Thank you very much, Dr. Pettit. It's a delight to be with you over the course of these days. For an outsider, for someone from the United Kingdom, when you first come and you see Bob Jones University, it's hard to take in that something this large is Christian. and that the teachers are all professing believers and grounding all the students in an understanding of the Word of God. It's quite hard to take in. My first time was just at the end of October last year. I was in town preaching at Faith Free And then I had an opportunity, an invitation to come here and see this university, and I was blown away. I was absolutely blown away. And it feels a little like, and I could be wrong, but it feels a little like when the Lord saved me and I was 19, and I looked at all the young people in the church, and I quickly realized they have no idea how blessed they are. And they're trifling with the world, and their curiosity after the things of the world, and they want to just dabble in certain areas, and I'm looking and sometimes saying, you don't want to go there, you have no idea. And I guess, I have no reason to think it, but if I know human nature, it maybe is the same here. and young people come here and you have no idea how blessed you are and I trust that you will be thankful to God for his mercy in your life and having you here with teachers and lecturers and professors who no doubt at times show their imperfections but they love Christ and they love your souls and covet your souls for Christ and that's an amazing thing. We're just going to still our hearts momentarily in prayer Father, we thank Thee today for Thy love toward us and for the power of the gospel of Christ. And we ask Thee to bless our thoughts and consideration today. We confess before Thee that when it comes to prayer, we have much to learn, and yet we are encouraged that even the Apostle Paul was able to say that we know not what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit maketh intercession for us. We ask that Thou wilt help us to have a burden to commune with Thee, and that fire would beget fire, and that Thou wilt start a reviving in our hearts, even in the place of corporate prayer. Answer us and be with us and fill us with the Spirit. May every utterance be honorable in Thy sight. In Jesus' name, amen. I'm going to read a passage. It's Acts chapter 1. get our minds thinking about prayer meeting. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do this. There may be opportunity. I may throw out a question or an opportunity for you to respond in the middle. I may leave it to the end. And when I say something in a funny way, if I happen to mention the book of Psalms, I'll forgive you for your sniggering. But I'm sure you're all used to it by now, that occasionally we say things a little differently. I've tried my best, especially In the congregation where I am in Calgary, the first young man I pointed to the Lord, his name is Isaiah. So when we would say Isaiah, but when it was this proper noun, this guy before me, he said, my name is Isaiah. I thought, oh, I'm going to call him Isaiah. And when in Rome, do as the Romans. That hasn't been applied right across the board, so it's still the book of Psalms, and that's part of my deficiency. Acts chapter 1, and Dr. Pettit, I think, drew our attention to Acts 1 when he gave the opening address of the conference, and I want to read a few verses from verse 12 and not give I'm sure you're aware of the context. The Lord has ascended. He has left them with a very clear command. In fact, a twofold command, really. The broader command is, disciple the nations. The immediate instruction is, tarry until you're endued with the power to fulfill the instruction to disciple the nations. And so, in Acts 1 verse 12, we read, Then returned they on to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a Sabbath day's journey. And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room where abode both Peter and James and John and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus and Simon, Zelotes and Judas, the brother of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the woman and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." So there's a prayer meeting that's conducted over the course of ten days, thereabouts, and very little happens except they replace Judas, his position, and they probably discuss the Word of God and preach and study, but mostly they're praying, they're tarrying until they're endued with power. And I look at verse 14 and I realize that prayer, corporate prayer, isn't just for the apostles. It's not just for the spiritual elite, it's not just for ministers and pastors, elders, evangelists. You will see there we have the distinguished apostles, we might call them the mature believers there. You have the woman, so there's an equality there, there's experience. There's equality. And then there are new believers as well, because it says, and his brethren. And if you know the gospel account, you'll be aware that through the gospels, the brethren of the Lord Jesus Christ didn't believe. But somewhere in the space between his death and resurrection and his ascension, they have come to understand who he really is. And they're new believers. They're there praying as well. And so public corporate prayer is a vital aspect of ministry, and everyone should be involved. Now, I'm tempted to ask, although I might not bother, if If there's anyone here that has never had any, I'll ask, and don't be embarrassed. If you've never had experience of corporate prayer, is there anyone here who's never had experience of gathering with other believers to pray? So you all know something, that's good. You have an understanding of what it's all about. That's a good start at least. Now what I'm going to do is really divide this up. How many here have led a prayer meeting, or maybe reword that, regularly lead in a prayer meeting? There's a few, okay. So I'm going to address that as the first main point as conducting a prayer meeting, particularly in a corporate, maybe church setting, but even if it was in a more private setting as well. And then we'll get to contributing to a prayer meeting so that whether you're leading it or not, what should really be going on. And this is something I'm quite passionate about because the moment the Lord saved me, I immediately was launched into a gathering of people, young people as well as older people, who were praying. And Lord saved me in the early morning of a Sunday evening, Monday morning, it was about twenty past one in the morning, and one of the first questions I asked my sister was, when do the young people meet? And that was quite a question to ask, coming from my background, which I'll not go into. But I was in as in the world as you could be. And my first question is, when do the young people of the church meet? Well, they met on a Friday. So I was with them that Friday and every other Friday that came after that. And God was moving so that in the young people at that time, they