And let's read verse 16 through 18 just to set the scene for us. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Amen. We'll end it there at verse 18 of James, chapter 5. Praying earnestly, praying again. A wonderful writer of yesteryear on the topic of prayer said this, what the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more novel methods, but men or women whom the Holy Ghost can use, men of prayer, men mighty Of course, in the first chapter of James, James chapter 1 and verse 5, he says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. Let him ask in faith, in verse 6. Then in James 4, he comes back to prayer and he says, you have not because you ask not. You ask and you receive not because we're asking amiss. And then in the fifth chapter, prayer seems to take a very central core of his message. 5 verse 13. Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Verse 14, any sick? Call for the elders, let them pray. Verse 15, the prayer of faith shall save the sick. And then in verse 16 here, as we have read, we are encouraged to pray for one another. And then he ends off and he says the effectual. A fervent prayer of a righteous person or man avails much. So prayer is the central theme of this thing. And there's no doubt about it, James was a master teacher, one of the master teachers on prayer. Now that shouldn't be a surprise. because James rubbed shoulders with the Lord Jesus Christ. He was very close to Christ, and yet he would have observed Christ in the school of prayer. And yet, when it comes to the idea of prayer and the school of prayer, privately and corporately, as it were, nobody ever graduates from the school of prayer, because we're always learning, we're always developing. Nobody can get a degree or a master's or even a PhD in prayer. We're all continual learners. Remember the Lord Jesus, whenever the disciples came to Him, the Lord responded to them in Luke 11 in verse 1, Lord, teach us to pray. And is that not the heart's cry of every believer here from the youngest in the faith right through to the most experienced in the faith? We're always asking, Lord, teach us to pray. Isn't it interesting, by the way, the disciples didn't come along and say, teach us to preach, teach us to witness, teach us to work, but specifically they asked, teach us to pray. Why? I think it was because they observed the Lord up close. They observed how much time, how much effort He put into prayer, and they wanted something of what He had. Hence, they came with that great question, Lord, or they asked Him, Lord, teach us to pray. Of course, the Lord promises answers to prayer. In Matthew 7, 7, I ask, and it shall be given to you. Seek, and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you. And friends, I want to ask you a question. Maybe you're here today, and maybe you are frustrated in the place of prayer. You maybe feel like a failure in the place of prayer. And for you, prayer seems to be a very fruitless exercise. And maybe you don't experience those open doors to prayer and you look on, not jealously or enviously, I hope, but you look on at other people and you say, how on earth can they pray like that? I wish I could pray like that. I wish I could get answers to prayer for that. And yet James leaves before us a wonderful example, this man, Elias or Elijah, and we think about it. Let's think about this this morning. First of all, I want you to see the person of prayer here. And in particular, I want you to see, first of all, the integrity of Elijah. You see, Elijah, James mentions that we are like him. We can have the same character that he displayed because he was a man of, what does it say in verse 17 there of James 5? He was a man subject to like passions as we are. In other words, Elijah was the same sort of character that we have. You see, sometimes we look at Scripture and we look at these men like Elijah, we look at Paul, we look at all these different characters and we think that they're somehow super spiritual, they're super human. They live just a little bit of a bigger level than we have. We could never live the way they live. They must never have had the problems that we have. And you look at some of them and you think, well, if Elijah had the week that I just had, he wouldn't have been so smart in the place of prayer. If Elijah had to go through what I've had to go through, he wouldn't have been so great in the place of prayer. And we tend to look back at these characters, and we think, well, we could never be like them. And yet, as we will see, Elijah was very like maybe some of us, and he went through things that are very difficult indeed. And James references a prayer here that's recorded in the Old Testament. You can come to it now. 1 Kings chapter 18. Come back to 1 Kings chapter 18 and verse 42. And this idea, this integrity of Elijah, and the intensity that he shows here, we'll be able to read it in 1 Kings 18 verse 42, and it tells us this. Elijah, so Ahab rather, went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel, and he cast himself down upon the earth, and he put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant, go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up and looked and said, there is nothing. And he said, go again seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea like a man's hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not. And it came to pass. In the meanwhile, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain, and Ahab rode and went to Jezreel." Keep your finger in that particular reference, we'll be back and forth between those two things. But I want you to understand, James was using this worked example, a lovely picture, to show us how to pray effectually, how to pray fervently, and how to