00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
So Brother Mark, you come and
you tell us how good we are. conferences, the one that you
had here. I used to tell people, you can't
get to Dover. It's one of the best conferences
to go to. And it was a blessing. I was
a little blessed by it. We thank you for the opportunity
tonight to preach. I thought earlier you were going
to preach my message here when you were talking about Moses
and that. If you would turn to Matthew chapter 6 and also to And they go to prayer, as Larry
had mentioned. And the disciples, you know, ask the
Lord to teach them to pray. And we know that that's probably and we don't pray as often as
we should, or pray believing, pray with faith. And in Luke 11, one, he says,
and it came to pass that he didn't, as he was praying in a certain
place, imagine hearing the Lord pray. Here they were hearing him pray.
They had heard him without pray. And when he had ceased, And then, as John also taught
his disciples, you know the thought, what's our purpose for praying? I think the number one thing
is a closer intimate relationship with God, with our Father. I think that we sometimes just
repeat our prayer and we don't wait to just listen And I was
thinking about some of the times in my life when I really knew
I had to get a hold of the Lord. And one of those times was my
brother who has been saved now for over 20 years now. He was
a long time member of their home Baptist church. And then my dad
called me and he said, you need to go talk to your brother Jim.
We didn't have any kind of relationship, me and Jim didn't. I mean, there
was almost 10 years between us, or 9 years at least. And, you
know, that's a big gap between the top and the bottom. And we just had separate lives.
And the fact that, too, that they were older when my dad was
saved. Jim was 16 and my other brother
was already 19. in church and two outside of
church. And anyway, my dad called me from Florida and he said,
you need to go talk to your brother. You just need to go talk to him.
And I said, he's having a tough time. Told me some of the reasons
and I said, dad, he's not gonna talk to me. I've been to his
house before and he just talked to me on the porch. And I got
off the phone and Deb said, what's up? And I said, I gotta go talk
to my brother. Dad wants me to go talk to my
brother and she said, And so I went in the bedroom
and I got down on my knees in bed and I started to pray. Man,
really, I was asking the Lord almost in my mind just, how am
I going to get out of this? That's my thought as I was praying.
And I was praying, it was just like the Lord saying, what are
you doing? What are you doing? Get up and go. Get up and go. And I just thought, and I tried
to pray some more and it was like, I mean, it wasn't a lot
of them, but it was so strong. I come back out of the bedroom,
he didn't pray very long, and I said, I gotta go. I just went
out and got in the car and I left. I had no idea what I was gonna
see when I came into my brother's house. As he opened the door,
there were tears in his eyes. And I was shocked to see my brother,
who was 47, 48 then, with tears in his eyes and he just, I don't think I've been in his
house maybe once or twice before that. And you know what the end
result was that day? The Lord saved him. Amen. We were on our knees and living
on the floor of his house. Amen. The Lord saved him. You know, when we think about
our reason for prayer, well, there's, I think, more
than one reason because the Bible teaches that. not just ultimately
number one is our relationship with the Lord, but the Lord wants
us to bring our needs and our desires and pray with him. You know, in Matthew chapter
six, it's interesting in that in verse five, he said, well,
interest into when I'll pray, I shall not be as the You know he just tried to get
off by himself Enter into thy closet, and when
thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret,
and thy Father which is in secret shall reward thee openly. But
when ye pray, use not vain repetition as the heathen do, for they think
that they shall be rewarded for their much speaking. Be not ye
therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things
ye have need of, before ye ask him. So then he goes on to what many
people call the Lord's Prayer. I grew up in a free Methodist
church, and we literally almost might as well say we chanted
it. You know, let's say the Lord's Prayer. Our Father which art
in heaven, hallowed be thy name. I had that memorized as a child.
And it's contrary to what he just said. that is a vain repetition. Let's
go back to Luke chapter 11 there. And in verse one it says, they
said, Lord, teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples.
And he said to them, when you pray, say our father, which art
in heaven, hallowed be thy name. And that's where they get lost. which are in heaven. Hallowed
be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as in heaven,
so in earth. Give us day by day our daily
bread, and forgive us our sins, so that we may also forgive everyone
that is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil. Amen. And 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 is come unto me, and I have nothing to
say And he from within shall answer and say, trouble me not,
the door is now shut, and like children are with me in bed,
I cannot rise to give thee. And I say unto you, though he
will not rise and give because he is a friend, yet because of
his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needed.
