incense. and you tell them what your prayers are, and they'll light the candles, and the incense goes up, and they say as the smoke goes up, the prayers of the priest go up, the Buddhist priest. And of course, the more incense you pay for, the more prayers you get. And that's their idea of praying. Or another place, you pray to have your sins taken away, at that Buddhist temple, and you'll go to a priest, and they have all these little birds in cages, and you'll pay the priest, and the priest will take out one of the birds, and he'll hold the bird in one hand, and put his other hand on your head, and he'll transfer your sins to the bird, and pray that your sins go away, and then he releases the bird, and as the bird flies away, that's supposed to take your sins away. I've been to Hindu temples, and been to one in Trinidad, and been to one in Singapore, and the one in Singapore, we couldn't get close enough to hear the prayers, but I could in the one in Trinidad, and they're just desperately trying to find some way to get the attention of one of the gods to get their prayers heard. That's not how we pray. This is personal. We're praying to our Heavenly Father. We're communicating in such a fashion, we have a personal relationship here. And we start out with that. We have a personal relationship and we pray based on that personal relationship. And we go from there. And we treat it as a personal relationship. And I first met the young lady that is my daughter-in-law. And my son had been communicating with her, and her brother, and he had been students in the Bible college I was president of. And as a result, she knew a number of students that had been there in college under me. But we had never met. I found out they were communicating and my son came and told me he was communicating long distance with this young lady and they had a serious relationship and so forth. And at the time I'm pastoring and I found out she was working in a preschool in Maryland. And I had a preschool. And I had an open spot in a preschool. So I called and introduced myself to her. Said what what kind of noticed? Do you know the play? Oh the place you're working at she threw a couple weeks I said you want to come work in preschool for me and she said yes, and So I hired her and a little bit later She called and told my son and my son came in to see me said dad didn't even talk to me about this I said son. I didn't talk to you about anybody else. I hired either so she was coming out and and we're picking her up at the airport, and she knows these folks, several of whom who know me as Dr. Stringer, president, Landmark Baptist College, that's how they knew me. There's certain attitudes students take to you because they look at you and say, this is the guy who could expel me, you know? And she knew some folks who, anybody that really knows me would find this hard to believe, but she knew some folks who, when they looked at me, they looked at me as sort of a scary person, you know, authoritative person. And so people are talking to her about that, said, how are you gonna communicate with him? How are you gonna talk to him? And they're telling her how scary I am. So she'd thought about that, how she was gonna handle that. And so we get there, and these are her first words. By this time, they're talking marriage, and her first thing she ever said to me, she just walked up and said, Dad, I love you. I've been wrapped around her little finger ever since then, by the way. I mean, it was a very personal communication. And we are supposed to deal with God the same way, and aren't you glad? Religion after religion has a God or gods as some distant, far-off character that hopefully you can find some way of impressing. We have a Heavenly Father. We can talk to Him like that. And in prayer, we're supposed to go to Him, not flippantly, but in prayer, we're supposed to go to Him like that. Our Father, which art in heaven. And then the second thing, prayer should be worshipful. Hallowed be thy name. While we go personally, in a personal sense, we also go remembering who it is we're speaking to. the creator of the universe. It's been referred to in various ways. If you look at ancient literature, he's called the God of the Jews, but he's called the creator God. We call him the savior God, but he is, at the same time, we have a personal relationship with him. He is God and we're supposed to worship Him and acknowledge Him that way and not treat Him lightly or flippantly, even though we treat Him personally. Now, those two things alone would correct an awful lot of prayers. Awful lot of folks talk to God as if somebody far off, they can't imagine they have any involvement with him. But some of the folks who get past that talk to him very flippantly and very irreverently, like someone that they can treat just any way they please. And you even hear people in settings joking about asking God to help them have the opportunity to commit this sin or that sin or another sin. And let me promise you that doesn't work. He's supposed to be approached personally. But same time that he's approached personally, he's supposed to be approached reverently and worshipfully. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. We're supposed to approach him with this attitude. We want the will of God. How do we normally approach him, by the way? You all might have memories of this. Back in old days, it was very common to have a Santa, you know, in the department stores, and the little kids would go sit in Santa's lap, and you just read off, and you only had a few moments. And so you're working to get your list of the most important things, maybe not everything, but the very top of your list, the three or five or whatever important. I remember my parents telling me I could only ask Santa Claus for so many things. And so I'd work on my list to figure out what are the very most important ones. My list was always longer than what I was allowed to go for. But the most important one, you say, I want this, and I want this, and I want this, and I want this. That's the only kind of prayer that lots of folks know. I would even suggest to you, it's the only kind of prayer that a lot of real Christians know. Lord, give me this, give me that. Give me what I want. I could take some of those and some of this and some of that. And they've got that. I'd like to have that, too, or maybe even better. And we're supposed to pray for the will of God that God's will be done. In other words, if there's something God doesn't want me to have, that that ought to be my attitude. I've, over the years, I like telling stories when I pray and I found, or when I preach, and I found that's what folks remember. And I have several messages on prayer where I go to some of the scripture and lay down the principle and I just tell story after story of answered prayer and how God blessed. And I found folks love that. I thought once to balance out the thing, I thought I'd preach a sermon about prayer requests where God never gave me what I want. just because it happens, and you need to be aware of that. And I preached that sermon, and I decided never ever to preach it again. One look on the people's face while I was going through that, it was all true, and it was a biblical point, but it didn't appear that it blessed anybody. So I decided to let that slide. We do an awful lot of praying about what we want without being careful. to look for what the will of God is and want what the will of God is and have submission in our prayers. Says God would guide us. That's just wonderful when what we're calling for, what we're asking for, what we're pleading for be the will of God. Sometimes worst thing God could do to us is answer some of our prayers. I remember one time, first church, I pastored. We had a family, they were looking for church, and they visited our church, and they were visiting a couple other churches at the same time, and I had just gotten there, we didn't have very many people, and we were short of, there's just a number of skills that are really helpful in having a good church setting, and we were really short, a number of skilled people, and this couple would really increase our skill set. in a church, and I just begged and pleaded with the Lord that as they looked and as they decided that they would decide to come and be with us. Boy, did I learn a lesson the hard way. They came to be with us. They proved in attitude and disposition and behavior to be the ultimate nightmare of a church family. But I asked the Lord and asked the Lord. I didn't ask the Lord for his will. I didn't ask the Lord to guide him. I didn't ask the Lord to bring him to us if they'd be the best thing for our church. I just asked the Lord to bring him to us because they had skill sets that would meet needs in our church. And they taught me a lesson about praying about that kind of thing. I mean, sometimes the worst thing God can do to you is say, okay, if that's what you really want, we're supposed to pray that God's will be done. That means in terms of where we might want to go, what we might want to do, what we might want to have, the opportunities we might want to take advantage of. Wealth would ruin a lot of people if they had it. And we're supposed to, as we approach praying, Lord, thy will be done. Young people who are looking towards the future ought to be prayerful about having the right wife or the right husband. I didn't just say this wife or this husband, but having the right wife or the right husband. Ought to be prayerful, but ought to be prayerful for the will of God. There's a church I used to preach at every year. For several years, I did this. The pastor's daughter, I was preaching there during her teenage years. And she would ask every preacher that came to pray for her that she would get a godly husband. I mean, she was spending an awful lot of her teenage years thinking about getting married. I don't think she was the first teenager that ever did that, but that was just really on her mind a lot. And I mean, she made sure that every preacher that came there knew she wanted to be prayed for, that she would have a godly husband. It got to be a little bit of a joke among preachers that went there often Because you knew she was gonna talk to you about that while you were there But I'll tell you this I'm still in touch with the family. She ended up with a godly