Let's go to the Lord in prayer, shall we? I'm excited about this Bible study. We're going to look at one of our applications, which is putting together the prayer notebook and spending extended time with God in prayer, spending a day or a night in prayer. Oh Lord God, this is your holy word. We are your servants. give us understanding that we can know your testimonies. You have prayed, O LORD, sanctify them in truth, thy word is truth. Use your holy, eternal, inerrant written word to set us apart to your service and to your glory. Show us now great and mighty things which we do not know. The sower sows the word, Let not your word go out and return empty, but accomplish that purpose for which you are sending it out and for which you have gathered us together. Protect us from Satan, Lord, who will snatch your word. Protect us from the world's cares and the delight of wealth and the passion of other interests which enter in and choke your word, making it fruitless. Protect us, O Lord, from a wrong reaction to difficulties and discouragements and persecutions which make our hearts hard and unresponsive to your word. Rather, give us good soil, O Lord. Plow up now the hard ground of our hearts that your sown word would send roots downward and then bear fruit upwards. Unsheath now the sword of your spirit, O Lord. Cut to the dividing point of bone and marrow, soul and spirit. Judge now the thoughts and intentions of each heart gathered here. Spread your word before us as a banquet table, O Lord. Grant grace that we might eat of the rich meat and drink of the sweet milk of the great doctrines of your word. Give us the heart of the prophet who cried to you. Thy words were found and I did eat them. And thy words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart. For I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts. Oh Lord, we live in a dark and a wicked age. Broad is the way and many are on it, which leads to destruction. Make your word a lamp to our feet. Make your word a light to our path. Show us that narrow way that you would have us run. And Lord, as we run in the paths of your commandments, enlarge our hearts that in loving you we might be more obedient to your written word. Drop your word against our lives as a plumb line, O Lord. Grant grace that we might see how we deviate from its high and holy purposes. Make Your Word to us a mirror, O Lord. Grant grace that we might not be as those who look and go away and forget, but make us active doers, not forgetful listeners of Your Holy Word. O Lord, because of our fealty to You, Because of our undying love and devotion to your Son, our resurrected Savior, we pledge to you this day our total submission to your holy, eternal, inerrant written word, and we pledge to you our unquestioning obedience to all of its commands. In the name of our Lord and resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. Okay. Let's look at having a prayer notebook. I would encourage you to begin your prayer notebook with one page for each of these areas. Now this is my Bruno book. It's a little bigger. It's grown over the years. I spend an hour in it each morning. I do not lay that burden on the average layman. They have other slices of their time pie that those in full-time Christian service do not have. but uh... when i first started my prayer notebook it was one page with these seven areas on it then it became seven pages and it pretty much stayed at seven pages for a couple of years that would be about thirty minutes with the lord in prayer and then uh... my reading and my Bible reading through the Bible and meditation time. The first page of your prayer notebook would be adoration. That's the worship of God without reference to man. Now I've sent you and I'll send you again the adoration section of my prayer notebook that has it's up to about 67 attributes of God. Now, I don't pray over at length all 67. That would be over an hour, just in adoration. So, what I do is I choose one, and I have three verses with each attribute, and I'll pray over that one, and then going beyond that, I just lift up the attribute to God. For instance, as I turn to my prayer notebook. The first attribute is Adopter, that God has adopted us. I would pray over Romans 8, 15 through 17, for you have not received the spirit of slavery leading to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by which you cry out, Abba, Father. And I would praise God for that, that He is the adopter. The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, in order that we might also be glorified with Him. And I would spend time praising God for what He has done, who He is, without reference to me. Galatians 4, 4-7, that we might, we have been redeemed from the law, that we might receive adoptions as sons. Ephesians 1, 5-6, He predestined us to adoption as sons. So I worship Him as that God who adopts. Now, I go on from there and I praise you that you are the angry God. that you are awesome, that you are blameless, you are a caretaker, I worship you for being compassionate, complete, creator, that you are dominion, eternal, exalted. Then I have these in alphabetical order and I would go through the rest of the attributes calling them out and worshiping God for them. Now, I don't want to put you under the law on this. You can worship