were gathering together on a Friday night And then of their own volition, of their own desire, they were saying to the youth leader, we want to stay and pray. And so I was saved in that environment where I thought it was normal that young people would gather for their fellowship and then they would have a prayer meeting immediately after. No one told me that this wasn't normal. I thought this was normal. And I remember on one occasion there was 29 young people there, and 28 of them prayed within the space of about an hour and a half, and many of them with tears. And that was the atmosphere the Lord saved me in. And then some of them would come back to my mother's home. Myself and my sister brought a handful of others, maybe four or five, into our home, and we would pray into the small hours of the morning. And that's why my girlfriend at the time, who was indoctrinated in the JWs, was saved less than two weeks after myself. And that's a whole story in itself, and how I was able to say to my mother, she will be saved tonight. She will be. The Lord will save her. My mom was a tremendous woman of faith. She thought, she'll be saved, but it might not be tonight. And I said, no. And what I later understood from some older Christians was what had happened in my experience in those early days and weeks as a Christian was what is known as praying through. Who here has heard of praying through, the term praying through? There's a few. You don't hear it talked about very much. But there was a man in our church who then speak about praying through. And what he meant by that was, you pray until you know the answer is on the way. You get through to God. You remember Elijah? Whenever he was up on Mount Carmel after all that happened with the slaying of the prophets of Baal, and then he goes up and he prays for the rain. Elijah had that faith that he locked up heaven by prayer. And then he opens up the heavens by prayer. And he prayed through, he sent a servant, and he came back eventually after seven times and said, there's a cloud the size of a man's hand that's on the horizon. And he gets up and he goes. He prayed through. And then he can get up and go because he knows God has answered, the rain is on the way. And I understood that before I heard the term. I prayed through and saw my girlfriend converted to Christ, and later then we married, and the Lord has been very gracious to us. But if you're conducting a prayer meeting, there's some points that I want to leave before you, and if you have any questions, write them down. We'll be glad to help. It's very hard to cover everything. I'm sure you understand that. There's so much involved. I mean, I was thinking myself. When you come to a prayer meeting, the very spirit and attitude when you are coming through the door is an aspect to the prayer meeting. When you come not expecting to be blessed, sometimes you'll go away and that will be your lot. You won't be blessed. Now God graciously at times when we aren't expecting to be blessed, we're not looking for it, he still blesses us. But more often than not, The high times in corporate prayer are when people are gathering expecting God to hear them and coming with their petitions on their hearts. bursting to bring them forth before God with the people of God. And those are the blessed times. Now, if you're conducting a prayer meeting, there's a couple of things that you may want to keep in mind in order that the prayer meeting will be useful. Spurgeon has a sermon on the prayer meeting, and it's worth reading. There's a few aspects of that that will come forth. I'll quote him a couple of times. But it's worth reading because he understood the power of prayer. And he gave everything, all that was contributed to him for his great ministry. He said, it's not me. It's the prayer meeting. What's the secret of your power? My people pray for me. That's very true. And I understand that as well. Now, there are a few things to keep in mind. The first is education, the second is application, and the third is specification. And I'll break those down for you so you understand what I mean. When you are conducting a prayer meeting, if you regularly lead in a prayer meeting, I would encourage you to take on the responsibility of educating those that you're conducting the prayer meeting for or with, to educate them on not just prayer, but on the history of God answering prayer and blessing. I was very encouraged by the little contribution of Mrs. Abrams today, and just that man conducting a prayer meeting, and she's giving us a history, isn't she? I mean, I don't know if you felt it, but I was listening to that, and I know that history, I'm aware of it, but I'm listening to it again, I'm going, Lord, That's so encouraging. I just want to get together with Christians and pray when I hear that and realize that God has invested and given promises with regard to those who gather and pray. And my heart was stirred, and I trust yours was as well. But you will be before people very often who will have absolutely zero understanding of what God has done in the past. And even as I've just relayed by my personal experience, I know the history of the revival of 1857, 58, 59 in New York. I understand the impact that had even in my own country, Northern Ireland, and how that contributed to a revival there in 1859. I know that, and yet I'm still blessed. So you may sit before people who have heard it before, but you may have new people who come in and they haven't, and just remind them. And I want to give you scripture to show how that influenced the saints in the past. If you turn to Psalm 44, the 44th Psalm, you'll see, and I can't get into all of this Psalm, but they're in a fix. Things are not going well. There's this feeling that God has sold out His people and that they are under tremendous reproach to their neighbors. You'll see that from verses 12 and 13. But He begins the psalm this way. This is where He's gaining His encouragement. Psalm 44, verse 1. We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us What work thou didst in their days, in the times of old? How thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand, and plant them, and how thou didst afflict the people, and cast them out, and so on. Where is he drawing his encouragement from? The past. A past that had been handed down to him by the generations and he's rehearsing this in the ears of God in the midst of his fix, in the midst of their trouble, in the midst of their feeling the need for deliverance. He is driven to believe in prayer by reminding himself of what God did for his fathers. And that's how he begins, our fathers have told us, we have heard with our ears, oh God, our fathers have told us. And when you're conducting a prayer meeting, I would encourage you to impart, take on that responsibility, read a little history, find out about what God has done in the past, various revivals, moves of the spirit, and bit by bit, drip feed into the hearts of the people this understanding of what God has