I'm very happy to be present this morning. I hope I shall not fail the Lord. I shall not fail you as I try to speak for the Lord to your hearts and minds this morning. I'm speaking on the subject of the prayer of concern. As with a microscope, we see worlds and drops of water. As with a spectrograph, we learn the constituent elements of the remotest astral bodies. the gold in the sun, the copper in Mars, and iron on the moons of Jupiter. So when we read our newspapers, when we look at television, when we hear people talking over the radio, when we hear sermons, when we hear some teaching, and when we read some books, we recognize that in this world of ours there are evils that bring emergencies. There are so many things in antithesis to God's commandments and God's will in our world today. I'm not being a photographer of sordid spots nor a driver of a garbage wagon when I so say. But we live now when freedom speech is being turned into serpent's hiss, and the Bible is being turned into error, and civil government has been turned into derision, And when spiritual mystery has fallen low in many places, and when people who label themselves scholars look at everything from a sort of a natural phenomena basis, and when the Bible is summoned to appear at the bar of human reason, and thus saith the mind of man is substituted for thus saith the Lord God, and the book of Genesis is looked upon as Aesop's fables. We live in a time when there are those in some preaching places and teaching places who are dainty tasters of intellectual subtleties, who are dealers in fine-spun metaphysical disquisitions, who are administrators of laughing gas for the painless extraction of sin, who are minimizers of sin, humanizers of Christ, deifiers of man, and Jehoiachins as to the Bible. General Omar Bradley said, We have too many men of science and too few men of God. That's what he said. Winston Churchill said, The human race has reached the point of no return. Dr. Hunter, who is editor of the Evangelical Christian, said, Today all the races of men are held in the grip of a planetary nightmare, and who can loosen the grip? Dr. Lawrence, who used to be Executive Secretary of our Home Mission Board of our great Southern Baptist Convention, said, Working silently within our ranks to undermine our foundations is materialism, the destroyer of spiritual values, atheism, the destroyer of faith, fear, the destroyer of peace, rationalism, the destroyer of brotherhood. liberalism, the destroyer of spiritual truths, paganism, the destroyer of Christianity. I heard Dr. Louis H. Stevens say, I think it was in Memphis when I heard him, he said that America had such a terrible malnutrition as to spirituality, and never in our history had there been so many people out of touch with spiritual vitalities and realities, and that Twenty-seven million young people in our land of America, the United States, were so out of touch with spiritual realities that they just as well had been born hot and tots. Eighty percent of our high school people who have no definite religious affiliation with any religious organization. And ninety percent of our college students sleep in on Sunday morning. And when three and a half million people in our nation have come under stupid tragedy and tyranny of alcoholism, which I call plain stupid drunkenness. If you read the Saturday Evening Post of this week, you'll see where the terrible news is that we have one million women alcoholics in America, and we have a hundred or more thousand girls and women in homes for inebriates who are just as much doomed to death as though they had cancer. And the sword of Damocles hangs over us, if you pronounce his name that way. And we are living at a time of death throes and birth agonies. On Christmas 1906, the Moscow Radio made this announcement. We have sent our rocket to yonder moon. is drawing near to the sun, and yet we have not discovered God. We have turned off lights, which no man shall ever be able to turn on again. We are breaking the yoke of gospel tyranny, the opium of the people, and soon we will relegate Jesus, Jesus Christ, to the realm of mythology. All these things are something that should give our hearts concern and make us pray the prayers of concern. We should be concerned about so many lost people in all of our midst. A million people in our world die every week without any knowledge of Jesus Christ, and eighty-five people die every minute. without any knowledge of Jesus Christ. We're living in a world where God, it seems, is going to have to enlarge hell to take care of all the people that are going there because of their rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we live in a time when the spirit of Laodicea has settled upon many churches, and when some churches, God be merciful to us, are drifting sepulchres manned by frozen crews. And some churches are so cold that if somebody is born again in them, it would be like putting a newborn baby in a refrigerator. Living in a time of a lack of spiritual passion for the lost, when people go to hell or go to heaven and who really cares which place they go to, we are living in a time of indifference of the lost toward gospel preaching and toward our revival and evangelistic endeavors. And when you ask some of them to come to church or to hear a preacher, they act towards you as though you were asking them to catch a smallpox or to go get a reservation in a pest house or catch a yellow fever. When I was a boy, a man could come in town and pitch a tent or rent a big old storehouse and announce that he was going to preach there. And all sorts of people would go, drunkards and harlots and gamblers and cheats and thieves and ex-convicts. And many of them are converted. You don't have that anymore. What a tragedy it is. We are living in a time when people have a derision and turn up their noses and sneers or perpetually stride their lips as to our evangelistic endeavors and our revival meetings. So those are some evil things that bring us emergencies. But amidst all these things, amidst all these evils that would lead our greatest graces to the grave and leave the world no copy, we have a potent excellence. What is that excellence? It's what we call prayer, and what God calls prayer. And you take prayer out of a human life, out of a home, out of a church, out of our denominations, and out of our evangelistic endeavors. I mean real prayer of concern. I don't mean these parrot prayers like Polly wants her crack. I mean real prayers of concern. You take those out of all these things, out of human life, individual life, home life, church life, denomination life, it's like taking heat out of fire, mellet out of music, numbers out of mathematics, mind out of metaphysics, brains out of the skull and blood out of the