And I say unto you, ask and it shall be given you, seek and
you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. that
asketh, receiveth, and he that seeketh, findeth, and to him
that knocketh it shall be opened. And if a son ask bread of any
of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he
ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he
ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then being
evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much
more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them? The disciples asked Jesus to
teach them how to pray, and I want you to notice here that Christ,
after he gave them the outline here in Luke, he gives them an
example of persistence in prayer. He uses this where it says in
verse five, which of you shall have a friend and shall go unto
him at midnight and say unto him, friend, lend me three loaves. Come to my house at midnight,
I'm probably not going to get up. My wife's favorite thing, she
never forgets this, is that, you know, Brother Titus said
one time, he says, you know, if my wife wanted a candy bar
at 3 a.m., I would get up and get dressed and go get it for
her. And I said, you know why he could
say that? I said, because she loved him enough she would never
ask him to. But you know, getting up at midnight's
not easy, right? You're in bed, and you know,
and I mean, I was at Larry's house, and Donna's in there,
and brother Carter's out there hollering, he needs something,
Larry's like, it's midnight. You know, he's probably crazy. But he was just, he's not getting
up. And it says there, it says, friend of mine is coming, I have
nothing to say before him. And he said, He that from whence
shall answer and say, trouble me not, the door is now shut,
and my children are with me in bed, I cannot rise and give thee. And 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 needed. Amen. Yet because of his importunity
or his persistence, Not because he's a friend, but he's saying
there, he's teaching them how to pray, and he's basically saying,
don't give up. Don't give up. I was sitting
there thinking in the pew, you know, most of you probably don't
know much about our daughter, but our daughter was very, very
sick at one time. Written off, really, by doctors. They just
said, you know, there's nothing anybody can do. And I prayed
an awful lot to Lord Taylor. It didn't happen for years. It's an answer to prayer. Amen.
It's an answer to prayer. Yet because of his importunity
or persistence, he will arise and give him what he needs. And
he goes out and says, and I seen you ask and it shall be given
you. And so he's telling them to ask. He's telling them to,
you know, to pray to your father and ask for forgiveness for your
sins and your debts and give us your daily, give us what we
need. But then he goes out and says, don't give up. Don't give up. He says, go to
use that example. If you, you know, I remember
working with a friend of mine. He had a son that was probably
at the time, like 30, and we were doing an audition on his
house. And, you know, guys, we just get to working. We just
get to working. And, you know, and this son was
sitting there, you know, we're giving him stuff to play with,
nails, you know, so he can, whack himself, and build us up, and
keep out of our herring. No, we're getting started at
work at six in the morning, and we hadn't even stopped. We're
just drinking coffee and Cokes, and we're not even stopping.
And then about 3, 3.30, all of a sudden, his son says, Dad,
I'm hungry. And we both stopped. And we said,
we ain't done yet. And we both just dropped everything.
Well, we need to get something to eat. cereal, milk, and just, hey,
you know. I mean, when he says that, I'm
hungry. I mean, when we go to the Heavenly
Father, he says, if you think being evil know how to give good
gifts to you unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? You think
about the widow and the unjust judge, Luke over chapter 18,
because it's the same principle. Amen. The Lord is teaching, he
says in verse one of Luke 18, he says, and he spake a parable
unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not
to faint. My biggest problem is I faint
in my faith. I'll keep praying, but my faith
in the answer to it dwindles. And don't quit. Don't quit believing. God is teaching us not to give
up on our prayers. When he said, teach us to pray,
he said, let me tell you how to pray. But he says, let me
tell you, don't give up on it. Amen. It says in this parable
of the unjust judge, he's just saying there was a certain, in
a city, a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man,
and there was a widow in that city, and she came on in saying,
avenge me of mine adversary, and he would not for a while,
but afterward he said within himself, though I fear not God,
nor regard man, yet, because this widow troubleth me, I will
avenge her, lest by her continual coming, She weary me. Amen. Just like the man said,
I got no bread. Larry, I got no bread. Can you
give me some bread? Finally, Donna says, would you
go out and get me some bread, sir? Give him something. Send
him on his way. And here it says, I don't fear
anybody, I don't believe in God, but this woman is troubling me,
saying, I will avenge her, that's why her continual coming, she
weary me. And he says, hear what the unjust
judge said. Look at verse seven, shall not
God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him? though he bear long with them.