pray as a righteous man or indeed a righteous woman. Notice the integrity of it. You see, Elijah was God's man. He was a man of integrity. He was a righteous man. And friends, if we want our prayers to be effectual, if we want our prayers to be answered, we have to be righteous. Possibly the reason why some of our prayers go unanswered is the problem of sin. Proverbs 15, 29 reminds us, the Lord is far from the wicked, but he heareth the prayer of the righteous. Psalm 66, 18, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. Isaiah 59, one through two says, You see, the righteousness that James is talking about here is both positional and practical. What's the difference between the two? Well, positional righteousness is this. If you're saved here this morning, you need to understand this. Because sometimes whenever you hear this verse, when you hear the effectual forever righteous man availeth much, you think, well, that's me out. because I'm not exactly righteous. That leaves me out. I don't think I could qualify for that. Psalm 130 verse three says, if thou should mark my iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? And I don't think there's any of us here this morning could stand here or say to us that we have been absolutely perfect since we last met together. There's been many ways that we've maybe let the Lord down. So what does it mean to be righteous? Well, the New Testament tells us about righteousness in two ways. The first is positional. What we have to understand is, and this might sound like I'm preaching the gospel this morning, but you'll understand. What do we often quote in the gospel? In Romans 3.10, there is none righteous, no, not one. None of us are righteous. Isaiah 64.6 says, righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Even our best deeds, our best efforts would be weak and they're inadequate compared to God's holiness. The Lord Jesus is the only righteous one. He lived that sinless life. He was absolutely perfect. He never did. He never said. He never thought anything that he shouldn't. Isn't that amazing? Many of us may have not done anything that we shouldn't have done last week. We might not have said anything that we ought not to have said, but we might have thought plenty, and you can change that about. But none of us ever hit three out of three like the Lord Jesus Christ. He perfectly revealed the righteousness of God. He was truly the only righteous person in that sense to walk the earth. But here is the wonderful, incredible good news, because through the Lord Jesus Christ, we, those who have no righteousness of ourselves, and our righteousness is filthy rags, but we can be made righteous before God. How does that happen? 2 Corinthians 5, 21, God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Through Christ, you and I, as dirty, vile, and wretched sinners, can be made righteous before God. On the cross, the Lord took all our sin upon Himself. He paid the penalty for that sin. And whenever we put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, His righteousness is imparted, is given to us. Incredible. So if we're saved, and if you're saved here this morning, you are declared righteous before God. You stand closed in the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in your sin, but in your holiness, positionally speaking. Isn't that wonderful? That should thrill your heart. So that means when God looks at you and looks at me, he doesn't see our sin, he doesn't see your sin, he doesn't see my sin, but he sees the righteousness of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the beauty of the gospel. Through the Lord Jesus, we're made righteous just as if we're never sinned. That's an incredible assurance. But then there's a practical righteousness, too, because the New Testament talks about that, too. It tells us how we ought to live day by day. If we are positionally righteous, it should have an effect upon our day-to-day lives and our actions and our behavior. 1 John 3, 7 says, he who does righteousness is righteous. In other words, it's the proof of our salvation. We're declared righteous before God, that box is ticked, as it were, but then there's an outcome, there's something that works out because of that. Our practice should reflect our position. That's really what James is getting at here. Our practice should reflect the reality by living that right life. We should live righteously. We should demonstrate by our deeds and our actions that we've truly been changed by the Lord Jesus Christ. So, for our prayers to be effective, to be fervent and effective before God, yes, we're positionally righteous, but we have to be practically righteous too. If there's any unconfessed, any known sin in our lives, it will hinder It will hinder my prayers. We have to be people of integrity because sin will block that communication with God. And if we refuse to confess our sin and deal with our sin before God and get it right with God, our prayers could be impacted. You think about that principle even in relationships. Peter highlights this in 1 Peter 3, 7, and he highlights it in marriage. He urges husbands and wives to live rightly with each other, that your prayers be not hindered. Now, it's never happened to me because my wife doesn't accompany me to the prayer meeting because she has to look after the children. So I've never got into a barney with my wife on the way to the prayer meeting. Oh, look at you. Aren't you so perfect up there? That might come to a stage when the weigh-ins are up a bit, that we do travel together, and maybe it would never happen, because I'm just so graceful and easy to live with. But if you have a barney with the wife on the way to the prayer meeting, forget about prayer. Maybe that's happened. Maybe