body and expecting health. On December 20, 1946, a French maid was cleaning up the room of a man-guest in a hotel in Paris. He had left a suitcase open, and in the suitcase was an apple. She decided to eat that apple. She bit into it and she found it. She held it in her mouth. As later she took it out and put it in her fingers. The Conde diamond, worth two million dollars, stolen from a French museum. When she bit into that apple, she didn't know the worth of that apple because of the diamond. We have a great deal of preaching about prayer, we have teaching about prayer, we study books about prayer, we sing Sweet Hour prayer, and we believe in prayer. But I wonder sometimes if we strongly believe as to the power of prayer, if we really down in our hearts believe that prayer is the only God grants us. Prayer is the greatest power we have on this earth, and sometimes it's the least used. We have prayerless deacons, prayerless Sunday school teachers, choirs that pray such a little bit about their singing, people who pray so little, homes where no prayer is heard. I went to the little village country church, and Old Brother Stowe, a great big man, I used to think God gave him such a big body to hold his heart. And he told something that stuck to my heart and has never left it since I was a little boy. He said there was a wicked boy who had been a drunkard and a profane swell and had broken his mother's heart and had disgraced the family name who came to die of typhoid fever. The doctor told the father and mother he was going to die, and the boy heard him tell that. And he himself knew from the way he felt that he could not live. He called his father to the bedside and said, Father, I'm going to die. I heard the doctor say so, and you know it and I know it. Before I die, I want you to promise me to do something for me after I'm dead. The father said, Well, son, I'll do anything you ask if I can do it. He said, well, when I die, I don't want you to take me to the cemetery and bury me. I don't want to be buried in the graveyard. I want you to bury me right by the lot gate. And when you go out in the morning to catch out the mules, to go out to plow, when you come in at noon and go out at noon after you've eaten the midday meal, and when you come in at night from the day's work, I want you to stop right by my grave and say out loud, There lies a boy who died and went to hell, who never heard his father pray. That thing has never left my heart. I wonder how many houses have homes in them today. I know houses that have never had a home in them. And I know places where they have card tables and turn up their carpets to do the donkey dip and the tiger tramp and the bull weaver wiggle and the twist. have any prayer altar. I wonder if we really believe today that prayer has defeated armies, that prayer has repelled frauds, that prayer has assuaged disease, that prayer has quenched the violence of fires, that prayer has caused wars to stop, that prayer has saved souls, that prayer has made singing effective, that prayer has made preaching powerful. I wonder if we remember that prayer has hushed anarchy to rest, and I wonder if we really believe today that by means of prayer that one talented person can have a part in all that the ten talented person does. The little boot black that slips in here on Sunday can have a part in all that Dr. Criswell preaches. The washerwoman down yonder in her little humble house can have a prayer in what the church does. By means of prayer the one talented person can have a part in what the ten talented person does. And the ten talented person can have a part in what the one talented person does. By means of prayer the runaway slave Onesimus can have a part in all that the Apostle Paul did as he compensated for the truths of redemption, counting all things but loss. that he might know Jesus and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering. By means of prayer we can influence editorials. Sometimes I buy a dozen newspapers just to see what the editors are saying. By means of prayer we can sit in parliaments. By means of prayer we can visit Congress and the Senate and sit in the President's office and help him with the terrific burdens that he has. And while I didn't vote for him, I pray for him every day. By means of prayer we can do so many things. By means of prayer the little stuttering boy can have a part in what the eloquent preacher does. I wish we'd remember that. I think about Daniel who shook the Babylonian empire from stem to stem because of prayer. I think of Nehemiah who had no money of his own. no pocketbook of his own any more than Jesus had no pocketbook. His only pocketbook was the mouth of a fish. And yet Nehemiah had men running after him with money and men and materials to help build the walls of Jerusalem. I think of Joshua who reached up and took hold of the bits of the fiery horses of the sun and said, I think of how Joshua reached up and took hold of the silkenly silver skirts of the moon and said, "'Sit down, lady!' and she sat down." I think of how Isaiah prayed and God wrapped the Syrian army in a shroud in one night. I remember how a group of people prayed and Peter got out of jail so quickly they were surprised to see him at the door. I remember how Paul and Silas sitting in the stocks, their necks in the stocks and their hands and their feet sore and beaten up, way in the midnight time. And Paul said, Silas, let's sing. Sing what? Oh, let's sing a song of thanksgiving, let's pray. Talk about a duet, that is one of them. And they sang and they prayed. And the old jailhouse was shaken, and the prisoners' chains were shaken off, and the stocks were loosened on Paul and Silas, and Paul got up and sort of limbered up his wrists and limbered up his legs and stuck his neck around a little bit to get his soup with it. There was some singing, wasn't there, Silas? Oh! But prayer can do. Prayer is the widow's strength. Prayer is the orphan's refuge. Prayer is the penitent's plea. Prayer is a scholar's necessity. That's a necessity of all of us, all this mighty thing that we call prayer. I have a letter written by George Mueller. I don't have it in my Bible. I usually take it that people may see it. George Mueller, as we know, fed and sheltered and clothed hundreds and thousands of orphans for years, but he never asked anybody for any money. Never had a thing put in the paper about wanting money for his orphans. Can you imagine the Southern Baptist churches never asking anybody for money? Can you imagine us not saying anything in our papers about our work? Well, that would be something like George Mueller did. What did he say? He said, my children needed clothes and food, and I looked toward London and prayed, and five hundred pounds came. I looked toward