done in the past. This isn't the only psalm that has this as well. Psalm 78 is very similar in how it begins. You may want to flip over there. Psalm 78, verse 1. Give ear, O my people, to my law, and cline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children. Now that's speaking about biblical history, the history of God's dealings with his people. Now that's what we do when we preach. But all of history is God's history, all of it. And so when we hear about a revival in 1740, the first great awakening, or 1857, 58, when we hear about that, that was God at work, that becomes our history as well. And while it's not inspired, yet we can say to our children and our children's children, we can pass on to people, look, here's what God has done. So educate, make education a part of conducting your prayer meeting. If you're a pastor or an elder and you have a people before you, take time to make them aware and get them excited about what God has done in the past. If you've never heard, because a lot of revivals you only can read about, But you can go on to Sermon Audio and listen to Duncan Campbell give his personal experience and testimony concerning the revival on the Isle of Lewis in the late 1940s. If you haven't heard that, you need to. I mean, you need to. Maybe if you have a group that you gather with for prayer, maybe some young people and you have a prayer meeting, maybe some night you'll just download that As I tell my people, if you have a smartphone, use it in a smart way. And have sermon audio or whatever on and use it in a way that will edify instead of all the rubbish you can use it for. Get Duncan Campbell's testimony on the revival on the Isle of Lewis. And just listen. And then pray. Do it again, Lord. Do it again. Educate, that's the first thing. Education, I think that's a very important thing that our people are educated and that's your responsibility if God has put you in a position to lead in a prayer meeting. The next one is application. What I mean by this is when you, and this might be controversial, if you disagree, that's fine, that's up to you, but this has been something I was advised by a mentor And then I would sometimes drift away from it in the last three years, and I always come back to it and say, he was right. He was right. I need to keep this at the forefront of my mind. What I mean by the word application is that when you come to a prayer meeting, if you have the responsibility to preach. Now, not all prayer meetings have preaching prior to prayer. Sometimes you have prayer prior to preaching, such as prayer meetings before a service, things like that. But if you have preaching before prayer, then I would encourage you to preach with application to prayer. And what that means is don't be tempted to turn your Wednesday night into a Bible study. That's what's going on right across most churches nowadays, good churches, conservative churches, churches I belong to as far as the wider part of our denomination. But a senior man in our denomination advised me as I went out to pastor, don't do Bible studies. Lead your people to pray. That's what you're there to do. And one of the things I found helpful, instead of calling, we have it on a Tuesday night, instead of calling it midweek Bible study or prayer meeting and Bible study, I just call it the prayer meeting now. It's the midweek prayer meeting. And that keeps lodged in my mind as well as in the mind of the people. That's the primary purpose for gathering. And so when I prepare on a Monday or a Tuesday for that prayer meeting, I'm thinking devotionally, I'm thinking of something that I can come and that will lead them into prayer. It's not always about prayer. It might be about bringing our loved ones to Christ. might be preaching about the four men, the roof-wreckers as I like to call them. The roof-wreckers who come and bring their friend, the four of them, and they drop him down through the roof at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the application there is our responsibility to bring those who need the Lord in some way to the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so you may preach and apply that, you know, in some way. Something that will lead them into prayer rather than, oh, isn't that an interesting subject about, I don't know, whatever it might be, some theological aspect. But it just doesn't lead into prayer. The people should be bursting to pray. By the time you're finished your comments, and they're just so encouraged by what you've shown them from the Word, that they're just led into a spirit of prayer. So application, that's the second thing I would encourage you to keep in mind. Education, application, and then specification. What I mean by that is trying to make prayer meetings have a specific purpose. When they met in Acts chapter one, what was the specific purpose? What was largely, what were they praying for? Power of the Holy Ghost. That was the thing, wasn't it? There didn't seem to be much else on their mind. Tar ye in Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high. Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you. Okay, let's stay and wait for power. And they prayed for power. In Acts chapter four, whenever Peter and John are threatened, about not speaking any more in this name. And it tells us at the end of the chapter they went to their own company and they rehearsed to them what they were told. What did they pray about? Boldness, right? Not, Lord, crush our enemies and, you know, behold their threatenings. And grant unto thy servants that they may speak boldly. And a few verses later it tells us and with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection." That was their primary prayer when you come to Acts chapter 12. And Peter, James has just been beheaded. There's one leader gone into eternity. We don't like to see powerful, influential leaders in the church die at any time, even if it's when they're 80 or 90 years of age. It breaks our hearts to see men who have made a mark on their generation pass on. But when they're in the midst of their ministry, then you get particularly worried. And now Peter's imprisoned. They're going to take James. They're going to take Peter. What does that mean for the church? So they gather, and what do they pray for? Peter. That's it. They come and pray. Now, they don't even believe that God's going to do what he eventually does. But it tells us in Acts 12, verse 5, that The church made prayer unto God for him. For him. They weren't praying about Sally's sore toe and whatever it might be. Legitimate things sometimes, sure. But that's not what they were praying about. It was very specific. And you go through the times of prayer in the church and it tends to be specific. In two areas, in two areas, Divine power and divine deliverance. If you're in a place where you're needing divine deliverance, you will know what to pray for. The pressing, the weight of the issue, of the threat or the problem will press, and you don't need told what to pray for. When