in the home too, you go to pray, or something's happened, you've said something you shouldn't have, you haven't done something you promised to do, boom. You can forget about prayer. It's the same. Not just in marriage, but other relationships. I don't know because I come to the prayer meeting on my own, but I'm sure the enemy works overtime before you get to this place to try and hinder you in the place of prayer. Not just maybe with a wife or a husband, but maybe with other people, maybe other brothers and sisters. And you walk in and you see the back of your head and you think. You're not gonna be able to pray for him if that's the way it is. We can't have anything in our life that would hinder that aspect of prayer. We have to live our lives with integrity before others that we would be able to pray with this effectiveness. Come back to James 5, please, verse 17, 18, just quickly. I'm gonna keep you on your toes. I want you to see not just the integrity of Elijah, but also the intensity of Elias or Elijah here in verse 17 and 18. Because James leaves before us, he just gives us the little summary here of 1 Kings, and he just summarizes it in verse 17 and 18 because he says, Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and here it is, he prayed earnestly that it might not rain. And by the way, to pray earnestly doesn't mean that you have to work up a storm or a sweat in the place of prayer. It doesn't mean that you can come here on a Wednesday night to pray. You can do this if you want, but you don't have to get up and you don't have to shout and stomp in the place of prayer and work up a sweat. That doesn't mean. Really, to pray earnestly there is the idea of being consistent, the idea of being consistent, to be earnest, to be consistent, to be dedicated to it, to keep at it. You know, if you ever look at Arnold Schwarzenegger, everybody knows who Arnold Schwarzenegger is, don't they? Probably the Terminator movies and all the rest of it. Now, listen to this. Do you think Arnold got to his size and all the muscles, do you think he got that from one trip to the gym? Do you think one time done him? I can tell you it didn't. That took decades of consistency and dedication, and maybe a few other substances too, but dedication and consistency, week, day after day, continually going to the gym and knocking out all those different reps. It didn't just happen once. And friend, can I put it to you like this? Olympic athletes are the same. It takes years. It's not just the four years in between the Olympics that they are able to train. Of course, that's a very important time, but often it's decades, maybe even a lifetime of training and dedication, showing up, grafting, pushing through. That's the idea here behind praying earnestly. It's showing up, it's putting in the effort time after time after time. But then there's something else in verse 18. Because as we will see, Elijah received a wonderful answer to prayer, and it's summarized there in verse 17. It rained not on the earth for the space of three years and six months, but then look at verse 18, he prayed again. He prayed again. I love that. He got an answer to prayer. He saw God move in a tremendous and a mighty way, and yet Elijah wasn't afraid to come back to the place of prayer. Because why? It was a habit. He prayed again, and the earth gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. He knew to go back to the place of prayer. That's a little bit about the person of prayer. Now let's think about the practicalities of prayer here, and let's come back to 1 Kings 18. Verse 42, and we work our way through this this morning. I want to leave with you some very practical elements when it comes to this idea of prayer, praying and prayer this morning with me. Will you do that with me? Come back to 1 Kings, please, till we see this. 1 Kings 18, and let's come in at verse 42. Notice the personality at prayer here. So Ahab went up to eat the drink, and Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. It was Elijah that went up. It was Elijah who prayed. He was a man who was subject to those like passions. He was a man who experienced emotional high and emotional lows, just like you and me. Of course, Elijah had great faith. He demonstrated this. He raised a dead boy to life. He prayed down far from Mount Carmel. Yet, after that victory, you know what happened, don't you? He fled away in fear of Jezebel. And he despaired under that juniper tree. And in 1 Kings 19 and verse 4, you can see it, but he went himself a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree. And look at this carefully. He requested for himself that he might die and said, it is enough now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my father's. Think of that spiritual high victory, God moving in an incredible way, and a few verses later he's under a tree asking the Lord to kill him, asking the Lord to take his life. That's why James included that little note that he's of like passions, because it was not perfect. Elijah suffered depression and despondency, and he also made mistakes. In 1 Kings 19, in those first three verses you read how Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and all the rest of it, and Jezebel sent the messenger to him, and he panicked, and he fled. But he knew what it was like to be depressed. He knew what it was like to be on the run. And what James is trying to bring out of this is simply this, that when prayer is getting answered, it's not dependent upon how great you are spiritually. Because very often, your greatest prayers, those prayers that mean the most, those prayers that come deepest from the heart, actually are very little in word count, because it's a cry from the heart. Lord, I need you to move in this