I really never tire of those hymns, whether we sing them or hear them. And I do appreciate these ladies for preparing themselves to help us in our worship. I do have a question, a practical question tonight concerning prayer. The question basically is what are some biblical guidelines or examples for praying for guidance and God's providence for today, for day-to-day matters of life? So praying for these things that come up over and over again. And then, you know, what are, you know, how would you avoid pitfalls in these things. And so, obviously, prayer has been given to us, and one of the greatest gifts that God has given to us, that we can commune with him as, as friend with friend, really prayer would be something that we would probably be, you know, really, something that we would avoid and be kind of arrogant for us to think that God would hear us, right? Or to come into his presence at all. That would be a little audacious for us to do that. But the only reason we do it is because he's invited us to do it. And so, and obviously, we pray for what I guess I would call major things. You know, when we have major decisions to make, we would go before the Lord and ask him to help us and to guide us. But what about these day-to-day things? Let me just say, first of all, that we ought to just go to the scripture, and there are many prayers in the scripture. I can tell you this, the best way, and that's why prayer meetings for the church are very important for numbers of reasons, but one of the reasons is so people can hear Godly people pray, especially godly men pray. You learn how to pray or the language of prayer by hearing prayer. And that's one of the reasons we have a church. God could save us and keep us by ourselves, could relate to us and we to God. without an organization or without a body or an association or an organism that we would call the church. But he didn't. He saves us to put us in the church, you see. That's why when this young man said to me that the greatest preaching is street preaching, I said, okay, well, Let's just say that that's right, that street preaching is the greatest preaching, then if the Lord uses your preaching to save someone, what are you going to do with them? He said, well, then I'll send them to you. Okay, so what is, I mean, is conversion the end of the thing or the beginning of the thing? And one of the things is that we can watch each other, the apostle, again, very audacious, maybe even borderline arrogant, for any of us to say to someone else, follow me because I follow Christ. Well, if you tell someone that, you better be following Christ. I remember the first couple of sermons I preached here 27 years ago, there was a man, And he was invited, Danny Harris invited him. And he came and he said, I want you to come here, our new preacher. So he came. And what I did in my first few sermons at this church, I said, look, I'm going to spend the rest of my time with you here at the church telling you what God demands of you. So what I want to do up front is to preach a sermon or sermons on what God demands of me as a pastor. Well, after I preached those sermon and one in particular, this man who never really attended the church, he came and heard, I guess Danny was more impressed than he was. But here's what he said to Danny. That is the most arrogant man I've ever listened to. And he thought I was arrogant because I laid out what God demands of me. And maybe that does sound to the unbeliever, to someone, how arrogant would it be for you to say, you need to listen to me. This is the truth of God's word. We can do that because the scripture gives us scriptural allowance to do those kind of things. And so, we're in the church. You never know who's really watching you. I've been shocked in the past to hear people say to me that, or about me, that you have been a real blessing in my life. I have patterned myself after you. Well, that's quite sobering, isn't it? I hope I didn't mess up. Well, but part of that is to hear, to let them hear you pray the language of prayer. Now, I had a wonderful example, a wonderful example before me growing up in In a church with Huey Moak, who is now in heaven, I've never heard anyone that prayed any more fervently than Huey Moak, and consistently praying. If he's told you that he was praying for you, He was. He was. And he would take the church role and he would pray for the husband, the wife, the children. And when the children got married, the children's wife or husband, and then when they had children, he would add all their children and diligently. One of the greatest times of my life I lived down the street from his church, and he lived behind me. And so on Saturday night, every Saturday night, we would meet there. Later in the evening, sometime about nine o'clock or so, and we, he and I would pray together. Sometime we would pray, you know, 30, 40 minutes. Sometime we'd pray two or three hours. And so I learned the language of prayer by listening to his prayer. Also, there are many other helps. There is a book, Charles Spurgeon's Prayers. He had a guy that took down just about every word he said. He would sit on the front row, and he would take in shorthand down every word of the sermon, and he would edit that sermon. Spurgeon, great. mine, would edit that sermon and put it out on the street on Monday. It was called the Penny Pulpit. They sold these sermons for a penny. The first thing he would do is he would get up on Monday, he would edit the sermon, take all the misstatements out of it and the misquotes of the scripture or the misreferences, and he would He would correct those, and then he'd put them out. And that's where most of these New Park Street Metropolitan Tabernacle sermons came from. But