God off the top of your head for whatever attributes either the Spirit of God or your thoughts bring to mind. God in His sovereign wisdom has revealed to us from Holy Scripture what His attributes are so that is why I chose to through my reading program over the years I'm always looking for a new attribute of God and adding them to my prayer notebook. I started out with A.W. Tozer's Knowledge of the Holy. I think it had about ten attributes and that was my original prayer notebook. Then I bought some other theology books and went to the sections on the attributes of God and found more. Then I read through Psalms one time, one year of my reading program looking for the attributes of God. I expanded that to my entire one year Bible reading program and slowly I have developed this list on the attributes of God. but i would encourage you to worship them and remember when we are worshiping god without reference to man many times people say okay let's spend some time and worship of god let's uh... spins uh... lord we thank you for uh... this week we praise you that uh... we have such a good day to meet together we just want to uh... worship you for this wonderful meal that we shared before the meeting. Well, there's nothing wrong with those prayers, but they are not adoration. God is worthy of our prayers irrespective of our circumstance. God is worthy of our praise irrespective of our circumstances or what part we have come to play in it. So when we talk about adoration, we're talking about who and what God is. And He's worthy of worship and praise just for that alone, beginning and the end. Many people say that when God, God, the Holy Spirit tells us to, in everything, give praise to God, how can I be worshiping God when things are really difficult in my life? How can I worship God when I've lost my job? How can, when the Bible says in Philippians 4, 4, Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice. How can I do that when things are really bad? Well, when things are really bad, God is still Creator. God is still Adopter. God is still Sovereign. God is still the God of Grace. God is still the God of Mercy. God is still the God who hears. God is still holy. All these attributes do not cease to exist just because we're going through the hard times. And so we worship God without reference to our circumstances, whether good or bad. And to tell you the truth, to be honest with you, I am more tempted to neglect my prayer notebook when things are good than when things are bad. and so uh... having a prayer notebook with these attributes in it keeps me focused and uh... the next page of my prayer notebook is confession now we remember that when we are confessing our sins we are repenting for the sake of restoring fellowship not gaining actual forgiveness We are repenting for the sake of fellowship, not gaining actual forgiveness. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, many people live under almost a burden of fear when it comes to confessing their sins. We have to remember the doctrinal basis, and that's one of the things we'll be studying this summer, is the doctrinal foundation of prayer. Here we have Christ on the cross. Now, Dr. Arnold, if you will look up Isaiah 53.5, and Brother Tom, if you'll look up Isaiah 53.6, we have Christ on the cross, and then we go 2,000 years later, and I'm born, then I received Christ that was 1968 and then time chugs along and here I am teaching the Bible in 2022 okay so that's the time that's how that's now I'm 70 Over here, I received Christ in 1968. I was born in 51. I was actually 16 when I received Christ. That's when I was born again. Now I'm 70. After this year, I'm in the red. My three score and 10 have been granted to me as promised by God in Psalm. So the clock is ticking. I look forward to going home to heaven. So, that's our rough timeline. You see how this works? Now, Isaiah 53, 5, please. "...but he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities. Punishment for our sins was on him." And Tom? 6. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Now what we see in these two verses are the twin doctrines of imputation and substitution. The fact, the imputation is that doctrine which states that our sins were placed on Christ on the cross. All we like sheep have gone astray, each has turned to his own way, but God has laid on him the sin or the iniquity of us all on Jesus on the cross. And then while Jesus was on the cross, the heavy hand of God's judgment fell upon him. That's the doctrine of substitution. Jesus Christ was a substitutionary sacrifice in bloodletting, but he was also a substitutionary recipient of the hell deserved us. for every sin we committed. So God's judgment fell upon him on the cross. Now, when people read 1 John 1.9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Now, if you are viewing that verse as a promise that those sins which are confessed are the sins which are forgiven, we have a problem, rather than that is a passage which relates to our position in Christ when we receive Christ. The problem is this, Tom, Brother Tom, you confess your sins, Yes. All of them? No. I'm sure I'm in remiss. Ah, okay. Now here's the problem, Tom, with being in remiss of confessing your sins. Read James 2, verse 10 for me, please. Whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. Now