Bible. Amen. James. Chapter 5. Verse number 16. Confess your faults one to another. Anybody want to start that off? Man, I wish I had my camera ready for Daniel Richland right then, whenever I said that. He looked up, he went. I was just kidding. We'll not do none of that around here. We'll not do that. As a matter of fact, we'll explain what this word means just a minute. And everybody has misused this word over the years as they do with so many other Bible words. He said, confess your faults one to another and pray one for the other that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passion as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Father, I pray that you touch us and help us. In Jesus' name, I ask you, thank you for letting us be here tonight. Thank you for letting people smile. Thank you, Lord, for giving us joy. Thank you for letting us have the joy of our salvation. Lord, I pray, God, please, I pray tonight you'll touch everything. Thank you for Brother John and Sister Callie being here. God, for the good singing we heard. I pray you'll bless them tremendously and such. God, have your way. Use us tonight. In Jesus' name I ask. Amen. Amen. You can be seated. And thank you so much for standing with us and reading the scripture. I believe it's tomorrow. I believe I saw the sign. that tomorrow is the National Day of Prayer. Is that right? Is that right? You see that? I saw that sign. Tomorrow is the National Day of Prayer. Can I tell you this? As a child of God, we shouldn't pray more on tomorrow than we did today. We ought not pray more tomorrow than we do on Friday. Now, I'm not saying cut out your prayer line. I'm just saying that there shouldn't be a special day to come along that would demand us to pray more one day than the next. If you want to pray some more, why don't you pray for a little bit of testing? They probably some people down there in the hospital right now. They could tell you how to pray. I'll never forget. I'll never forget one time I was at the hospital and Jacksonville and went to see a boy named Buddy Wells. Buddy Wells is a, some of you remember Sadie Wells, her younger brother, got in a four-wheeler accident. And I found out something. When troubles come, even as good as you can pray, as earnest as you can pray, are you listening to me? As sincere as you, as fervent as you can pray, you'll still want somebody else praying. You'll still want somebody else praying. And I was down there and we went down there and was visiting with Buddy and his mom and his dad. And he was in real bad shape. That four-wheeler accident really, it literally almost took his life. It almost took his life. And I walked out of the room and I just, standing still, something I just have a hard time doing very long. And I walked out of that room and I was just walking past some of these other rooms and the way the rooms were set up was there'd be a room here and a room here and a room here and it was a big nurse's station kind of in the middle of all of that. And I walked by and I seen this young lady that was in there sitting by a bed and she probably was in her twenties or so and And a little girl was laying on the bed, and I mean all bandaged up and everything. And I just stopped at the door and just looked in there just a minute. And I didn't say nothing. And I noticed that woman was sitting there with her head dropped down by the Gary. And while she was sitting there, and it looked to me like, Sister Joanne, it looked to me like she was praying. It really did. And I didn't interrupt. I didn't say nothing. And in just a minute, she looked up and she saw me standing there. And with a look on her face like. What you want, who are you? And I just I stepped to the door and I said, ma'am, I said, I'm a preacher. I said, would you mind if I pray for your baby? She said, oh, God, please, please do. She just finished. It looked to me like just finished praying. But there's times that our prayer life is not as powerful maybe as others. There's times maybe that our prayer life is not as fervent as others. There's times that we pray only because we know we should have prayed. And then there's times that we pray that we know that if somebody don't pray, No telling what's going to happen. One thing I know that you better do in this day and hour that you and I live in, I promise you this, one thing you better do, you listen to me, Mom and Daddy, one thing you and I better do, we better pray for our children. You better pray for them. In the hour we live in, it takes a long time for a young man to become a man now. He's too soft. He's too pretty. Work could sure enough hurt him. I mean, I mean, Brother David and Sister Ashlyn had some work going on. And listen, I don't care. Listen, if I had to get out tonight, if I had to go home tonight and do a bunch of digging with a shovel, I'd probably have blisters in the morning. If you don't do something regularly like that. You ever notice that old men or men with real calloused hands, they always want to show you their hands. I mean, they'll shake hands with you, they'll hold your hand, they'll squeeze you until you realize, you know what, this is like a gator's foot I got a hold of right here. It's so callous. So they want you to know that. They want you to know that. They're trying to give a little glory. And that's the only way to do it. But right here, the Bible says this, confess your faults one to another and pray for