this man also wrote down his prayers, and there's a book, The Pastor Praying, I think, with Charles Spurgeon. These were his Sunday pulpit prayers. And so it's fantastic. The Puritan, any of the Puritan works about prayer. And then there's another little book, you can get a leather copy of it, called The Valley of Vision. There's some prayer, and I think maybe all of them are prayers. Well, anyway, learning the language of prayer. Well, of course, the scripture teaches us how to pray. and there are prayers in the scripture, and there are references in the scripture to pray. So, and it's very interesting that the question tonight is day-to-day practical matters. That the model prayer, what we call the Lord's Prayer, sometimes it's called the Our Father in some languages, but Our Father which art in heaven, okay, so, We know that God is not us, he's above us, you see. It is an instrument of adoration. We adore him. And I don't think we ought to rush into prayer. Now, sometimes you have to pray quickly. I remember when Thomas Wynn and I were in his little pickup truck and we got run over by an 18-wheeler and we were about to go off a bridge in Jackson, Mississippi. And I thought to myself, I often wondered how I was going to die. I really don't want to die in Jackson, Mississippi. Not that I really want to die in Baton Rouge, but anyway. So we were coming to, actually the truck hit us, kind of, he tried to move over and he just caught us And the truck went this way, so we were going this way about 60 miles an hour. Now we're going this way about 60 miles an hour. And I'm over there thinking, hmm, we're going to crash through that wall. And we're going to fall down to that railroad track. And it's going to hurt. And then I heard Thomas Wynn say, in a very prayerful way, Lord, help us. Well, being a man of faith, I am. We hit the wall and bounce back. So now we hit the wall this way. Now we bounced off the wall and now we're going 180 degrees that way. I couldn't believe it. So the Lord answered that prayer. Uh, so we're going and we're going to hit, hit this wall. And I looked up, so now my side is to nine million headlights coming at us, right? Because it was night and raining. Nine million headlights. And then my thought was, I wish this would stop. And it did. Well, sometimes you don't have, you know, you have to rush into the presence of God with your prayer. We shouldn't rush into the presence of God. With our requests, we should pause in our praying. No matter what you're praying about, you should pause in your prayer to acknowledge the one to whom you are praying. And most of us have been told, and I think rightly so, to talk to our father. So our father, But we shouldn't be too familiar with him, which aren't in heaven, you see. Now, I loved my, I guess I should say I love my children. But when my children were younger, I loved to get on the floor with these boys and wrestle with them. Just, you know, tussle and wrestle with them. And they loved it. And then we'd play football inside, much to Paula's chagrin. She said, we're going to break things. I said, we probably will. But we played football. We had a big open door from one room to the other. And that was the touchdown through that door. And the post were out of bounds. Well, JT was so young. He really didn't understand the word. He heard what we were saying, but he didn't really know what we were saying. Out of bounds, you're out of bounds. And so Chris ran out of bounds and jumped into to make a touchdown. And JT jumped up and says, no, no, you're Alabamas, you're Alabamas. He knew Alabama was bad. So we raised him as a true tiger. But when I was on the floor with them wrestling, playing, they still knew I was their father. And there was still a demand for respect and dignity there. That's the way we should go to our heavenly father. He is our father, but we must not be too familiar with him or casual. He's in heaven and then we are taught to say, hallowed be thy name. Or really the word there, holy, holy is your name. And so we must always realize to whom, to whom we are praying. and we should never be casual with him. So I guess if I was going to talk about a pitfall, maybe one of the greatest pitfalls to our praying is familiarity with it, that we're so familiar with it that it loses its significance to it. To whom you're praying, and whose presence are you in? And I used to talk to people about how should you dress to come to church? Well, I don't guess there should be a dress code and dress, but I tell you how you ought to dress. You ought to dress appropriately to whom you think you will meet. Because if the President of the United States showed up, how would you dress if you were invited to come to his place? Well, the word is agiazzo, which could be translated to make holy, consecrate, to venerate, you know, the idea of veneration, to hallow. which you hear the word holy in that. So, hallowed, holy is your name. We venerate you, oh God. And then, before we get to any kind of practicality in praying, we should pray spiritually. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We want the kingdom of God. Now, if we didn't think the kingdom of God was coming, why was God teaching us to pray for his kingdom to come? And what does it mean for his kingdom to come, you see? I can tell you what his kingdom is. You can go to Baptist Faith and Message in 1925, Baptist Faith and Message. which is really not a very thorough confession of faith, surely nowhere near the 1689, but here's what E.Y. Mullins said. In fact, I think this was an article by Mullins. I don't even think he was following J. Newton Brown here. He was E.Y. Mullins, and here's what E.Y. Mullins says. The kingdom of Christ will be realized when every thought is brought into the captivity of Christ. In 1963, Herschel Hobbes said, it'll be realized at the coming of Christ. But that was a real shift from 25 to 63. No, his kingdom is not about his coming. They shifted the eschatology of the confession. It was a optimistic post-millennial eschatology in 25, and a pessimistic pre-millennialism in 63. Though Hobbes himself was an amillennialist. But the capture, see, quoting 2 Corinthians chapter 10, when every thought is brought into the captivity of Christ, you see. That's when the king, well, you see, thy kingdom come may relate to your, may relate to your attitude in prayer, you see. The kingdom of God has something to do with the will of God in earth. Because we know his will is being done in heaven. Then after all of this, we, began, we are taught to pray practically. Give us this day our daily bread. So that is prayer, what we would call or categorize as supplication, asking for supply, you see. And daily bread is not just about eating, but about the necessities of life. We're praying about the necessities of life. And our prayer is a confession. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Sometimes this is translated, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation. but deliver us from evil. King James says evil, but probably we need to understand that as the evil one, Satan, who's ready to destroy us. Now, why would we pray for daily sustenance followed or for daily surprise, then followed by forgiving us our debts? Well, you see that that we shouldn't expect God to do anything for us if we're unwilling to forsake our sin, especially our sins against others. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, for thine is the kingdom and the power. So this is not about us. You must be very careful to read these things, lest you miss the point. I mean, it's a very short prayer, but teaching us how to pray, so it's full of things that we must do. It is full of attitudes that we must have, you see. Thine is the kingdom. It's about you, it's not about me. And I am helpless. Yours is the power, see. It is, A confession that we have no power. See, now this is not authority. This is not exousia in the Greek. This is dunamis, where we get the word dynamo or dynamite. This is power. This is force. So we're praying to God because it is his kingdom and he is the one with power and of course, the glory forever. Glory is something we give God, but it's something we see in God. Glory is how God manifests himself before us, and indeed, I can't really, I cannot really describe glory to you. I can't. I'll just multiply words for you. I really can't. Can't give you that. But I can say this. If you have ever seen God's glory, then you know what I'm talking about. All I have to do is reference. I just reference his glory. Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up. His train filled the temple. He saw him on a throne before an altar. And he said, woe is me. Go through the scripture and see the attitude of people that met the Lord. that knew he was the Lord and see how they reacted to him. Now, if I were to give you some further instruction on prayer, and just let me say this before I get too deep into this, prayer is a flesh-irking Exercise. That's why it's so tough. Of all the things that people have said to me that they struggle in the Christian life, the number one thing is a consistent prayer life. Now, why would that be so difficult for us? Because it's so flesh-irking. And as you bow to pray, Everything in the world comes to your mind that you could be doing. Or that you ought to be, maybe, you know, you think I ought to be doing these things. As if prayer is really a waste of time. I think it has been said of Martin Luther, that Martin Luther was quoted one time, he says, I have so much to do today, I will never be able to get it done until I pray for three hours. Now these people, they prayed. I mean, we just run into God's presence and run away, but they labored, as they called it, in the presence of God. They stayed. And I know we're living a day, hustle and bustle, and we've got to get somewhere, and we've got to get there. You know, so, but, so you, I mean, some of you have to be places very early in the morning. It's very difficult for you to get up in the morning and have a meaningful prayer life. So really what you ought to do is you maybe have to move your prayer to somewhere else, to some other time of the day. But it is flesh-irking. So it's a discipline, it's a discipline that you must work on every day of your life. And I'm 70 years old, and I'll be honest with you, I'm not satisfied with my prayer life. And I've worked on it, the Lord saved me when I was eight. I was sincerely pursuing the things of God at 16. And yet, I still, And I know all of these pitfalls in praying because I've lived this, you see. That's why I asked C.S. Lewis when he wrote Screwtape Letters, how do you know so much about the devil? And he says, well, I've been in an open warfare with him for 50 years. That's why I know so much about him. Well, so it's a struggle, and you really don't have to, you know, You really don't have to beat yourself up about these things. Just simply do, just do it, you see. And so we are told, and first, In 1 Thessalonians, we are, well, in verse 16, so this is 1 Thessalonians, I'm sorry, chapter 5, verse 16, rejoice evermore, so the Christian life should be a rejoicing life, pray without ceasing, Now, what does that mean? Well, that does not mean that you constantly are praying, that you do nothing else but pray. No, pray without ceasing means that prayer should be in your life, a great part of your life, that there should never be long periods of your life without prayer, you see. In