situation. I need you to move other people in a situation. I need mountains to move, and it's just coming from a place of despondency. It's not coming from a place of greatness. So don't feel that you have to be in some spiritually great shape to be able to pray great prayers. Because very often, as we will see, when you're broken and bruised before the Lord, that's when He really begins to work. Our prayers getting answered are not dependent upon how great we are, it's how dependent we are upon a great God. Elijah was an ordinary man like you and like me. He had his ups, he had his downs. Donald Bornhouse, a great preacher again of a bygone time, he said that if he knew the Lord was returning in three years, he would spend two of them studying and one preaching. Billy Graham was asked near the end of his ministry, is there anything that you would do differently? He said, I would pray twice as much and preach half as much. Think of the impact that Billy Graham had. That's what he said. Friends, there's not one of us here this morning. Can I ask you, are you that person of prayer? Publicly, privately, are you a person of prayer? Then look at something else here, because I want you to see there was the place of prayer. Look at 1 Kings 18 and verse 42 again. Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel and cast himself down on the earth. Elijah went to the top of the mountain. By the way, whenever I was growing up, just to make you feel at home or whatever, I used to think that word was caramel. And I couldn't understand how Elijah could go to the top of a mountain of caramel. But there you are, you always thought there was something a bit funny about me. So when Elijah goes to the top of Mount Caramel, he went off by himself. He went alone to pray. He sought out a place where he could be alone to pray, and that was at the top of Mount Carmel. I read this quote this week, I think it was Adrian Rogers, really challenged me. It said, the secret of our success as teachers and ministers will not be measured by how well we prepare or preach in public, but how well we prevail in prayer in private. The greatest indication of your spirituality is something that nobody else notices or knows about. It's how you are in the private place of prayer. Friend, are you alone in the place of prayer? Do you have a place at home where you can pray? Is there some place in your house where you can get peace and quiet? Is there some place maybe you have to go in the car to pray? Wherever it is, do you have a place where you can go and you can pray? Let me take it to the public place. Is there a place in the pew for you on a Wednesday? There's plenty of space. But is your space, as it were, occupied when it comes to the place of prayer? Not just the personality of prayer, not just the place of prayer, but look at the posture of his prayer here in verse 42 of 1 Kings 18. Because Elijah was a man here who was bent over, he was broken. Ahab went up to eat to drink. Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel, and he cast himself down upon the earth and put his face between his knees. He was stretched out before God. He had his head between his knees. He was such a bold man when he stood before King Ahab and all that wickedness. That would have taken holy boldness to do that. Why? Because he'd been on his knees, face down before God in prayer. He was broken. He was bound over before God in prayer. No man needs to fear an earthly king when he's just had an audience with the King of Kings. I don't know who you will face this week, but friend, if you've been before God in the quiet place, you need to fear no man, because you've had an audience with the King of Kings, and not one person is ever gonna come close to the King of Kings. The person who kneels before God can stand before any man. Elijah was a humble man. He didn't rely on himself or his own history, his own past failures or his own past victories, but he had good prayer posture. He was bent over before the Lord. Let me ask you this. I'm not saying that you have to physically bow down somewhere and put your head between your knees to pray. It might be a little bit uncomfortable. Some of you might not get back up out of that position again, I don't know. But let me tell you this, the idea there is not so much just the physical posture, but it indicates a brokenness, it indicates a dependence upon God. Friend, when was the last time that you or I were truly broken before the Lord? When was the last time we truly shed tears in prayer before the Lord? There's the personality at prayer. There was the place of the prayer. There was the posture at the prayer. But then I want you to see the passion of the prayer. Look at verse 42 again. You see, with a great intensity, Elijah was coming before God. He was praying passionately. He was praying powerfully. He was praying to get through with God. Remember the Lord Jesus Christ. He prayed with strong cryings and tears. And friends, prayer is hard work. Prayer is hard work. There's nothing in prayer that appeals to our flesh. I've said it to you before, and I'm sure you would agree with me, that you will feel your tiredest, you will feel your weakest on a Wednesday night at probably about half seven, quarter to eight, just before you come out to the prayer meeting. You will remember everything that you needed to do whenever you come into the place of prayer. You will remember everything. You will think of everything. Prayer is hard work, not only to get to a place of prayer, but to actually pray. Prayer is hard work. Friends, are we willing to work in the place of prayer? Are we consistent there privately, publicly? Are we doing it? You might say, well, I can't pray that good. I'm talking maybe more about the public place