Book of Mark in chapter number 11. I do, I just, I praise the Lord for what all I have been able to learn from the Lord in studying prayer. It's been a help in my life and just a specific prayer and see God answer some specific things as of late. Just a spirit in which we can go to the Lord in prayer as a blessing. I hope it's encouraging to you as well. In Mark chapter number 11, we're going to read a few verses here, and we're going to start reading in verse number 12 in Mark chapter number 11, then we'll skip down to verse number 20. But in Mark chapter 11 and in verse number 12, it says this. It says, And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if happily he might find anything thereon. And when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever. And his disciples heard it. Now skip down to verse number 20. And in the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance, saith unto him, Master, behold the fig tree which thou cursed is withered away. Jesus answering, saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall receive them. In this passage of scripture, Jesus is entering into Jerusalem. He sees a fig tree. It's covered in leaves. But when he gets up to it, looking to eat a fig, he finds that there's only leaves. There's no fruit. A lot of expectation, but no satisfaction. So Jesus uses the tree and he curses it. And he says that no man shall eat of the fruit of the hereafter forever. The Bible says when he said that there in verse number 14, that the disciples heard it. They heard him say this statement. Well, the next morning, they're passing by and they're heading back to Jerusalem, and they pass this fig tree. But now the fig tree is completely dried up from the roots, meaning there is no hope that this tree was ever going to produce fruit again, just as the Lord said. Peter, when he sees this, he remembers what had just taken place the day before. And that's when he shouts out, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou curseth is withered away. Now the Lord's response in verse number 22 is simply this, look at it with me, have faith in God. Then the Lord gives them a lesson on prayer. Now how does all this tie in together? Anytime the Lord teaches on this topic of prayer, which we find a lot of in the gospels, we need to stop, pay attention, and see what he's teaching here. So what's the lesson he's teaching here? With this fig tree and Peter's question, or statement, I guess, and then he makes that statement, have faith in God. I want you to consider three things with me tonight on the message I've called Pray Believing. Pray Believing. Number one, I want you to see number one, a promise. The promise is found in verse number 24, and it says this, therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Now, I'm gonna need you to think with me tonight, and stay with me, but look at that verse, and now look up at me, and what a promise. What a wonderful promise. Let me read the promise again. Therefore I say unto you, now who's the I? Who's saying this? Jesus. What thing soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Wow. what things soever ye desire, when you pray, ye shall have them. That's kind of hard for us to take in, let's be honest. That's kind of hard for us to even, I mean, it's one thing to read it and say, that's what the verse says, but in our hearts. In our hearts, we look at that sometimes, and isn't it sad? It's just sad, it's just sad for me. I'll just be number one, I don't know about you. It's sad how we immediately start to try to think how we can explain that. Well, how about we explain it the way what it says? When the Lord says, then you say, well, surely it's not literally true. Well, then my question is, why did he say it? I mean, if it's not literally true, why did he say it? I mean, it has to be true, amen? Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Isn't it sad how often we excuse the lack of this in our life by saying something like this? And I've been guilty. These messages are all what God has helped me with, and I hope it helps you too, all right? You're just along for the ride what God's teaching me, all right? But I got what I, and it's sad, I thought to myself how often I have wrote this off by adding some phrase after I prayed for something, well, must not have been God's will. That don't really line up with that verse. Now, you got to stay with me, I told you. At least maybe I got your attention. That's what it says. It says, again, I'll read it to you, because you're all staring at me, really weird. Therefore Jesus, I'll add his word there, I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Well, what's the Lord teaching here? It's sad how we so often doubt this. And what happens is this, you know, when we try to write this promise off with, well, it must not have been God's will or whatever other thing we want to add to it to try to get God out of his contract. Now, I'm using those words, but I think you see, you understand what I'm trying to say. We try, we don't want the blame to be on God, so we try to write it off as something we've done wrong. And yet this, it always leaves us, if we just look at it and look at that verse and kind of make excuses, let's be honest, it makes us doubt the power of prayer. It makes us doubt the effectiveness of prayer. And unfortunately, it leaves many people becoming bitter at God. And even angry and upset. They read verses like that and they say, well, God didn't keep His word. We pray for the healing of someone and they