Title of the message is Prevailing Power of Crying Prayer. If you'll hand out the notes for us. We have dear friends grieving over their loss. We have people in great warfare, spiritual warfare, attacks from enemies. the prevailing power of crying prayer. Dear Lord, I do pray that you will teach us, open our eyes, stir us up, Lord, to understand your truth, to apply it to our lives, to get victory, to prevail in prayer, in spiritual battle. In Jesus name. Amen. Psalms 56 verse eight says, thou tellest my wanderings, put down my tears into thy bottle. Are they not in thy book? When I cry unto thee, then shall my enemies turn back. This I know, for God is for me. We'll talk more about this verse as we continue, but I just want you to see that he speaks of tears being put into God's bottle. And then he tells himself clearly, are they not in thy book? So we have today the title, The Power of Crying Prayer. The Power of Righteous Teardrops. So I'm gonna help us unlock one of the most powerful weapons that we can have when done in humility today. You've heard of atomic bombs, you've heard of nuclear bombs. There's nothing greater than the spiritual weapon that I want to share with you today. Something that's able to bring revival. Something that's able to bring victory, forgiveness of sin, into Christian life. Great mercies, great power. As we're gonna see later, it is a weapon of warfare. When I say the prevailing power of crying prayer, the power is not in crying prayer. It's not even in tears themselves, the power is in God. There's no eternal salvation by anything other than the blood of Jesus Christ, faith in Him. But in the Christian life, there's many things we need from God, many battles that we have. And we need to learn the prayer that prevails with God, that gets God's attention. The power is God, but crying prayer prevails with God. And this leads to what is called prevailing power. It prevails with God. Notice what the word prevail means. It says in Genesis 7, and the waters prevailed exceedingly. What did that mean? The waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. What does it mean it prevailed? It means it got victory, it overcame. So when I say prevailing power of God, I mean overcoming power. Let me give you this example. If you want to see prevailing prayer, let's look at the life of Jacob right now. Hosea 12, verse 4. Yea, he had power. Talking about Jacob in the Old Testament. Yea, he had power over the angel and prevailed. Notice that word. He had power over the angel and prevailed. He wept. and made supplication unto him. I want you to look at that again. He had power over the angel and prevailed, colon. How did he do it? He wept and made supplication unto him. You don't see this clearly in Genesis, but the Holy Ghost tells you he was there. He tells you what happened. This speaks of Jacob when he wrestled all night with the angel of the Lord. Why was he wrestling with the angel of the Lord? Just wrestling, wrestling. Because the sins of Jacob against his brother, after all these years, had caught up with him. He had cheated his brother, a great deception. The word Jacob actually means supplanter, one who deceives you, tricks you, He had tricked his brother. And now he has to face his brother, who years ago had vowed to kill him. And his parents knew he was serious, so they had made Jacob flee from the wrath of his brother. And now his brother had caught up with him. He's about to be face-to-face with his brother. And he wrestles all night. Let me show you what happened. Genesis 32 verse 24, and Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, that is when the angel, the angel of the Lord, which is God, and when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh. And the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him. The angel said, let me go. And Jacob says, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. What it was the blessing that he wanted. He wanted his life. He wanted the life of his family from the vengeance. He wanted escape from the vengeance of his brother. This is where we preach messages and many long before me have done it. We preach messages on the idea here That if you are an unbeliever putting off trusting in God for eternal salvation, or if you are a believer backslidden in sin, you may not get out before you die. And of course, an unbeliever misses out on eternal salvation if he dies before he's saved. A believer will have to meet the Lord at the judgment seat of Christ. And great will be the loss. Paul tells us of the terror of the Lord, but he says, nevertheless, he shall himself be saved. It's not a loss of eternal salvation, but it's a great loss of kingdom inheritance. But here's the point here. If you do, let's say a person puts off getting saved till late in life and he finally gets saved, accepts the blood of Jesus. He's going to come in, but it's going to be with great scars. It's going to be with looking back in his life of some terrible things and losses. He's going to come broken and limping. A backslider who walks away from the Lord. Can they come back if they do? If they are able to come back, if they do take advantage of it before it's too late, that is take advantage of God's mercy in the sense of calling upon it, you're going to come back broken. You say, I'll just get, I'm going to, I believe in the Lord, but I want to party. I want to enjoy the world. I'm going to put off God. Can I ever get back? Maybe. You might die. before you ever come back. And I know some that have. But if you come back, if you are given the opportunity, you're going to come limping. You're going to come broken, with scars. And you're going to tell every backslider around you, don't do it. Don't do it. He said, let me go for the daybreak. And then he says, I will not let thee go, says Jacob, except thou bless me. And he said, what is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he says, thy name shall be called no more Jacob, no more supplanter, but Israel, which means a prince of God. For as a prince has thou power with God and with men and has prevailed. And Jacob asked him and says, tell me, I pray thee thy name. And he says, wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. Oh, Jacob got what he wanted. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." So now this becomes not only a backslider coming back to God with a limp, but it also shows prevailing prayer. That when you wrestle with God in prayer, as the Lord Jesus speaks of importunate prayer, the importunate neighbor, the importunate widow, What this means is do not give up. Keep knocking. Jacob would not let God go. He says, not until you bless me. And instead of getting angry at him, God looked at him and says, you're a prince. You have overcome God. He doesn't mean in some irreverent way. God wants you to grab a hold of him. God wants you to prevail in prayer. Our Lord Jesus says in Luke 11, I say unto you, though he will not rise, talking about a neighbor, if you're knocking on his door at night because you need something, though he will not rise and give it because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, that means urgent, asking, pressing, troublesome, will not leave me alone. The man says, he's not gonna leave us alone. Get up and give him what he wants so we can go back to bed. That's importunity. The widow kept going back to the judge. The unfortunate widow, she wouldn't leave him alone. And the judge says, give this woman what she wants. She's bothering me. So Jesus says, I say unto you, ask, and it shall be given unto you. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be open unto you. We learn elsewhere, we have not because we ask not, but we forget that the context of Jesus telling you to ask, and it shall be given to you, is right here defined as a continual knocking. a continual asking, a pressing, urgent asking, like Jacob grabbing ahold of God and saying, no, I'm not going to let you go. I'm not going to leave you alone until you bless me. This is talking about true needs, true things that are important. So one of the first conditions of prevailing prayer is importunity. Urging, urgently, pressing. But what we're noticing today is the power of crying prayer. So nobody go to sleep on me. We're stressing today this other condition. crying prayer. Notice what the Holy Spirit calls attention to. Hosea 12, he had power over the angel and prevailed. He wept and made supplication unto him. Oh, now we look at the second condition. He wept and made supplication. As Poole tells us, by this we know he prayed with tears. Now there's another condition. Importunity to not give up. Keep asking. Weeping, crying out, when you pray. But there's another one, and that is, you've got to take advantage of the time, people. It can't be too late. You can't say, I'm going to get out here and live like the devil and at the judgment seat of Christ, I'm going to ask God for mercy. God's going to say, this isn't a place for mercy. This is the throne of judgment. I was on the throne of mercy before. This is the throne of judgment. Too late to ask for mercy. You should have asked before, I told you. So he says in Hebrews 12, lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright, for you know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. It's important for me to qualify here. You say, well, so is, When you cry out to God with tears, is that a powerful way to pray? Yes, if it's sincere, but it's got to be on time. It's got to be on time. You can't wait till too late. Another condition is you must be righteous. And a backslider says, well, I'm not righteous. I haven't been living right. Well, let me show you something that is righteous. It's righteous for a backslider to say, I'm a sinner. God, you're not a liar. I know I've done wrong. Now compare that to a proud person that says, Oh, I'm not, I'm not worried about God. I don't fear anything. I know that I'm good in God's eyes. He may be a true believer. But that's unrighteous. So part of righteousness is to humble yourself before God and admit when He says something is sin, it is sin, and to fall down before Him like the publican and confess your sins to Him. That is righteousness. So the Bible says in Psalms 34, the righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart. So the prayer, if it's gonna have the greatest prevailing power, must be importunate. Don't give up. You gotta keep coming back. It has to be before it is too late. But the devil will try to deceive you. If you're still alive and you're still breathing, it's not too late to come back to God and get mercy. Now if you're dead, it's too late. If the Lord has come, it's too late. You must be righteous. The prayer must be importunate. It must be before it is too late. But we're not gonna miss something today. I pray you don't miss it. Psalms 34 17, the righteous cry and the Lord hear it. It's not just the righteous pray, the