you don't have or live under that pressing feeling of needing divine deliverance, then your focus largely is on divine power. What's the church lacking today? What do you lack whenever you try to witness and you find courage to open your mouth but it seems as if your words fall to the ground? What, you're lacking power. Anyone who preaches in these days largely will, unless you're uniquely being blessed, The Lord sustain it, I trust if that's the case. But you will feel a distinct lack of power. And you know what amazes me? That we still go through prayer meetings and we don't ask for power. I seldom hear it. Grant power. Give power. But being specific in the prayer meeting, Try and make prayer meetings have a specific purpose. If you're leading, then have, say you have a children's work, and you have a youth work, you have an evangelistic work, you have something, all these other things going on, Sunday school, and the temptation is to have one prayer meeting and then try to cram all that in. Now you can do that to some degree, and I'll give some tips on how to do that if that's the limitations you find yourself in. But if you're leading, sometimes it's wise just to break these things up. When I was in Australia, a very small church, and they had an Awana program. And a handful of people in that church were heavily involved in that, and all these kids would come in from the community, and they were there on a Friday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. the workers, so they had the Sparks and Cubs or whatever in the early, and whatever, I can't remember how they were distributed, but they had the two groups, the younger group and the older group. And they prayed on a Thursday afternoon. They came on a Thursday afternoon to pray for about an hour and they would present the children and the Illawanna work. And Thursday afternoon, many people are working. But there are some others who aren't. There are some who are retired, others who have, you know, they're at home maybe with just one or two kids and they can come. And some homeschooled families and the mother and the kids, they all come, the young people, they all come. And they prayed and sought the Lord, being very specific. They weren't praying about other things, just praying about the children's work. and you have a prayer meeting before a service, before the preaching of the morning or the evening service on the Lord's Day, what should you be praying about? Try and lead the people to just focus on preaching and the lost souls and the people of God who need to hear from the Lord. Try to lead the people so that they are specific in the prayer meeting. You will find it's much more effective when there are times of need. Call a prayer meeting, some particular pressing need. Why is it that we're afraid to actually say, look, we're going to have a special time of If you're able to come along, join with us, some of us will be here from such and such a time praying for this pressing matter. I'm being specific there. Instead of filling up the prayer meeting that's there for something else with that, create another prayer meeting. We have a... When I came, I really, one of the things I did when I went to the church, small little church, 20 people or so, and you need to pray. And that's what I focused on adding, was prayer meetings. Just keep adding more prayer meetings. So we have a ladies' meeting, but the ladies' meeting is really a prayer meeting. It's a time for fellowship, but they pray. And we have a men's meeting, and we pray. And then every fifth Sunday is a day of prayer. So every fifth Sunday, we don't leave the church. We come in in the morning, we have a lunch together after the morning service, and then immediately following lunch, from about 2 p.m. to 5.30, we pray. That's every time there's a fifth Sunday. So we just take that as providence grants it, and we bring the work of God, and we bring our loved ones to the Lord. And on one occasion, I felt particularly moved that we needed to pray more. I just felt the work needed it last year. We had a prayer meeting on Friday from 7 until midnight, and on Saturday from 2 p.m. until 10 p.m., and then all that normal afternoon of the Lord's Day. Revival doesn't break out necessarily, but that Sunday evening, A man in his eighties came to church for the first time in his life. A husband of one of the ladies in the church. She's been a Christian for nearly 40 years, 30 something years. Her husband has never darkened the door to hear the gospel, as hard as the road. And he walked into church the first night. He didn't get saved, but he has softened tremendously. And I'm able to go to the home and talk to him about the gospel and pray with him because of that. So we're looking to God to further work there. But prayer. having times of prayer, setting them aside. If you're in control of those things, I would encourage you to take the bull by the horns, and those who are passionate will come with you. So that's conducting a prayer meeting. Any questions on that? Anything specific come to mind? No? Well, if there's anything arising, When is your opinion on career and work? I use a prayer list privately, I do, and in a corporate setting as well. There's a place for it, and I'll try and give some details when you're contributing to the prayer meeting as to the best way to go about that. I think it's wrong, just to say this in case I don't say it later, I think it's not wise, it's really not wise to come to a corporate prayer meeting with your prayer list and pray around the world. If everybody does that, you will kill prayer meeting in an instant. People switch off. And I'll tell you why that is in just a moment when it comes to contributing, but I would encourage you if you have a list of people you pray for, family, missionaries, needs, all of that that you have at home, leave it at home. And when you come to church, encourage the people in very specific areas. I think that's the wisest thing. That's been my experience anyway. I just, yeah. I'll explain why that is the case and that might give more light. Any other questions on contributing or rather conducting a prayer meeting? Right, contributing to a prayer meeting then. Prayer meetings are very delicate things. Very delicate. And this is really where the rubber meets the road in this aspect. Because I have been in prayer meetings where I felt like I was in heaven itself. And I've been at prayer meetings where I just wanted to get up and go because it was so dead. Now that may be something to do with me, but I think they are very difficult. And for two reasons. First, our flesh. One minister I heard say, prayer is the most spiritual act one can engage in, and therefore it is the most difficult. And I think he's right. The act of prayer, interceding before God, communing with God, is the most spiritual thing we can do, and that's why we find it so tough. So we have a battle within when it comes to prayer. You know that in your personal life, never mind corporately. With the