And he says, I tell you, he will. I tell you that he will. You
will have been to them speedily. Nevertheless, the Son of Man,
when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth. And
that's where my problem is, is my faith. I can pray, but sometimes
my faith in my prayer dwindles. You know, and then I think, how
often do we pray? You know, even under basically threat of death,
Daniel still prayed three times a day. He found the time to pray. And, you know, I heard many stories
when I was younger about Brother Turner, and most of you here
probably never heard of him. He was the one that was Brother
Jones's preacher, Brother Jones, you know, was one of those that
talked about him a lot. But I heard many stories about
him, but one that I heard that stayed with me is that somebody
would say, you know, you could be just walking along with Brother
Turner and you begin to share a burden or something that you
might have in your life, and he would just stop you, didn't
matter where it was, that sidewalk, you know, store, gas station,
wherever, And I guess he had this deep,
baritone voice, and he would just, you know, just blasted
it out there and would just pray. And everybody that I ever knew
said, well, Brother Turner was a man of prayer. And I thought,
I don't think that would be said of me, which is a shame. But
when you think about why should we pray, Brother Larry touched
on it. Can we change the future? didn't
Moses beseech God? He said, well, isn't he a sovereign
God? Absolutely, God is sovereign in all things. Does it mean we
can change his mind? I believe the Bible says that
we can, our prayer have effect. The effectual, fervent prayer
of a righteous man. Why would God even have the, and tell him
to, when he said, teach us to pray, then he says, be persistent
in prayer. You've got a need. If you got
a need, you be persistent in it. Be persistent in it. You
know, I like what Sproul said about this. He said, through
our prayers, no, excuse me, though our prayers do not change God's
mind, He ordains prayer as a means to accomplish His will. And that,
I thought, that's pretty good. But at the same token, I don't
know that, you know, you can't say that in a slave that God
didn't necessarily change his mind when the people made a golden
calf, and they were dancing around it and everything, and after
they made their golden calf in Exodus 32 and 9, the Lord said
unto Moses, I've seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked
people. Now, therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may wax
hot against them, that I may consume them, and I will make
of thee a great nation. He says, get out of the way,
Moses. I'm tired of you. I'm gonna just kill them all. So it looks like God had his
mind made up that he's like, I'm just gonna kill them all, Moses.
And what did Moses do? He prayed. Verse 11, it says,
and Moses, besot the Lord his God. I mean, that's prayer. He's talking to the Lord and
said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which
thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great
power and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians
speak and say, for mischief he did bring them out to slay them
in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth?
Turn from thy fierce wrath. He's pleading God to turn from
his fierce wrath and repent of this evil against thy people.
Moses pleads for God to change his plans. Now, ultimately, God
knew what was gonna happen, right? But he redeemed his prayer to
have his will. In verse 13, it says, whom thou swearest by thine own
self. And he said unto them, I will
multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land
that I have spoken of will I give to your seed, and they shall
inherit it forever. And then in verse 14 he says,
And the Lord repented of the evil which he had thought to
do unto his people. I don't know what you can call But the Lord obviously knew he
wouldn't do it then. But Moses didn't. Clearly, it seems that Moses
was pleading with God. And God used it to accomplish
his will through Moses' prayer. Did he not? Exactly. He accomplished his will through
Moses' prayer. I was thinking as I studied this,
you know what, I prayed, I've been praying a lot over just
heal Mark Titus. Right, amen. You know, and I
know he's been, you know, we spent a lot of time together
and he's like, I gotta get a lot of things set up. He says, I
know God can heal me, but he says, I've got to get, you know,
gotta do this, I gotta do that, I gotta do this, I gotta get
this arranged and that arranged and his wife. And it's working. I'm sitting there thinking, yep,
yep, yep, but I want God to heal me. Amen. you know, when they refused to
follow this Joshua and Caleb, same thing almost happened. They
were, you know, they didn't go into the promised land and God
was angry at them again in Numbers 14 and 11. He says, and the Lord
said unto Moses, how long will thou, how long will this people
provoke me? How long will it, Be e'er they
believe me, for all the signs which I have shown unto them,
I will swipe them with pestilence and disinherit them, and I will
make of thee a greater and a mightier nation than they, or mightier
than they. And Moses said unto the Lord, Then the Egyptians
shall hear it, for thou hast brought up this people in thy
might from among them. And they will tell it to the
inhabitants of the land, for they have heard that the Lord,
that thou art Lord, art among his people, that thou, Lord,
art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them,
and that thou goest before them by day time in a pillar of cloud,
and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if thou shalt kill all his
people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of
thee shall speak, saying, Because the Lord was not able to bring
his people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore
he hath slain them in the wilderness, And now I beseech thee. What's
that? He's begging in prayer. Amen.