righteous cry. When you get some time, read through the book of Judges. Start in chapter 1 and go all the way to the end. You're going to see something very interesting. The people sin and they forget God. God delivers them over to captivity. They get taken over. After a while, they begin to say to God, we can't bear it. This is horrible, God. And they begin to cry out to God. And it's only when they begin to cry out to God that He delivers them. I'll just give you one example among many throughout the whole book of Judges. Look at Judges 3 verse 9. And when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer. Do you see that? So you're gonna have needs, you're gonna have things that you need. We, as a church, are gonna have things that we need. We're gonna need deliverance, we're gonna need God to help us, God to move for us, God to send revival, God to help us build, God to help us battle. And we gotta know that what God answers is when we keep knocking, and when we come to him in humility, with a sense of our need and we keep knocking with urgency and we cry unto Him. Whatever you need that's a godly need, whether it's for mercy after sin, whether it's mercy in general, Look at 2 Kings 20, turn again and tell Hezekiah, the captain of my people, thus saith the Lord of God, of David thy father. The Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears. Behold, I will heal thee. On the third day thou shall go up into the house of the Lord. The prophet was sent to tell Hezekiah, get your house in order, you're gonna die. Hezekiah began to cry. And he cried out to God with tears. And as the prophet left his place, God said, oh, you got to go back now. Isaiah says, go back. He said, yeah, go tell him that I've heard his cry. I've heard his tears. I've seen his tears. And Isaiah had to go back, take some figs, put it on the boil, and he healed. He was healed on the third day. That's a picture of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a picture of the coming kingdom millennium on the third day. But what we see pertaining to our message today is that God says, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears. He didn't just chew bubble gum and blow a bubble and go down to check his mail and say, oh, God says I'm gonna die today. Oh, well, you know, everybody dies. No, wake up. No, what did he say? He cried out to God and God saw his tears and God healed him. Look at Job 16, then Job answered and says, I have heard many such things. Miserable comforters are you all. His friends had come to him and just accused him and just that they weren't helping him at all. They weren't encouraging him at all. They were miserable comforters. I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul stead, I could heap up words against you and shake my head at you. But look at verse 20, my friends scorn me, but my eye poureth out tears unto God. in the middle of false accusations, in the middle of persecutors, even among what were previously your friends. The Bible says that they do whatever they want to do. You could also do the same thing if you wanted, but what you need to do is pour out unto God, weeping for their danger that they're going to have at the judgment seat of Christ, for the hindrance of the word of God. You know how it all ended? It ended with them having to ask Job to pray for them. God says, I'm not gonna have mercy on you unless you go to Job, ask him to pray. If Job prays for you, then I will heal you. I will bless you and not destroy you, in other words. So they went to Job, says, Job, will you please pray that we might have mercy? Pray for us, please. I'm in trouble with God. And the Bible says, Job prayed for them. And then it says God blessed those men. God forgave them. But He also blessed Job. And it says when he prayed for his friends, God blessed him. Often, crying prayer is because enemies are persecuting. They're hindering. They're trying to destroy. Good people are being affected. The prayer is for deliverance, even vengeance when necessary. Though David in many cases asked that God will smite them that they might fear you that they might return to him So others will see and fear and repent Sometimes when it's fair weather and everything's going well the prodigal doesn't return It's not wrong sometimes to say God shake them up if need be Do whatever's necessary God but bring them to repentance Stop their wicked mouths! Psalms 6, David says, I am weary with my groaning. All the night make I my bed to swim. I water my couch with my tears. His bed's wet by the morning time. because he's been crying all night. My eye is consumed because of grief. It waxeth old because of all my enemies. You say, I don't think it's manly to cry. Jesus cried, and you don't get a better man than that. David cried all the time. Paul cried all the time. Not a crybaby. Not some crybaby, thumb-sucking wimp. We're talking about spiritual weeping for spiritual godly reasons. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity, for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping. What? Oh my, my, listen to that. Not the Lord hath heard the voice of my prayers, the voice of my weeping. The Lord had heard my supplication. The Lord will receive my prayer. Let all my enemies be ashamed and sore vexed. Let them return and be ashamed suddenly. I want you to look at verse nine. The Lord had heard my supplication. That word supplication is defined in verse eight. One of the definitions of supplication is to request with weeping, as defined in the Bible. Here's the request. Let all my enemies be ashamed and sore vexed. Let them return and be ashamed suddenly. When David prayed that, he prayed it crying, weeping. Let them return. Let them be ashamed suddenly. Supplication includes the voice of weeping, weeping prayer. The literal definition, a general definition of supplication is a humble, pleading, begging prayer. But oftentimes in the Bible, these begging, humble, pleading prayers are made with tears. That's why you see supplication connected to crying in the Bible. To supplicate means to beg or petition humbly and earnestly. Old writers from centuries ago, supplication is earnest, constant prayer, often accompanied with crying. Crying prayer prevails, says the Puritan. And in 1674, Samuel Annesley says, a crying prayer pierces the depths of heaven. Spurgeon says, David's prayer was a crying prayer. Those are the very best prayers. The prayer that is neither said nor sung, but cried. The tears are a sign of the earnest, pressing nature of the prayer. What God wants to see is earnestness. He wants to see this pressing, urgent, not shallow, not robotic. He wants the depths broken up. The Bible says, break up your fallow ground. When somebody gets ready to plant, the ground is hard. They have to break it up. They have to plow it to make the soil soft enough to grow. I've studied many of the greatest revivals and preachers throughout the ages. So many of these preachers says they had somebody to go out in the woods and shout and cry to God, crying out in prayer while they preached. And all of a sudden the Spirit of God fell and brought forth revival, second great awakening. Moody, Finney, all of these men talked about these prayer warriors. They didn't just say, oh God, bless the preaching. They were crying. Tears were coming out of their eyes. You say, how do you get to that place? You got to break it up. These revival preachers said, you got to go out in the woods, man. You got to get somewhere. Nobody hears you. And you got to just start naming your sin one by one till just that flood comes. Look at our Lord Jesus, it says in Hebrews chapter five, who in the days of his flesh, turn that one off, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers, that's just one thing, when he had offered up prayers, Jesus, in the days of his flesh, that means his body, when he had, his body on earth, when he in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, Strong crying and tears. He just didn't cry out to the Father in an earnest way. He didn't just plead with the Father. The supplication was with strong crying and tears. Not just crying, but strong crying. And not just strong crying, but tears. Look at James chapter five. Confess your faults one to another. I take that to mean if you've harmed somebody. Confess your faults one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed. Now notice these words, please. The effectual fervent, two words, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. What are the conditions for this prayer that avails much? It's gotta be a righteous man. That could be a man that's living obediently or a man that's repenting and broken and agreeing with God about his sin. It's gotta be fervent. The word fervent means boiling hot. It didn't say the prayer of a righteous man availeth much, it says the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. The boiling hot prayer. It's not just steaming, it's boiling. What about this word effectual? Sometimes in the Bible the word effectual means effective, but not here, that wouldn't make any sense. The effective prayer is effective. That doesn't make any sense. So Oxford Dictionary tells us that effectual doesn't mean effective in this case. In the sense of effective, it means earnest. It means urgent. Oh, now we get it. So really what it means is the earnest, fervent, boiling hot prayer of a righteous man availeth much. And that's what the whole Bible's been teaching. And if you want to seal it in proof, look at the very next verse. Elias, Elijah, was a man subject to like passions as we are. He tells us that. Don't think that these were just different type of men. They were different in many ways, but they were also just like you. They felt what you feel. They felt the emotions you feel. He's showing you, you can do this too. That's what he means. Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed, notice the word, earnestly, that it might not rain. And it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And then he prayed again in the same way, and the rain came back. When he says he prayed earnestly, what does that mean? He prayed fervently. He prayed effectually. He prayed with this earnest, urgent, crying out type of prayer. The word earnest actually means ardent, which again means fiery, eager, urgent, pressing. See, we're making the Bible come alive just by simply defining words. It begins to jump off the page. It begins to be real now and teach us something. These words like effectual, fervent, earnest, they're like the word instant in the Bible. Look at Luke 23, 23, and they were instant with loud voices requiring that he might be crucified. These were wicked people. Pilate says, I'm gonna let him go. And it says the people were instant with loud voices. No, crucify him, they screamed. They were instant. That doesn't mean they responded quickly. I'm sure they did. The word instant here means