Amen. What a blessing the music has been tonight, as always. But tonight it really spoke to my heart in some special ways. For some weeks we have been talking about power. The power that we need in our lives to overcome the lukewarmness of our souls. Some six or seven weeks ago, we all examined ourselves to see whether we would consider ourselves to be hot or cold. And most of us that night or that day had to determine that we were neither. And if we are not hot or cold, what we are then is lukewarm. And we said that the cure for that lukewarmness, the correction for that problem in our lives, is to have the power of God in our lives. In order to identify what it's like to have the power of God in our lives, we said that there were five basic characteristics that would identify a person who was living a spirit-filled life or a life of power. One of those things would be a love for the book. Not just a willingness to read it, a reluctant submission, if there is such a thing, but a love for the book. a genuine desire to be in it and to see what it says and to have its blessings feeding your heart. And then another thing that we talked about was right habits of prayer. A person who's walking in the power of God is a person who will have right habits of prayer, not just occasional prayer, not just every now and then making contact with God, but a person who has right habits of prayer. A third thing that we saw was a pure, earnest, and unselfish life. A person who has the kind of a life that's characteristic of Christ-likeness, giving of himself and being concerned for others. A fourth thing that we saw was a passion for souls. Not just a love for soul winning, but a passion for souls that would get beyond the methodology and into the reason behind our needed burden for the lost. But we said the most important thing of all in a person's life who has power is the consistent, unrestrained, controlling presence of the Holy Spirit. Now in our independent Baptist churches today, we just don't hear a great deal about how to have the power of the Holy Spirit. That's unfortunate because it's one of the most important themes in all of the Bible. And for the last several weeks, we've been talking about power. We said first that God had given us a promise of power, and we looked in John 7 and saw that promise. And his promise of power was that we would be witnesses, as he said in Acts chapter 1. After we had received the power of the Holy Spirit, we would be witnesses unto him. Not we would be able to, but we would be. His promise of power is ours. Then we saw something about the purpose of power, and that the purpose of God's power in us is to enable us to do God's work, or conversely, to give God an outlet through which to do His work in this world. We talked about the price of power, which is involved in denying self, taking up the cross, and following Christ, saying no to the flesh and yes to the Spirit of God. We talked about the person of power. And we learned some things about the Holy Spirit, how that if we're going to have power in our lives, the Holy Spirit must have mastery of the submissive Christian. And then the last time we were together, we talked about the practice of power, and we found that there were three key things, three key words, a key time, a key book, and a key word. That time was daily, that book was this book, and the key word was obedience. We bound them all together with the word trust and we saw that as we trust God and allow him to speak to us through his word on a regular basis with an attitude predisposed to obedience, God will begin to rule in us and give us the power that we need. We want to close this brief series on power with a message tonight on the prayer. of power. I've heard a lot of messages on prayer. I've preached a lot of messages on prayer. I've attended conferences on prayer. I've read a lot of books on prayer. And one of the things that I have been seeing over the years as we come to the subject of prayer is that too often we get the idea that one verse that talks about prayer is the key to prayer. I've heard people that'll say, well, the way to get your prayers answered is determination. Ask and seek and knock and that means keep on asking and keep on seeking and keep on knocking and if you really want to get your prayer answered you've got to be persistent and then I'll hear another prayer or another sermon on prayer about another illustration from the word and That'll be the key to prayer. Well, if we're gonna pray we've got to pray in Jesus name What does that mean? Well, the truth of the matter is Understanding how to communicate with God in prayer is very much like understanding how to communicate with God through the book. There are many different things in this book, many different grammatical styles, many different types of writing. And as we studied the Psalms together on Sunday morning, we're having to learn something about the structure of the Psalms in order to be able to understand the Psalms. Now, if we try to take what we've studied about the Psalms and say, that's the key. Whenever you want to understand the Bible, you have to understand that it's poetry. And you try to apply that in every single area of the Bible, you'd get greatly confused in much of the Bible. The simple truth is, all of this book is God's word. God speaks to us through all of it, but he speaks in different ways at different times and different places. And in the same way that you and I must learn how to understand what God is saying to us in this book, we must learn how to say what we ought to say to God in prayer. And there are no simplistic, now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep formulas that you and I can apply that will always be considered prayer. There are many different kinds of prayer. Many different ways to pray. Many different attitudes with which to come to God in prayer. But there are some simple principles, especially when it comes to this matter of power. So we're not trying to exhaust the subject of prayer tonight any more than we're trying to exhaust the subject of Bible study when we study one particular passage of scripture. But what we are going to see tonight is how to have power and what to pray in order to have power. What is the prayer that is connected to, or related to, power? And that power that we're talking about is that which will produce in the life those things which we've