Amen. He's begging in prayer. I beseech
thee. He's pleading. Let thy power
of my Lord be great according as he has spoken. The Lord is
longsuffering. great mercy, forgiving iniquity
and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children under the third
and fourth generation. Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity
of this people, according to the greatness of thy mercy, as
thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt even until now. And
the Lord said, I have pardoned, listen to this, according to
thy word. Amen. Explain that. God is sovereign, but he says, I
will do according as you have prayed. Right. Amen. And Abraham, he pleaded for Sodom,
did he not? And David, we know, pleaded for
the people. And didn't God change? In Isaiah 38-1, Isaiah went to,
in the days of Hezekiah, was sick unto death. He says he was
dying. And Isaiah the prophet, the son
of Amos, came and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, set thy
house in order, where thou shalt die and not live. Pretty clear.
The prophet comes to you and says, get things in order. Get
things in order, for you're gonna die and not live. And Hezekiah,
he's obviously in bed sick, he turns his face toward the wall
and prayed unto the Lord. And said, remember now, O Lord,
I beseech thee, I'll have walked before thee in truth with a perfect
heart, and I have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah
wept sore. Doesn't sound like he prayed
for a year, doesn't say he had a year, doesn't say he had, you
know, but he turned his face to the wall and he wept and he
thought, Lord, I don't wanna die yet. And then came the word of the
Lord to Isaiah saying, go to Hezekiah, go say to Hezekiah,
let's thank the Lord, the God of David, thy father. And listen
to this. I have heard thy prayer. Amen. I have seen thy tears. The Lord
doesn't. It may not happen in a year or
two, or in four days, but the Lord has his time. But he says,
I have seen thy tears. Behold, I will add unto thy days
fifteen years. He's adding to it. I mean, you
know, first of all, it tells us in the Bible that if we serve
the Lord, the children, if you honor your father and mother,
that he's going to add days to you. That's right, amen. I mean,
that's a promise that he says, I'll add days. And so he, Hezekiah's
prayer here, he added them to him 15 years. Doesn't the word
tell us? As we said that the effectual
fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. He says confess
your faults one to another and pray for one another that you
may be what? Healed. Healed. The effectual fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth much. God can heal anything raised
to death. That's it, amen. Brother Darren told me years
ago about a funeral where they were all acting, bodies embalmed,
and I know that God could raise that, but you have to be understanding
that God has chosen sometimes not to answer our prayer. That's
it. But there are two words here that it says, effectual and available. Aveileth means we can, by this
practice of prayer, overcome, or be successful, or gain by
it. And an availeth means that we
might be able to attain that, that answer to prayer. So when
we think about what he said, the Lord taught him how not only
to pray, but he taught him to pray earnestly. Amen. So we go back there and
look at Luke chapter 11, and he says there, it came to pass
as he was in a certain place, when he was praying in a certain
place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, Lord,
teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples. He said
unto them, pray ye, saying, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed
be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, As it is in
heaven, so in earth. You know, we're to pray, we're
to pray to our Heavenly Father. Pray for our needs. He said,
give us this day our daily bread. You know what? If God didn't
see fit, we wouldn't know this. Also, forgive everyone that is
indebted to us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us
from evil. And he said to them, would you
be having that? A friend shall go unto him at midnight and say
unto him, friend, lend me three loaves. I like this, if you think
about it. He says, lend me three loaves.
He says, for a friend of mine in his journey has come unto
me and I have nothing to set before him. And he from within
shall answer and say, trouble me not, the door is now shut,
and my children are with me in bed, and I cannot rise and give
thee. And I say unto you, though he will not rise to give them,
because he is a friend, yet because of his importunity, yet because
of his persistence, he wasn't going away. Amen. He's out there
hollering, he's saying, help me, let me in, I need help, I
just need three loaves of bread. I just need three loaves of bread.