of prayer. You see, I couldn't pray like other people pray. I couldn't remember all those verses. I couldn't do this, I couldn't do that. I talked with somebody recently about this, about praying publicly, and I says, look, if it's any comfort to you, I was in the pulpit one night, some of you may remember this, and I forgot John 3, 16. It happens. Give you a wee bit of advice. Get over it. Don't worry about it. The Lord knows your heart. And if you come to the prayer meeting and you have an exercise to pray and you open up your mouth and it doesn't come out the way you hoped it to, nobody cares. Nobody's judging you for it. Do you know what happens whenever a fresh voice prays in the prayer meeting? It thrills the hearts of other believers. Trust me, it does. And when somebody prays and they're broken and they're an emotional, and I don't mean in an emotional way that it's not really serious. Whenever somebody's broken and they're crying out before the Lord, All the other believers come together and we're getting behind that person in prayer and we're saying amen and we're asking the Lord to come alongside them and help them. There's nothing like it when it comes to the place of prayer. God has already factored in that provision whenever you say, I can't pray too well because he's given us the comforter, he's given us that one who comes alongside to help us in a time of need. Then there's another little thing here. I want you to see the persistence Look at the persistence of prayer. In verse 43 and verse 44 of 1 Kings, what was Elijah doing here? He was praying for rain. And he said to his servant, go up now and look toward the sea. And he went up and looked and said, there is nothing. And he said, go again seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time that he said, behold, there arises a little cloud out of the sea like a man's hand. And he said, go up, say unto Ahab, prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not. Elijah was praying for rain. He prayed, he sent the servants seven times to look for a cloud. You see in Matthew 7 and 7, in the Greek language, the passage is saying to keep on knocking, keep on seeking, keep on asking. It's not just once, and God maybe doesn't answer, but we have to come again, we have to go again, we have to go again. Heard a story recently about a pastor and his family, and this is not this pastor and his family, because this pastor and his family decided to get a kitten. Sorry, Harry, to disappoint you. But they got a kitten, and they brought it home. And the daddy, the pastor, says, we need to teach this kitten a bit of confidence. We need to help him. So they went out into the garden, and they found a tree with a branch on it, and they said, right, we'll teach this cat how to get a bit of confidence, this little kitten. And if you're from Cookstown, you pronounce cat, cat, just C-Y-A-T, just for reference. They put the little kitten up onto the branch. And the kitten didn't know what to do, and the kitten started to sort of swing around the branch, and they realized, we're not gonna be able to get this kitten down. So the daddy pastor, he had a smart idea. He says, I've got a tow rope in the boot. I'll attach the rope onto the branch. I'll drive forward slowly. I'll bring the branch down a little bit and the cat will be able to come off. Great idea. So he got into the car and he went forward a little bit, little bit, and the rope snapped. And the kitten, meow, way off. Couldn't find the kitten ever again. Two weeks later, the pastor was out. And he was with somebody, and he went in that knocked the door, and he went in, and the woman answered the door and said, Pastor, nice to have you here. Little Johnny's out the back, he's just playing. He got a little kitten. Oh, very good. He went out the back, he looked at the kitten, and he realized, that's the kitten that came off the branch. He said, that's a lovely little kitten you have there. When did that arrive? Pastor, you'll never believe it. Wee Johnny's been on at me for months about getting a cat and a kitten. And I have prayed and I told him, look, take it to the Lord in prayer. And he has prayed every single night for two weeks that the Lord would send a kitten. And you not believe this, but two weeks ago, a kitten came flying over the fence and into our backyard. What was I to do but just let the Lord answer the prayer? And the pastor said nothing and prayed and went home. Friends, there's persistency when it comes to prayer. When God delays an answer, it's not necessarily God denying an answer. Elijah knew this, and he prayed persistently and passionately. He prayed the same thing seven times, and he found the answer. You might have to pray more than seven times. You say, the Lord hasn't answered my prayer yet. Could I just be very blunt with you? Pray again. Pray again. So sometimes God teaches us more through the process of waiting in prayer than he would if he just answered the prayer outright. Isn't that the case? See, there's a discipline when it comes to prayer, isn't there? We can't out-pray a dead faith. We have to have passion, we have to have belief. Friends, I wonder, have we lost the discipline of prayer? Is there some people here today that you were maybe once very faithful in the place of prayer publicly, and for whatever reason, you've lost that discipline? Friend, could I encourage you, if you're saved here today, and if you're able to be with us whenever we meet at the pre-service prayer meetings on a morning, Sunday evening, and on a Wednesday, could you be here to pray? Can I encourage you Especially over these next few months, whenever I leave this place, can I encourage you to support the prayer meeting? If you're able to, get out and pray. Maybe come a little