fervent, with intensity, pressing. Now let me show you how God commands you to pray. As these wicked people were so urgent and pressing and earnest for Pilate to pronounce him to be crucified. We ought to be as urgent and pressing and serious and boiling hot as the wicked are to ask God for righteous things. And God wants it that way. So he tells us in Romans 12, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer. Oh, I see it now. We got to continue. We need to not give up. We got to be like that widow. We got to keep coming back. We got to keep knocking. We got to be like Jacob. Don't let go. But not only continuing, but instant. We got to show God our urgency. We got to break up the depths. We got to break up the deep. We got to cry out to God with weeping like Jacob did. Continuing instant. Crying out to God like they did in the book of Judges when God finally moved. God's not calling for unrighteous tears of selfishness. He's not looking for a bunch of complaining and murmuring, tears of self-pity, like he said would be in the last days. He's talking about a true need, a righteous need, urgent, fervent, earnest, instant, pressing, crying out in tears for our sins, for our grief, for our needs, against enemies, that they might repent and stop their foolishness, for help from God, for deliverance. Some of these you have notes for, and some of them I'll just read to you. I want you to look, we're just gonna go through the Bible a little bit. Psalms 39, 12. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Give ear unto my cry. Hold not thy peace at my tears, for I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. David's running around everywhere. First he's on the throne, then he's out in the wilderness somewhere. He's just all over the place, wandering here, wandering there. I'm a stranger, says David. Hold not thy peace at my tears. Let me read this one for you, Psalms 42.3. My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, where is thy God? I will say unto God my rock, why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemies? As with a sword in my bones, my enemies reproach me, while they say daily unto me, where is thy God? Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God. Look at Psalms 126. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. This is one thing you better realize, If a righteous person, if a humble person is crying out to God, they're planting those things. They're planting those tears. Those seeds of tears are being planted and you better watch out because there's going to be a harvest because those tears are going to turn to joy for that person sooner or later. And you better hope you're not the cause of their trouble. He that goeth forth and weepeth. Bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. We make an application to soul winning. And we should. It's not the only application, but it's there. It's talking about prevailing with God in prayer, sowing tears that come back bringing fruit. He that goeth forth, obviously you gotta go. The big problem, Jesus says, go. Go teach, go preach, go give the gospel. The woman at the well got saved and she went. She went. 15 minutes later, she went. You gotta go. You gotta go soul winning. Oh, but wait a minute, go forth and weep. You gotta want it so badly. You gotta want backsliders to return. You gotta want unsaved people to escape Lake of Fire. You gotta want your relatives to be saved. You gotta weep for them. And then you gotta go tell him, not a bunch of psychology, you gotta tell him the word of God, man. You gotta bring precious seed. Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. In one sense, your tears are seed. But we ought to cry the word of God. And we ought to preach and teach the word of God. Let me just show you practical applications in the New Testament before we look at some more Old Testament here. Mark 9, and one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit. He couldn't talk. His son couldn't talk. And he knew he was devil-possessed. It's not that he was just born dumb, meaning not being able to speak. And they brought him unto him. And when he saw him, straightway the Spirit tear him, and he fell on the ground, wallowed, foaming. And at that, straightway the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief. And God healed his son. Notice he cried out with tears. That's supplication, folks. That's supplication with tears. That's a begging and pleading and crying out with tears. Look at Psalm 28 too, or listen, hear the voice of my supplications. Okay, we've seen that God heard the voice of weeping. Now, he's just putting it straight. Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle. Draw me not away with the wicked, with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbors, but mischief is in their hearts. Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavors. Give them after the work of their hands, render to them their dessert. Blessed be the Lord, because he hath heard the voice of my supplications. People say, I don't think we ought to pray like that. Paul prayed for some people that God would give a mercy in that day. He prayed for them. But for Alexander the coppersmith, he said, he'd done me great evil. He's been such a great hindrance. Everybody beware of this snake, this wolf. And he said, the Lord reward him according to his works. That was a prayer. Reward him, Lord, according to his works. He needs to get out of the way. He needs to stop hindering the truth. Psalms 31, 22. For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes. He was losing faith. Nevertheless, thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee. Then he gives us a picture of the last days. when people are gonna be crying out because of the strife of tongues and God's gonna catch him away into his tabernacle, his pavilion. There's gonna be a lot of people crying out. because of the false accusations. Even their own brethren are gonna smite them. Those that wanna eat and drink with the drunken are gonna hate their brother just like Cain hated Abel. And they're gonna come against them and try to smite them and accuse them. And you're gonna have it so bad and so horrible and then all of a sudden the Lord is gonna say, come up hither. And he's gonna hide you. That's our prayer, Luke 21, 36. Watch and pray always that you may be accounted worthy to escape what's coming. Psalm 55, give ear to my prayer, O God, hide not thyself from my supplication, because of the voice of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked, for they cast iniquity upon me, and in wrath, they hate me. What's it mean to cast iniquity upon me? That means charge you with some sin. Attempt to justify themselves by accusing you of wrong doing. Notice he's saying, God, hide not thyself from my supplication. That is my begging, my pleading with tears. For it was not an enemy that reproached me, then I could have borne it. But the words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved, but thou, O God, shall bring them down into the pit of destruction. Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days, but I will trust in thee. I've seen this more than once. I've seen it over and over. People that would have lived twice as long as they did were cut down. God might wait, he says in the New Testament, for some to get to the judgment seat of Christ, but many times he just goes ahead and deals with it. They don't live out half their days. That's a sad thing, a sad thing. May they turn to God before this happens. Psalms 86. Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer, and attend to the voice of my supplications. O God, the proud are risen up against me. Psalms 140, keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked who have purposed to overthrow my goings. I said unto the Lord, thou art my God. Hear the voice of my supplications, O Lord. Psalms 143, one, hear my prayer, O Lord. Give ear to my supplications. Deliver me, O Lord, from my enemies. I flee unto thee to hide me. That's not just Old Testament. Look at New Testament, Acts 1, 14. These all continued with one accord in prayer, but not only in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and with his brethren, they were full of supplication to God. They were crying out to God. They were not just praying. They were not just giving Thanksgiving. They were bringing supplication. They had urgency, fervency, crying, weeping prayer to God. Now, I want to pull this a little tighter here. Ultimately, it's not just earthly enemies that you're fighting. Peter tried to hinder Jesus from going to the cross. He didn't know what he was doing. But Jesus looked past Peter directly to Satan and says, get behind me, Satan. Somehow or another, Peter had allowed Satan to speak through him. You got higher enemies than just people with flesh and blood. What you're after, what's after you, what you have to contend with is devils, devils. It's Satan and his angels, Satan and devils. That's what we're dealing with. Your battle is spiritual, that's why prayer prevails so much. Prevailing prayer is a spiritual weapon like no other. Ephesians 6.12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. That's not talking about the leader of the UN. It's not talking about some magistrate somewhere. It says we wrestle not against flesh and blood. These principalities, these powers, these rulers are spiritual. They're like what you see in Daniel where you see these kings of Persia and the prince of Persia and all the, they're all in the air. They're the ones that are actually controlling things. And notice what he says, praying always, take unto you the whole armor of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. I believe a lot of Christians are walking around saying, yeah, I know I'm supposed to have the armor on. I know I'm supposed to have my feet ready to go preach the gospel of peace. I know I'm supposed to have the Word of God. I know I'm supposed to have the breastplate of righteousness. I know I'm supposed to have all these things. I know I'm supposed to pray. But hold on a second. You're not just supposed to pray, man. You're supposed to supplicate. You're supposed to cry out to God. That's spiritual warfare, man. Supplication in the spirit, not crybaby stuff, not self-pity stuff, supplication in the spirit. We're talking true spiritual righteous weeping and crying out for God to deliver and bring revival. Paul says it again in Philippians 4, be careful for nothing. Don't walk around all stressed out and anxious. Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication. You miss the supplication. Don't only pray, but beg God with weeping. And with thanksgiving. Don't just come to God and say, God, I need this. No, cry out to God. And don't just cry out to God and tell him your needs, but spend a little bit of time telling God how thankful you are. Supplication is crying out in a humble state. and thanksgiving shows our humility. Let your requests be made known unto God and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. God promises you he will put you in a spiritual state where he can use you. Look at first Timothy two, I exhort therefore that first of all, wait a minute, we haven't read it like that. Exhort therefore that first of all supplications, that comes first, prayers, intercessions, giving of thanks be made for all men. Why did he begin with supplications? When you've got your land destroyed and you come to God and repent, it says when they cry out, when they cry out to God, when they cry out, hear us Lord. Bless our leaders, Lord. Our president is not a perfect man. All that's going on is not good. But there are great, wonderful things that have taken place. And I'm going to tell you, it's because God has had some mercy on this nation. And it's because a lot of people were joined together crying and weeping and repenting. Supplication for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. God didn't heal them over there and deliver them in the book of Judges till they cried out, and that's why he lists supplications first. It doesn't mean you've got to start every church meeting with an hour of crying. But it does also mean that we need to have prayer times. We need to have times personally and privately and in our families and in church. We need to have times where we are crying out to God. They said in one accord they had supplications in the book of Acts. Look at this woman here, these widows, 1 Timothy 5. Now she that is a widow indeed and desolate trusteth in God and continueth, notice that word, continueth in supplications and prayers night and day. Paul's saying that family members and grandchildren need to support their elderly relatives. They need to provide for them. But those that do not have children or grandchildren to take care of the elderly, mothers and fathers, that the church needs to take care of them. But the Bible is saying it has to be a widow indeed, not a troublemaker. One that trust in God and continues in supplications, that's first, and prayers night and day. Some of the greatest preachers have talked about widows and sick people that were bedridden who were crying out, just soaking their sheets in tears. Moody speaks about it, Finney speaks about it. It's just all down through the ages. You look back and say, that must have been a great preacher. Sometimes, It was somebody that was just willing to be used by God. And there were some great prayer warriors. Some great prayer warriors. behind them. Psalm 34, 17, the righteous cry, and the Lord heareth and delivereth them out of all their troubles. As we've already read, look at Matthew chapter 20. Oh boy, I tell you what this one will tell you. Matthew chapter 20, and behold, two blind men sitting by the wayside. And when they heard that Jesus passed by, they cried out saying, have mercy on us. Oh Lord, thou son of David. And the multitude rebuked them, because they should hold their peace. But they cried the more, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David. The blind man cried all the more. They said, Be quiet, shut up. They said, I'm just going to yell louder. And I love this. It says, Jesus stood still. Isn't this what we're teaching right here? Isn't this all throughout the Bible? Jesus stood still. He didn't stop. Sometimes they cried in the book of Judges and He did not listen. But then they cried out all the more with fasting. And God heard. And they were victorious in their battles. Now pagans go and cut themselves and jump around like a bunch of madmen and hoodlums. That's not what God's calling for. Vain repetition and hurting yourself, all that sick stuff. No, that's bell worship, man. We're talking about coming to God and weeping, with fasting if need be, but coming to God and weeping and crying out all the more if He's still not listening. And Jesus stood still and called them and says, what will ye that I should do unto you? Meaning, you've got me. You've got me. They wanted to be healed of their blindness, and God healed them. Let's look one last time at Psalms 56. My enemies would daily swallow me up, for they be many that fight against me, O thou Most High. Remember, these are spiritual enemies too. Every day they rest my words. You better believe these devils are accusing you, Satan's accusing you before God every day. And they're doing it, any instrument that Satan's controlling is accusing you. Every day they rest my words, they take me out of context. All their thoughts are against me for evil. Shall they escape by iniquity? In thine anger cast down the people, O God. Put down my tears into thy bottle, are they not in thy book? When I cry unto thee, then shall my enemies turn back. This I know, for God is for me. This may mean turn back from harming and hindering, or maybe turn back from their rebellious deceptions and sins. Barnes says no one should desire that the purposes of the wicked should prosper, and to not desire this is to desire that they be befoiled and overcome in their schemes. John Gill says, let them return, meaning either from him, from pursuing after him, or to him, to seek his favor and be reconciled to him, to be at peace with him. He asked God to put his tears into a bottle and save him. And then he reminds himself, are they not in thy book? He knows God's writing everything down. If Jesus says that every hair on your head is numbered, God