All right, brethren, let's turn
to Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. Let's read
verses 18 through 20. Praying always with all prayer
and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all
perseverance and supplication for all saints, and for me, that
utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly
to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an
ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought
to speak." Now, I think it goes without saying that believers
pray. We never prayed before the Lord
regenerated us and gave us faith because that's an impossibility.
Without faith it's impossible to please God. He that comes
to God must believe that He is. But when God regenerated us and
gave us faith in Christ, then we began praying. And that was
one of the first ways that Christ confirmed to Ananias that he
had actually converted Paul. Remember, he said, Behold, he
prayeth. It was the first time Paul had ever prayed. And yet,
because we have this old man of sin still with us, throughout
the Scriptures we're reminded constantly to pray and we're
given much instruction on how to pray. And that's what we see
here. First of all, he says, always
pray in the spirit. Always pray in the spirit. Verse
18, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit. He says praying always. Now that
doesn't mean that believers are praying all the time. That doesn't
mean that we're constantly walking around praying, but believers
live in a constant spirit of prayer. That is a constant dependence
upon God, upon our Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the spirit
of prayer is dependence upon God. We don't pray only when
we're in need. We pray often. We don't pray only when it's
bad times. We pray in the good times as well. Our minds are
always thinking And we're thinking about how God blessed us by choosing
us in Christ, freely by His grace. You think on those things. You
think about how God is absolutely sovereign, how He hedged us about
when we were in our sin and didn't know Him, and how He kept us
all those years. And I think back on those things. You think about how Christ came
and he gave himself for us and that he redeemed all his people.
And then you think, and he did that for me personally. And then
Christ sent that gospel to you and somehow through all the course
that he took, he crossed your path with the gospel and he gave
you a heart to believe and to trust him. And then he's kept
you all these many years. You think about the gift that
he's given us, that great blessing that he's given us of having
brethren, having a place where we can hear the gospel preached.
And you think about those that don't yet know him and friends
and loved ones that you pray for. And when you think of all
these things, It makes you thank God. It puts
you in a spirit to thank God and to go to Him in prayer. And so that's why believers pray
often, even in good times and not necessarily when it's bad
times. As often as we think of those
things, we pray. And we think of those things
often. The Scripture says, be careful for nothing. Be anxious
for nothing. He says, but in everything by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request
be made known unto God. And then he says here with all
prayer and supplication. There's all kinds of prayer.
There's public prayer and private prayer. There's vocal prayer
and there's silent prayer. There's prayer where we're confessing
our sins. There's prayer where we're thanking
God. And then he says here, and supplication. Supplication, when you think
of supplication, think of the word supply. That's what supplication
is. It's asking God to supply our
needs and to supply the need of our brethren. And we make
supplications. We ask him that so that, like
Solomon said, that he might maintain our cause. and that he might
do it at all times, whatever the matter requires, so that
all people of the earth may know that the Lord is God and that
there is none else. That's what we're praying for. That's what we pray for. And
here's the point of this phrase right here. He says, when you
pray, in all prayer and in all supplication, always pray in
the Spirit. That's the point. Always pray
in the Spirit. Now what does that mean, praying
in the Spirit? We don't have time to go through
a lot of points on it, but let me give you a few things about
praying in the Spirit. First of all, it's opposed to
praying in the flesh. The flesh profits nothing. God
won't receive us in the flesh. Praying to be seen of men. That's
praying in the flesh. Now in the home, at meal times
and at bedtime and other times, believers are to teach our children
to pray. And so our children should see
us praying. That's fine. They should hear
us praying. That's fine. But now when you're
in a public place, in a restaurant or at work or something like
that, this is what the Lord Jesus said. When thou prayest, thou
shall not be as the hypocrites are. They love to pray standing
in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets. And that
includes any public place that they may be seen of men. When
you, you can pray without taking a posture and drawing attention
to yourself and making people know you're praying. You know,
the Lord was walking along one day and looked up and said, Lord,
I thank you that you've hid these things from the wise and prudent
and revealed them unto me. And nobody around him even knew
he was praying until God spoke from heaven. He said, when you
do that, when they pray to be seen of men, that's what they
want. And he says, and they have their
reward. That's their reward, that momentary praise of having
somebody look at them and see them praying. He says, don't
do that, that's praying in the flesh. And then saying prayers,
saying a form of prayer, that's praying in the flesh. When the
Lord taught His disciples to pray in what people commonly
call the Lord's Prayer, He wasn't praying. He was just teaching
them the nature of prayer, but He wasn't teaching them to pray
those exact words. The Lord's prayer is in John
17. That's where the Lord was actually praying, and we get
to hear the Lord's prayer. But He didn't use those exact
words that He used when He was teaching His disciples, did He?