earlier and go to the pre-service prayer meeting. You keep showing up, the devil would say, well, you're not worthy to pray. You've neglected the place of prayer so much. If you turned up, the people would laugh at you. You say, I'm not good enough. I don't have the words. I couldn't pray like other people. I can't pray long enough. D.L. Moody was a great man, but he was a little bit impatient in some ways. He was always a doer. And in one of his crusades before he went out, they were having a prayer meeting, and he called upon a dear brother to open in prayer. And the dear brother was praying on and on and on and on and on, must have been about 15 minutes. So in the middle of his prayer, Moody just got up and says, while our brother finishes his prayer, let's turn to hymn number 72. I'm never gonna do that to any of you. I thought it was interesting. Some say, well, I may be too busy. I don't have time to pray. I read this little poem this week. I got up early one morning and rushed right into the day. I had so much to accomplish, I didn't take time to pray. Problems just tumbled round about me, heavier came each task. Why doesn't God help me, I wondered. He answered, you didn't ask. I tried to come into God's presence. I used all my keys at the lock. God gently and lovingly chided, why child, you didn't knock. I wanted to see joy and beauty, but the day toiled on gray and bleak. I wondered why God didn't show me. He answered, but you didn't see. I woke up early this morning and paused before entering the day. I had so much to accomplish that I had to take time to pray. I have a book on my shelf at home, the title of it is, Too Busy Not to Pray. Friends, we could never be too busy not to pray. Lastly, think about the power of prayer. Look at verse 45 of 1 Kings 18, over this we're finished, it came to pass that in the that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain, and Ahab rode and went to Jezreel." Elijah prayed. He prayed with the right place. He had the right posture. He had the right passion. He persisted, and God came through in great prayer. God sent a great rain. One Bible teacher said, nothing lies beyond the reach of prayer except that which lies outside the will of God. Friends, there is wonderful power in prayer. Romans, Paul writes in Romans 8, 26 to 27, likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for, as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. The Holy Spirit will help you in your weakness and will give you a powerful answer to prayer. Friends, the true power of prayer is manifested like this. True prayer is not bending God's will to ours, but surrendering our will to God's. Like the Lord Jesus prayed in Luke 22, 42, not my will, but thine be done. That's whenever we see a breakthrough in prayer. That's when we see great power in prayer. Think of Jacob in Genesis 32. Remember old Jacob, he wrestled with God all night. I'm not gonna let you go unless you bless me. I think the ironic thing there is God intended to bless Jacob all along, but Jacob was persisting. He was stubborn. And until his will aligned with God's will, then he received a blessing. Friends, effective prayer requires integrity, that righteous person. It requires an energy, effectual, fervent prayer, and a submission to God's will. I've done a lot of reading this week, but George Mueller, who lived in 18... He's renowned as one of the greatest men of prayer and faith probably since the New Testament times. And you probably know the story well. But he established and he led four different influential ministries. But he's best known for the orphanages. And he cared for up to 2,000 children at the same time and over 10,000 during his lifetime. And George Mueller was very interesting because he relied solely on prayer to communicate his need for his ministry. He never ever once made a public announcement. He never made an appeal for donations or for money. He brought it to the Lord. He only ever shared the needs retrospectively in his annual reports, and he showcased how God had provided. But George Mueller had a wonderful habit when it came to prayer. And for George Mueller, prayer wasn't an act, but it was a lifestyle. He was a prayerful man. He recorded over 50,000 specific answers to prayer in his journals. There's a wonderful practical tip for you. write down your prayer requests, and when God answers them, write down the answer, and you'll see how the Lord has blessed. 30,000 of those prayers were answered the same day or hour that they were made. On average, George Mueller had 500 answered prayers per year for 60 years, over one a day. And this is the thing that blew me away. Now remember, he never asked for money. He never publicized what he was doing. He just brought it to the Lord. And it's estimated that in today's money, his ministry for the orphanage has brought in over half a billion dollars. And nobody knew about it. except God. Is that not incredible, friend? You're on your own tomorrow morning at the place of prayer. You say, Lord, nobody knows my need. But if I could put it to you like this, you're praying to the only one who needs to know your need. Because you're praying to the great provider, financially, spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally, every single need that you can think of, he's got it. That's the one who we come before to pray. Friend, can I just challenge you as we finish? Where are you in the place of prayer? Privately? Publicly? Are we consistent? Are we disciplined? Do we have that passion? Do we have that persistence in the place of prayer? There is not one need that you have that He does not want to know about or that He can fulfill. May God write His Word upon our hearts this morning. Let's just pray before we come to sing.