husband and A lot of young people. Yeah, a lot of young ladies her age in that youth group. I'm sure ended up with husbands and that they weren't happy with, that weren't a blessing to them, that weren't a help to them when it was all over, she ended up with a godly one. I mean, there ought to be, in our prayers, a matter of submission to the will of God that comes about in terms of what we ask for or what we're looking towards. And then, We should pray for God's blessing, for our provision. That's what we pray for the best and the most. Again, Lord, give us this, give us that, but a certain amount of that. And he said to them, when you pray, say, our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. Now, there's two things very obvious in that request. We are looking for God to supply and sustain us. No doubt about that. There's not wrong to pray for that. That is part of what the Lord taught us in terms of the Lord teaching us to pray. But did you catch the emphasis on the daily there? not praying that God would miraculously make us wealthy and in the wrong of being wealthy, but that focus on things can be extremely dangerous. I knew a family that prayed and worked and budgeted for a boat, and there's nothing wrong with owning a boat, but they worked at that for a couple years, and when they finally got it, it absolutely ruined them. It took them out of church. It destroyed their spiritual life. Both of the teenagers in that family got out of church because of mom and dad's boat and wanting to go boating every weekend, and I remember talking to him about it. He said, man, he said, if I was not going boating on Sunday, I'd be wasting this gift the Lord gave us. Both of his teenagers, after they got out of church, got absolutely ruined. You say, well, maybe they would have anyway. I don't know, but I know for a fact being out of church sure didn't help them. When I say ruined, last I knew, the boy was in prison. The last I knew, the girl was having her third child out of wedlock by, I believe, three different fathers. I mean, some prayers, way out of scope, it is perfectly appropriate to pray that God would give us day by day our daily bread. Some of the greatest, sweetest moments in my life have been seeing the Lord answer those prayers. Back, Cindy and I had just been married for a few months. We're living at a Christian camp, And a fairly famous blizzard hit. I was supposed to preach in Ohio for four weeks. And we, in fact, we even had the car. So, you know, we started to pack the car. We had not stocked up on groceries because we were going to be gone for a month. And a blizzard hit. And you couldn't get anywhere. I mean, you literally couldn't get anywhere. And we weren't prepared for food at all. We literally used up all the food we had in a day. And we literally went a day without eating. And we're stuck there, man, and you're not supposed to drive anywhere, and the roads are closed, and we don't have anything to eat, and I'm a new husband, and I'm feeling like the biggest failure in the world because I have not taken care of everything, I don't have anything there for my wife, and we're not planned and prepared, and I don't know what to do. So I made up my mind, I'm gonna drive into town and get groceries, no matter what the roads are like. And so it took me two hours just to get the car out on the road. And I got to going, and by now it's bitter cold. You should have seen me. I was something. I had two of everything. I had two gloves. I mean, I had winter gloves, and in order to get another pair of gloves, I had rubber kitchen gloves on, and then I had winter gloves on over them. I had two pair of pants. I had two sweatshirts. I mean, I'm walking like this. I can't bend. because it's so cold, 60 below wind chill. Get the car on the road. And once I get it on the road for a little bit, I'm making some headway and I get about a mile away and there's a dip in the road. And I see that dip in the road and there's three cars stuck in the snow in that dip in the road. So I thought if I go on the edge, I can get around them. So that's what I tried. And I got on the edge to where the car is literally at this angle, when the car started to slide down into the dip on the road. I'm not just stuck in the snow. I'm stuck in the snow in a fashion, I've got to get out the passenger door just to get out of the car. And there I am stuck. And I'm a mile away from home, 64 below windchill factors, what they would tell, 60 below windchill factor. I start walking back, I'm the most discouraged person on the planet. I'm walking by this farmhouse and a lady comes out in a porch and motions to me, said, you wanna come in and warm up? She said, I saw what happened. So I went up, went in. Thank you, and she said, what in the world are you doing out in this? And I told her the situation. She says, do you know what we do here? I said, no, ma'am. She said, we have a chicken farm, but we don't just raise them. You see the white building right behind the house. Says, we have a processing plant. We make chicken dinners. And we raise the chickens, but we package them. And she said that that warehouse is full of chicken dinners. She said, you can buy