He wasn't teaching us to use those exact words. That's a form
of prayer. That's not prayer. Vain repetitions,
without thought, without heart, that's praying in the flesh.
When you're talking to somebody, You don't sit there and talk
to somebody and repeat their name a hundred times when you're
talking to them or repeat, you know, the same thing that you're
saying to them over and over and over again. And so when we're
praying to God, we don't have to repeat his name over and over
in his offices over and over. God knows who he is. And and
he says, make your request known. The Lord said this, when you
pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think
they shall be heard for their much speaking. It's like folks
who just sat, you know, praying at the wall and say the same
things over and over and over and over and over. Praying in
the Spirit is praying in the power of the Holy Spirit. Praying
in the power of the Holy Spirit. The true prayer is that which
God puts in the heart by His Spirit, moving you in prayer,
moving you in what you should pray and the things that you
should speak. That's true prayer. When God
does that, you've received the spirit of adoption. You've received
the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. We never
pray to our father in heaven until we receive the spirit of
adoption. And he says, and likewise, the spirit also helps our infirmities
because we don't know what to pray for as we ought to. We don't
know what to pray for. Have you ever found yourself
praying and you just not really be any thought in what you're
praying? You just sort of rambling when you pray. But then sometimes
you pray and you can You can tell that it's concise and it's
from your heart and the Spirit's moving you to pray. He said the
Spirit helps. He makes intercession for us
with groanings that cannot be uttered. And he that searches
the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit. Christ hears
the Spirit because He makes intercession for the saints according to the
will of God. That's what we need, isn't it? We need God moving
us to pray that which is the will of God. And we need the
Spirit to take our prayer to Christ who intercedes for us
with God. There's a lot more involved in
prayer than just standing up and praying or just sitting there
saying some words. Pray in the Spirit. And then
praying in the Spirit is approaching God through Jesus Christ in His
name. There's no way to come to God
other than coming in the Lord Jesus Christ, even when you pray
to God. That means He's the way at all
times, every way, in all ways. We have to come to God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews 7.25 says He's able to
save them to the uttermost that come unto God through Him seeing
he ever lives to make intercession for them. That's what Christ
was raised from the dead for. He's put away the sin of his
people and he's raised from the dead and he ever lives now to
be that mediator between God and his people to make intercession
for us. So when we come to God We need
to come to God in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ come through
our Lord Jesus Christ because he presents us to God spotless
and without blame unapprovable in his sight. But you and I and
ourselves are not so we need to come in Christ even in prayer. By Him, therefore, Scripture
says, let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God,
the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to Him. This is why you
have to be regenerated, given faith in Christ, because until
you know Christ, how can you come to God in Christ? He's all
your salvation and all your hope, and you're not looking to yourself
or to your works or anything you've done. How can you pray
a genuine prayer? Everything up until that point
is just the lust of the flesh. Isn't it? It's true. Brethren,
whatever kind of prayer, pray always in the Spirit and by the
Spirit. When God puts a prayer in the
heart, Then we pray according to God's will. And that's the
prayer God receives. But this heartless form, this
faithless form, and this lustful praying for things of the flesh,
just fleshly prayer, God abhors it, to approach God with the
tongue when the heart's far from God, that's fleshly prayer. Pray in the Spirit. Here's the
second thing. He says, watch with perseverance. Verse 18,
he says, and watching thereunto with all perseverance. This is
opposed to being slothful, to being sleepy. Watch for the Spirit
and pray in the Spirit. Watch for Christ and pray in
Christ. That's what he's saying. The
context here is speaking of spiritual warfare against spiritual enemies. So, if we're going to use this
spiritual weapon, that's prayer, then we have to be awake, we
have to be awoken by the Spirit, be praying in the Spirit, be
watching for the Spirit, for Christ, knowing when He's moving
us to truly pray, and looking to Christ, and coming to God
in Christ, because that One who is our enemy, these wicked enemies
that He speaks about here, they never sleep, and they're walking
about constantly seeking whom they may devour. And so He tells
us, You awake and you watch. Don't be sleeping. Be watching. And when He says there unto watch,
He just spoke of the Spirit. Watch unto the Spirit. Watch
unto Christ. We got to be watchful and it
means to be diligent in order not to grieve the Holy Spirit.