Edinburgh and prayed and a hundred pounds came. I looked toward Dover and prayed and fifty pounds came. I looked toward Liverpool and some more money came. I just looked and prayed and the money came. My children didn't go naked and they didn't go hungry, and they were taught and fed. That's the prayer. And that's excellence. The greatest power we have on this earth, and often the least used, not only do we have evils that bring emergencies, but amid these evils we have this excellence. Heaven sent excellence, so prayer. And then we must not forget the expressions that people have made about prayer. Dr. Ravenhill, the great evangelist in London, said this, preaching affects man, prayer affects God. A preacher who isn't a praying preacher is a playing preacher. A congregation who is not a praying congregation is a straying congregation. And as Lord Baxter said, men may reject our appeals, oppose our arguments, despise our persons, but they can't stop our prayers, and they're helpless before our prayers. I heard Dr. Jowett say, a marvelous preacher was he, talking about a man who could use English language. He was it. And I heard him say this, I'm just a young fellow. He'd been in the glory a long time. But he said, I'd rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach. And I said to my beloved friend, Sir Galahad of God, Dr. Ellis Fuller, whose pastor I was for about three years in our student days, with whom I've cried and laughed and wept and prayed and slept. When he was president of our Southern Seminary, I said, Beloved Ellis, if I came up to your seminary and talked to the faculty and the students by your invitation, and I got up and said, I'd rather have this fellow over here to pray than nine of these fellows over here to preach, would you think I was crazy? If I'd say, give me a hundred of these fellows who just pray and I'll do more with them, And then you deal with 900 who preach without much prayer in their lives, I said, would you think I was crazy? He said, well, I might, and we might, and then we might not. I have many sweet memories of him. The last letter I got from Dr. Fuller, he and I disagreed on some things in our Southern Baptist Convention, particularly about the Baptist hour. And I wrote him, I said, Beloved Ellis, you're eating with your knife. Love, Bob. Guess what he wrote me back? Beloved Bob, with my peas I always eat honey. I've done so all my life. Makes the peas taste funny, but it holds on my knife. Love, Ellis." But I'm still not forgetting what he said when I asked him if they would think I was crazy. Samuel Chadwick said, The only weapon we have to reach the invisible floor is the weapon of prayer. And somebody else said this, I forget his name just now, but it's worthwhile remembering, that Satan fears nothing from prayerless toils and prayerless singing and prayerless preaching and prayerless teaching. He laughs at our toils and he mocks at our endeavors, but he trembles when we pray. At an hour, Judson said, I never asked God for anything at any time anywhere but that it came at some time, no matter how distant a day in some shape. A young person came up to me not long ago and said, Why did God not let Moses go into the Promised Land? Why did God say no to Moses that he would never get into the Promised Land? I said, Well, God really didn't say no to Moses. He said he didn't let him go in at once when he said, Lord, let me go and see this good land beyond Jordan. And God said, Moses, don't speak to me again about this matter. But in the transfiguration of glory, when Jesus appeared in the spiritual incandescence of his dead and made his face to shine like the sun, his garments to be whiter than the light, we find Moses in the promised land on a glorified body talking to Jesus. That's an answer to prayer. William Goodell said, "'Who prays most, helps most.'" I'm giving you these expressions of men about prayer. Whoever prays most, helps most. Eugene Stock said, "'They who pray at home do as much for the foreign mission cause as they who go to the field, because the nearest way to the heart of a Hindu or Chinaman or Jap is by way of the throne of God.'" And Alfred Tennyson said, prayer is like opening a little seuss gate between us and God's great ocean, and God lets the tides come in in full power. Spurgeon said, prayer is the remedy for all our ills. It's the sword that will cut every gaudy nut. It's the key that will unlock every prison house of sorrow, this thing called prayer. Andrew Murray said, in relation to his people, God works only in answer to their prayer. Now get that, please. In relation to this church here, in relation to all our churches, in relation to our denominational offices, God works only in answer to our prayer, said Andrew Murray. And he also went on to say, in prayer we change our natural strength for the supernatural strength of God. I heard Dr. A.C. Dixon preach several times. Oh, what a preacher he was. I don't think he's ever appreciated very much by our Southern Baptist people, but he was a somebody, he was. And here's what he said. He said, when we depend upon our money, we'll get what our money can do, and that's something. When we depend upon organization, we'll get what organization can do, and that's something. When we depend upon education, we'll get what education can do, and that's something. When we depend upon teaching, we'll get what teaching can do, and that's something. When we depend upon preaching, we'll get what preaching can do, and that's something. But when we depend upon prayer, we'll get what God can do. And all dear friends, looking at myself this morning and looking at you, and knowing all that's up against us and round about us, I say that what I need for my life is what God can do. And what our churches need is what God can do. And what our homes need is what God can do. And what our nation needs is what God can do. Think a little bit back to Dunkirk. the English army of 360,000 men. It seemed like they were hemmed in with a chain around them and their land and the German Stuka bombers and the Panzer divisions and all were ready to come down and destroy them. And Winston Churchill said to Parliament, and it's in the record and don't doubt it, he said, if 10,000 men Out of those 360,000 escaped death, it'll be the miracle of the ages!" But England prayed, and God made the English Channel as smooth as the top of my Bible. And the fog came down, and people rode out in their little boats of oil to cross the English Channel, and the whole army escaped death! Right prayer crossed it all. And Winston Churchill found out that more than 10,000 people did come out alive. But he'd said, if 10,000 of our men come out alive, it'll be the miracle of the ages. Go back again when old King Philip of Spain boasted