one another. Let me say this. The word fault and the word sin are two different words. I've heard of churches, I've heard of churches before where they would, somebody stand up wanting to confess the things that they've been doing. I'm just going to go ahead and let you know right now. Somebody stands up in here, so I just want to let you know I've been doing, I'm going to send it down. I try to whistle, Brother John, but I ain't real good at it. Sit it down. We don't want to know about your dirty sin. Sin's dirty. Sin's bad. Sin is an opposite of righteousness. It's not something that needs to be told to each and every one. And most of the time, the true sin is never confessed. Somebody might stand up, and old brother Charlie Rushen, just a precious old friend, one of the charter members of this church. I've seen him time and time again. He'd stand up and just, he'd say, Brother Davis, I just need to say something. And get up and he'd say, I just want you to know I slipped out behind the boat the other day and I had a beer. Did it bother him? Did it bother him? Tiffany, you remember him, don't you? He said, but Dorothy Smokes! Thought he was on a roll for a second there, you know, but he threw it all out there. And we think that's the bad stuff. But can I tell you, and I'm not condoning drinking, and I'm not condoning drugs, And I'm not condoning smoking, but I'm going to tell you something. I'd just about rather be around somebody drinking than to be around somebody so puffed up with pride and arrogant and becoming pharisaical. I can't help that, Brother John. He said, confess your faults. That's my, them faults, that's your imperfections. That's your defects. Anybody want to stand up and confess some of that? Say, well, I've got one leg shorter than the other. I just hope nobody stands up and says, I've got six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. Amen. Amen. I mean, that's a personal thing. Flaws, blemishes. Weaknesses, shortcomings, faults, not sins. He said, confess your faults one to another and pray for each other. So why would he say such a thing? I believe it's real good to think about it like this. I might be wrong, Brother Caleb, but I believe it's real good to think about this. I want you to know, I want you to know I'm going to be praying for you. But I also want you to know this. I'm no more capable of praying than you are. You can pray just as good as I can. And when the day comes and the day will come, I'm going to be calling you and asking you to pray for me. But I got some thoughts. I'm human. I suffer from road rage. I told my wife today, I told my wife today, I'm trying to pull out of the parking lot on Highway 40. And the lady's trying to pull in, and I can't pull out until she pulls in. She's sitting in the middle of the road. And she's sitting way back. I started to dart right out in front of her, dare to run into me. But I figured you might lose on that situation. I had my wife sitting on that side anyway. I told my wife, I said, you know what aggravates me? I said, how people will sit back like that, way back when they could have pulled up there, and as soon as them people got in the way, they could have run in there like that and got out of my way. And she just stood up there graciously, didn't say nothing. I said, but then again, I said, if people didn't do stuff like that, I wouldn't have a whole lot to talk about, would I? That's when she spoke up. That's when she said, Amen. Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed. Do you know somebody that might need to be healed? Well, I just confess one person might need a little healing about that road race thing. He said this, he said, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much, much. We see three things about a productive prayer life in this verse. Can I tell you about prayer? The way I pray and the way you pray is two different things. Because it's me praying and I'm talking to God. And I may be praying for you or I may be praying for someone else, but it's my personal time talking to the Lord. Now, with that said, I would never try to influence Brother Bradley to pray like me. If I try to influence him to pray like me, I'm also going to want him to act like me as a Christian. I've seen a lot of preachers. Brother John, we've seen a lot of preachers over the years. They pleasure themselves in trying to train young preachers to be like them. Why? I can't think of not one good reason that I could think of a young preacher that I'd want him to be like me. Not one. Not one. As Brother Jack said, I don't even want me to be like me. I don't want me to be like me. But I found out this, if somebody has a stronghold on somebody else's opinion, it won't be long that they'll have them to be like them. Prayer is powerful and prayer is very important. And he said here, the effectual fervent. We see, you want to see some, a productive prayer life? Let me, let me tell you this. One thing that you're going to have to do is you're going to have to realize that the character of your praying has got to be right. What do you mean by that? Well, it says effectual fervent. Effectual fervent. It's got to be sincere. It's got to be earnest. It's got to be enthusiastic. David Gibson one time said his little boy was talking to him and said while that little boy was talking to him, he said he had other things going on in his mind and he's thinking about this and looking at that and