corporate aspect, there's an influence and an encouragement by responsibility to each other to pray, but you know at home how hard it is to pray. The other aspect is the devil. The devil hates prayer meetings. I think we have scriptural evidence for that from Acts chapter 16. Whenever you have the gospel going into Macedonia, there's Lydia and other ladies gathering by the riverside, praying because there's no synagogue, and they're doing like they did in Babylon because they feel like they're in captivity and there's nowhere to worship. So they're by the river and they're praying where prayer was wont to be made. So Paul goes into Philippi, there's no synagogue, and he knows if there's any Jews here, Obviously, there's not ten men, otherwise there'd be a synagogue. So, but if there are any Jews, they'll be by the river. So he goes to the river, and he finds woman on the Sabbath meeting there to pray. Praying for God to establish a witness there, and in answer to prayer, God sends the apostle Paul. Now he goes, and Lydia is saved, and the others are converted. And then, as they're making their way to prayer, remember the damsel who comes? These men are the servants of the most high God, That was the devil coming to distract because it was always on their way to prayer. You will see it. In fact, turn just so you see it for yourself. Acts chapter 16. I'll better be able to show it to you. See the satanic influence when it comes to the prayer meeting. Acts chapter 16. Look at verse 16. It came to pass as we went to prayer. A certain damsel, possessed with the spirit of divination, met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying. The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days." I think you bring it together, verse 16 and verse 18. Every time they went to prayer, she was there, on their way. to distract, to hinder, to divert, stop, to do whatever Satan could do to stop Paul and the rest of them praying. Well, we find the same in our days. So contributing to prayer meetings are difficult. It was Charles Spurgeon who said, we shall never see much change for the better in our churches in general till the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians. Do you esteem the prayer meeting highly? Let me ask this, and I'm not asking you to put up hands, but is the prayer meeting in your church, or prayer meetings in your church, is it something that you can easily miss or skip? Because if it is, you don't understand how important it is. I made a decision, and I understand there's a difference between duty and delight, as we heard last night. I made a decision years ago. If there was a prayer meeting, I wouldn't miss it, unless for some legitimate reason. I'll be there. And so I've had occasions where people don't expect me to be there, but I'm there, because it's prayer. And I've said to God, I will be at the prayer meeting. I believe that God blesses. Now, if you don't have that mentality, I encourage you to get serious about corporate prayer and participation in prayer meetings. Because if you're sitting at home, and you come in the Lord's day, and you go home and you say, well, that was dry, that was dead, or he's not a very good preacher, or nothing's happening in these days, nothing's going on, you're blaming everyone else. If you're not praying, you're part of the problem. In what way can you excuse yourself if you're not seeking the blessing of God? You're like, you know, it's a democratic country. You like your liberties and the fact you have a vote, of course. And you will say to people, if you don't exercise your duty to vote, you have no right to complain when the results come in. It's not right. In what way is it different when it comes to prayer? You complain about the church, the lack of power, the lack of souls being saved, the lack of God's presence, the lack of this, that, and the other, and you're not seeking God. You have no right to complain. You're part of the problem. Others may not follow you. That's okay. We will all give account of ourselves to God, and the Lord knows. We shall never see much change for the better in our churches in general until the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians. So again, there's three things I want to bring out with regard to contributing to prayer meetings or in prayer meetings. First, your prayers should be scriptural. Come to God when you pray, when you contribute to a prayer meeting, and I'm talking about Well, it can be silently in yourself, but also when you actually open your mouth and you pray. Pray Scripture. Now, this is much more powerful when you're meditating on Scripture. When you're coming to a prayer meeting and you've been reading the Bible beforehand and reading the Word of God that day and mulling over in your mind certain truths. And get into the discipline, young people, and all that are here, get into the discipline of mulling over what you're reading and wondering how that shapes prayer for that day. Your prayer life will take on a whole new meaning if you read the Bible and ask yourself, how can I pray this back to God? How can I take what's here in Mark chapter 10 or whatever you're reading and rehearse that back to God for my own life or for others that I care about? Pray over Scripture. Then if you come to a prayer meeting and you're mulling over the Word of God that's fresh, and you're bringing fresh manna that you've received and you're sharing it with others as you pray and argue before God for His blessing, your prayers will be such an encouragement. Unlike those, especially those of us who have been on the road long enough, if you're here and you're a Christian at least ten years and you've been in prayer meetings and you can pray publicly and you do regularly, I'm talking to you now because we get into the habit of rehearsing the same old phrases tired and worn and we're not even thinking about what we're saying to God. We're just going over, and some of it's biblical, some of it's God's Word, but we're just saying it in some rote fashion. It's not communion. And the new converts The new believers, at least those who have been there for a year or two listening to you, they just shut off because you're praying the same old prayers in the same old way and you would bore people to tears. And I'm telling you now, I've done it. And if you contribute to a prayer meeting, the best way before you open your mouth is to think, what have I been reading today? If you haven't already thought about how you can turn it into prayer, think about that. The most encouraging person in prayer I've ever witnessed in my life, and I have a very kind heritage from God. One of my mentors, an old man who's in glory now, was converted under the ministry of W.P. Nicholson. And Nicholson was an evangelist. I think he maybe worked with Moody Bible Institute for a time. Anyway, he was a tremendous evangelist, even here in the United States. And he set up prayer meetings, prayer unions, the Christian Workers Union in Northern Ireland. And it had a