In order not to be found sleeping in our prayer and sleeping in
our flesh so that we're not really praying at all. Avail yourself
constantly of this privilege of approaching God in the power
of God's Spirit through Christ our mercy seed. Isn't that a
privilege? To come to God, that God will
hear us, that's a privilege. That's a privilege, and he says,
so use this privilege. Avail yourself of this privilege.
Watch and pray. Avoid anything that'll turn us
from Christ so that we have constant communion with Christ. That's
what he's saying. You know, he's not saying necessarily
that although when you do pray, sometimes you fall asleep. But
he's saying just in the general walk of life and everything we're
doing in this life, you can get so caught up in life and so caught
up in what you're doing that you don't realize that in all
the activity that's going on, you're asleep. You've lost communion
with God. God's not in your thoughts. He's
not in your heart. His word's not in your heart.
And next thing you know, you're acting and speaking and doing
and thinking totally contrary to a child of God. He's saying,
here, make sure that you're awake in the Spirit. Make sure that
you're watching for Christ. You know, like, we follow Christ.
That's what the Scripture said. We're following Christ. In Spirit,
by faith, we're following Him. So if he was here in the flesh
and we were following him, what would you have to do? You'd have
to keep your eyes open. You'd have to see where he's
going and what he's doing and follow him. Well, if we're following
him in the spirit, walking after him in faith, we still have to
keep our eyes open because we need to be reading his word.
This is how he's speaking to us. We need to be hearing his
gospel. This is how he's speaking to us. We need to be feeding
the new man rather than the old man. Because whichever one of
these is fed the most is the one that's going to prevail.
And by God's grace, he's going to see to it that his people
feed that new man. So this is what he's saying here.
This way you have communion with God, you have fellowship with
God, you have God near and in your heart so that it's easy
to pray and you really do pray. That's what he's saying. When
we're under the power of the Holy Spirit, it's impossible
to be under the power of darkness. That's what he's saying. In that
Garden of Gethsemane, here's an illustration of it. Christ
said, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful even unto death. That
was a conflict. That was an emergency. That was
this dire moment when Christ was looking to be made sin for
his people. He was presenting himself to
the Father and he knew what was about to befall him. He was suffering,
striving against sin. That's what the Hebrew writer
is talking about in Hebrews 12 when he says, you haven't resisted
unto blood, striving against sin. That's what Christ was doing
in the garden. He sweat, as it were, great drops
of blood in the garden. So do you think he went into
that garden and just went to sleep? No, he was awake. He was watching. How was he doing
that? He was praying to God, the Father. That's how he did.
And so he saw when the tempter came. He saw when the enemy came. He saw and prevailed over the
enemy by God's strength in him through that angel he sent. Well,
now take the disciples that went with him into the garden. What
did they do? They didn't see the emergency
of it. They didn't see the dire situation. Even though they heard
Christ say, now is my soul exceedingly sorrowful. Some of you sitting
here right now, you're hearing this gospel preached. And even
though you hear it preached, it's just not a dire emergency
to you. And some of you sitting here
with your eyes wide open right now and you're sound asleep.