as many as you want. I had chicken and rice, chicken and au gratin potatoes, chicken and this, chicken and that, chicken and the other thing. I come walking home, chicken dinner's all up this arm, chicken dinner's all up this arm. I come walking up, Cindy comes to the door and says, Phil, what happened to the car? I said, don't worry about that now. She said, we've got groceries. We lived on chicken dinners for several days, till the roads cleared up. I can't tell you what a blessing that whole occasion turned out to be for us though. Because throughout, and that's more than 40 years ago, throughout our whole marriage, when there's a need, one of us will turn to the other and say, I wonder where the chickens are coming from this time. It's a reminder, it's appropriate to pray for your daily bread. It's appropriate to pray that God will meet that need. That's an appropriate thing to ask God for. He expects us to do that and he does that. Many times in ways we wouldn't have imagined or couldn't have expected and have seen God take care of that over and over again. Well, give us this day by day, give us day by day our daily bread. And then another thing, prayer should seek fatherly forgiveness. Verse four, and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone that's indebted to us. Let me say, lots of people really get confused about this. Say, I thought my sins got forgiven when I got saved. To understand God, we see God in two different roles. God is the judge of the universe. As a sinner, I stand guilty before the judge of the universe. But when I put my faith and trust in what Jesus Christ did for me in the cross at Calvary, I am forgiven in the courtroom of heaven. I am forgiven by God the judge. I never have to deal with my forgiveness before him again. It is taken care of once and forever and for all. But that's not the only kind of relationship we have with God. This began by appealing to our father. We're talking here about family forgiveness. My son is my son all the time. There's nothing he could do that would cause him to not be my son. There's nothing he could do that would cause me not to love him. He was a really good kid as a teenager. I had very, very little trouble with him, but I would tell him all the time, I said, Robbie, you're my favorite son. He said, Dad, I'm your only son. I said, but you don't understand. You could be my least favorite son. On rare occasion, if I was upset with him, I said, you're my least favorite son today. Here's a couple times not to be my son, because he was my son. A couple times to have the right relationship with his father, he had to say, Dad, I'm sorry. Part of our prayer life as believers ought to be that we take close look at who we are and our own mistakes, our own sins, our own failings, and we get the forgiveness, not of the judge we're already forgiven. We get the forgiveness of our father so that our father-child relationship is not hindered in any way. And that's supposed to be part of our regular prayer. So wait a minute, my prayer is I go to the Lord and say, I want this and I want this and this. See, there's a whole lot more to it than that, even though that fits into it. There's a whole lot more to it. We ought to be on a regular basis, looking at ourself, examining ourself. This is what keeps sins, which we all have trouble with, from becoming habits. that control and dominate our life. One friend of mine put it, he has a whole sermon entitled this, Keeping Short Accounts with God. Today, making right my mistakes of the day. Not having to come back to them years from now. Not having to come back to them when I finally get caught. but today keeping short accounts with God as part of my regular daily prayer life saying, Lord, forgive me for this. All Christians still have sin problem. Some folks, I believe genuine Christians, can become dominated by sins to the destruction of their earthly life, even to the point that God takes some people out of this life over their sin. It is accepting your sin that gets you in that kind of trouble. making it right with God on a daily basis. Because we're gonna go daily and say, Lord, give me what I need. We're gonna go daily, hopefully we're gonna go daily appealing to our Father. We're gonna go daily worshiping the Lord. We're gonna go daily in submission to His will. We're gonna go daily asking for our daily bread. that as we do all that, we'll be self-conscious. Lord, I missed that witnessing opportunity. That was sin, I'm sorry. Help me not to do that again. Lord, had a bad attitude in what I said to this person about this in this situation. Lord, help me not to do that. Because you understand, bad attitudes are a question of degrees. All of us have moments of being ungrateful that we need to deal with. Some folks whole life is being ungrateful. When you get to the scripture that's so powerful in Hebrews 12 about bitterness, It says, talks about us looking diligently, lest any little root of bitterness springing up. There's some people whose whole lives are dominated by bitterness. You know, the cure for that is when it's a little bit of bitterness. You make it right with the Lord. you recognize it as sin, you ask for