aren't healed. And we say, well, that's what the verse says, why didn't it happen? We pray for a wayward child and they don't just return running back to God. And we wonder why this didn't happen. Or we have some financial need that is pressing upon us and we pray and God doesn't answer it. And we say, well, how does that line up with this verse? Have I at least got your attention tonight? We ride it off into something like, well, it must not have been His will, or maybe I'm not praying correctly, or I have failed in some way, or whatever the case may be, but the bottom line is this, the Lord's teaching us one thought on the power of prayer, but we are acting on a whole different level. Because the Lord is teaching us here in this verse a wonderful, literal promise. I'm gonna look at you eyeball to eyeball and tell you I believe that. It's a literal promise from God whatsoever. It's a pretty powerful statement. The Lord doesn't just throw words around, all right? Whatsoever. What does that include? Everything. All things. Whatsoever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. I show you, number one, the promise tonight. I believe it's a literal promise. And I start tonight's lesson by saying whatsoever means whatsoever. But I want you to see, number two, the premise. You say, oh, here's the escape clause. Not at all, stay with me. He, Jesus said it in verse number 24, whatsoever ye desire, when ye pray. Here's the only thing the Lord asks of us here, is one word, what is it? Believe. Believe. The only thing he asks of us is to believe. You say, well, what are you saying, preacher? Well, let's compare scripture with scripture. You say, are you really saying that whatever we desire and seek the Lord and ask believing, God is going to give? That's what he says. That's what it says. You say, well, you can't really believe that or explain that. Well, let's compare. It's always good to compare scripture with scripture, amen? I'll give you another verse. In Mark chapter nine, in verse number 23, it says, Jesus said, if thou canst believe, All things are possible to him that believeth. Matthew chapter 17 in verse number 20. It says this matter of fact brother Ben. Keep that verse up there Matthew 17 in verse number 20 It's the larger verse and Jesus said unto them because of your unbelief For verily I say unto you if ye have faith as a grain of a mustard seed Ye shall say unto this mountain remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove and nothing shall be impossible unto you So when I compare scripture to scripture, scripture's back up this promise in verse number 24, that Jesus said, whatsoever ye ask, ye shall receive. We could talk about ask and you receive, right? Seek and you'll find, knock and it shall be open. You say, do you really believe whatsoever things? That's what the Bible says. And the condition is believing. Believing now stay with me tonight. I hope you're still with me. We can't bring down this Whatsoever you ask or all things or whatever words you want to use there down to what we think is possible Because that's what we do a lot of times we quote these verses But we kind of bring it down the whatever what it says in verse 24 what things so ever you desire we get bring it down to our level whatever things we think God can do and And we can't bring it down on our level. We can't determine what we think is possible. It's what is possible for God. And the Bible says, believe when we believe we'll receive the things we ask for. Now, what's the issue? You say, well, there's, I got a lot of questions. So did I. So let's keep studying. Let's keep thinking. I think too often we is kind of showing maybe our lack of faith, if you will, that sometimes we make our requests known to the Father, and we just kinda wait to see if He's gonna answer or not. And if we're honest, that's the way our prayer life is in a lot of our lives. We kinda look at, now, I'm not trying to belittle things or be blasphemous in any way. Many times, if we're honest, stay with me, we kinda look at prayer as kinda applying for a credit card. We hope we get approved. Or you're gonna go to the bank and get a loan to make some big purchase. and you give all the requirements and you ask for it and you wait and say, I wonder if it's gonna work. That's the way we look at prayer too often. We give our requests to God and then we wait to see if God's gonna do it. That is contrary to what we read in the Bible or in this passage of scripture. It is nothing at all what we're reading here. But too often we go to Him and we look in that way. You see, the prayer of faith is believing. In verse number 23 in our passage in Mark 11, it says, I'm sorry, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith. So the Lord repeats the promise. There it is. So the premise is that we have to believe. And so now your mind probably goes as I did, and you look at maybe what we consider unanswered prayer requests, and we look back at our life and we see these things, and if it is hinged upon the fact that we must believe, then the next thing that the devil in our mixed up human thinking wants to say is this, I must not have believed enough. I mean, that's the next thing that our logical human mind spits out. But anytime, everybody watch me on this, this is so important for our spiritual lives. That is a terrible statement to ever make concerning God. The devil uses that to muddy up people's lives. Stay with me. There are people that struggle with their salvation because we know that faith is the door to salvation. Paul told the Philippians Jeller, he said, what must I do to be saved? And what was Paul's response? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's what the devil does to many people to try to mess them up. Did you believe enough? And how can you ever answer that question? What is enough? I can't answer that question. And that, I'll be honest, ready, leaves men most miserable. But you're looking at me, and I hope you understand this tonight. Our salvation is not based upon how much you believed. It is on who you have believed in. Amen? If we have a sin problem in our life, we're saved, but we want to ask God's forgiveness. And we go to the Lord asking His forgiveness, but we still feel guilty. And we sit there and say, I just don't know if I've asked Him enough, or if I've given enough faith in this prayer. The Lord said if we confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. That's what he said. It's not about how much you believe or how much you trust or how much faith that you have. That's why he said in the verse that we put on the screen a minute ago, if you have the faith, it's the size of what? Mustard seed. You know how little that is? Because the Lord's saying, he's not actually giving you a measure of faith, he's saying it's not how much faith you have, it's who you have your faith in. And so here in this passage of scripture, now I hope you're staying with me, the Lord makes a promise, whatsoever things ye ask, believing, you shall receive. Whatsoever means whatsoever. And all God's people said? Amen. The premise is, we must believe. And it's not how much we believe. Because all that ever leads to is us doubting ourselves, and then we get frustrated at God. Don't ever go down that path. It's a lie of the devil. But in the same way that we received salvation by believing, who did the saving? God did. All I had to do was point my faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord did the act. Amen? Because, now look at me, I knew what he said was true. I'm talking about my salvation. I knew what he said was true. That I am a sinner. I deserve hell. But Christ died for me and God loved me so much his son died for me. And I believe that. I heard and knew what he said and knew what his will was and I believed it. He did it. When it comes to answered prayer, this is where we gotta correct our thinking. It's not about, did you believe enough? It's about, who do you believe in? Now, I'm not saying, well, I believe in God. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying this, and the Lord gives the whole lesson here, you see, the promise, whatsoever things you ask. The premise is believing. I want you to see the person. What is the whole context of this lesson? Back to verse number 22, Jesus answered Peter, saith unto him, what's the premise of this lesson? Have faith in God. So who are we believing? If we want to see, do we want to have this kind of prayer life? I hope everyone in this room says amen. Do we want to be able to say, I believe in prayer. I know it works. I have seen God do these things and I can claim today. I mean, how many of us honestly, whether we're in this auditorium or listening anywhere else, would stand up on top of the mountain and say whatsoever I have asked, believing God has done. That's not easy. But the Lord's teaching us a unbelievable lesson here. That it's true and it's a matter of believing. Now look at me, not in you, not in your prayer, not in what you're doing, but in God. Your faith in God, let me explain. Here's the whole message. You say, well, how can I have this kind of faith that I can pray and know that these things are going to happen. How can I, you know, have faith in God? I wrote down a couple statements. The power to believe a promise depends entirely on your faith in the promiser. The power to believe a promise depends entirely upon your faith in the promiser. We have to trust Him. We have to trust His Word. What's the lesson in verse number 22? Have faith, what? In God. Here's the issue. If you're going to catch it, here it is. And I've been kind of beating this drum, I know, all year. We have to take the time to gaze upon Him, to listen to Him, to be reminded what He wants, who He is, how great He is, and take the time to walk with God. And then, when we walk with God, we pray in His will. You see, the problem is not that God didn't keep His promise. The problem is not that we didn't pray. Problem is not that we don't have some sort of believing in us. The problem is, many times, as James put it simply, we ask but don't receive because we ask and miss that we may consume it upon our own lust. It's what we want. And we haven't had taken the time to say, what does God want? We do all the talking, we don't do any listening. I give an illustration before my grandpa got diagnosed with dementia. I didn't like it. And I began to pray immediately that God would remove that from him. He didn't deserve it. He didn't need it. Been faithful. And I prayed that way. God heal him. And I'm looking at you as someone that believes that God can heal. I believe God could have changed that. I believe God is an all-powerful God. My first visit with my grandpa when he was diagnosed and I was sharing my heart, I'm praying that God heals you. I don't understand why God would give this to me. And he looked at me and he said, son. He said, it's appointed unto men once to die. That's the will of God. He said, if this is God's way to bring me home, I'm all in. He said, I just pray that God