that he was going to ride in Protestants' blood up to his horse's bits. The Spanish Armada went out against England with a vowed purpose to crush Protestantism. That Spanish Armada, seven miles from horn to horn, And Draken's publisher did their part, but you know what God did? God said... And all that Spanish Armada went down. And Queen Elizabeth I had a mule truck with Exodus 15 and 10 on it. Thou didst blow thy winds, and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters." Oh, that's the same God we have. A fellow came down to my house, and I was watching President Eisenhower talk a little bit about the Red Cross or something. And when he got through, this little fellow said, Doc, if you could talk to the American people, for two or three minutes, what would you say?" I had already told my congregation what I'd say, and I told this little fellow, I said, Honey, I'd say what God said to his chosen people in the long ago. And let me thrust that incident. I believe that this nation of ours has been a thought in the mind of God from all eternity for this very hour. And if we'll just turn to God and believe this book and preach this book and live this book, We have all the power and wisdom and presence of God on our side. But if we don't do it, the poor bears that carried other nations out to their grave will do some work for us. And we'll believe what the poet said in this land of lobelias and tennis flannels. The rabbit shall burrow in the cactus plant, shall inhabit the rose garden, the serpent shall crawl across our lawns, and the wind shall sigh and say, here once lived a decent, godless people whose only monument is a asphalt road and a thousand lost golf balls. And here's what God said to his chosen nation of old. Put that along with what I believe about this nation being a thought in the mind of God from all eternity. Here's what God said. God looked as though he were talking to his people, talking about his people as though they were out here. And he started off saying, if my people will hear my voice and obey my commandments, And he turned and looked right in their faces and said, I'll be an enemy to thine enemies, I'll be an adversary to thine adversaries, and thine enemies that come out against thee one way shall flee from thee seven ways. And I believe God's saying to this United States, if you'll hear my voice and obey my commandments, I'll be an adversary to thine adversaries, I'll contend with them that contend with thee. And if Russia comes out against you one way, Russia will flee from you seven ways." I believe that! God's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He who blew the Spanish Armada to the depths of the sea can do the same thing today. We must not forget. God has a great ocean of responses for the feeblest prayer of the faintest saint. But God's people and God's churches will walk with tended, hesitant step. If at their prayers God's people do not pray long and stay at it and pray, you go back to the Old Testament and look at King Saul. Oh, he must have been a handsome somebody, head and shoulders above folks. We don't find that he prayed to God. Go back in the New Testament and look at Judas Iscariot. Did Saul pray before he refused to do what God said to Judas Iscariot? Pray before he betrayed Jesus for the price of the hog? Yo, yonder in Eden's garden and see Eve and Adam yield to the suggestion of Satan. Did they pray that day? when they were guilty of infidelity, believing the devil instead of God, when they were guilty of sacrilegious stealing, taking to themselves what God had reserved to Himself as a token of their sovereignty, when they were guilty of the murder of all the human races because by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned, and when they were guilty of suicide, I say, did they pray that day? Think about it a little. Did Abraham pray? before he went in on to Hagar? Did he pray before he went down to Egypt? Did Paul and Barnabas pray before they crawled over John Mark? I'm asking. Was David prayerless that day when he looked from the top of his house, lustful upon beautiful Bathsheba, taking a bath? Isn't that a prayerless time in his life? Could he have done it if he had fallen on his knees and asked God for help? The secret of failure and disaster is the lack of prayer in individual life, the home life, the church life, and national life. Oh, you think what you may be better than what I'm thinking on this thing of prayer. Now let's notice some exclusions. You see, I have an alliterative outline, evils that cause emergencies and excellence of prayer and expressions about prayer. What are some exclusions? I'm talking about the prayer of concern. Excluded from the prayer of concern is the prayer of adoration, when we adore God for what he is. Excluded is the prayer of thanksgiving, where we thank God for His goodness to ourselves and to others, and over 200 times in the Psalms alone do we find this expression of prayer, of thanksgiving. Prayer is excluded as to when we... The prayer we pray for worship, I think, is excluded from the prayer of concern, really, when we know our lives as they have been. We talk about worship, what is worship anyhow? It's not somebody sitting in the gallery writing in a hymn book, If My Name You Want to See, look on page 63. There's not a group of people worshiping, not a group of people sitting out there wondering when they're going to get out and get to the cafeteria and be the first off the parking lot. Down in the cafe I led a girl to faith in Christ. I'm in a church. Oh, she said, I have a lot of church members. Faced her own son and said, I can always tell the Bellevue members they come in here first because you preach so long. But I can always pick them out from all these short-summoned editors. Worship is the conscience awakened by the holiness of God, the mind fed with the truth of God, the heart warm with the love of God, and the will made submissive and obedient to the will of God. Oh, worship the King! Now, that's not necessarily a prayer of concern. And excluded from this prayer of concern are the preaching prayers where people preach to the congregation in their prayer instead of talking to God. I don't say you'll get less. Be honest! Talk about God in the third person. Preach to the congregation. That's not talking to God. It's like courting a girl and working a Pythagoras theorem over here on one side. I love you, Mary, and the sum of the squares. The prayer where people preach to the congregation is excluded from this prayer of concern. And prayers that are read are excluded from this prayer of concern. And you can't find a line in the scriptures where we have authority to read prepared prayers. People who need props like that must be spiritually weak. I'm not trying to be