And he says, yet because of his importunity, he will arise and
give him as many as he needed, amen. Give him as many as he
needed. And then he goes on and says,
and I say to him, ask. And what? It. it shall be given. Seek, and
ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened
unto you. For everyone that asketh, receiveth. And he that seeks,
findeth. To him that knocketh, it shall
be opened. And if a son shall ask bread
of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? For
he asketh fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if you
ask an ape, will you offer him a scorpion? If you then, being
evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much
more, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy
Spirit to them that ask Him? Amen. You know, when we think
about praying, you know, when we pray to our Heavenly Father,
And I remember when the Lord truly saved me, I had no doubt
prayed before that. My prayers didn't go anywhere
until I finally prayed and asked the Lord to save my soul. But I heard a lot of people pray.
But when after the Lord saved me, I began to listen to other
people pray. Not that I could copy them, but
just like the disciples, I wanted to learn how to pray. For the
first time in my life, I wanted to really learn how to pray. How to pray to my Heavenly Father. Look, in closing here, we'll
look over at John chapter 14. John chapter 14. John chapter 14, Jesus said there
in verse 13, And whatsoever ye shall ask Look at that. I mean, whatsoever. I mean, that's pretty unlimited,
isn't it? Whatsoever you shall ask in my
name. When I'm overhearing and learning
that... I remember hearing people praying in Jesus' name. Sometimes we get in the habit
of just praying and we'll say, and we get to the end of our
prayer, we say, in Jesus' name, amen. We realize what that means. The power of bringing Jesus'
name into our prayer. We're praying to our Heavenly
Father and the Son of God. He says, when I hear my name
invoked, He says, what shall I be? Shall ask in my name that
which I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. And
look at verse 14. If she shall ask anything, You
smear some sauces whatsoever. And these are the first 14 years
of your life. Ask anything in my name, I will do it. And then, I look at that and
I think, I told Mark Titus, I thought about preaching this at our church
Wednesday night, but the Lord just didn't give me the leadership
to do it. I guess he wanted it for the night. But I said, Mark,
I said, I think I'm gonna preach on prayer. We were driving to
Vanderbilt, I believe that. I believe that,
Mark. But he says, I have to set my
house on earth. And I said, well, Mark, I'll
do that. And I said, I'm going to pray like Hezekiah that you
get more years. Amen. That you get more years. Amen. Not just six months because,
you know, we talked about the conference and he just said,
I hope I make it to it. I hope I'm there. I hope I'm
healthy and able to go. And I said, I hope that there's,
you know, four or five conferences you attend. Amen. As the coyote turned to the wall,
and it sounds like he prayed one prayer, wept and prayed,
and God said, go back there and tell him, I've heard that prayer,
I've seen bad tears. I'm gonna give you 15 more years.
And he was gonna die. The Lord is able, but he uses
our prayers. He uses our prayers. When the
disciple says, teach us to pray, the Lord didn't just say, repeat
after this. He gave a wonderful example of
persistence in prayer. You know, I don't know. It doesn't
answer every prayer because every prayer sometimes the Lord has
a different will, different plan, but he he wanted to put that
thought there in them as he said, they said, teach us to pray.
That was just as much more. That was that was more is teaching
them to pray than the outline of the prayer, right? Teaching
them to be persistent and believe that God and that God loves them
and wants to answer their prayer, asking that she'll be giving
you seeking Now don't quit. Pray for Mark
Titus. Pray for him that the Lord would
heal him. I was sitting there thinking,
you know, I'm waiting for this next PET scan and I thought,
I would love to see that thing come back just white. Now it's
blacked out. And I prayed, I said, Lord, I
will praise your name for the healing of And after all those 13 spots
all over it, if you just wiped them all off there, they just
stood there with their chins hanging down and said, only God
can do that. Only God can do that. By the power of prayer. In the
honor and glory for it.
Prayer
Series Monthly Fellowships
"And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." - Luke 11:1
| Sermon ID | 1121201812502782 |
| Duration | 35:09 |
| Date | |
| Category | Special Meeting |
| Bible Text | Luke 11:1; Matthew 6:5-8 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.