will use it. And he did. More ways that I could share with you tonight. And my prayer life after meeting with her grandpa changed from that point. My grandpa told me he believed it was the will of God that he got that. So I began to pray with him, Lord use him. Instead of me going just to God what I want, I had to listen, what does God want? God isn't going to heal every sickness. It's not his will. Because one day I will die. The Lord doesn't come back. So the Lord didn't answer. I prayed, I had a financial need, and the Lord didn't answer it. Just being honest, and my first question needs to be, how did I get in this mess? And probably I need to fix something there. And then secondly, all right, God, what do you want? What are you doing? Because those answers only come from taking the time to listen to him, taking the time to walk with him. A lot of times we go to Lord in prayer and we ask and we just kinda hope by chance that this is the will of God. That's not how the Lord wants us to pray. Now listen to what I just said. We go to prayer too often hoping by chance that our request is what God's will is. The Lord is teaching us here an entirely different lesson. He wants us to know God's will and then pray accordingly. You know what that requires? A walk with God. Faith is kind of made up of two things. I read this, it wasn't mine, I read it this week, I thought it was good. Faith is two things, it's surrender and fellowship. Faith is surrender, us yielding to what we've heard, and fellowship, linking to the one who promised it. I kind of like that definition. Why don't we understand the power of prayer? Why do we think many times that prayer's not, it's not real to us? Because we got this mixed up in our head. We kind of look to God, and as I said in other illustrations, many times we think we know what's best, so we pray that way, when instead we need to find out what God's will is and pray that way. You say, well, how can I know God's will? Number one, listen to me, Be in the Word of God. Just telling you what I've learned. And I got a whole lot more to learn. But you cannot ignore the Word of God in a daily life and have an effectual prayer life. And I'll add some more to that. It's gonna require the Word of God. It's gonna require the will of God. You need to do what's right. daily to the best of your ability. You see, if we're walking contrary to what we know is right and found in the word of God, we're not walking with him. Because two can only walk together if they be agreed. So we're straying our own way and then we think we know how to pray. We don't know how to pray. There's a whole lot of, I must be honest, the majority of believers in independent Baptist churches we don't really believe that verse because we haven't seen it but I believe we haven't seen it because we haven't it comes down we don't have a walk with God like we should We don't hear from God, we're not directed by God, we don't get in the word of God, we don't live in the will of God. And the will of God's not something, I'm teaching this in Sunday school starting Sunday in my class, but the will of God's not something you gotta go find and look under every rock and try to hope you'll find it. The will of God is a daily obedience to what you know is right. So it takes the word of God, the will of God, there's more to that, the ways of God, And I wrote down one more, the whispers of God. In other words, have a daily time and don't just read a chapter, think. I'm all for if you wanna read the Bible through, I think it's great, all right? I'm 100% obviously for that. But don't get so wrapped up into achieving a certain amount of chapters that you don't listen. I've said this to my class when I teach it, I've said it to many others and in the pulpit too. There have been days that I've read four or five chapters and there's also been days that I've read four words. So you didn't read an entire chapter? Nope. I read a few words and God spoke to my heart. And I would dare not run through a chapter to say I read a chapter. I need to stop and listen to what he says. And then I've got to start studying. And then I've got to start thinking on that. And meditating on it. And having the Word of God in my life and in my heart and in my mind throughout the day. I want to meditate on those things. And when your heart is full of God, you'll have the power to pray in faith. That's why we like it. I've never pointed at you and said that's why you like it. That's why we like it. That's why this verse seems so odd to us. Let's be honest, a lot of us that was odd, that was a big pill to swallow when we read it. Because it's foreign to us, isn't that sad? But it's because we haven't taken the time to walk with him and to understand his will. And listen, when God reveals himself and we get to know him, It becomes easy to believe Him. Let me give you something to look at real quick. Keep something, because we'll come right back here. Turn to Genesis chapter 15. I just want to illustrate what I just said. Genesis chapter number 15 and in verse number four. Genesis chapter number 15 and verse number four. Genesis 15 and verse number 4 it says and behold the Word of the Lord came into him saying thou shalt not be This shall not be thine heir. He's talking Abraham But he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir and he brought him forth abroad and said look now toward heaven And tell the stars that I'll be able to number them He said to him so shall thy seed be God spoke to Abraham. This is one of so many