critical, and I'm not walking self-righteously, and I'm not walking with the presumptuous step of a know-it-all. But I like what the old Negro said over in the mountains between Tennessee and the Carolinas. They opened a new railroad over there, and a man got up and read a prayer. Like some of these prayers we heard at the political conventions where God was informed that Columbus discovered America in 1492. When I got through, this old Baptist Negro deacon said, Well, that's the first time ever I heard God writ to about a railroad. Trying to put on your heart is something about the prayer of concern. Bishop Taylor indicted us so much when he said that one lost word in our Christian vocabulary is the word concern. Do you get that? Is that a lost word in vocabulary of your church members and in your own life? Dr. Henderson, our great layman in Tennessee, I heard him saying the last time before he died that he addressed our Tennessee Baptist Convention. He said the average church officer has no concern for the lost. Dr. Alan Cook up at Detroit University said we live in a day when people struggle upstream and drift downstream. They sink or survive, and who really cares? And son, here's Abraham. No man ever clothed in human flesh except Jesus, I think, was much greater than Abraham. And he didn't go out against the old king, said, oh, Leoma, the king of Elam, the barbarian, win one of the decisive battles of the world. And that's listed among the 15 decisive battles of the world by some historian. He didn't do it without prayer. And God said, I'm going to burn Sodom and Gomorrah up. He said, but shall I hide this thing from Abraham, my friend? And I said, loving Jesus more than anybody whose name I've ever heard, and worshiping God in my soul, God didn't dare do that without talking to Abraham. He said, Abraham, you know what I'm going to do? What you going to do, Lord? I'm going to burn up Sodom and Gomorrah. And old Abraham chewed God down. He said, Lord, if there are 50 righteous, will you spare the cities? God didn't say, yes, if you find 50 righteous Abraham, He knew they might pull the wool over Abraham's eyes and fool him, but God said, if I find 50. Now don't forget that. Whenever you preach on that, don't be like the young fellow in our association. He preached on that, and boy, he went to town too. And when we had dinner on the grounds and much of it went in the stomach after that, I said to him, did you read that chapter before you preached on it? I said, oh, you'll bless my heart this morning. He said, yeah, I read it. I said, well, read it again before you preach that sermon again. I said, not one time did God say, Abraham, if you find 50, but God said, if I find 50, and Abraham said, now, Lord, if there are just 40, will you spare the cities? Yes. Well, how about 30? I'll spare the cities, Abraham. Now, Lord, don't get angry with me. If there are 20 righteous folks there, will you spare the cities? Yes, I will, Abraham. Now, Lord, oh, Lord, please don't get displeased with me, but if there are just 10 righteous, will you spare the cities? And God said, yes, Abraham, if I can find 10. Oh, what a prayer of concern Abraham prayed that day, and I believe if Abraham had dared and said, Lord, will you do it for my sake and God would have done it for Abraham's sake, I believe that. And Eliezer said, Oh God, help me to find the wife for Isaac that thou wouldst have. She prayed about a girl to be a man's wife. It was a prayer of concern, too. And you go over to the wilderness of Beersheba, like I've done several times, and you get some conception of what it meant for Hagar to be out there with her child in the wilderness of Beersheba without any water. And she prayed to God, and the angel said, There's a well of water, more than you need. And she gave the lad something. And old Jacob, oh, what a cook he was. He could have slept on a corkscrew if it had been big enough and been comfortable. But there came a time when he had to meet Esau, who had been nursing in his heart a revengeful purpose for twenty years. You know what God did? God froze Jacob, and then he consumed him with drought. That's what the book of Genesis says. Jacob said, Thou hast consumed him with drought by the day, and sent frost on him in the night time. and burn you up, Jacob." That's what the book says. Jacob prayed to God, and instead of Esau putting a dagger in his heart, he put a kiss on his lips, and they fell upon each other and kissed and wept. That's answered prayer. I think of Joseph, whom God put in Egypt to take famine and fear from the heart of the God took him and put him on the throne. I wonder when they had the big parade down the street the day he was sitting by the king where old Potiphar's wife was. I guess she's standing out on some port, of course, tramping along with a crowd looking at Joseph, whom she couldn't get to yield to her devilish enticements. And there's old Moses. Oh, what a Matterhorn in history Moses was. His people wanted to stone him on one occasion, and he prayed. And then you remember how the children of Israel, when he cried out for the children of Israel, he said, O Lord, here's Pharaoh's host coming, here's the Red Sea ahead. And he talked to God in concern. And God said, Moses, tell them to march in the sea. And they did it. They didn't go across on reeds either. And God made a dry road between waters of opal and amethyst and diamond and crystal and went across. Then Miriam had the leprosy, and God said, O God, heal my sister. Then God was so mad with Aaron, he was fixing to kill him, and God said, Don't do it, Lord. Moses said, Don't do it, Lord. Heal my sister, don't kill Aaron, and O Lord, brought me out, but don't bring thy people out. That was the prayer of concern. I think of the prayer of old Samson, solitary, defiant. man that he was in the midst of a defunct nation, weak in a beautiful woman's hands. Old Samson walked in the temple. He's blind. He's blind. He said to the little boy who was leading him along here, son, put me between the pillars. I can't see them. Then you run along. Get out of here. Something's going to happen. put his hand on the pillar and said, Oh, Lord, I can't see this crowd. And they're looking on as a clown to make sport for them. Lord, I haven't seen the sun in a long time. I haven't seen a human face. They did it, Lord. Now, Lord, kill me one more time. And God heard him, and the old pillars cracked, and it seemed like an earthquake was rumbling through the whole temple, and 3,000 died of the enemies of God that day. And about that, if we are grateful to God that every Sunday we have the chance to feel the pillars. And I see a little woman with a beautiful face bowed between her knees, and her tabernacle is shallow. She said, I want a baby! I want a baby! Oh