talked about. A love for the book, right habits of prayer, the pure, earnest, and unselfish life, and a passion for souls which ought to characterize every believer who's walking in the power of the Spirit. Now I want you to turn to John chapter 15, and we'll read a verse or two there. These messages on power have been topical messages. I would rather preach expository messages. I think you know that. I suspect you'd rather hear expository messages. But this is important. And we are talking about a topic. And so we're going to move from one scripture to another tonight, as we have been doing for several weeks. And then next Sunday night, Pastor Dixon will be preaching in my absence. And then we're going to begin a new study, which I hope will be a help and a blessing to you. And those messages will be expository messages. Well, we're talking about the topic of prayer and power tonight. And I want to lead up to the verse on which we'll focus for a few moments by beginning at verse one. The Lord Jesus says, I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. And every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, my words abide in you. Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Now let's pray. Father, we need tonight to understand what it means to abide in Christ, and we need to know what it means to be able to ask what we will and receive it. Lord, I pray that you'd help us tonight not to be looking for some selfish formula through which we can obtain that which we desire for ourselves. but that we might know tonight fully and finally what it means to have power with God and power with men, power in prayer. Lord, there are things that we believe are your will, and yet we lack the power to pray for those things and see them done. Help us, Lord, to be able to maintain the brokenness that you've given to many and to see it in the lives of others, that all of us might come submissively to the Holy Spirit to be instructed and taught to pray. Help us tonight to understand what power in prayer really is. And Father, I pray that you'd help me, that I might have the power of the Holy Spirit as I preach, and that he might speak through me to the hearts of these people. In Jesus' name, amen. The first thing that I want you to understand as we talk about the prayer of power is this concept of abiding in Christ. I think perhaps because the word abide sounds similar to the word abode, we think that to abide means to live somewhere. And we're not far wrong. But it doesn't just mean to dwell there while you do what you want. The concept of abiding in this verse right here, obviously because of the context, reveals to us that it means to have your life in a certain place. To draw life from. A branch that abides in the vine means it is alive in the vine. It draws its life from the vine. It bears fruit because it has that life in the vine. And a man who bears fruit in his life does so because the life-giving force of that vine flows up through the vine into the branch and bears fruit. It is not so much the branch that is producing the fruit as it is the vine that is producing the fruit through the branch. Because the branch is abiding in the vine and you and I are to abide in Christ in that same way now What does it mean to abide in Christ? It means to live in him and have our being in him It means to draw our life from him and our power from him It means to do all these things that we've talked about so far here in our study on power the two keys to the message tonight are here in verse 7 first if ye abide in me and but there's another condition, and my words in you. Now there are two means of grace that the Bible teaches. Why do we say two means of grace? Two ways in which God bestows his grace upon us. Now there's some churches, most notably the Roman Catholic Church, that teaches that there are a variety of sacraments. And a sacrament is, in essence, a means of grace. When we do those certain things which are called sacraments, the Roman Church would teach us that God bestows grace upon us because of those things. But the Bible teaches that there are only two ways that God gives us His grace. The first one is through the Word of God. And the second one is through prayer. Now we talk much in fundamental Bible churches today about the Bible and how we ought to read the Bible and how we ought to let God speak to us through the Bible. But we also ought to be talking about prayer and how God would speak to us in prayer as we speak to Him in prayer. I've often said to you in your devotional life that there are two things that need to take place. If you truly are going to have devotions, you must communicate with God. Now, if you're going to communicate with God, there are two essentials that are required. Number one, God must speak to you. Boy, that's simple. But it's true. The second thing, you know what it is, you must speak to God. Now, how often have you, quote, had devotions when one or the other or perhaps both of those things did not occur? Oh, you read some Bible and you got some academic information, but you came away from that Bible reading not with a conviction that God Almighty had spoken to you personally. That's what you and I need to do when we come to the Word of God. And when we pray, it's the same thing. You and I need to pray in such a way that we know that we are speaking to the God of heaven. I mention this often because it happens to me often. And I'll wake up during the night and speak to the Lord. Now, I'm not trying to tell you how spiritual I am because I know there are many people here who do that too. And I don't speak to him very long. I just sort of think about him for a few seconds and then go back to sleep. Do you ever do that? You ever wake up and my prayer is something like, Lord, help me get back to sleep or something like that. I mean that. But I wake up, it's as though the Lord has just sort of tapped me on the shoulder or something. I mean, not literally, but I'm consciously aware of the Lord. Do you do that? Now, it's easier for me to do that at night than it is during the day. That's, this is my personal testimony. I'm not saying this is the way it should be, okay? I think the reason for that is because there's so many distractions during the day. It's extremely difficult to get away from everything and away from all the noise and away from all the things that would take your attention and to just get them off