God's forgiveness, and you ask him in such a fashion that you can deal with that and it does not grow. When you become a pastor, a preacher, you end up dealing with marriage problems and counseling about marriage problems. And this was the thing about that experience that was so shocking to me in the early years. That if you're talking to folks who have a troubled marriage, and you get to pass today's argument, to find out what's really wrong, you'll find out you're dealing with something that goes back years. And it's just now coming out. It was on the inside for ages. And it grew and it built. And now it's coming out, and after it's been a part of a person for five years, or 10 years, or 20 years. Man, solving it then is really tough. The truth is, most things can be solved if you solve them right away, if you get to them on a daily basis. And I've had to say, in my own understanding of scripture, and I know not everybody agrees with me, but my own understanding of scripture, there's one grounds for divorce. And it's not mandatory. Forgiveness and working things out is better, but in my understanding, there's one grounds. But I've told people this over and over again. Okay, here you are, you're facing this. You have grounds for divorce, but you don't have to do that. I'm pleading with you not to do that, but you have to do this. Either forgive or go ahead and get the divorce. Because if you don't forgive, you're gonna end up with a divorce down the road. if you don't forgive. You have to forgive, or it doesn't work. And I've seen folks, they come through partner making a mistake, and they say, we wanna get past this, we wanna have a good marriage, but it's not forgiven, it's not forgotten, it gets thrown at them, and thrown at them, and thrown at them, and guess what always happens to that down the road? Always. Forgive. It's part of the experience of being a long-term pastor somewhere. Every pastor has to deal with lots of folks who do things that make his pastor it more difficult. You forgive. I know some folks so bitter over things done to them in the church, they can't pastor anymore. And sooner or later, every pastor makes some mistake that disappoints you. long-term pastorate, you got a bunch of folks who've been forgiven by the pastor and who have forgiven the pastor because that's the only way you have a long-term anything in this life. We're supposed to be going to the Lord as part of our prayer and then Another part of it is in forgiving other people. As we're asking the Lord to help us, take care of us, to bless us, to meet our daily needs, we're making things right with God. And it even uses this example. It tells us we can pray this way. Lord, forgive me for having done this just the same way that I forgive other people. I don't know about you, but I really like to be forgiven by God completely and totally. I even like it when God forgives me in such a fashion that he doesn't make me pay every price that I could pay. But I'm supposed to when I deal with this, Lord, I want you to forgive me the same way I forgive these people, whoever in life that wronged me. That's a little bit scarier. How do you want the Lord to forgive you? Completely and totally, isn't his mercy and grace marvelous? That he uses any of us, that he blesses any of us, that he meets our needs, just absolutely marvelous. I am so glad that I can be forgiven by my Father. But I'm supposed to forgive other folks exactly the same way I want to be forgiven. And I find that a little bit tougher. I'm really good on the one side of forgiveness. That's great. Forgive me completely. I'm really appreciated. I'm grateful for it. But I'm supposed to forgive other people that same way. And that's supposed to be part of my prayer life so that on a daily basis, I'm like, Lord, give me what I need today. Lord, you give me what I need today, forgive me where I have failed you today. And Lord, part of the same prayer, help me to forgive this person here that failed me today. That's a part of our prayer life, which is a whole lot different than taking God a list of things we'd like to have. And then, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Part of our prayer life ought to be that the Lord will guide us and strengthen us and keep us from falling into sin. That he deliver us. Now, let's not be silly. Some folks run into situations that were designed for sin and ask the Lord to help them get through it. That's not the prayer, they say, Lord, deliver us from evil. God was gracious to me. As a teenager, I was a bus kid. I had no supervision at home to keep me from doing wrong things. In fact, my mom thought I was silly because I didn't go to all the parties that all my friends went to. I actually went to more of them than she knew about. But I was at a lot of parties when I was a teenager that involved drinking, but never drank one drop of alcohol. The Lord was being gracious to me. I did not have the support and guidance and direction of parents and all that to keep me away from that. God was gracious to me. But it did finally dawn on me, as I got a little bit older, I don't get to have recreation like this if I want to keep my life pointed the right direction. God