God, I'm barren! Give me a baby!" And God gave Hannah Samuel. And I think of David. You can write David's biography with all the bad and good in it in these words, David inquired of the Lord. And I think the shortest prayer in the Bible is what David prayed, Lord help! Just two words, Lord help. Lord helped him with Goliath of Gath. He went out and killed him with a little slinging pebble. I never come to that. It may seem a by-paper, but I think of what Billy Sanders said. It's a classic and literate thing. He said, the little shrimp went out to meet the big stiff, and they hit him in the coat between the laps, and put him on the run for the count of ten, and chopped his block off! You know, what I've said so many times, somebody asked me why David got five stones. Is he afraid he's going to miss? I said, no, he wasn't afraid he was going to miss. If you read the Bible, you'll see where Goliath had four brothers. David inquired of the Lord, David inquired of the Lord, and Ahitophel hanged himself. David inquired of the Lord, and absolute rebellion failed. Oh, and I see Asa, the king of Ethiopia, coming out against it with one million men and three hundred chariots. And Asa said, Oh God, it's nothing with thee to help. Help us as we go out against this multitude. And then he prayed, and the book says, God slew the Ethiopians. I see Hezekiah, he had a big pal, and Isaiah the preacher. Oh, it's a good thing for a businessman to have the right sort of preacher. We ought to try to be the right sort of preachers to our businessmen. And let me tell you preachers something, as I've told myself. Our folks want to hear the Word of God! And your businessmen want to hear you preach the Word! So preach it! Hezekiah, Isaiah sent word to Hezekiah, and Hezekiah prayed, and God said to tell you that he's going to do what you ask him to do. And he wrapped the Sennacherib's army in a shroud in a single night, 185,000 men. He answered the prayer. And Hezekiah thought he was going to die, like I thought I was in Tokyo on one occasion. And I did in Tokyo. forgive you for letting you into that sanctuary a little bit, especially if I'm wrong in it. I told God in Tokyo I didn't want to die, and I hope I'll be alive next year when I go out there. " Old Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed, prayed with tears. He was in concern. Undertaken by the ready to undertake for him. And he asked God to undertake. God said, I've heard your prayer, Hezekiah. I'll add to thy days fifteen years. I like that, days and years. I'll add to thy days fifteen years. And Hezekiah said, Hal, I know that so. God said, go out and look at the sundial. Go out and look at it. And old Hezekiah went out there and went to handle the old sundial back I think he's a guy who said, Amen. Glory to the Lord, I've got 15 years. I think of Elisha, who was the mouthpiece in the reign of six kings. I think of him praying for the Shunammite son, and she came to life. Oh, there are so many you could talk about in the Bible. I think of Ezra. Oh, somebody was that man Ezra. He got sick of Babylon and sick of the timidity and the apostasy of the colony down in Babylon, but he got 1,500 together and made a four-month trek across a desert with silver and gold. But when he got to the River Vaheba, he said, we stopped there three days and had a prayer meeting. Nobody stole our gold and silver, nobody got sick and nobody got hurt. God answered prayer. Wonderful character to me. And to me, the book of Jonah is just as much history as the history of the United States is history. And Jonah is just as much a historical character as George Washington was. And when Jonah got out of the whale's belly, I don't know how long it took him to clean up when he got out. But he got all cleaned up and he went down to Nineveh, and I can see him now walking in old Nineveh, down there where they're dancing. Oh, forty days, and none of us will be destroyed! And down the banks, forty days, and none of us will be destroyed! And they said, what's that black-headed nut talking about? Now look at our city! There are three hundred towers, two hundred feet tall, and these walls are so thick, three chariots with horses can travel on the top of them. Talk about those walls going to be broke down. Who's going to do it? Forty days, and none of us will be destroyed! That's a real revival. In one city in Nineveh, under the preaching of one man, Jonah, and he had just one sermon, he preached it over and over and over. Some preachers might learn a lesson from that. Look at the results of 120,000 people repented! The king got off his throne and took off his pretty clothes and said, They made to put sackcloth on all the goats and sheep and cows and horses and mules and everybody else. And oh, never shifted scenes of riot for penitential tears. Wouldn't you like to see that in Dallas and everywhere else? But notice what it said. Jonah said, Out of the belly of hell cried I unto thee as your prayer of concern. We talk about the great revival of 1858. That can be called the revival of the United Prayer Meeting. Most revivals have some definite personality, some man with a big name to do the preaching, like Sam Jones or Wilbur Chapman or Gypsy Smith or Billy Sunday, Billy Graham or something like that. But not one great preacher's name is mentioned hardly in that great revival of 1815. White-haired penitents knelt for the little children, and hardened infidels were saved. Four thousand people met in the Hain Hall in New York every day for prayer. They sobbed out their prayers, some of them broken sentence prayers. And when the ships came in from the sea, they seemed to sail under a cloud of heavenly influence. And the ship with a captain and thirty sailors came in suddenly under conviction and suddenly converted. And on the ship North Carolina, the battleship North Carolina, flying into Harvard, New York, there were four men. One was an Episcopalian, one a Presbyterian, and two were Baptists. And they prayed. And that old battleship with all the sailors on it, all that crew of nearly a thousand men, all but a few were saved. And that battleship was called the House of God. And that came by a prayer of concern, and whole families of Jews at that time were converted and deaf-mute so they couldn't talk, had something shining in their faces that said, God has come into our lives. And that's the revival of the United Prayer Meeting, when people North and South, East and West met and prayed, prayed, prayed, prayed, prayed. I see a poor man who entered a school of prayer too late. His was a prayer of concern, but it didn't do him any good. The rich man ended the prayer of school when he got to hell. He asked God to lessen his agony, and God didn't hear him. He asked for a beggar to be sent to warn his