it doesn't say whoever keeps the ten commandments. It says whoever keeps the whole law. There's over 2,000 commandments in the law. Well over 2,000. So if you have stumbled in one thing, you're guilty of over 2,000 sins. If you fail to confess one sin, you're in big trouble, aren't you Tom? Well, so, but that, we don't have to worry about that because of the doctrine of imputation. Your sins were imputed to Christ and then Jesus was judged for them. Now, what people argue is, well sure, John, those sins which you committed between 1951 In 1968, sure those were placed on Christ because you had committed them. But what about those sins that you commit after that? From 1968 to 2022, what about all those sins? How can God forgive those sins? How can they be placed on Jesus when you haven't committed them? That's a nonsensical argument. Because we are not Roman Catholics. Our sins were not placed on Christ when we took our first communion. And they are not replaced on Christ every time we do confession and take Holy Communion. Christ is not re-sacrificed in the Mass. When was Christ sacrificed, Dr. Arnold? 2,000 years ago. 2,000 years ago Christ was not sacrificed when you received Christ. You understand that, don't you? That means that 2,000 years ago your sins were placed on Christ. that is another doctrine that we will study this summer which is called God's transcendent nature that he transcends time and space when Jesus Christ in Philippians 2 laid aside some of his divine nature, did not give it up, but set it aside. He did not lay it all aside. Jesus Christ retained his transcendence. That's why he did not lay aside his unity. That's why he could say, I and the Father are one, but he also said, he who has seen me has seen the Father. He also said, I am in the Father and the Father is in me. So when Jesus was on the cross, He was also, because of His transcendent nature, also in heaven. Let's take a look at Hebrews 9. So, Brother Tom, if you will read Hebrews 9, verse 24, and Arnold, if you will read Hebrews 9.25 and then, Pastor, if you will read Hebrews 9.26. Hebrews 9.24 through 26. Let's look now at Hebrews 9.24. Okay. Hebrews 9.24. For Christ has not entered the holy place made in heaven, which are copies of the truth, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." So when Christ was on the cross, where was He also, Brother Time? He was also in heaven, wasn't He? That's because of His transcendent nature. Okay? Now read verse 25. He did not do this to offer himself many times, as the high priest enters the sanctuary yearly with the blood of another. So, when we know this is a real time event, because when he is in heaven, what is he offering up to God, Brother Arnold? His blood? His blood. heaven Okay now verse 26 Verse 26 But then he would have had to suffer bitterly since the foundation of the world But as it is he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin and by the sacrifice of himself. So, in heaven he was presenting his blood and his body as a sacrifice for the punishment that was falling upon him was the punishment of the Romans that fell upon him on earth and his physical bloodletting on earth. But thousands upon thousands of men experienced that. Simultaneously, because of his transcendent nature, he was in heaven, presenting his blood to God the Father, and the heavy hand of God's judgment was falling upon him. And so the Roman Catholics only have it about half right. Because after the sacrifice of Christ, they say he has to be re-sacrificed at the Mass. God the Holy Spirit says, no, that would have to happen since the foundation of the world. Not just since the sacrifice of Christ. But God the Holy Spirit says, no, that only happened one time. So, it is nonsensical to say, because of this, Jesus forgave all of the sins from birth to when I received Christ. That was 16 years. But what about the 54 years after that? I hadn't committed those sins, so how could they be placed on Christ? The sins that I had committed from the time I was born to the time I received Christ had not been committed either. Because Jesus died 1,951 years before that. So it is nonsensical to say the sins that I had not committed were placed on Christ, but how can the sins I have not committed be placed on Christ? Do you see why I'm saying that? When I received Christ, that is not when my sins were placed on Christ. No. My sins were placed on Christ 1,968 years later. that I committed those later, but they were still placed on Christ. So if these sins I had not committed for over a thousand years can be placed on Christ, then these sins I have not committed for over a thousand years can be placed on Christ. It is illogical to say God cannot place these sins on Christ because you hadn't committed them yet. But He can place these sins which I had not committed on Christ. But the reality is, and the doctrine of propitiation, is that all of my sins were placed on Christ. God is omniscient, God is omnipresent, God is transcendent. He is omnipresent in all points in time and space, and He transcends time and space, and He knows all things in time and space, and therefore He was able to place these all on Jesus. So they've been placed on Jesus, paid for, and forgiven. Because of that, when we are confessing