profound impact because he couldn't talk to the churches were turning liberal. But the good Christians were wondering what to do and he set up prayer unions and they would gather each week to pray. And this man who was a mentor of mine was converted under that ministry and was very influential in my own life. And he was the same man who talked about praying through. So I have a tremendous heritage with that regard. But one gentleman I have met in my life that prays in a way I have never heard anyone else pray ever. I was sitting in our 8 a.m. Sunday morning prayer meeting, one Sunday, in our church, and I'm just a member at this stage, I'm just attending this church, it's my home church. And this man prays for the first time, I've never heard him pray before. He prays. And he lifted, by the time he was finished, I felt that I was literally sitting face to face with the Lord. I was in heaven itself. I was so thrilled, so encouraged, so full of faith, so blessed by this one man's prayer. And I got to know him and we would pray together and we would evangelize together and we would get before God, spend hours seeking God. And he never, never once did he pray that I wasn't blessed. Why? Why? Because every one of his prayers, every time he opened his mouth, he brought what he had been meditating upon over the last few hours or few days. Something from scripture that had gripped his heart and he'd weave his prayer around the Word of God in such a fashion that was so real. Lord, like you did this. Lord, like you granted that. And he would bring it all in and he would present it. before God, arguing before God in such a fashion that I was just, yes Lord, amen, do it Lord, you know, you'd just be lifted up. One man can lift a gathering this size, an entire room of people into heaven itself if he knows God. There's lots more going on, his what with God, his communion with God plays a part. But part of it was fresh, Scripture brought in and being very focused on what he was praying about and on arguing before the throne of grace. And I'll tell you, that man saw things done. So, being scriptural, we can bring no stronger plea than Lord thou hast said. or you did this in the past, or Lord our fathers have told us what things thou didst for them. Learn to do that, that's the first thing, being scriptural. Secondly, they should be eternal. Your prayers should be eternal. What do I mean? Another way to kill the prayer meeting is by focusing mostly on the temporal. So we mentioned Sally's sore toe. Sally may have a very serious, she may have gangrene in her toe, and it's a very serious thing. I'm not making fun of that. But that's temporal. Sally knows the Lord. If gangrene permeates her entire body, the outward man perishes. She's going to be with the Lord. And we pray for her. Of course, that is fine. But Sally has a son. Someone else has a child who's without Christ. If he dies or she dies, they're in hell. What's more serious? Matters of eternal consequence should be what take up the prayer meeting. One of the fastest ways to kill the vision of a church is to focus the time spent together on matters of temporal need. To quote a preacher, who said very recently, and again, he's within our own denomination, so I'm not criticizing Baptist churches or whatever other churches and wherever you come from. This is a criticism of our own group. And this is what he said in the sermon. There is a deadness in our prayer meetings. This is a senior minister. There is a deadness in our prayer meetings. It used to be there was a pleading with God in prayer, a passionate pleading with God, a holding up of the promises of God where the prayer meeting wasn't all taken up with health and wealth. Now, I believe in praying for the sick. I believe in being compassionate to the needy. But men and women, there's a greater burden Our land is going to hell. Our nation is under judgment. Our churches are facing the greatest challenge they've ever faced since the days of the Reformation, and we are at our weakest point. We need to get through to God. There has to be a pleading, a yearning, a burning out in prayer, the burden that Knox had when he looked at Scotland and he cried, God, give me Scotland or I die." End quote. And he's right. And what has killed prayer meetings in part aside from the lack of spirituality within believers themselves, aside from the fact they're not praying at home, and all of that plays a part, but it's the fact we're not praying about what is of eternal significance. 90%, general percentage. Let 90% of what you pray about be concerning the power of God upon the preached word, the conversion of souls, The reviving of the work of God, the sending forth of missionary, Lord of the harvest, raise up laborers. These things have eternal consequence. When we're praying about material things and health, we're really not getting to the root of the issues. The church, the church, the pillar and the ground of the truth. It's the organism, the only organism that Jesus Christ gives a promise and says, I will build it. He may not give health, and he may not give wealth, but he says he will build his church. So that's solid ground to begin praying and focusing on the eternal. So they should be scriptural, eternal, and finally, they should be personal. When you pray publicly in a corporate prayer meeting, make your prayers personal. What I mean by that is not praying about yourself. I'm praying about what has personal significance to you. Now this will help with two things, brevity and intensity. We have an awful, awful feeling of, if I don't pray, you know, the pastor has made mention of the fact that so and so is sick. And if I don't pray for her, then people will think I don't care. And so we succumb to the fear of man. That's what it is, the fear of man, the fear of what someone might think if I don't pray for this particular person who's within the church. So I will leave off praying for the missionary across the water who can't hear me when they really need my prayers. And I'll pray for that person who's there, or a relative is there, because, well, they're there. And I want them to hear that I care. No, no, if you don't feel a burden there, don't pray. Someone else will feel the burden. Someone else will. And they'll pray for it. So your prayers should be personal, for brevity and intensity. Public prayers and prayer meetings are best when they're brief. Like I said to you brother, when you try to pray every burden you have or anything that's presented before you, when you do that you will kill a prayer meeting. Spurgeon, again to quote him, he said, it is dreadful to hear a brother or sister pray us into a good frame of mind and heart and then by their long prayer pray us out of it again. You've been there, that's why you're laughing. You're with them, you're with them, you're not so much with them, and then you're praying against them. You know, that's... I'm not the first to point that out. Yeah, who was it that said, you pray with them, and then you get to a point