brothers, and that wasn't granted. He was talking to a man, Abraham. He couldn't locate God, but he learned to pray too late! I wonder if we're going to wait until it's too late to pray some prayers we ought to pray. And I think of Jesus' prayer of concern and these examples of prayer I have just mentioned to you. Now be patient with me today, please. If you have to go home, it's all right. Get up and go ahead. You know what I've said so many times to my own folks? Go ahead! I can hit a moving target just as easily as I can one sitting still. Go ahead! And I see Jesus in Gethsemane's garden, and I believe that some of those old trees were in there now a thousand years old when he was there. I believe that. I don't know what you do or not. But in Gethsemane's garden, our sins with their hog-nailed boots walked all over their tenderest heart that ever beat. And Jesus said, Father, thou has come. When thine honor and the happiness of man is involved, thou hast come, O Lord, my Father, thou hast come. And then get them in his garden, for the shuddering necessity of the world's sin uttered his plea at midnight, and where Jesus' agony put forth crimson tears, and when he shed blood, shed blood until his hair was sticky with blood, and his fingertips were dripping blood, and his clothes were stained with blood. He sent out prayers and supplications, as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, with strong crying and tears. Oh, he did it! He did it! And he sweat blood. I like what the old Scottish preacher said. He said, It's such a pity that those disciples proved unworthy of the choice Jesus made of them. It's such a pity they were asleep when they were needed. And such a pity they were awake when it was too late. The old Scotch preacher said, when I think of Jesus praying in Gethsemane's garden, and God hadn't sent an angel from heaven to keep him from dying before he got to the cross, that if I had my choice of being any person that did anything for Jesus while he was on this earth, I choose to be the angel that strengthens them in Gethsemane's garden, the prayer of concern. Listen, beloved, our sins did that. Our sins drew blood from Emmanuel's veins in the garden and on the cross. Our sins were the thorns that punctured his brow. Our sins were the scourge that cut his back to shreds. Our sins were the fingers that pulled out some of his beard. Our sins were the dirty sputum that befouled his face. Our sins stripped him of all his clothes and nailed him naked to the cross. Our sins were the nails that pinioned his quivering hands and shaking feet to the cross." We did it! Oh, what a prayer of concern was his! Then I want us to notice just a little bit, if you'll be patient with me, the entreaty. I mean by that that we have to pray in Jesus' name. You say, what, sir, are you asking my name? And when we say in Jesus' name to God, then all that Jesus is stands up before God, and God evaluates what he is as he listens to our prayer in Jesus' name. And when we say, for Christ's sake, all the events of Bethlehem, and Nazareth, and Canaan, Galilee, and Gadarah, and Gorgias, and the garden where the tomb is, roll upon the mind and heart of God. And when we say to God, for Christ's sake, and we hold before God every groan, every moan, every tear, every drop of blood, when we say, for Christ's sake, whether we whisper it or we thunder it in God's ears, and it's like God listening to the rending rocks that spread open when Jesus died, and like listening to the rumble of the earthquake, and nobody is saved except for Christ's sake. No church is God-approved except for Christ's sake. No sermon is approved except for Christ's sake. Nobody reaches heaven except for Christ's sake. And when we say, for Christ's sake, we make the greatest plea we can make to God. We don't pray in the name of some Socrates pondering philosophical problems. We don't pray in the name of some Demosthenes whose words were like flights of golden arrows as he spoke. We don't pray in the name of some great poet like Shakespeare from whose pan dramas and poems drop like golden pollen from the stems of shaken lilies. We don't pray in the name of some military genius like Napoleon Bonaparte, the archangel of war who died a chained Prometheus, the world exultant of this fall. But when we pray in Jesus' name, we pray in the name of Him who is the verity of God's truth, the purity of God's nature, the beauty of God's holiness, the wisdom of God's mind, the pity of God's heart, the reality of God's love, the surety of God's promise, the repository of God's fullness, and the ocean of God's neckless, marvelous, wonderful grace. And when we pray in his name, as Archbishop Trent used to say, when we pray we don't overcome God's reluctance, we lay hold on God's highest willingness. Do you get that? We're not overcoming God's reluctance when we pray, we're laying hold on God's highest willingness. My little preacher's widow and I, and that's what I call my wife, Lady Lee, I call her my preacher's widow. We went to the Keswick Bible Conference once. We stayed there two days, three Sundays, and I preached two and three and four times a day. And one good thing there, I didn't see any cigarette butts. I didn't see anybody walking a mile for a camel or telling a lie about not a coffin or carload. And those deaf people up there said, why don't you and your wife be sweetheart-y up here? I said, we've been sweethearts every time. The first time I saw her, I said, the first time I saw her, she was singing Whispering Hope, alto and a duet, Whispering Hope, at a little church. And I said, my heart whispered hope. I said, we've been sweethearts all these years. Well, get romantic then. Get in one of these canoes and get out. I got in one of those little old Indian canoes and I rowed out, rowed about 100 or 150 feet deep, about 75 yards from the shore. And I said, look here, honey, aren't you in the wrong end of this thing? She said, I am, you are, because there are just two ends to it. And I said, well, let's change ends. And so we changed ends, and she went east, and this cuckoo went west. And there we were out in the water, a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet deep, a little old canoe, bottom side up and top side down, and the oars floating around. I can swim. I learned my swimming from the Catobe Indians, and I learned every stroke I think they could teach anybody about swimming, because they lived just across the river from our little old farm. And I can swim, but my wife can't swim. And she started down. I said, never forget it. He got one hand up, and the wedding ring was on that hand. Get it! Get me! You know what I did? I said, get you nothing. I said, I gave you $25 two years ago to take some swimming lessons. You went down to