Those disciples went in there and they sat down in that garden
and they, he said, watch and pray. And they sat down and they
went to sleep. And so what happened? When the
enemy came, literally physically came, when the enemy came, they
didn't know he came. They didn't know those guards
came. They were sound asleep. What would have happened if Christ
hadn't have been there to wake them up and say, wake up, the
enemy's here? See what I'm saying? He wakes
us up. He says, awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give
you light. And then he says to us, now you watch. Why? Christ
said, watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. The
spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. You'll be
there and walked into Satan's trap and stepped your foot in
there and got clamped down on before you even know you've stepped
into it. That's why it says, watch. And then further we're
watching for Christ's return. Christ is coming again. Isn't
that a wonderful thought? We're in the last of the last
days. And Christ is coming again. He's
redeemed a people. And He's calling that people
out. And when He's called them out, He's coming back. And He
said this, Peter said, The end of all things is at hand. Be
ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer. Christ said, Of
that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which
are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. And He says,
Take ye heed, watch and pray, for you know not when the time
is. Wouldn't you hate to be caught
up in something, and even if it's not something sinful, but
worse if it's something sinful, but even if it's just anything,
just be so caught up in something in this world that you didn't
even notice that Christ has come? He's going to call His people. He's going to seek to let His
people know He's here. But I'm saying, wouldn't that be awful
to not even know He's come? Next, Paul says this, look now
at Ephesians 6. And he says, "...watching thereunto
with all perseverance." With all perseverance. This is important.
We live in an instantaneous time, in an instant day. We want everything
just at the push of a button, right now, right quick. Don't
wait, don't be patient for nothing. We want it now. Well, God don't
work that way. He don't work on our timetable.
He's doing what He will, when He will. in His time and not
our time. And He tells us here, you watch
and you pray with all perseverance. That perseverance means you continue,
you pray, you continue, you watch, you continue, you don't faint,
you don't stop, you don't turn back, you keep on, keep on, keep
on looking to Him and believe in Him and trust in Him and depending
on Him and praying to Him. Now, sometimes we ask God for
things in prayer. And we think that God has not
heard us, that God has not answered us, that He's not... not... because
everything just keeps going along the same, or we don't have anything
different in our heart, nothing's changed, we don't have peace,
nothing. We think, well, God didn't hear us. Well, He says,
you ask and receive not because you ask amiss, that you may consume
it upon your lust. You see, when a true believer
prays amiss, God does hear us. He does hear us. He always hears
His people. And He does answer us. He always
answers His people. But He answers us but not giving
us the thing that we ask for. And that's great mercy for Him
not to do it. Other times, God doesn't immediately
give us what we pray for because He's proving our faith. He's
bringing us down to where we rightfully need to be in the
dust. You remember the Canaanite woman?
She came, she had a daughter that was home, and that daughter
was grievously vexed with the devil. And she came to the Lord,
just like we come to Christ in prayer. She came to Him, praying
that He would heal her daughter. And the Scripture says, but He
answered her not a word. He answered her not a word. And
then, His disciples came and said, Lord, send her away. She's
just driving us up the wall. She just won't let us along.
She's just keeping on, keeping on, keeping on praying, asking
us. And finally Christ answered her.
And when He spoke then, He said, I'm not sent but to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel. And she was a Gentile. He said, I'm not sent to anybody
that's a Gentile. I'm just sent to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel. And Scripture says, And she came
and worshiped. She came and bowed down to his
feet. And she said, Lord, help me. You know what she said by that?
I'm a sheep. Lord, I'm one of your sheep.
I'm one of the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Lord, you're
my only help. You're the only one that can
help me. And then the Lord said to her, it's not fit to take
the children's bread and cast it to dogs. Would you keep on praying? Would
you keep on persevering in prayer or would you give up? This is
what she did. She said, truth, Lord, I'm a
dog. Yes, Lord, I am a dog. Yet the
dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table.
She took her place there as a dog. And the scripture says, Then
Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith. Be it unto thee even as thou
will. And her daughter was made whole that very hour. You see,
there was a purpose in why He wasn't answering her right away.