knows every tear that's ever dropped from your eye. Barnes tells us all the tears that we have shed are remembered by God. If they've been properly shed, without murmuring and complaining, they will be remembered for our good. If improperly shed, if with the spirit of complaining and with a lack of submission to the divine will, they will be remembered against us. The Lord says every idle word that you've uttered He's got written down and that we'll give account for in judgment. But listen, man, if God's writing down every one of our tears, then here's how I'm gonna close. That means every tear that comes down from a righteous person with a righteous cry and petition to God is like a spiritual bomb. And it's gonna go up, and God's gonna put it in his bottle, figuratively. He's gonna write it down in his book. But it's just like something planted out there that brings a great harvest. That one seed brings a great harvest. It brings a mighty tree. And whatever goes up's gotta come down. So when your tears go up in prayers and supplications and crying out to God, those tears have to come down. and they're gonna come down in God's blessing. And sometimes God's blessing to you is cursing to wicked enemies that are hindering God's work. Robert Hawker in 1753, was born in 1753, he says, the sense is they are remembered. And woe will be to the man that offends one of God's little ones on his account. What are now bottles of tears, will be poured out in the end as so many vials of wrath." I was thinking about this one day as I just sat in a parking lot waiting and this came to me that you know every tear that we've cried up to God has got to come back down. And it's going to come back down as a divine dart or missile. Some of the most wicked queens and leaders says they fear The prayers, especially the crying prayers of God's righteous preachers. I close with Luke 18. The Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge said to that unfortunate widow. He was an unjust judge. Shall not God, he's not unjust, shall not God avenge his own elect? which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them, I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? It's as if the Lord's saying, oh, oh, if that judge helped that widow and gave her what she wanted, she's being taken advantage of. If that judge gave her what she asked because she kept coming back, because she kept crying out to Him and wouldn't leave Him alone because she was unfortunate, because she was pressing and irritating and wouldn't stop, would God not avenge His own elect which cry day and night unto Him? Though He bear long with them means that God sometimes It doesn't seem like he's doing it speedily to us. But it saddens me what Jesus wrote right after that. When I come in the last days, will there be faith on earth? Will there be men and women and widows and children? Will there be people that will weep to me in prayer and cry out? Or will that just be something of the past? What happened in our society? I've read a lot of history, a lot of Christian history, a lot of American history. I'm no expert on it, but I tell you what, I've read the Christian books and biographies. Something used to be in the 1800s where somebody would be 13 and they'd start realizing they're not walking with God and they'd go out in the woods and cry to God. And God would use them and they'd become mighty men and women of God. We're losing something in this generation. Why have we lost faith? Why have we lost belief in the Word of God? Do people even know the Word of God? Do they even know what supplication means? Do they know what these things mean? Nobody cares. You say, well, we need a new Bible. Oh yeah, that's really helped a lot, hasn't it? That's done nothing but hinder revival. Dear Holy God, we do pray that this spiritual weapon, this great and mighty spiritual weapon that takes hold of you as Jacob took hold of the angel of the Lord and wouldn't let him go, that takes hold of you with crying out in humility, with weeping and tears for deliverance, as Jacob would not let you go with weeping and tears. We pray, God, that there would be great mercy shown to sinners who cry out to you, Lord, to fallen Christians and backsliders who call out to you, Lord, asking you for mercy. Your people crying out to you, God, for righteous leaders, that you heal our land, weeping for the babies that have been murdered in the womb. Weeping for the blasphemous movies and things that people call entertainment and the pornography that is taking over entire generations with trash and filth, God. Oh, the weeping that should be done for your mercy and healing. The people that are rising up and hindering the preaching of your word and the truth and the outreach and your church May we lift up the voice of our supplication. May we come to you with strong crying and tears. And may we take advantage of the spiritual weapon that takes hold on such a powerful God. There is nothing, you are greater than Satan. You are greater than any other power. And we right now can come to your throne. We thank you, Lord. Now we do pray that you be with those that are mourning and grieving. And we pray that you bring an open door for the preaching here, for the truths that we stand for, for the work that we want to do locally, for the battles that we have. And we pray many that are hindering will be taught to humble themselves before you, to fear you, and return. to godliness. In Jesus' name, amen.