everything, Give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Now, okay, so in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ concerning you. Now, what does that mean? Well, it could mean that these things that you are giving thanks for are the things, are the will of God for you. So no matter what comes to your life, you give thanks. Well, I'd surely have no argument with that. But it also could mean that it is the will of God for you to give thanks. And maybe it comes out the same way. But pray without ceasing. So you must pray. Now, there are some things, I should say, that you don't have to pray for. In other words, you don't have to pray, should I worship the Lord on the Sabbath day? I don't think you have to pray about that. I think you just do that, right? Should I give of my increase to the Lord? Well, I don't think you have to pray about that. I knew some people, they thought it sounded very spiritual. They'd say, well, I pray to see what God would have me to give. I said, well, you're wasting your time in God's time. He's already told you what to give. Give it. Should I obey the Ten Commandments? Do I have to pray about that? Should I love my wife? Do I have to pray about that? I might have to pray for the energy to love her, but I surely shouldn't pray how, how, or if, maybe I should say, or if I should love her. So there's some things, I mean, it might sound very spiritual, but it's not spiritual at all. Obey the word of God and do what he says. You don't have to pray about those things, you see. Should we pray about praying without ceasing? No, you just should pray without ceasing. You don't have to pray about those things. Now, but there are some things that you do have to pray about. For example, in Philippians, this surely is a great passage to help us understand prayer. So in Philippians chapter four, the King James says, be careful for nothing. Now actually, so this is Philippians 4, 6, be careful for nothing. Literally, this means be anxious for nothing. Don't be worried about these things. And you know, we are a worrisome bunch. And it's because I'm afraid. It is because we live in a fallen world, and we've seen, especially us that have had experience, we've seen the destructive nature of where we live and what this is, you see. So it is enough to make you anxious, enough to make you worried, but the word, In the Greek, it means to take no thought, you know, the idea or don't be overly concerned or give too much care to these things. And so when the King James translated, be careful for nothing, that's a great translation if you understand what careful means, you see. So don't give yourself, don't become overly anxious about these things. Now, making a decision, a daily decision in life when you don't have a specific scripture to teach you. Okay, for example, Should I take this job? You know, the football coach said he was going to pray about that. I hope he did. Maybe he did. He said he would. But there's no clear answer, right? You can't look up, oh, well, okay, in Hezekiah 12.6, it says take that job. Well, it doesn't do that, right? It doesn't. Okay. I don't know if you remember Maybe this is a little presumptuous for me to think that you read my devotions, but I have sent devotions out. And I think a few days ago, I said something in that devotion like this. When you don't know what to do, do what you know to do. And that's not double talk now. Okay, well, I don't really know if I should take this job or if I shouldn't take this job. Well, then just do what you know to do. Just, okay, is the job a job that's of honesty? Is it something I wouldn't have to hurt my conscience in doing it, you see? I wouldn't sin? Okay. Is it something? For example, I'll just talk to you about when churches have come in the past to me. I was in a church, and there was never a church that I ever left. Of course, one, they asked me to leave, so I left that one fairly easily. But the ones that I decided, I've never decided to leave a church without a lot of anxiety in my own heart. A lot of, you know, heartache. Maybe anxiety's not the word, but a lot of heartache. Because I knew I was going to leave some people behind that loved me. and that have supported me, but I always ask myself this question, would this put the gospel on a better footing, on a bigger platform? And so those are some of the questions that you would ask. I mean, the Lord did not say, to me in an audible voice. I remember, and I love this quote by Adrian Rogers. I don't quote Adrian Rogers a lot, but I love this quote. When someone, he said, the Lord told me to do this. And the man said, well, was that in a loud, was that in an audible voice? He said, no, it was louder than that. I know what he's talking about, okay. Now, we're not infallible in our ability to assess what we should do. But we lay it before the Lord, and then we wait for, and we have to ask these questions, you see. But ultimately, you have to make a decision. You shouldn't use another pitfall. You shouldn't use prayer. to paralyze you. You simply should make the best decision that you know how to make, not based upon greed or avarice or selfishness or pride, but based upon what would be better for your Christian life. Because I can tell you this. And it really saddens me to have to say something like this. I know a man, I love him. A wonderful man who loves the Lord. He and his wife, you know, they homeschooled their children and they, Desired to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord But his children turned out to be Hellions Some of them worse than others all of them worldly and One of them strung out on drugs to such a degree that the father doesn't even want him to come around him Well, why would a