your mind and to get to the place where all you're thinking about is the Lord. You understand what I'm saying? But if we can do that, if we can find a place daily to get alone with God and to listen to the Word of God and to let it dwell in us so that we can abide in Him and His Word can abide in us, we are then in communication with God. Now, what is it about the branch that causes the branch to bear fruit? May I say that it is in communication with the vine? The vine sends something into the branch and the branch does something for the vine. You see what I'm saying? That's what we're talking about when we speak of power in prayer. If ye abide in me and my words abide in you. Now, we can't talk about abiding in Christ and his words abiding in us without thinking of that wonderful verse in Isaiah 40.31. You know what it is. Most of you here haven't memorized, but turn to it anyway and let's read it from the word of God. Isaiah 40.31. And I want to give you an illustration that helps me to understand this as I think about something from my childhood. in Isaiah 40, 31. It says, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint. Now, if you'll study that verse, you'll find something very precious about the meaning of that word wait. Many people believe that to wait upon the Lord means to do nothing until the Lord does something. God, reveal yourself to me while I sit here and watch for it. Forget it. You'll be amazed how much God will speak to you once you start studying the Bible. Now you can own a Bible all your life, and you can sleep with it under your pillow, and you can carry it around in your pocket, but God speaks to you when you wait upon the Lord. Now what does that mean? That does not mean to say, as soon as God speaks to me, then I'll open it. It does not mean that I'm gonna open it hocus pocus style and stick my finger in the page and expect God to communicate to me through that verse. To wait upon the Lord, is exactly what it means to abide in Christ in John 15. Now that word wait in the Old Testament comes from a Hebrew word which literally means to bind together by twisting. When I was in the Air Force, we used to use a lot of what we call safety wire. Safety wire is wire that you use to fasten a bolt in so it won't come out. For example, there's a lot of vibration on jet aircraft. If you put the bolt in place, there's a little hole in the head of the bolt Once you get it torqued down to the proper tension, then you take a piece of wire and you run it through that head on the bolt. And then you pull that wire out and fasten it to something else so that if the bolt ever begins to come loose, it will not come out. But before you fasten that wire, you twist it. Twist it and fasten it so it's extremely strong. And generally, that bolt will never break torque because it's being held in place. But that wire is twisted together. When I was a little fella, I used to see my mother wrap packages to mail to the various relatives at holiday time. And she always crocheted. And she always had a big spool of crochet thread. Any of you ladies that have crocheted know that that thread that you use, that little white thread that you use for crocheting, is really not the kind of thread you'd want to use to wrap a package. But she could always make a strong cord out of it, and she'd get me to help her. I was just a little fella about like Joseph. And she'd say, now you hold this string over here. And I'd hold the string and then she'd take the other end of it and she'd put it through a spool or something and tie a pencil around it and she'd twist it. She'd twist it for a long, long time until she got it real tight and it began to kind of knot up a little bit in the middle. Have you ever done this? And then she'd take the string and hold it in the middle and double it and immediately the string would wrap around itself. Now that's exactly the way you make a stronger cord except they do it on machines in the factory. Then she'd take that and twist it again and bind it together until instead of having one thin crochet thread She had a strong cord that she could use to tie a package That is a perfect illustration of this word weight They that wait upon the Lord now, how do you wait upon the Lord? Do you sit back in your rocking chair? arms folded Waiting on the Lord that is not what that verse means Those that renew their strength those that mount up with the wings as eagles those that run and are not weary and walking out faint Those are people who bind their hearts together with God's Now the way you're going to do that is by doing what John 15 7 talks to us about abiding in Christ and letting his words abide in you and What does it mean to have the Word abiding in you? It means to memorize the Word and to read the Word and to study the Word to such a degree that it controls your thinking. That's what it means. Most people are not prepared to pray even when they pray because their thinking is so worldly. I mentioned that this morning. It's very difficult for the average person to come and sit through an hour of church after having watched six hours of television. Why? Because the message of television, if not contrary to what you hear at church, is so different from what you hear at church that it's hard to communicate in that way. We live in a society today where nothing except church would ever expect a person to sit down and listen to a man talk. We have all these sophisticated electronic media today which dazzle our eyes, bombard our senses, and capture our attention so that we're almost exhausted by the time it's over. Several years ago, when video games were first becoming popular, I couldn't understand what was the thrill. Why would little kids sit in front of those things and pump quarter after quarter after quarter into them? That was before they brought them home. And little guys would sit there for hours on end. The only exercise they got was in their thumbs. I have a generation of kids with the strongest thumbs in the world. i was in a motel one time with another preacher and there was a some kind of a spaceship blaster thing there in the lobby that motel and i said you know i have seen kids playing these things and i've heard a lot of messages about these things what is it about these things now if my dad had ever caught me playing a pinball machine which i never did when i was a boy i believe he would have hurt me seriously So at first