our sins, we are not gaining actual forgiveness. That took place 2,000 years ago and that was realized when we received Christ. All of them, past, present, and future. It is the doctrine of propitiation. We'll be studying that this summer. See why these underlying doctrines are important. God's transcendence, substitutionary death, imputation, propitiation, and more. What we are emphasizing when we confess our sins is the restoration of fellowship. And it is not God's fellowship with us. It is God never ceases to love us because of our sins. Nothing we do can make God love us more. Nothing we do can make God love us less. God has been totally satisfied by Jesus. So we'll go back to Pastor if you will read Romans 5.8. Brother Tom, if you will read Romans 8.1. And Arnold, if you will read Hebrews 10, 18. Now, people will argue. Romans 5, 8. Okay. Romans 5, 8. But God shows his love to us and that while we were yet sinners, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Yeah. God's love precedes our love of God. When you were the most sinful you were ever going to be, Christ died for you. Now, how can God know how sinful you are when you haven't even been born? Well, remember our illustration? God is transcendent. Time and space. Let's do a little thing. Here's time. Here's space. time and space are a subset which exists within God. Time and space were created by God, time and space will be done away with by God when He creates the new heaven and new earth, and then time will be no more. So, while you were yet sinners, Christ died for you. Well, Christ didn't die for you during your lifetime, did He? No, He died 2,000 years ago. So this passage doesn't make sense if your sins are forgiven and placed on Christ when you receive Christ as Savior. No, God in His foreknowledge, God in His divine plan, God has placed because He is transcendent, omnipresent, and omniscient, placed all of your sins on Christ and He died for you as a propitiatory sacrifice. Propitiation means total satisfaction. Who has Isaiah 53, verse 11, please? Isaiah 53, verse 11. Who has that? You gave me Romans 8-1. OK. I can look up Isaiah 53-11 real quick. OK. Isaiah 53-11. He shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many So, he got the father. This is why Russians hate English. In Russian, there are Everything is said in the first person, by name. So he, who is the he speaking of that first he? I think the father. Yeah. So he's going to look, isn't he? And who is he going to look upon? He's going to look upon his son, who is to be sacrificed, the servant, my righteous servant. He's going to look upon Jesus. And when he looks upon Jesus, what will be the response? He will be satisfied. God is satisfied. God does not cease to be angry at sin, but God's wrath, His anger has been satisfied in the body of Jesus when Jesus was on the cross. That brings us to Romans 8.1. okay there's doctor arnold would you read uh... doctor i don't you look up uh... romans uh... fourteen uh... uh... romans uh... fourteen ten place brother tom romans a one there's therefore there are no company for those who are very brave jesus and that's why we are in christ now god has been satisfied Now Hebrews 9.27 says it is appointed for men to die and after that comes judgment. What about that? Romans 14.10. Dr. Arnold? You'll have to unmute yourself, Brother Arnold. don't go ahead and read roman uh... fourteen ten place but why do you judge your brother or why do you show contempt for your brother for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of christ yeah we will stand before the judgment seat of christ but according to romans eight one what will be the verdict uh... no condemnation yeah not guilty I'm not saying we won't stand before the judgment seat of Christ but we know when we do stand before the judgment seat of Christ we already know the verdict and the verdict is not guilty and that is because before we were born God showed his love for us and that while we were sinners And we were sinners 2,000 years before we were born. Christ died for us. That is the doctrine of propitiation. All of you turn to Bibles in 1 John 2. Brother Tom, what translation are you using? It will be accurately translated. Would you read this? He himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. Propitiation means total satisfaction. If you write in the margin of your Bibles, underline propitiation and next to it write Isaiah 53.11. Total satisfaction, past, present and future. Hebrews 10.18. Who had Hebrews 10.18? Well, Dr. Arnold, we're going to go back to you. Read Hebrews 10.18, please. Look, you're unmuted. Now, where there is forgiveness of this, there is no longer offering a sin. Yeah, it's too late to do something to get God to love you, and it's too late to offer a sacrifice to God to make Him favorably disposed towards you. Jesus beat you to it. While you were a sinner, God loved you, and Jesus totally satisfied God. That's why giving up things for Lent is a waste of time. We give up our sin and repent from it, and we enjoy the good things God has given us. Tom, if you gave your son a bicycle for his birthday, and a week later you said, where's your bicycle? And he said, well, I sent it back to Schwinn Corporation as an expression of how much I love you. Would you have felt