illustrations we can look at this evening. But God spoke to Abraham, and Abraham listened. Abraham heard the promise of God, and he meditated on it. And in the next verse, in verse number six, is this. And he believed in the Lord. And he counted it to him for righteousness. Abraham was able to believe I mean that's the premise that the Lord said if we're gonna see whatsoever things He asked and pray you or shall receive the premise is you have to believe right? Well, what allowed Abraham to believe and we could go through scripture and see this over and over again He took the time to look at God To listen to God to hear the promise of God And he believed it We have to have that in our life if we're gonna see the Lord work in the same way. As simple as salvation, faith cometh by what? Hearing, and hearing by the word of God. You know, the issue is this, that we need to pray. A lot of times that we pray, listen to this statement, we pray in our prayer life, we look at it almost like we're trying to draw down gifts from God. When I believe what the Lord is teaching us in this and other passages is prayer is not us trying to draw down gifts from God, but prayer is, I believe in the Lord's eyes, us drawing near to Him. It's a big difference. We too often look at prayer like we're looking up hoping that we can pull something down, but the Lord wants us to see prayer as us getting closer to Him. A time to sit with Him, to listen to Him, to talk with Him. A lot of times we see prayer as us kind of standing at the door, knocking and crying and hoping that he'll have mercy on us and give us what we want or need. But Jesus wants us instead to understand through our teaching that we've had, that the Lord wants us to not knock the inner in, and to fellowship with him as our father and our friend. Not hoping that he might take the time to hear us. I would encourage you tonight, I encourage myself in this, I encourage you to take time to bow before Him. And wait on Him. If I can give you any good counsel in this lesson tonight, church, it's this. Let the Lord reveal Himself to you. We too often, we're all guilty. We too often rush through our devotions, we rush through our prayers. We're such busy schedules, we don't take the time to listen to God. Worship Him tonight in His goodness. Serve Him with fear. Honor Him with reverence. Listen to Him through the scriptures, through the Spirit of God, through the sermon that's being preached, through the study of the Word of God. Till the still time, just be still and know Him. In Psalm 37, turn over there real quick in Psalm 37. In Psalm chapter number 37, end in verse number four. Psalm 37, say what are you trying to say with this? Enjoy him. Get to know Him. And as we do that, His will becomes our will. Here's the scripture, Psalm 37 verse number four. Delight thyself also in what? The Lord. And He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. And what did Jesus say in our lesson? Whatsoever things ye desire. Right? Believe. You shall receive them. Well, when we find ourselves delighting in the Lord, guess what we get? New desires. If your desire comes from God and you pray for that, I'm looking at you telling you this, you're gonna receive it. If your desire comes from God, You're going to receive it. I can bow my head and pray knowing the will of God and we shall receive. Keep reading. Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. I'll close, but look at me. What's the fig tree? The Lord cursed that fig tree. The disciples heard it. The fig tree did not wither up and die in front of them. It didn't happen. They didn't stand there and all of a sudden the tree went and dissipated. It could have if the Lord wanted it to. They came back the next day. The trees completely withered, and Peter said, here's that tree that you cursed. I heard you say that this was gonna happen, and it did. And Jesus looks at him and says, have faith in God. And let me teach you a lesson about prayer, that whatever you ask, If you know it and your desires come from God, your desires right, and you pray believing, you shall receive. There was never a doubt in the Lord's mind that that tree wouldn't be withered tomorrow. Didn't happen immediately, but he never lost faith. He knew it'd be withered. It didn't just disappear when he said it. But would you look at me today and say, did the Lord doubt that it was gonna wither up? No. He knew it to be what God wanted to do. And he prayed. And it happened. We got a lot to kind of reevaluate in our prayer life. Because I believe the promise of God is true. Our problem is this, we pray too often with no walk with God. And I don't say none, I should restate that. Not a great walk with God. We rush through things, we don't take the time to listen, we don't take the time to walk and live right, we don't take the time to read the word and study the will of God. Because then we might understand that sometimes, son, this is the way God wants me to enter into his home. You get that attitude, a guarantee, because he had asked God why. And God gave my grandpa peace. This is my will. There's been times that I've prayed for Zach to be healed, and I had to come to learn that's not, I was just asking because I didn't want my nephew to be sick. But I gotta take a step back, what does God want? And when we take the time to listen to God, and let God reveal Himself to us, and allows us to have His desires, and I promise, you pray, and let that desire known, you shall receive. It's as good as done. Let's pray, Father, Lord,