I was reluctant to go up and play this thing because I thought, you know, you just don't do things like that. You don't go put a quarter in some machine and just throw it away. But I said, I've got to understand this. And so I went over there and I put a quarter in that thing and I got a hold of the trigger and I started shooting the bad guys. And I was doing pretty good. And all of the aliens and asteroids and all these things were flying and I was just shooting all of them back and forth. And the next thing you know, I get involved in this game. And then I became engrossed in this game. And the next thing you know, I realized that my heart was racing, and the adrenaline was flowing, and my friend was cheering, and I was scoring a lot of points. And I said, whew, I understand. Now I understand. And you know what scared me a little bit? Because eventually I got killed. And then I realized a very important fact. that our teenagers are being taught, and that is that immortality only costs a quarter. Boy, what a lie that is, you see. Oh, I could get another life for two bits, or six bits, or whatever that is, okay? But I didn't, okay? But it taught me a very important lesson, and that is that our physical responses are involved in the excitement of the electronic media of our day. And I really believe that's one of the things that is causing people today to become so distanced from the method of communication that we use in preaching. Very difficult for people to concentrate as a man gets up and explains something verbally from this book. Why? Because the book does not dwell in us or abide in us. We don't abide in Him, His words don't abide in us, and we cannot concentrate, so we're not ready to pray. We're not at a point where we can. Take a look at what God told Joshua in Joshua chapter 1. You've read this verse before, and again, I think this is one of the ones that many of you would have memorized. But in Joshua chapter 1 and verse 8, the Lord said, This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. Then thou shalt make thy way prosperous. Then thou shalt have good success. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and have a good courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee. Whithersoever thou goest. What is it that causes you to realize that God is with you? It is the knowledge of His Word. I mentioned to you, I think, on Wednesday night that I'd been praying the other night that the Lord would help me to find some tapes that I could listen to on the way back from Charleston on my trip down there. And I stopped at a little bookstore and they had a copy of the New Testament on tape on sale. And I had given my other set of the Bible on tape to my father-in-law some months back, and I'd been wanting to get another set. And so I picked up a copy of the New Testament. I listened to it all the way back to Greenville. Well, I wanted to get one of those little tape players. where I can listen to it when I'm on the airplane, and when I'm cutting the grass, and things like that. And yesterday, I was out working in my yard, and I have my little tape player that I got, it's the little used one, and little things in my ears, and I was listening, and it was just such a blessing, and I was getting so much out of it, and I needed to run up to the hardware store to get some string. And so, I got in the car, and I just left it on. And I went up to the hardware store, and I was just walking around trying to find the string, and I got the string. And I completely forgot about what I was doing. And I got up to the counter, and I was paying for the string. And the young fellow up there said, what are you listening to? And I stopped him, and I said, the Bible. And he looked at me like, really? I mean, I guess he thought maybe I had some rock musician group or something like that. I mean, look at me. He wouldn't think that, probably. He was surprised when I told him I was listening to the Bible. As if, as if, why on earth would you want to do that? And I said, this is, this is really good. I said like that. And I paved the stuff and I turned it back on and went on. But when you know that you're in communication with God and you're hearing something from God, that is a precious blessing. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth. Now how do you get it to come out of your mouth? You gotta put it in your heart. Because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. Now what we're talking about tonight is prayer. And the way that we have power in prayer is to get the right things to come out of our mouths. And the way we get the right things to come out of our mouths is to put the right things in our heart. And that's why John 15, 7 tells us that if we're going to have power in prayer, we have to abide in Christ and his word has to abide in us. Proverbs chapter 3. Proverbs 3, 1 through 6, a wonderful portion of Scripture, talks about this exact same thing. My son, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments. Length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee. Now what does that mean? That means don't let the truth of the word of God, regardless of what the message is, whether it's a message of judgment or whether it's a message of blessing, don't let that message get away from you. Don't let mercy and truth forsake thee. Bind them about thy neck, write them upon the table of thine heart. Now how do you bind the word of God about your neck? Well, the Hebrews literally bounded about their neck. You'll see to this day, Orthodox Jews who will have a little necklace around their neck, and then they'll have a little cylinder. Usually it's gold, sometimes silver, and it'll have threaded caps on it. And if you were to ask them to show you, they would undo those threaded caps, and within that little cylinder, they would have a tiny scroll of the Hebrew script of the Old Testament. Now, most of them couldn't even read it, but they're trying to be obedient to this precept of binding the word of God about their neck. When I was in school, I used to do yard work, and I used to do some yard work for a Jewish family. There in obedience to Deuteronomy 6, there on the doorpost of their house was a little box, and inside that box was a little scroll with some Hebrew words on it from the Old Testament. Well, how do you and I bind the Word of God about our neck? It literally means to carry it with you. Simple. Carry