loved by that action? No. He doesn't have to give away what you have freely given Him. And God says that He has given us all things to freely enjoy. We give up our sin and we enjoy the blessings of God. So we don't have to do anything to get God to love us more. And nothing we do will make Him love us less Those are the twin verses. Hebrews 10.18, we don't do anything to get Him to love us more. He already loves us completely. Romans 5.8, nothing we do will make Him love us less because it's too late. He already loved us. When we were the most sinful we would ever be in our entire existence. Another reason losing your salvation is nonsensical is because when God saved you, He knew every single sin you would ever commit. He placed those on Christ, Christ was judged for them in heaven, and God was totally satisfied with the wrath that was expended into the body of Christ. It's very important for us to remember When we sin, it surprises two people. It surprises us, and if our mother is living, it surprises her. No one else is surprised by our sin. That's been my experience. So that is important for us to remember. When we are confessing our sins, we are as the prodigal son. We are restoring fellowship with God. We are not getting Him to become favorably disposed towards us. The problem is not that we have sinned and God doesn't want to have fellowship with us and so we have to do some things to win His favor. No. We have sinned. And so we are not loving God, but what we can do is to obey Him, return to Him and love Him. John 14, 15, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. So that's confession, and it is important to know the doctrines of prayer so that we won't spend our time trying to convince God to forgive us. fake weeping, crawling around on our knees till they bleed, acts of contrition, trying to act, you know, when I was the department head, at the high school where I taught, people had to check through with me to get a substitute. And sometimes people would call to say they were sick and I could tell they were really playing it up. Well, all they had to do is say, I'm running a fever. I can't come in. I'd say, well, you know, if you don't want to be docked in your pay, then you bring in a note from the doctor and yes, I'm arranging a substitute for you. Well, we're not going to be able to fake God out in our confession by fake emotions. And we don't need to. We're coming back to God. We are not getting Him to come back to us. Then we thank God. That's the worship of God in reference to man. And I thank God for the bad and the good. Brother Tom, if you would read 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1, 5 and 6. And Pastor, if you would read Hebrews 12, 10-11. verse Peter 1, 5, and 6, who were kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. And this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials. And then we are told why it is necessary in verse 6. Go ahead. I mean in verse 7. being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ." So our trials have nothing to do with the disfavor of God. God is not punishing us. God punished Jesus. God disciplines us to refine our faith like gold so we can have riches in heaven. Hebrews 12, Verse 10-11, Pastor. Pastor, Hebrews 12, 10-11. I'll ask you to unmute. There we go. I didn't know. Okay. I checked again. Hebrews 12, 10 and 11. Yes. Hebrews 10, I mean 12. 10 says, for they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. for the moment for the ccc seems painful rather than pleasant but later it yields the peaceful fruits of righteousness to those who have been trained by it now when we sin god may discipline us but it has nothing to do with our him being angry at us and us out of fellowship with him from his side He is disciplining us for our good to bring us back. He hasn't gone anywhere. We are the prodigal son. And He is driving us back to Him. And that's for our good. So when we sin, we don't have to think, what bad thing is God going to do to me because I sinned? And what can I do to placate God to keep those bad things from happening? because he won't do any bad thing to us. If he disciplines us, it will be good. It will be the refining fires of suffering so that our faith will be as gold, that we can be holy, we can be righteous, we can be fruitful. We will have riches in heaven. So I make sure I have these two verses in my prayer notebook so when I do Thanksgiving I am not only thanking God for the pleasant things but also for the unpleasant things. My wife is in physical therapy and the physical therapist told her this past week that it was a pleasure to work with my wife because she understood physical therapy. And my wife said, what do you mean? She said, well, most people come to a physical therapist as if they are a masseuse or a chiropractor. And they are expecting to feel better after the session. But she said, in order for you to get better, you feel worse after physical therapy, which is true. Eleanor finishes her hour in physical therapy and she feels far worse than when she went in. The next day, however, she makes another step towards independence and feels better. Well, God disciplines us for our good, like the discipline of medicine or the discipline of physical therapy. Then the next page we have supplication, presenting