was gracious to me for a period of time, and I am grateful for that. But he wasn't obligated to be gracious to me forever. At some point, I was obligated to grow up spiritually and not be around things like that. By the grace of God, I got to age 67 without taking the first drink of alcohol. I have a suspicion I won't take up drinking. I think I'm going to make it the rest of the way. We're supposed to be very, very cautious, asking God to protect us from getting into situations where we could be drawn into sin. Instead of asking God to let us skate by if we are drawn into sin and protect us from the consequences, part of our prayer ought to be, Lord, keep me from sin. It makes sense then there's some places you don't go. There's some things that would make sin easier that you don't do. I remember very, very early years in the ministry. I'm a youth pastor, and Thursday night church visitation, and I had a fellow, the pastor asked me to talk with him and take him on visitation, teach him what to do on visitation. He was a relatively new Christian. And so we were visitation pastors, or partners for some time. And we were out one time driving. We were in his truck and on visitation. And I was getting something out of his glove compartment. And there was a pack of cigarettes in there. And I knew he told me he had quit smoking. That had been a besetting sin to him. And he'd had to wrestle with it after he got saved, quit smoking. But he quit smoking. There was a pack of cigarettes there in his glove compartment. He said, I just keep that there to remind me that I don't smoke anymore and I've got power over this. I said, brother, I don't think I would do that. I've never smoked a cigarette either, and that's never been a temptation to me. That's never appealed to me. The thought of that was never made any sense to me. I said, if that's something you used to wrestle with, I don't think I'd have a pack of them in a glove compartment. That was 40 years ago. I don't have to tell you how this story goes on. He goes back to smoking. But now been so long, there is a last chapter to that story. And by last chapter, I mean, not long ago, he died from lung cancer. That's why I say last chapter, it really was the last chapter of that story. We're supposed to be asking the Lord to deliver us from evil, keep us from the chance of sinning as much as possible, give us strength when we can't be kept from the chance of it, but asking the Lord, that's supposed to be part of our prayer life, asking the Lord to deliver us from evil. And one last lesson about prayer as we read on a little bit. Verse five, he said unto them, which of you shall have a friend and shall go unto him at midnight and say unto him, friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine in his journey has come to me and I have nothing except for him. And he from within shall answer and say, trouble me not, the door is now shut, my children are with me in bed, I cannot rise and give thee. But I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. However, sometimes folks bother you so much you just do what they're asking you to do. It's not that God is an unconcerned friend. That's not the point. The point of that message is you just keep asking. You just keep asking. You just keep asking. I had people tell me, you know, I forgive folks, but by the very next day, I'm angry at them again. Then you forgive them again. and ask God to help you. And then you forgive him again and ask God to help you. And then you forgive him again and ask God to help. Keep on praying. Keep on asking. God does things in such a fashion. He does not forget our prayers. At one point in scripture, he says our prayers are like tears kept in a bottle. He doesn't forget. God amazes me with this, absolutely amazes me. First church I pastored had a real history as a troubled church. I mean, it had been through eight pastors in a short period of time. Seven of the eight had left the ministry. It was that troubled. And I had three and a half great years there, but I was pastor for four years. The last six months were the worst six months of my life. It was just incredible. While I was there, I'd had a set of plans and goals for the church, and I'd written them out, nine things, and I put them in front of the people, and I told the people, I asked the people to pray for this every day, and I prayed for it every day for years. And it ended up being a very bad experience. I left and was happy to be gone and did as much as I could to block it out of my mind. God's amazing. The last Sunday, it just all boiled over into fighting and fussing. And there are people fighting before Sunday school started. There's a fight, almost broke out into a fight between people, between Sunday school and church. I'm just as discouraged as I could be. I preached a 20-minute salvation message, closed the surface, because I was just ready to go. And a young man got saved. It's not what I was expecting, to be honest. I was going through the motion of preaching a salvation message, but the gospel's a pretty powerful thing. Young man got saved. And I remember thinking there was all kinds of trouble after service over, he'll probably