a New Testament. Keep it in your pocket or your purse. Keep it in the glove compartment of your car. Keep it in your briefcase. Keep it in your desk. Keep the Word of God with you. You say, well, I can't carry the Bible how I work. Well, get a three by five card and write a verse on it that you're trying to memorize. Get you some memory cards. Listen, some of you folks have been out of school for years and you haven't memorized a verse since you got out. You had to while you were in school, maybe, some of you. But since you've been out, what about it? I always recommend that to folks who are trying to get victory in their thought life. Get you a verse of scripture. One of the most common verses that is useful for overcoming temptation, 1 Corinthians 10, 13. Take a three by five card and jot that verse down on there. There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you're able, but will with the temptation make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it. What a blessing that verse is. And carry that verse with you. Put it on your nightstand right there on top of the reality delay button on your alarm clock. You know what I'm talking about? So when you reach over to give yourself 15 more minutes of dreamland, the first thing you'll feel is that verse. Get up in the morning and when you go in there to shave or whatever, put that right there on the mirror and be reminded of it. You say, are you serious? I'm serious! And then we get ready to go to work. Just put it up there next to your speedometer. You'll be looking at it frequently on the way to work. and see that verse and take it to work with you wherever you work. Listen, I'm not kidding. I remember one time I had a job working down at E-Systems down at Donaldson Center when I was a student and my job was shooting rivets in the fuel tanks on the back of F-4 airplanes. You can't converse with anybody when you're shooting rivets. It's a good way to go deaf. And here I was in a little fuel tank that was about half the size of this pulpit, and I was inside that thing with a flashlight or a shop light on my back, shooting rivets over my head with a verse of scripture taped beside my work. Now, I'm not trying to tell you how spiritual I am. I had a test the next day. But I'm saying that if you can do it in that environment and memorize the verse, You can memorize verses anywhere where you can safely take your eyes off your work from time to time. You see what I'm saying? Bind them about thy neck. Write them upon the table of thine heart. That means carry the word of God with you. Now, how do you write the word of God upon the table of your heart? You memorize it. Memorize these verses. I'm convinced that one of the reasons so many people have such a weak prayer life is they just don't have enough of the Bible in their hearts. They just don't have enough of the Bible in their minds. They have not written the Word of God upon their hearts. And when out of the abundance of their heart, their mouth speaks, it never has anything to do with the Bible. Because what comes out of the heart is reflected in the mouth, and prayer comes out of the mouth. But it doesn't start in the mouth. It starts in the heart. Put the Word of God in the heart. So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. We said last week that the key to this kind of power is trust. Everybody here perhaps has memorized Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. It follows right on the heels of writing the Word of God upon your heart and binding it about your neck. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not to thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. You'll know what God wants you to pray for when the Word of God dwells in you richly and controls your thinking and finds expression in the words of your mouth. James chapter 1. There's another portion of scripture which elaborates further on what we're talking about tonight. James chapter 1, verse 20. It says, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Let me stop there for just a moment. The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Sometimes it's easy in our personalities to seem to be very fervent for God. What we're talking about here tonight is spiritual power, not human power. We're talking about the power of God, not the power of man. And sometimes because love thinketh no evil, we look at a man whom we love, and we think there is a person who really has power. Why? Because he hollers when he preaches, or because he's dynamic, or because somehow he's found a way to make his own personal anger look like righteous indignation. But the truth of the matter is, the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Look at the effect that it has on the lives of those he touches. Does it produce a genuine spirituality or a veiled carnality which is directed toward the Lord's work? You see what I'm saying? God's power and man's power are at cross purposes. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls. There's the key right there. Receive with meekness the engrafted word. You know what the word meekness means in the Bible? It means a willingness to be led. The meek shall inherit the earth. That's a quotation from the Psalms in Matthew 5 in what we call the Beatitudes. When it says the meek shall inherit the earth, direct quotation from the Psalms. Now what's it talking about? Those who were willing to be led followed the Lord through the wilderness and got into the promised land. They inherited the land because they were willing to be led. Those that were not willing to be led perished in the wilderness. Meek. does not mean mild-mannered. It means willing to be led. Receive with meekness the engrafted Word. Now, you know what grafting is. Grafting in agriculture is that process whereby we take a branch that is alive in one tree and graft it into another tree where it continues to live. The engrafted Word refers to the Word of God, which lives in this book, now being taken and put in my heart where it lives in my heart. And as the word of God lives in my heart, it has been engrafted into me and lives there, and I receive it with a willingness to be governed by it. That's what that means. Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. Now that not only refers to the salvation experience of eternal life, but it refers to the sanctifying influence that makes us Christ-like. Why? Because as the Word of God dwells in us richly and controls us, it enables us to become a doer and not just a hearer. Look at verse 22. But be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the Word, and not a doer, he is likened to a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. This man shall be blessed in his deed. This man will have joy in everything he does. This man will have fellowship with the Lord as he performs his duties for the Lord. That's what it means to have his word dwelling in us. If he abide in me and my words abide in you, that is the first prerequisite for power in prayer. Now, folks, There is no magic formula that you can memorize from the Bible which will allow you to pray without doing what we've talked about so far tonight that will give you power in prayer. I have heard people who believe that if they lift up their hands and pray that somehow they'll have more power, like they got some kind of a spiritual lightning rod going on. I've heard people that say the word hallelujah in a strange way over and over and over thinking that somehow that form of praising God will overrule the fact that they are carnal and worldly and sensual in their lives. Won't work. Will not work. I know fundamental Christian people who believe that because they have a 15 to 30 minute ritual every single day of reading the Word of God without thinking about the Word of God, of saying words to God without submitting to God, that they are having a devotional life and therefore have power. Won't work. If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, Our text said, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Preacher, are you saying that if I do what you've said so far tonight, if I genuinely communicate with God, and let God communicate with me, I can ask for anything I want, and God will give it to me? Yes. Say, boy. I've got some things I want. One problem. Once you start having that kind of a relationship with the Lord, you're not gonna want some of the things you want now. You see, because when you have that kind of a relationship with the Lord, the main thing you're gonna want more than anything he could give you is him. You see what I'm saying? Why do you get the things you ask for? Because you ask for the right things. You know what to ask for. While we're here in James, look at chapter 4. From whence come wars and fighting among you? Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust and have not. Ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. Ye fight and war, yet ye have not because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your lusts. There's the answer. We don't know what to ask for because we're looking for a way to make God a genie instead of the God of our lives. What do I mean by that? We want a God who will grant our wishes and leave us alone. God will not be such a God. He will rule and reign in our lives or He will leave us alone. That's the truth. He abided in me. and my words abide in you." Now, the second thing that I want you to see, and I'll move more quickly through this next point, is not only abiding in Christ, but praying in confidence. Praying in confidence. Take a look at 1 John, chapter 5, verses 14 and 15. These verses say, and this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. And if we know that He hear us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him. Now, did you follow the sequence? It says, here is our confidence. And that's what you and I need in prayer, is confidence. If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. So the prerequisite for God hearing our prayer is that we ask in accordance with His will. We also know that when he hears us, we have what we ask. So what we have to do to have power in prayer and the prayer of power is we have to ask according to God's will so that he will hear us because when he hears us, he gives us what we ask for. Now, what that would seem to imply is that if we ask anything that is not according to his will, he ignores us. He doesn't hear us. It's not that he cannot hear us, it's that he will not hear us. So if you and I pray contrary to the will of God, we waste our breath, our time, and confuse ourselves. So before we start to ask for something, we need to find out, is this God's will? And I can see it on your faces. Yes, preacher, but that's the problem. How do I know what God's will is? That's why we spend all this time in prayer and then push the erase button at the end. We pray for all these things we want and then we say, but Lord, if it be your will. You say, well, preacher, that's not fair. Jesus prayed that way. I know he prayed that way. I know when he was in the garden, he said, if it'd be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. But he was not asking for things. He was saying, in essence, I don't want to have to go through what I'm going to have to go through, but because I want your will more than I want my will, I'm willing to go through with it. He was asking simply and purely for power and strength, not for a thing. Now, it's okay if you're not sure to say, now, Lord, this is what I think you want me to do, and this is what I'd like for you to do, but Lord, the main thing I want is your will, while you're trying to discover God's will. But it's not as hard to discover God's will as some people think that it is. Why? Because an awful lot of people confuse their will with God's will. Much of our prayer is not, Lord, what is your will for me? Or, Lord, what would you have me to do? Much of our prayer is, Lord, what would you let me get away with? You understand what I'm saying? If we really want to know what God wants us to do, it's not that difficult to discover. Especially if we abide in Christ and His Word abides in us. If we knew the Word well enough, we would never ever mention some of the things we do in prayer. If we knew His Word well enough. If we knew His Word well enough, we would definitely pray for some things that we never thought of. But we don't think like God because we don't think with His Words because they're not in our hearts. That's our problem. We'll never have a proper prayer life until we have a proper Bible life. They go hand in hand. Praying in confidence is first praying according to his will. Now take a look at Romans chapter eight. We've been talking in every one of these messages about the Holy Spirit. And in Romans chapter eight, There are some verses that