where you pray for them, and then you get to a point where you're praying against them. If you go on long enough, that's what you'll do. But if you feel the need to pray for everything, that's what you're doing. You discourage people, you take up all the time, you monopolize the time that's allotted and you're not really praying for your burdens. You can't, you aren't Jesus Christ where you can be equally burdened for everything. You can't be like that. You can pray for your lost siblings in a way no one else can. And you can pour out your hearts and shed tears for them in a way the person sitting beside you just can't do. But they'll pray with you as you pray. And they will enter into the burden that you pour out before God. Make it personal. That way you can be brief. When I was at church As a sitting member of the church, we'd come on a Thursday night, and if I prayed, I would pray for two things. I had it in my mind, I'd pray for two things. I'd pray for one, the youth meeting on the Friday night, the following evening, and the open air on the Saturday, the evangelistic endeavor of the Saturday afternoon, preaching in the open air. Those were the two things. So I'd focus on that. Usually that was, if there wasn't maybe a missionary or some other thing that was on my heart, those were like the default. That's where my burden is. The young people that I'm sitting with in the youth fellowship and the preaching of the word and the evangelistic effort on the Saturday afternoon, that's my burden. And I know I'm more burdened for that than others because I'm there. I'm with the young people, I see them, I see what they need and I sit beside them and I need, I'm looking to God to work in their hearts. And I'm on the street and I'm with those that are there, so I feel more burdened about it naturally than others. and leave it there. You don't have to pray for everything. The same goes for everyone. Pray. Your prayers should be personal. What matters to you there and then for brevity and for intensity. Intensity is another aspect of prayer. The effectual fervent prayer. of a righteous man availeth much." And I don't understand it, but it is so that God has intertwined the sense of our human nature into the whole aspect of prayer whereby if we don't care about something, it tends to not happen. But when we pour out our hearts, when you're the Syrophoenician woman or some other poor soul coming before the Lord broken over one matter, the Lord often hears our cries. Spurgeon again, he says, oh brothers and sisters, one warm, hearty prayer is worth 20 of those packed in ice. I fear that much of our prayer is lost because we don't sufficiently throw our hearts into it. So just to go over what we've dealt with again, conducting, Educate, education, application, specification. And when participating or contributing, make your prayers scriptural, eternal, and personal. And I trust that something of that has resonated and has been helpful to you. We have just a couple of minutes. Are there any pertinent questions anyone would like to ask? Yes. What is your preferred method of prayer? Do you like to have the leader pray and other people to just listen or do you like to have each person pray? I prefer to have everyone have opportunity to contribute. I believe that's what Acts 1, what we see with the apostles and the woman, and others will argue that, but I believe you have the woman and the young believers all there, and they probably all contributed as far as I'm concerned. But there are certain things you need to watch out for practically as well. You may find that you're in a congregation where the same people begin the prayer all the time. And you may want to break that up by specifying the first two people who will pray. And so sometimes you'll appoint an elder and you'll ask this elder who doesn't normally start or maybe seldom prays. But you'll say to him, brothers, would you lead us off, and then so and so, and then after that, one after another. So you might have an elder and then a young person as well, a mature young person who's going on with God. I would encourage that occasionally. Get them involved. So I'll do that. And so sometimes you find that the prayer meeting is getting into a rote, and it's the same people in the same order. Well, you can kindly kind of break that up by, Brother, would you pray, would you lead us, and then such and such, and do it that way. But I like to leave it open generally, but that can break a kind of cycle of the same people. Yes? Is there ever a time when it would be good to take prayer requests for help and for struggling stuff? should you, like, not do that in just prayer meetings, but, like, before, say, like, Bible study, you take prayer requests? Is that, like... Yeah, I would... It's maybe controversial, but I heard... Someone told me once that their understanding of a prayer meeting, before they went into what I would understand a prayer meeting is, where everyone prays together, their understanding was they walked into the church, they wrote the prayer request on a list as they walked in, The pastor would preach, and in the background, someone's collating all these prayer requests onto a sheet of paper, printing them all out for people to take home. And then the pastor, at the end, he prays down through that list and dismisses everyone. That was his understanding of a prayer meeting, which my, I was like, what? That's not a prayer meeting, but anyway. I would, I have done that in the past, and I would discourage it. What I say to my people is, you have burdens on your mind. This is your opportunity to pray for them, and we will all pray with you. I mean, if you pray for, say there is someone sick in your family, and you get up and you pray for them. Well, we're all praying for them with you, I trust, if we're awake. we're praying with you. So, you don't have to make mention of it, but if you, in your prayer, it might just be a brief, Lord, I pray for so-and-so right now, and you don't even have to go into detail where you have to begin to, you know when you start telling everybody what's going on, the Lord already knows? Like, she's got cancer and she's in ward such-and-such, and you have people who pray and they tell you all the details that they would tell the pastor when they're giving the information because they think, Just pray for, don't do that, just pray for that person. People who are concerned will come up afterwards and ask, what's happened with so and so? And then the pastor maybe will announce it the following Lord's Day as a matter for prayer for the church or something. But in the prayer meetings where you have a short space of time, I don't open up for lists. You can waste five or 10 minutes of a prayer meeting just taking down people's requests. And it all tends to be, Temporal, mostly. And that's where you need to have the wherewithal just to stand and say, I'm going to direct this. And just keep encouraging the people, focus on the eternal. Who's lost? Who needs the Lord? What's this