Lest you wonder about power with
men, power with thee. That's scriptural. The Lord told
that to Jacob when he wrestled with Jacob in Genesis 32. He called his name Israel, for
as a prince hast thou power with God and with men. That's what he said. In other
words, Jacob would not let him go. He would not quit asking
to be blessed. That's the power we want in them. Importunity. The will, the want
to, the desire to keep calling, to keep praying until he answers
us. One way or another. And then constant abiding. This is my plea. Our Lord said
that. He said, if you abide in Me and My words abide in you,
ye shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you. That is a very scriptural song. I hope you enjoyed it. Alright,
Philippians 4. Philippians chapter 4. I read a devotional book that
Brother Mike Walker gave me. It's a book I greatly I read it all the time, by William
J. And I tell Mike that all the
time, how much I appreciate it. He does too. I'd like to put
every article in our bulletin. But he had a morning devotional
on these verses, praying all of it. And so I began to look
at it and prepare a message. And I had forgotten that we just
looked at this two months ago. That's, yes, it's alright. We need to look at this daily.
Alright, look at verse 6. Be careful for nothing. Don't
be full of anxious care. Overcome with care, worry, doubt.
But in everything, everything, by prayer, and supplication
with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And,
if so, the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall
keep your hearts from this care, from this anxiousness, this worry
and despair, and minds through Christ Jesus, that is, Prayer
is not a thing. Prayer is not a thing like a
rabbit's foot. People talk about prayer like
it's some magical thing, like it's some mantra that like the
Hindus, if you just keep doing it, it's bound to work. No, no,
no. We're going to see what prayer
really is. And he says here, there's peace to be had by prayer. Prayer is a vital subject. Vital. There's so many books written
on prayer, so much in the Scripture that speaks of prayer. Vital,
the word vital means pertaining to life. Prayer is the breath
of life. Prayer is the breath of life,
proof of life. When our Lord created Adam, he
was a dead, lifeless clay, vessel of clay. And you know what the
Lord did? Yeah, he breathed into him and he became a living soul. What did Adam do? I know what
he did. Hello, Lord. He spoke to him. He communed with him, didn't
he? And he did from then on until his sin. When the Lord revealed Himself
to Saul of Tarsus, Saul was dead in sin. Saul was dead in religion. He was in dead religion, dead
work. He was under the law. He was in dead legalism, wasn't
he? He didn't know God. But when
Christ revealed Himself, Paul said, in me. Then the Lord sent
word to Ananias, go to the house of one Saul. Behold, he prayeth. As a Pharisee, he probably prayed
a lot. He was just going through the
motions like the Pharisees. Our Lord said, pray to be seen
of men. God never heard one of his prayers. But now, he hears
all of them. And he's the one, Paul said,
to pray. The Lord Himself told us to pray without ceasing. Always. Always to pray. Always. Always. And God's people
do. Our Lord said, we just read,
He said, when you pray. When you pray. God's people do.
If life is there, they're going to call on their Lord. And keep
calling. Like a babe cries to its mother,
like a child to its father, like a wife speaks to her husband
and talks to her husband and tells him everything. That's
what He said. Everything. We could also entitle
this message, A Cure for Care. Verse 6, be careful for nothing. Be careful for nothing. Now, I do not want to merely
instruct us on prayer. It's just not a how-to. In fact, Romans 8, we quoted
that. Most of the time, we don't know
how to pray. I mean, we can read all we want
to and man can tell us how to, but I find myself And I know
you do. In prayer. So bound, so distracted,
so this, so that, until about all I can say is, help. You? Anybody? Then all I can say is,
Lord have mercy. Have mercy on us all. Doesn't
need to be a long prayer. I say that all day long. Don't
you? And I didn't mean to say that
to draw attention to myself, but I know you do. I know you
do. When do you pray? God's people do pray. They do
pray. But the disciples asked Him, Lord, teach us to pray as
John. John taught his disciples. I
would like to hear what John said about prayer, wouldn't you?
But it's not written. But what the Lord wrote is there. He said in everything, it says
here, in everything by prayer, he says, pray without ceasing,
he says, always to pray and not to faint. He gave us that parable
of a man, a mere man is going to open his
friend if he keeps asking him that. Alright, what is prayer? Two points here, very simply.