said this little boy just kind of got up in his face and took him by the face and just turned and said, Dad, Dad, look at me. Look at me. You know what you really like? You really like it when you're talking to somebody and they're looking at you. Don't you like that? Don't you like that when you're trying to tell them something and it's really important? And you think, you know what? If they don't get this, they're going to miss out on this whole situation. And you want to know that they're looking at you because those eyes, those expressions says, I'm hearing what you're saying. Effectual. Sincere. effectual and fervent prayer, praying, praying. Me. Maybe even you, there's times that I've had to pray that I was praying under my breath. I mean it. It was just such a circumstance that I knew that if I prayed out loud, it was going to cause confusion. There have been times that I've faced, I felt like it was the enemy in the person of somebody else. And under my breath, I said, God, I may be wrong, but I believe it's the devil standing in front of me. Please help me. Lord, I sure wish you'd help them. They're not acting like Christians. They're acting like demons. The Bible says this. said, if they were of us, they not alone would have went from us. Something happens sometimes in the heart of Christians that drives them away from the house of God. Earnest. Enthusiastic. And then there have been times that I'm telling you I've heard people pray with such power and boldness. I remember one time. I remember one time that was over in Swamp Road Baptist Church and way across by the Joes. And it was a Thursday night of a meeting. I think it was a camp meeting. And Brother Leroy had come in there. Brother Leroy was still young and a little able. And he didn't preach, but he just slipped in on the services. And Brother Joe called on him to dismiss in prayer. I'm telling you, Brother David, he prayed. And I'm telling you, it just felt like the glory of God settled down in that place. And it really felt like, Brother Gary, it wasn't time to leave. So he prayed for a while. And people got to weeping. What does it take to stir our hearts anymore? I heard Brother Stephen Cox say this. Brother Stephen Cox said this. He says, my heart longs for old time conviction. When was the last time that you and I had personal conviction about anything? Right here, he says, the fervent prayer. The character of prayer. Praying, it has to be effectual. It has to be fervent. Then we see the character of the prayer. Right here, he's praying specifically for something. People ask me, a lot of times on the morning devotions, somebody will put a, many of you have seen it, somebody will put a prayer request in there, they'll slide a prayer request, you've seen it with John, and want you to pray for somebody or something. And that's the way we're supposed to pray. When we say, Lord bless America, what do we mean by that? If we say, God, give me a good car. He knows the difference between a good car and a car you like. If we say, Lord, I need a job and this job that I need, if you give it to me, I know I'll be able to serve you. I'm still upset. I'm still upset about that, Brother Gary, about people asking me to pray for them to get a job, specifically get a job. And the last time I seen them was just before they got the job. I'm not praying for nobody else to get a job. You're on your own. You're on your own. Most jobs anymore, if you're not real careful, they're seven-day-a-week jobs. They're jobs that literally take your time away from God. Work for yourself, John Owen. You know what he's doing? He's trying to work for himself. Mowing grass. Good. I'm proud of him. I'm proud of him. I hope you get a lot of yards to do and your tide goes up. Amen, son. That's what I'm thinking about. Amen. Praise the Lord. Thank God. Amen. Somebody shout hallelujah right there. Amen. Character. Pray specifically. Pray with specificity. Prayers specifically for this. Lord, would you make my love grow stronger for missions? I don't believe that'd make God mad. Lord, I used to love missions, but I've lost my love for it. God, help my heart to love missionaries. I talked to Brother Steve yesterday, Steve Marilla. He's done with school, and he graduates, I believe he graduates a week from this coming Sunday night. That's hard to believe, ain't it? Let's look at the price that he paid for this here. He left Africa, he left his mom and dad, and had it not been for, I guess you'd call it social media, what do you call it, FaceTime, or, all them other things, Skype or whatever all that other stuff is that he got. Had it not been for that, he'd not seen his mom and dad in four years. He's not been back home and he's not going home now until after he raises some support. And I've talked to some people and they say he needs to go see his mom and daddy. Well, that's about a thousand dollar trip. if you can get it. Actually, in Kenya right now, there's nobody going in. That's cut off. And so what if they went over there and couldn't get back? No support, be it Brother Gary to raise it. I just say, I tell them, I just try to encourage Brother Gary. And the Lord said, Brother Gary, ain't nobody going to help you. You're going to do it all by yourself. And maybe it wouldn't work about like that, you know, about like that did. The character in the prayer, I want you to notice this. The character in the praying person. In verse number 16, he