He brought her down, proved her faith, showed her to be worshiped,
adored, and Him to be all. Other times, God waits to take
away our strength entirely, to make us dependent on Christ,
and that's how He makes us prevail with Him in prayer. Jacob, Christ
came and He wrestled with Jacob. Now, hear me, the trial is Christ
wrestling with His child. That's what the trial is. And
he's doing it to make his child prevail with him, by making his
child utterly dependent on Christ, to make his child to have no
strength in ourselves. That's what the trial is. It's
got Christ wrestling with you. Well, Jacob tried to wrestle
back in his own strength, and that's just what we do. We start
trying to wrestle back against the Lord. Or we start praying,
and what our prayer is, is we're trying our best to get God figure
four hold so we can try to get him to do what we want him to
do. And we won't prevail with God that way. You don't prevail
with God trying to wrestle God. No. So what did Christ do? He didn't answer Jacob. He didn't
let Jacob prevail. He saw Jacob wasn't prevailing
because he was wrestling in his own strength. And so Christ increased
the trial. That was the answer to Jacob's
prayer because Jacob was, when he was wrestling against him
in his own strength, it was the same as a sinner praying, give
me what I want, God. And so God, Christ said he's
not where he needs to be yet, he can't prevail like that, so
he just increased the trial. How did he do it? He touched
him and put his thigh out of joint. We got a lot of brethren
right now that he's touched and put them out of joint. They got
no strength. They can't heal themselves. There's
nothing they can do about it. Isn't that a blessing? Isn't
that a great blessing? Brother Todd, Gabe Starnica,
thought he had cancer the other day. He was diagnosed. And Brother
Todd, while they were waiting, Brother Todd said, I hope that
you don't have to go through the pain of it, and I hope that
you don't have to suffer through it. He said, but if you've got
it, I'm going to rejoice with you. I'll be so happy for you.
It's a wonderful thing when God brings us to the end of ourselves.
And that's what He did with Jacob. He brought him to the point where
all Jacob could do, the only thing he could do was hold on
to Christ and beg Him and say and pray with earnest and with
fervency and say, I will not let you go till you bless me.
And that's all he could do was just hold on to Christ and say,
I'm not going to let you go. I'm not going to let you go,
Lord, till you bless me. That's importunity. That's being
at the end of yourself and having nothing and not being able to
do anything so that all he could do was just hold on and say,
Lord, please bless me. And that's when Christ blessed
him. And that's how he prevailed. And that's how we prevail in
prayer. That's why he don't always answer us right away. He's making
the trial hotter. to make us more dependent and
bring us to the end of ourselves and make us all totally dependent
upon Him. You remember this. Don't forget
this. Prayer is not the means of us changing God. Prayer is
God's means of changing us. That's what prayer is. So pray always watching unto
Christ with all perseverance. Other times Christ has secret
purposes for not answering right away. He doesn't ever reveal
them. But he said, you go read Luke 18 sometime and read that
parable he gave. And he said, the point of it
was this, we ought to always pray and not faint. Because we
just don't know what He's doing, but He knows, and He's going
to bring His purpose to pass, and it's going to be for our
good. So continue to depend on Him and pray to Him and don't
faint. Alright, I'm just about out of time. Let me give you
this last point quickly. For what does Paul encourage
us to pray? First of all, he says in verse
18, supplication for all saints. Isn't that a good word for a
believer? A saint. That's what every true believer
is, a saint. Folks will say, I'm no saint.
You've got to be a saint or God won't receive you. How do we
get to be saints? God the Father set us apart,
sanctified us when He put us in Christ in divine election
in eternity. Scripture says we're sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. For by one offering
he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. That's what
it is to be a saint, is to be perfected forever by Christ.
And then we're sanctified through sanctification of the spirit
and belief of the truth. Where unto he called you by our
gospel, he did. to the obtaining of the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're saints. We've been sanctified.
And every believer is a saint. And he says here, we're to make
supplication to God for all saints because we know, we trust, we
believe that God's going to supply all the needs of all His people. Paul said, My God shall supply,
He shall supplicate, He shall supply all your need according
to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. And then, so every saint
is to make supplications to God for every other saint. It doesn't
mean we're not making personal supplications, but we're asking
God for our brethren, to supply our brethren. Paul prayed for
his brethren all the time. And we should do this, brethren,
because we don't want to be found at the mercy seat, making the
mercy seat a place of selfishness, where we just pray for ourselves.
We're there praying for our brethren. Lord, bless them. Supply them. And He says, do that for all
saints, those that are sick and those that are well, those that
are male and female, those that are here and those that are in
other places all over the world. I'm thankful for our brethren,
the brethren that have been praying for my dad since he's been sick
with cancer. So thankful for that, praying
for my mother. And they have let us know they're praying for
us, comforted us with it. I'm so thankful for that. I found
out this week that Jamie Lutz has cancer and we need to remember
her. Pray for her often. She has such
a good attitude and when I talk to her about it and pray for
her. Pray God keep her and strengthen her in the heart when her body's
not strong. I'm thankful for that. It's comforting
when brethren let brethren know that they're praying for you.