What is prayer? and the effects of prayer. What
is prayer? Look at Psalm 62 with me. Psalm 62. As I said, it's not a how-to
per se, but just an exhortation and encouragement to pray. We need to, don't we? We do pray,
but we don't pray enough. And James corrected us. He said,
when we do ask, we ask for the wrong thing. What is prayer? Well, it's calling on God. That's
what it is. It's calling on God. Whosoever
shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Is that a one-time thing? Brethren,
don't you need saving every day, every hour from a thousand things? Temptations, troubles, doubts,
fears, Just keep going. We need to save it from the world.
Whosoever shall call. When our Lord said, ask, He said,
whosoever asketh. That's ongoing in it. Keep on
asking. Keep on asking. Never quit asking.
Because there will never be a time we don't need. Every hour of
every day. Ask. Seek. Ask. What did He tell
us to ask for? When He taught us to pray, what
did He tell us to ask for? Give us our bread. What bread? We need this bread more than
anything else to go in the strength of this. Most of us have eaten
too much of the other bread and not enough of this. We've got
fatness of body and leanness of soul. All of us don't. He
said give us. Pray this way. Give us. And he
said, ask this, forgive us. Oh, we need forgiveness of sin,
don't we? Forgive us. Lead us not. Us. Notice how he's telling,
lead us. Pray for one another. We're in
this thing together. Lead us not into temptation. Deliver us. You notice that it's
not material things Spiritual things. It's your kingdom. It's up to you, he said, to pray. Save us, Lord. Save us or we
perish. And everything by prayer. Everything. Everything. Everything. Nothing
is too small. What did I say? It's calling
on the Lord. Look at Psalm 62, verse 8. Trust in Him at all
times, ye people. Pour out your heart before Him. That's prayer, isn't it? You
can't tell the heart what to say. You don't need to. Pour
out your heart. It's calling on the Lord. Prayer
is communing with the Lord. Talking to Him. Pouring out your
heart unto the Lord. Confiding in the Lord. Confessing. So many things. Why do you love
the Psalms so much? Why do we love the Psalms so
much? Because they're prayer after prayer after prayer. Look
at Psalm 63. The next psalm, O God, thou art
my God. Early will I seek thee. My soul
thirsteth for thee. My flesh longeth for thee in
a dry and thirsty land. Can you say that? Where no water
is. To see thy power and thy glory so as I have seen thee
in the sanctuary, because thy lovingkindness is better than
life. Is it to you? Is this better
than life? I meant to give you this illustration,
son. Mindy and I were sitting on the
beach for a couple of weeks, soaking up the sun and the beautiful
aqua water. We might get up, we might not.
Take a little walk and come back and sit down and have a little
picnic lunch on the beach. Then that evening we'd go out
and eat fish. I confessed that after a while
I sat there and thought, man, this is the life. All right, we left there. And
we drove a long way to a little town called Sillacog, Alabama.
It's over out in the country, Talladega Highway. And it's a
little brown building way off the end of the side of the road
that nobody can hardly see. Not a beautiful building, just
a little plain building. We went in there. We sat down
in a pew, started singing those hymns. The man got up to preach.
I said, no, this is life. This is living. Can you say that? Oh, that I love in kindness is
better than life. So he called on the Lord. Lord?
We all call on the Lord. Psalm 42. Look at this. Psalm 42. This is a favorite
of mine. A dear lady was dying and I sent
her this psalm and reminded her of this psalm anyway. Psalm 42,
verse 1, As the heart panteth after the water brook, so panteth
my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, the
living God. When shall I come and appear
before God? My tears have been my meat day and night. They continually
say unto me, Where is thy God? And when I remember these things,
I pour out my soul in thee. I have gone with the multitude. I went with them to the house
God, the voice of joy and praise with the multitude that kept
the holy day. Prayer is calling, crying unto the Lord, commuting
with our Lord. Prayer is the soul's cry. David
said, I pour out my soul. Prayer is the heart's cry unto
our Lord and our God and our Father. Prayer is from the heart.
Prayer is better, someone said, better to have a heart without
words than words without heart. So, the Lord teaches us to pray. Now, let me tell you a few things
that prayer is not, before I tell you what it is. Prayer is not
a position. Prayer is not a posture, a certain
posture. You don't have to be in a certain
posture to pray. You don't have to have your head
bowed and your eyes closed. You couldn't pray without ceasing
like that, could you? Prayer is an attitude. Prayer
is the heart calling unto God at all times, the mind thinking.