relate praying in the will of God to the controlling influence of the Holy Spirit of God. Verse 26 says, likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. What is our infirmity in prayer? Ignorance of the will of God. You and I cannot, with our human intellect, know the will of God. We know not what we should pray for as we ought. But the Spirit helpeth our infirmities. But the Spirit, that's a capital S, that's referring to the Holy Spirit, next word says itself, it's masculine, but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now, the Charismatics would teach us that when you're praying in the Spirit, you pray in words that can't be understood according to that verse. That is not what that teaches. What that teaches is that the yearning of the Spirit within us enables us to pray in accordance with the will of God. When a person is abiding in Christ and the Word of God abides in him, he will pray in power and the Holy Spirit will direct him how to pray. Now, I'm not talking about some mystical experience tonight. I'm talking about a practical experience. of learning to communicate with God in exactly the same way that you can, by diligent study, diligent, patient, long study, come to regularly hear the voice of God as you read this book, knowing that God himself is speaking to you. You can, through diligent, patient, long effort in prayer, come to know that you are communicating with the person of God in prayer. Do you believe that? There are many in this room, perhaps most in this room, who have never experienced what I'm talking about in prayer. Communicating with the person of God in the same way that God communicates to us in this book. According to His will. Now if we're going to pray according to His will, and He is going to help us pray as we ought, we have got to be submissive to the control of the Holy Spirit as we pray. We've been talking about power, about denying self, about saying yes to the Lord after we've said no to the flesh. All of that must precede what I'm talking about tonight. Remember the illustration that we've used so many times? If you invite the Holy Spirit into your heart, He'll come. But the first thing He'll do is turn on the lights. And those things which are displeasing to God will be immediately revealed. And if you maintain the power of the Spirit in your life, those things have to go. You cannot say, Holy Spirit, come into me and control me and guide me, but let me keep that sin. That does not work. The Holy Spirit will say to you, stop it, or start this, or get rid of that, or whatever it is that he tells you, or I'm leaving. The influence that I would have in your life will no longer be there. Now he doesn't leave us, but we grieve him. And when he's grieved, the communication is broken. What kind of communication can you have with someone where there's a grief in the heart of one? None until that's repaired. So we must pray according to his will. And in order to pray according to his will, we have to pray according to his spirit. You say, all right, preacher, and I'm almost finished. How do I pray according to his spirit? How do I get the Holy Spirit to come into me and help me pray? Well, I just believe that the Bible means what it says on this subject. And in Luke chapter 11, he's explaining this. And he says here in Luke 11, 11 through 13, if a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? Now, when Matthew records that in chapter seven, he says, give good gifts to them that ask him. But James tells us that every good gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights, through the agency of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is that which ministers to us the power of God. I believe these verses tell us that if what we really want is the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives to enable us to pray in power, what we must simply do as we begin to pray or read the Bible is to ask. Ask God for the Holy Spirit to control you. And He will. If you ask Him for the Holy Spirit, He's not gonna give you a counterfeit, any more than He would give you a serpent if you asked a fish, or a scorpion if you asked an egg, or a stone if you asked for bread. If you ask for the Holy Spirit, that's what you'll get. The Holy Spirit will control. But remember, when you ask for the Holy Spirit to control you, He will control you. And He will point out those things in your life which are displeasing to God and contrary to His Word, and He will require you to be done with them. And if you say no to Him, you have to be honest about what you're saying. Once you say, Holy Spirit, help me pray, and He comes in and says, all right, I want to help you pray. The first thing you need to do is you need to eliminate this behavior in your life. And you say, no, I don't want that. Translate that for me. No, I don't want your help. No, I don't want your interference in my life Therefore, I don't want your influence in my life and I don't want your help in prayer I'd rather do it by myself and hang on to this thing. That's displeasing to God That's what that means and that's why so many Christian people lack the power of God in prayer because they say no to the conviction of the Holy Spirit which would allow them to have the control of the Holy Spirit and which would allow them to pray in the will of God, which would cause God to hear them and give them confidence because they know when he hears them, they have what they ask. So simple and yet so difficult because of our flesh. In Ephesians chapter six, let me show you a couple more verses. In Ephesians chapter six, are we not commanded to do this? Verse 18. He says, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. Watch and pray goes hand in hand together. It's the same principle again. Abide in Christ, let His words abide in you. You ask God to control you and pray and make supplication in the Spirit, but then watch, check up and be careful and make sure that your heart is right with God. Pray in the Spirit, he says. Now, how do you know whether you're praying in the Spirit? I come again to that wonderful verse in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, where it tells us how we can know the mind of God. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 9 tells us that, as it is written, I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. That is not referring to heaven, it is referring to the Word of God. It means simply this, that we do not perceive the word of God with our eyes. So you can expose this book to your eyes all day and never understand the mind of Christ. You do not perceive the truth of the Word of God with your ears. As you hear me read the Word of God to you and expound the Word of God to you, you do not perceive the Word of God in your ears. Neither does it enter into the mind of man, or the heart of man, as it's called here. You don't understand God's Word with your ears, with your eyes, or with your minds. How do you understand God's Word? In your spirit, as His Spirit speaks to your spirit. God hath revealed him unto us by his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. He goes on to explain how the Holy Spirit reveals the truth of God to our spirits. He does it with the Word of God. Now we have received, verse 12 says, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual." Now, I'm going to ask you a question. Where are the words that the Holy Ghost teaches? They're right here. You compare the spiritual Word of God, the breath of God in this book, with the voice of God in your spirit, from the Spirit, You will have confirmation that you know the will of God. That's the way it works. So as you read the word of God and pray, you pray according to the Spirit and you pray in confidence. And then finally you pray in power. Abiding in Christ and praying in confidence and finally praying in power. And I close with this. Praying in power involves both right actions as well as right attitudes. What are the actions? Prayer must include a certain element of repentance from what we are and what we do. I believe that's the true meaning of 2 Chronicles 7.14. 2 Chronicles 7.14 has been used greatly to explain to us that if we would only have revival in America, we could get back to conservative government. is not what that verse teaches. It says, if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. God's people, when this was written, were the Jews, and the land was Israel. You and I are spiritual Israel, and the land is the church. And what that means, when it applies to us, it is if we will humble ourselves and pray and seek God's face, he will send revival to our church. what it means, I believe. Repentance, that's a right action. Obedience. If we're going to pray and remain in power as we pray, we have to be predisposed to obedience. 1 John chapter 3 and verse 22 says, and whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. No person can pray in confidence who is at the same time in a state of disobedience to the Lord. Right actions are required, but right attitudes are also required. Wholeheartedness is one of those attitudes. In Jeremiah, chapter 29, there's a very important verse that deals with the matter of wholeheartedness. Let me find it. 29 in verse 13, and ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with all of your heart. So we have the right action of repentance, the right action of obedience, the right attitude of wholeheartedness, genuinely wanting this, and faith. Mark 11, 24, whatsoever ye ask, believing ye shall receive. But then, of course, transparency is required as well. I think that's one of the keys. Pastor Dixon and I talk about that so much in our ministries and so much as we seek to provide leadership for the church and build leadership in the church. We'll never have the power that we ought to have without the transparency that God wants us to have. In James 5, verse 16, it says, confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. We love to quote the last part of that verse, that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much, but we fail to see that it's in the direct context of transparency with one another about what we are and what we need. Just as the Holy Spirit enables us to obey in every other area, so he enables us to obey in the area of prayer. The Holy Spirit will illuminate the Word of God to us. The Holy Spirit will motivate the Word of God in us to enable us to pray. My suggestion to you tonight is simply this. Approach your prayer life precisely the way you approach the Bible. Go after it as a hidden treasure with wonderful riches to be found. Dig and study and spend time in it alone with God waiting for him to speak to you through it. Go after your prayer life exactly that same way. And when you come to a place that's difficult and you can't understand, you don't know how to proceed, ask God to show you before you just say anything or do anything or assign any meaning to that verse. That would be wrong and you wouldn't do that most of you. But then we turn around in prayer, and if we don't know what to say, we just stall. Just say anything. Little clichés and buzzwords in our prayer. We wouldn't read the Bible that way. But we pray that way. And that's wrong. If you want to have the power of God in your life, you've got to have right habits of prayer. And the prayer of power is the prayer that is based on abiding in Christ. letting His Word abide in you. I hope that's what you want for your life. And if it is, I hope you'll study and meditate on these truths that we talked about tonight. And I hope you'll obtain it. Because I know if you will, it then in turn will keep you moving toward the standard that we have upheld through these messages. A love for the book will grow out of a right prayer life. Right habits of prayer will grow out of the right kind of prayer. A passion for souls will grow out of a right habit of prayer. And that pure, earnest, and unselfish life will also do the same. Prayer. That's how you will maintain for yourself, in the will of God, what we've been talking about. Do you want it? God offers it to you tonight. Let's pray. Father, thank you for making it clear to us what it means to pray in power. Thank you for showing us how we can pray in confidence. Help us, Father, to abide in Christ and let your words abide in us. And Lord, may we truly receive with meekness the engrafted word and may it control our thoughts and motivate our prayer life so that as we come to pray, we can bring some rejoicing to your heart as well. Lord, we know how desperately we want to hear from thee. But Lord, we seldom think about the fact that you want to hear from us, that you love us, and long for the pleading from our hearts and the praise from our hearts to be lifted up on high. Father, teach us to pray and help us in prayer. In Jesus' name, amen.