That's comforting. But let me say something, and
this needs to be said in our day and time. You know, the new
street corner, the new marketplace, the new synagogue where people
like to stand up and so make sure all men can see them and
know they're praying is online, on the internet. And religious folks use these
cutesy these irreverent sayings. It's just like a knee-jerk reaction.
It's just like what they just, as soon as they just hear the
least little thing, you'll hear somebody, oh, I'm sending one
up for you. Something like that. Make sure
everybody knows about it. You know, I would much rather,
I would much rather that somebody pray for me and not tell me than
to tell me and not pray for me. You reckon anybody's really praying?
I mean, it's more common to hear than thank you or you're welcome.
People say it if somebody stomps their toe, but I wonder how many
people actually do it. Pray for them, and then if you
want to let them know, you can let them know, but pray for them
first. That way, when you say, I'm praying for you, you're not
lying. You really are praying for him. You see what I'm saying?
It's just... So first, supplication for all
saints, and then lastly, he says, and for those who preach the
gospel. He says, and for me. Now, Paul requested that believers
pray for him. He did that often. But have you
ever noticed that it wasn't so much for him personally, it wasn't
so much for his health and all that? That wasn't what he was
praying for. Look what he prayed for. That utterance may be given
unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery
of the gospel for which I'm an ambassador in bonds, that therein
I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. So we ought to pray
for the personal care of preachers that Christ has sent to preach
the gospel. But here's the most important
thing we pray for. Number one, that God give His
preachers power to speak the Word of God in spirit and in
truth. That's number one. Number two,
that God might open new doors wherever He's pleased to do so
for the preaching of the Gospel. That He might send preachers
for preaching, Christ in Him crucified. Preaching that Christ
is the Lamb of God, the High Priest of God, the propitiation. Preaching that Christ is the
way, the truth, and the life. Preaching that Christ is the
one in whom God chose His people and preserves His people and
has redeemed His people. Preaching Christ to people. And
then thirdly, that the Spirit of God would make that Word preached
effectually in the heart of His people. And He would give spiritual
life and saving faith and true repentance and grow the believer
in knowledge and in the knowledge and understanding of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Grow him in grace. and that God will accomplish
whatever He sent His Word forth to accomplish. And then fourthly,
that He might add to His church daily such as should be saved
that Christ might return quickly. That's... I want you to pray
for that for me. That's what I want you to pray. Let's pray together, brethren. Our Heavenly Father, Give us
the ability to come to You in truth and in spirit. Give us
a heart to be able to speak to You as we ought to speak. Lord, make us watchful, make
us ever looking, ever looking to Christ, ever looking to have
the spirit in our hearts that we might be drawing near to You
with a true heart and sincerity and true faith and not in our
flesh. Lord, make us continue, make
us, preserve us so that we do truly persevere in faith. Let us know, Lord, at any time
and at all times, you're working your will, you're doing what
is needful, so that whatever you do for us, it's going to
be the answer to what we really want in our hearts. It's going
to be your will, and that's what we want, Lord, is your will to
be done. And Father, we do pray for our sick brethren and we
pray, Lord, that you comfort them and comfort their families.
We pray that you'd give them grace in this time of great trouble
and trial. And Lord, we pray for our brethren
that you'd supply the need of those who are well. And those
who think they don't have a need, they'd have a need more than
anybody. We pray, Lord, you bless them, all our brethren. And Lord, we pray for your preachers. Pray the day that you give them
power and liberty to speak boldly, to speak the truth, to speak
it in spirit, to speak it in the power of God. And Lord, we
pray that as they speak it, you'll bless that word and make it effectual
in the hearts of your people, opening up a heart that's never
been open, that the gospel might be preached there just like it
is in new places that you've opened. Lord, make us, make us
pray and receive our prayer, Father, in the name of Christ.
Receive it as holy and righteous and spotless and perfect in your
holy, righteous and spotless Son. Lord, how we do thank you
for this great, great privilege. Forgive us of our sins, Lord.
We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.