godly family produce such children? He never asked me my opinion when it counted. But I can tell you exactly what he did. In order to make money, a lot of money, thinking he was providing for his family, He deprived his family of what they needed the most and that was him. He stayed gone half the time. Did he make a right decision? See again, these practical aspects, You don't have children to let someone else raise them. Sorry. You should raise your children. You should give them your faith. Not let someone, because they're going to get some faith somewhere. So I'm not saying that to criticize this man or criticize anyone. I'm just saying these are the practical applications, the practical considerations that you must make in deciding what would the Lord have me do? And I think the major principle of this would be seek ye first. This is the Lord in the Sermon on the Mount, right? Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you." Is that true? Or is that just rhetoric? I'm afraid a lot of people in churches read the Bible as if it's just good opinions instead of divine commands. So here, be careful, be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer, talking to God about it, laying it before God, and supplication, asking God to supply with thanksgiving. Now, every Greek word for prayer is in this verse. Prayer, which basically is to come before God, to prostrate yourself before God. Supplication, asking God to give you a supply and thanking him. Let your request be made known unto God. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and through Christ Jesus. All right, so here it is, you see. Many of these verses are quoted so out of context that they almost are destroyed of their meaning. So what's he saying? He said, you pray. Don't sit around worrying about things. But you lay these things before God in prayer, asking God to give you what you need, and thanking him for doing that, you see. Then ask him, and then here's the peace. In this, there will be the peace of God, which passes understanding. So sometimes this is not a mental process. This is sometime an attitude of faith, or maybe we should say, A heart decision. It'll keep your heart in your mind. Okay. Finally, brother. Whatsoever things are true. It's about truth. Whatsoever things are honest. It's about being honest, honest with self and honest with people around you. Whatsoever things are just. which really the word just and righteous is the same word, you see. Those things that are righteous, whatsoever things that are pure, not tainted, not sullen by your own sinfulness or by the world, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, there be any virtue. The virtue is that characteristic in your heart and life that's God honoring. If there be any praise, think on these things. So we're told what to fill our minds with. Those things which ye have both learned and received and heard and seen in me do. And the God of peace shall be with you. So there it is. Now, is there struggling? Surely there is. Are you infallible in your decision? You are not. Has God given you a certain word? Only if it's in the scripture. And then make the best decision. You know how to make. Make the best step. Live the best life that you know how to make. Always understanding that we are in a fallen world and that often that you have to make decisions based upon what people have told you and they haven't been honest. They've defrauded you, you see. That does happen. But you must be careful in those things. And think about these things. Fill your mind with these things. Before you fill your mouth with prayers, fill your mind with truth, and virtue, and goodness, and righteousness, and your heart. Indeed, lay your heart before the Lord daily in prayer. Here's my heart. Here's my life. Trust me, try me. Try me, the Lord. Examine me. I lay myself before you. And then examine yourself, you see. Again, examine yourself to see if you be in the faith. That's a daily thing. That's in the present indicative active. Examine and keep on examining yourself. Give diligence, give diligence. Again, present indicative, active. Continue to give diligence to make sure you're calling an election. And again, the word in the question was providence. As I told you the other day in the sermon, you shouldn't get into philosophical, contemplations about predestination or philosophical, you know, philosophical arguments or investigations about the depth of predestination or, you know, what we should, you know, how that should affect our decisions. I hear people all the time say, well, if God purposed it, well, we know that. It's the sovereignty of God. I know that. I know God's sovereign. I know it's his purpose. That's not the question. The question is, what about my responsibility? What about my obedience, you see? So we shouldn't get into these philosophical contemplations about these things that are above us. Here's what God wants you to do. He wants you to obey him. In the illustration that I gave you that John Owen used, that this man had two sons. One was a wicked son, one was a righteous son. The wicked son prayed for his father to die so he could get his inheritance. The righteous son prayed for his father to live because the presence of his father was more to him than all the wealth of his father. And the father died. The wicked son's prayer was answered. But the righteous son was blessed. Obey. Trust. and obey. The hymn writer wrote, trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. So when you don't know what to do, do what you know to do. All right? Any follow-up? Is that clear? Y'all are afraid to ask me another one, because it took me all this time to answer this one. We'll be here to midnight. All right. Let's pray.