said, the fervent prayer of a righteous man. Have you ever tried to pray when your back's slidding? Anybody? Anybody? Nobody? Wow. Probably everybody. Probably everybody. It's just like you're just saying words. I know I'm a wicked man, but at least I'm not like that publican. And, you know, I do tithe on everything I've got. And I fast twice a week, Lord. You know, to be honest with you, a lot of the stuff that we think makes us righteous ain't. The only thing that made you righteous was the blood of Jesus Christ. Thank God for that. I mean, there's a lot of emphasis put right here in this verse on this one man right here. Righteous man. He's clean at heart. We're talking about them kids being clean with hands. I got a load of dirt at my house the other day and it probably wasn't out there a week And all my green kids came over. And I was on the tractor or I was on the lawnmower? I was on the tractor. And I'm riding the tractor like this. And if I saw them going toward the house, I'd say, oh, no! No. Don't do it. Kristen was at it. I said, don't come near my house. I'm telling you, listen, listen. Their feet is all barefooted. Their feet was just as dirty as that dirt. I said, your mama will kill every one of y'all. You go in that house like that. You could just see it. I could see it, Brother John. I didn't know what was worse, me running into the tree with the tractor or the kids going in the house while I wasn't looking. I don't know which one was the worst. But I know this. I know this. I know that when I pray, God probably feels the same way about me coming to him with a dirty heart. A dirty heart. I want to pray right. I want to pray real. I want to pray. I want to pray. I want to pray clean. He said the topic here, the subject here is praying. Verse 17, Elisha was the man subject to like passion as we are. And he prayed earnestly. Earnestly. Now, here's how you define earnest praying. He prayed that it might not rain. And it rained not on the earth but it was placed for three years and six months. That's what he prayed for. That's what he asked for. That's what he got. He prayed earnestly. The effectual, fervent prayer. He's praying. He's asked God. To be honest with you, sometimes I get convicted in my prayer life because it sounds so shallow. Does anybody besides me, you pray sometime and God reminds you what to just say? I hope I'm not the only one, but there's just times I'm just telling you. I'll be thinking about what I said, Brother Bradley. I'll be thinking about what I just said to a holy God. To a God that knows my heart. To a God that sees deeper than I can see myself. And thinking that I just prayed and I asked Him for what I asked Him for. And to think that I expect Him to deliver that. And conviction sets in. And I've just got to tell him, Lord, I'm so sorry. It probably seemed like I just took you like you didn't know. But he knows. He knows. And he understands. And when we pray, he's listening. And he understands if you've only been saved for a year. He understands that a year's age of a Christian's prayer life. And he understands a 20-year-old person's age as a Christian's prayer life or 50-year-old Christian's prayer life. I'm glad of this. I'm glad tonight that he's seated at the right hand of the Father. And I'm glad that He's making intercession for me and you. And when I don't pray right, I'm glad He fixes it. Somebody say amen right there. I'm glad for the foolish times, Brother Josh, that I've asked for stuff that literally I didn't need. It would have ruined me. It would have ruined my testimony. It would have ruined my family. If He'd have given me stuff I asked for, Brother Jared's preaching this week up outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. And Brother Cody Zorn is a great young preacher and was evangelist and pastor in the church. And last night, Jared was preaching on just getting rid of some stuff that we don't need. And I told mom today we was talking about just making a trash haul. And I said, mom, I got to haul some stuff I got at my house. I got to clean up around behind my shed, load up some stuff. I said, if you want me to, I said, I'll come here. I'll back around the house and stuff on the back porch. We'll throw a bunch of this stuff away. She said, now watch out now. I said, well, I'm not going to throw anything away that you don't want thrown away. And it's like you could just feel her. She went, sigh. I said, don't you think that old table needs to go? She said, well, I said, it ain't been used in how many years? I said, then some of this, I said, these old boxes. She said, you just need to wait. Stop all that right now. I don't know her like I know her. I'll have to catch her gone. And I wouldn't do her like that. No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't because I'd be preaching her funeral three days after she got home and seen it all gone. But it just amazes me how things we think we need, we don't. We just wanted it. And that's OK. If you can afford it. If the Lord lets you get it. As long as it doesn't take you away from serving Him. Amen? I'd say this. I'd say it would be real important to pray and ask God, keep me on track. Keep me on track. Just don't let me jump track. There's a ditch on this side of the road, Lord. And I noticed the one on this side, too. Keep me on track so that my prayers are the same kind of prayers he prays. Let's all stand together. We will see you on Sunday.