YWCA, and you bought a little old hat and dress, and I let that little old hat and dress get you, so I swam off. Now, you know, I did nothing of the kind. I swam up to her, and I said, more severely than I've ever spoken to her in my life, I said, Now, don't you grab me! And I swam out with her, and by the time I got out here came the lifeguard on a motorboat. Now, what am I trying to say? My wife didn't have to argue with me. My wife didn't have to overcome any reluctance on my part with one cry and an awful look in her eyes. I shall never forget that look. She laid hold on my highest willingness. That's what prayer is, laying hold on God's highest willingness. It's not overcoming God's reluctance. I'm through in just a little bit. I'm so glad to know that we have some encouragement in our prayer life because Jesus prays for us. And the Holy Spirit with groans that cannot be uttered makes intercession for us. Isn't that wonderful to know that Jesus lived on this earth about 33 and a half years and his ministry was 3 and a half years, but he's been praying for me and praying for you for 2,000 years. The marvelous, mighty Holy Spirit with groans that cannot be uttered maketh intercession for us. Don't you say nobody ever prayed for you? Jesus has, and the Holy Spirit has. And oh, the marvelous encouragement that ought to be the prayer to know that these remember us. I ought to take time, but I won't. to talk about an essential about this prayer life. The essential is that we should live the right sort of life. James said, The effectual fervent prayer of a profane swearer, of a cocktail drinker, of a card player, of a dancer, of a cusser, or a thief, or Baileys much, he didn't say it. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man, or Baileys a little bit, I'm glad that little's not in there. The faithful fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." That's what God says. God said, the Lord's ear is not heavy that he can't hear, his hand is not short and that he cannot say, but your sins have come between you and his face. Between you and God, therefore, he will not hear. I don't think we realize sometimes a little bit of sin, a little bit of uncleanness, some evil habit we can't recommend, some dirty book that we may glance at or read, something in which we indulge, something which nobody knows anything about, which we call a secret sin which is not secret to God who counts our footsteps and understands our thoughts and follow. These things can serve as a blockage to prayer. Oh, yes, they can. So it's enough for me to say that we have to live the right sort of life if God's going to hear our prayer and use us. I wish sometime we could get the truth that God's anxious for us to pray, willing to listen, willing to hear. Some of you have heard me tell this before, I want to tell it again. What's our big plea to pray? What is it that reaches God's ears? It's when we go to him and say, here's thy son, whom we love and whom we serve, whom we displease sometimes. Oh God, but in his name we bring ourselves and our friends and the lost and our churches and our homes to be in prayer. Do you remember when Caesar funeral day came, how Anthony made a speech. He had Caesar's mantle, in which there were the 23 dagger wounds of the assassins who had killed Caesar. He held it up, and when he held it up, the people began to cry, seeing 23 holes cut in his mantle where the daggers went, the death-dealing daggers. And Caesar muffling up his face in his mantle at the base of Pompey's statue died. People began to cry, and Anthony said, What, kind friends, weep you when you but behold Caesar's vesture wounded? Behold! There is himself marred, as you see, with traitors. I'm no orator as Brutus is. I just speak right on as those who gave me leave to do said I may. I have no wit, no wisdom, no words, no worth. I just talk right on. But I show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths. And I did them speak for me." Dear friends, as you turn again home from this conference, I don't have much more to say at all, but I would show you not the wounds in Caesar's body, but when you go to preach and when you go to pray, I would have you see the wounds in his where the nails went, the wounds on his brow where the jagged thorns pierced it, the holes in his face where they pulled out sunless beard, and the holes in his feet and the hole in his side where the savage Roman spear drank its precious libation of his blood. And I'd have them speak this morning for me to you. and have them speak to you as you speak to your folks, and have them speak to you as you hold up Jesus, as you go to pray. We're going now, please. And I want to come back to the matter of living, having nothing in our lives that would be a blockage to prayer, and ask us to ask ourselves some questions as we're going to sing a sweet old hymn. Now, I'm not somebody self-righteous, God knows me. But I wonder if there's any one thing in your heart and life that's a matter of controversy between you and God? I wonder. Dr. Meyer used to say, one reservation cancels the act of consecration. I wonder if you're living so that people take knowledge of you that you've been with Jesus. If you like, the little diphtheria smitten boy said to his father, the father dressed up as the nurses and doctors and surgeons were, went into his room, he was dying. The little fellow said, Daddy, why are you dressed like that? I said, well, son, you see, you have a very bad disease. It has germs. And these clothes don't catch germs. And I didn't want to carry out any germs for other little boys and girls to get it like you have it. Well, daddy, am I very sick? Yes, son, you're very sick. Well, daddy, am I going to die? What's he going to tell that little fellow? He taught him never to tell a lie. He said, that's what the doctor says, son, but you're not afraid, are you? And the little fellow looked up and said, Daddy, if God's like you, I'm not afraid. Wouldn't you like to live like that? And I want you to be honest this morning. I'm not sitting in judgment on anybody, except myself. We're going to sing in just a little bit. And when we sing it, I want you to talk to God, take time to be holy, speak off with our Lord. If your prayer life hadn't been what it ought to be, if your life hadn't been what Christ wants it to be, wouldn't you promise God before you turn again home that you're going to sort of live, that you'll be always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in your mortal body? Be honest with God, be honest with yourself as I shall be. And let's dedicate ourselves and you from the top of our heads to the bottom of our feet for him and for our people, our little children, our young folks. And for these in the sunset glow of life, let's do that.