never be back at church. Years later, I'm preaching in a Bible college chapel. one of the students comes up, says, Brother Stringer, you may not remember me. And I didn't. But he said, I got saved your last Sunday there at McGregor. Well, he's in Bible college. Not only that, he later, when he graduates Bible, he takes an assistant pastor position at that church. And when another pastor left, who was like the 11th who'd left in 30 years, they called him his pastor. He got up one night when there was difficulty. He said look this gone on too long He said you folks you folks you folks you folks aren't gonna be able to stay here as members They got mad and walked out while they were out he had the congregation vote and they voted him out of the membership Transformed the church. It's what I should have done years before He called me one day He said, I want you to know, he said, I came across an old sermon of yours, nine prayer requests you had for the church. He said, I want you to know, he said, those are now my nine prayer requests, and we're implementing that agenda. And all these things I prayed for and prayed for and begged and pleaded God and prayed for and then forgot about when I left and never prayed for again, he led the church in doing all those things. God had not forgotten those prayers. When I had certainly forgotten them, God had not forgotten them. Just keep on praying. See, I want this person to get saved, but I prayed for you. Keep on praying. See, yeah, but I wanted our church to be able to accomplish this. Keep on praying. Start praying, keep praying, keep praying. Many of the prayers that God answers, God does not answer in short term. That doesn't mean he does not answer them. Keep praying. Keep praying, keep praying. I give you one illustration of that and I'll be done. I was pastoring in Chicago. And I'd just taken a pastorate there. I got a phone call from one of my preacher friends in the Philippines, first preacher I ever preached for in the Philippines, 24 years ago. And first service I ever preached there, I preach for him every year. He called and he said, Brother Stringer, is it for real that you're pastoring in Chicago? I heard you were pastoring in Chicago. I said, yeah, Jimmy, I am. He says, I have an unsaved brother. I said, I remember, I prayed with you for your unsaved brother. He said, my brother's in Chicago. We got to checking six blocks from the church he lived. So I went by once a month to visit him. He'd say, no, I'm not going to church. His father had been a preacher, his brothers were preachers, but he hadn't gone to church for a long time, had no interest in going to church, didn't want to go to church. He'd say, yeah, I know everybody's praying for me and all that. But he said, I'm just not going. And I had to go to the Philippines and preach. And I'd be with his brother. And we'd pray for him. And his brother would say, we've just prayed for him, prayed for him. We're not going to stop praying for him. So I'd go by once a month. And I went by one Saturday right before Easter and invited him to Easter services. And to my surprise, I looked out and he was there. Great. He came back the next Sunday. He came back the next Sunday, and in the middle of my sermon, he was sitting in the back, he got up, walked up, and sat in the front pew. I thought maybe he's having trouble hearing or something. Three more weeks he's there every Sunday. And that sixth week, I left, flew out the next morning. My son had just graduated Bible college, and I was flying down with him to help him drive back with the car and all this stuff, and flown down. Actually, I was going down to be there for graduation Monday night and all that, but I'm coming back with him on Tuesday. Down there, and Tuesday I get a phone call from a church secretary. He said, Pastor, when are you gonna be back? I said, well, a couple of days to drive back. She'll be back Wednesday night. And I said, well, I need you to get back as soon as possible. I said, Armand passed away with a heart attack. And family wants you to do the funeral. So I get back quick as I can. So I get back. We're sitting talking about the funeral. I'm talking to Scott's two sisters, saved. They've been in church for years. They started coming to church, became wonderful, faithful church members right after that. But as far as we knew, he was lost. And I went into the funeral that way. And that was my mindset. I'm preaching the sermon. And after the sermon, some of his buddies come up to us. They said, this is just amazing. They said it was just three weeks ago. He came to us and told us he couldn't go drinking with us anymore because he got saved. He said yes, and he told us he'd always heard something about when you get saved going forward in church. Said he got saved in the middle of your sermon. So he got saved, he went forward. That's what he knew. We go into that funeral heartsick and go home from that funeral rejoicing in the goodness of God, because there were some folks that just kept praying and praying and praying and praying. I mean, just keep on praying. Get all the pieces in place, and when you got them all in place, keep on praying. God bless you all.