our personal requests to God, but submitting these requests to his will. uh... brother tom if you will look at the first john five fourteen pastor if you will look at john fifteen seven place john fifteen seven This is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. Now, when I first heard this verse, I was a freshman, I was a sophomore in college, and my emotional reaction as a three-year-old Christian was, why do I bother praying if God's going to do his will anyways? which shows you my immaturity. Of course, I was immediately challenged to two things. First, do you want God to do something that's not His will? Well, I said, no, I don't. And the second thing that I was challenged with, if when you pray by faith and ask God to do something, He does it, then you're telling Him what to do, not asking Him. And the third thing is prayer is spending time with God. It's not, we don't do adoration, confession, and thanksgiving to get on God's good side, so he'll do what we tell him to do. John 15.7, Pastor. Okay, John 15.7. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. And I would encourage you in your supplication page to have Bible verses concerning God's will for you. Word, prayer, witnessing, fellowship, obedience, lordship, and then character issues. Pride. I have pride. I have servanthood. I have judgmental attitude. I have purity. All sorts of... with verses. Teachability. God will answer those prayers. Whether or not he's going to give me a car is neither here nor there. I can ask him for it and just leave it with him. I'm hard-pressed to find a car verse in the Bible. Then intercession is presenting our requests for others to God. But we also submit these requests to His will. Many people have a crisis of faith when a loved one dies and goes to heaven. That's upside down Christianity. If, as the Pentecostals and Charismatics and Mystics teach, God heals all organ failure. Because that's how we die, by organ failure, isn't it? By trauma, we're in a car wreck. By disease, we have hardening of the arteries and have a heart attack. Or by wear and tear. Our heart just gives out, or our liver just gives out. Our vascular system collapses by wear and tear. If by faith God heals all organ failure, who's in heaven? Those without faith. So if you are going to have a crisis of faith because someone you love or esteem dies, one of your children, your wife, your pastor, your best friend, someone you love and esteem that you don't think should die, and they do die, if you are going to have a uh... crisis of faith if that's your definition of intercession satan's job is through he just has to wait around because everybody you love and esteem is going to die aren't they? but that's the objective i'm seventy years old i've lived my three score and ten i'm functioning in the red and to be absent in the body is to be present with the lord feel free to miss me But nothing has gone wrong. If I were to drop dead right now in front of you, nothing would have gone wrong. I would be in the presence of my Savior. That's where I want to be. That's the objective. Then we have passages on spiritual warfare, which is using the Word of God to oppose specific and general works of Satan, which I've given you. Now I'm going to rescind you all examples of each of these six things for your prayer notebook. But how do we spend extended time with God in prayer? Well, there are no passages in the scripture dictating the amount of time we should spend in prayer. We have some historical illustrations but they are not doctrinal. For instance, in Luke 6.10 it was at this time that he went off to a mountain to pray and he spent the whole night in prayer. So, the first thing I want to share with you is how not to spend the night in prayer or a day. Matthew 6 seven and eight. And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition, as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that God will be, they will be heard for their many words. So do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. So remember, God already knows, right? He's transcendent. He already knows what we need. He already knows what we're going to ask. That's not the issue. So what are we not to do? Look at this phrase, meaningless repetition. Don't do it. And yet when I go to churches and they're going to spend extended time in prayer, oh Lord Jesus, oh Lord Jesus, oh come, oh Lord Jesus, I praise you, oh Lord Jesus, oh how I love thee, Lord Jesus. Oh in the mighty name of Jesus, the mighty name of Jesus, oh Lord Jesus, oh I praise thee, Lord Jesus, oh glory to God, glory to God, the mighty name. It's meaningless repetition, we don't do that. This is how that is. Tom, how are you doing? How are you doing, Tom? Tom, Tom, how are you doing? Tom, are you doing well? Are you doing well? Are you doing well? Tom, Tom, how are you doing? Tom, you're looking great. Great, great, great, great, great. Tom, Tom, how are you doing? Tom, Tom, how are you doing? Are you doing well, Tom? Tom, Tom, what? Tom, how have you been? How have you been? How have you been? How have you been? That's nonsensical, isn't it? and we know prayer is communication and verbal communication in a relationship with God and we do not engage in meaningless repetition we don't have to leap around the altar come forward