church here for? What do we need God to do? And that's, does that help? Yeah, okay. Maybe, what, yeah? I may have just missed it. For the scriptural, eternal, and personal, what were the main passages Well, if you're arguing scripturally, you could use Psalm 44 again. I didn't use it there, I used it with regard to education of the past. But what he does is really argue from the history of Israel in the past, which is scripture to them. They're bringing the law of God and saying, and what you find again when you read certain prayers in, like if you study, this is a study for you, if you read Jonah's prayer, from the belly of the great fish. If you study his prayer, you'll find that it's all these different Psalms integrated into his prayer. And he's praying scripture, essentially. So there's other passages, perhaps, I could maybe think of. But does that help? Is there anything else? No? Is that OK? If you need to go, if you need to rush away, if there's any other questions, I'm happy to stay and answer anything. Yes? That's one way, that's one way. The other thing is, when I find out something temporal, when someone's sick in our congregation, I'll not make mention of it before the prayer meeting, before we start to pray. And I tell the people, focus on your burdens. And then at the end, when I close, I'll make mention of those that are sick and suffering. And I may even say, just as we close, we're going to remember such and such and such and such as well. And I pray then for them. And then announce it on the Lord's Day so people have it, maybe in the bulletin or whatever, so people at home are praying for it. But it's a real, I just would try and focus of me and prayer times together with the church on kingdom, real, bigger issues, lost people, missionaries, laborers, that kind of thing. I think it's healthier. Does that help, brother? Yes? We have a missionary bulletin of our church and it gives all the information that we have about each missionary. And we peruse that and do get our burdens for that. So that when we come to the prayer meeting, we already have a missionary in mind. Yeah, a particular one. Yeah. So that requires meditation or pre-meditation, whatever. Coming to a prayer meeting ready for even what you're going to pray for. And that's helpful. Yeah. Yeah, we use that as well. We use that on the missionaries. Any others? You have one? No. Well, if that's everything and everyone, I want to thank you all. Oh, there's one here, sorry. So the unbelievers are in the prayer meeting? Right. And what you're asking, is that okay? Or if you should pray for them? Yeah, I have no problem with that. I've seen unbelievers in prayer meetings. Obviously something a lot of times children of believers are unbelievers sitting in prayer meetings. I've Just last week, my five-year-old, she just for the second time, just recently she started to pray in the prayer meeting. We bring our kids to the prayer meeting, we always have. before we would give them something to do, so they would be coloring in or reading or something, so they're kind of distracted. They're young, but you wean them off that. And what I found really remarkable was we just recently weaned our children off having things to do in the prayer meeting and encouraged them to just listen. And the five-year-old, a few weeks ago for the first time, prayed in the prayer meeting. And then last week she prayed for the second time, and she prayed, Lord, save, she mentioned her two sisters and herself. Let us know that we're saved, or teach us what it is to be saved, or something like that. I don't know what the Lord's doing in her heart. Maybe she's not a believer, but she's there, and God's doing something in her life. But I have no problem with that. The question is whether it's right that you could pray for them publicly, and that's something that I would leave to the friend who may know that they're okay with this, or you could really kind of upset them in some way that you might feel is just... I would leave that open. Like, it's not a general rule to pray publicly for an unconverted person sitting there who may be there for the first time and it may feel humiliating. It may have been hard enough just to walk through the door and to have people talk about you in that way. It'd just be something to be careful about. Does that help in any way? Yeah? Just be careful with that, maybe. Is there? No? Is that everyone? I think that's all. I just, yeah, just say thank you. I want to sincerely say thank you to you for being here. I hope in some way it has helped. I guess the main thing I would press upon you with regard to prayer is to do it. Come hear and hear about it. And what good is that if we don't actually pray? And if you find you're part of a church, and there aren't as many prayer meetings as you would like and you have a fire in your heart burning within your bones to pray, support the prayer meetings going on. And then maybe just talk to the pastor and say, is it okay that a few friends of mine gather in our home on a Saturday evening to pray? We're just there to pray for the church. And then come together with others and seek the Lord. That's what we were doing. And God used those prayer meetings in marvelous ways. So do more of it. Get together, young people in your dorms or whatever you do, just seek the Lord. If you don't learn to seek God now while you're at the age you're at, before you go into employment and the workplace, you'll probably never learn to seek God, or it'll be too late for it to make a real difference in your life. That's just the truth of the matter. It's not a rule, but it's generally. So learn to seek God now where you are. You may feel busy now. But when you get a job, and a family, and children, you'll find setting aside time and nights of prayer will be much more difficult to do. So, have you ever had a night of prayer? You know what it is to pray through the night? I see some people nodding. That's a tremendous, tremendous thing to do, is to get before people and have an open-ended prayer meeting. Let's just keep seeking God, waiting on Him. Pray for us as we preach tomorrow afternoon as well. We would appreciate your prayers. Let's just draw to a close around the throne of grace. Our Father, we thank Thee for the privileges we enjoy when it comes to communion We thank Thee for the sweet times and we praise Thee for all the lessons we learn from others who have taught us to pray and how to pray and what it is to pray. We ask that Thou would raise up a generation afresh who above all their gifts and ability and skill and talent will learn what it is to wait on God. This is the defining attribute of Thy people that they seek Thy face. Help us in these days. May the power of the Spirit fall upon us. Remember those preaching through the rest of this conference. May the Holy Ghost fall on us all. And may there be a great work done in hearts and signs following the preaching of thy word. Hear us because we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.