in the church and leap around the altar and we don't have to cry out and cut ourselves like the Roman Catholics do crawl around in our knees until they bleed. Do something severe to our body to get God to listen to us. No. This is how you do it. If I was going to get your ministry together, let's say we had 30 or 40 people together, I wouldn't gather you together to spend the night in prayer. I've tried to do that and I always run out of steam and end up falling asleep. So I can spend the day in prayer. First time I wanted to spend the day in prayer, I set my alarm clock and I set it down next to me. I thought, I'll start out with an hour. So I set my alarm clock for an hour. I got down on my knees and started praying and I prayed through everything I could think of two or three times. I looked at my alarm clock with one eye open and I've been praying for about five minutes. So I said, well, I'm just not ready for this yet. So at least I had sense enough to get up and say Amen. This is how you do it. You have over 60 attributes of God that I've sent you for adoration. You come together as a large group and you sing some worship songs. Then people begin going through They each have their sheet. Let's say there are thirty people there. Each one prays as God for one of his attributes. Then you come back and they start at thirty. They've gone one through thirty. Then they do thirty-one to sixty. By that time it's been an hour. Do some more worship songs to God be the glory. Now we're going to have confession time. Everybody goes off by themselves. you tell them, I want you to pray through the Sermon on the Mount and the book of James. Anytime you come across a sin, confess it. That will keep them nice and busy. And they also won't be engaging in needless self-abasement, pretending like they're weeping, pretending like they're sorry, trying to work up emotion and fervor to get God to listen to them and believe that they really feel bad about it. No. Their Word of God is abiding in them through the Sermon on the Mount and the Book of James and they're confessing their sins. Then you bring them back together We're going to say we're going to have a time of Thanksgiving. We'll break them up in groups of five. Tell them the first thing we're going to thank God for and you'll give them the Thanksgiving section on what Christ has done for them. They'll pray through Isaiah 53, Philippians 2, and other passages in scripture that talk about the sacrifice of Christ and thank Him for what He's done. Then they'll come back together and you'll break them up again in other groups of five and they'll go back and spend some time thanking God for the good things and hard things he's taking them through. Then you'll come back and worship God again. Now you're into your fourth hour. Supplication. We'll do, break them up in twos, and you'll give them word, prayer, witnessing, and fellowship verses, lordship, and obedience, and get them to ask God to make these real in their lives. Give them Psalm 119 to pray over, to center them on the word of God. Then they come back together, break them up at fours, send them out to pray over character, and give them the character sheets. Then we come back and we sing some psalms and hymns of supplication. Guide me now, O great Jehovah. Then we go to intercession. Now we're going to do some group intercession. We have a map of the world that we hand out and people take turns praying Roman Acts 1-8 and Revelation 22-17. that God's Holy Spirit would send men and women out and that they would, in every nation, they would hear the gospel. And we give them Romans 1, that God would prepare their hearts, and John 16, that God would be convicting them and making them ready for the gospel. Then after we've prayed over the world, then we pray intercession for our church, and we give them verses to pray for the church. Then they come back, then we divide them up into small groups of two and three, and give them the names of all the missionaries the church or the ministry supports, and they pray for the missionaries. Then they come back, and we send them back out in groups of two, and they pray for the lost, Romans 10.1. My heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they might be saved. Now they come back. Now you've spent seven hours in prayer. Now you're going to engage in spiritual warfare. You send them out in groups of four and five, and they pray over the spiritual warfare sheet, not just one day, but all seven days. They come back. That's our eight is now taken care of. And we're back to the large group. And now we share things we have learned from our prayer time from the Word of God. not just things that have popped into our head while we were praying, but you lead this intentionally. Share a Bible verse during our prayer time that God used in your life as you abided in Him and His Word abided in you and as you conformed your prayers to the Word and will of God. and there's a great time of sharing verses they have meditated on. That's how you spend a day or night in prayer. Not in meaningless repetition, not in feigned emotions leaping about, and not in abuse of the body. rather, a directed time with God centered upon the Word of God and the will of God. May God add His blessing to His Holy Word. In Christ's name, amen.