God reads our thoughts. God looks on the heart. We can
and do and should pray always at all times, in all places from
the heart, in everything. However, that being said, Scripture
does, we often find godly men and women on their knees. And you can relate to that. It's
not a show of humility. I went someplace to preach with
some men, some Reformed fellas. And one fella, he did it every
time, four or five years running. Before he preached, he would
drop down on his knees behind the pulpit. It was a show. And it made me
sick. That's why we get on our knees
and we do it in private. Our Lord told us in Matthew 6,
when you pray, get in your closet. Don't be like the Pharisees who
love to stand on the corners and in the synagogue. They want
people to hear them pray. They want to be seen praying.
Don't, our Lord implicitly said, don't do that. That's their reward. Your reward is to be heard. You
want to be heard. Your Father which seeth in secret,
heareth you. We do. We get on our knees before
God. Do you? We should. I told a family
one time that was going through some trouble, some real serious
trouble. I told them, all of you, get on your knees. Literally, get on your knees
before God and call on the Lord. That's not out of fashion. It's not a show of humility.
It's a heart so broken, so poor and needy, you can't stand. Solomon did it at the prayer
of the temple. What a serious thing it was. The man whose son
was a lunatic, he came and fell on his face before the Lord. Have you ever been so down, so
low, so distraught, so full of care that you literally had to
fall on your face on the floor? Huh? Sure you have. You felt like, I can't get low
enough. Our Lord said it in a song. He said, my soul melteth for
heaviness. Our Lord did, when He went in
to pray for us, He fell on His face. Daniel, three times a day, kneeled
down and prayed. And oh, did he pray. Daniel's
prayer in chapter 9, we need to read that all the time. Let
it be our prayer. But it's not a posture. I started
out by saying that. It's not a position, because
we can pray. But listen to this psalm. It says, Oh come, Psalm
95, 6, Oh come and let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before
the Lord our Maker. Why do we close our eyes when
we pray? It doesn't tell us to do that. Why do we do that? Because
of the distractions. Right? Because of the distractions. And why do we bow our head? Well,
it's not a show. It's a shame. The Republican
in the temple, the Pharisee looked up. He wanted everybody to see
him looking up. He thanked God for what he was
and was not. The Republican, so ashamed, he
wouldn't lift his eye. All he could do is hang his head.
and close his eyes. I'm just quite sure the woman
caught in the act of adultery was on her knees before the Lord
with her head bowed and her eyes closed, hoping, praying for mercy. Don't you? Did she get it? Oh, those that be bowed down,
he will lift up. Prayer is not a recitation. Go
to Matthew 6, Matthew chapter 6 that I quoted to you. Prayer
is not reciting words. Reciting words. I know, Brethren,
I know. I know how difficult it is to
pray in public. None of us want to do it. Do
it. And we pray the same things,
don't we? We say the same things. I do
it. The Lord knows it. And the brethren
know that. But we're not just reciting things.
All right. We pray the same things, don't
we, Brother Stephen? What do we pray for? Lord, bless the preacher.
Lord, bless us. Lord, thank you for this plague.
That's a good sign that this is the one thing needful. If
you keep praying for the same things, it's a good sign that
that's the one thing you need, isn't it? In that importunate
prayer, you keep praying the same thing. But it's not a recitation or
reciting words. Catholics do that. Number one,
they pray the wrong person, and they pray or recite prayers,
and God doesn't hear any of those. Look at this, Matthew 6, verse
7, You don't need, you know, and
prayer is not many words, wordy. We're not heard for what we say
necessarily or how much we say, but we're heard for whose name
we pray in. And it's from the heart. Sincerity,
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, not like the hypocrite.
Now, here's prayer. Prayer is, as we say, calling. crying unto the Lord, communing
with the Lord, confession. Forgive us. Forgive us. Oh, my. Forgive us. Don't we need more than anything
forgiveness of sin? Will He? Does He? Has He? Yes,
He will. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins. What sins? Our Lord
said, all manner of sin. Isn't that good news? All manner
of sins. Our past sins have been forgiven
through the blood of Christ. Our present sins are forgiven.
The fact that we have a hard time worshipping right now needs
to be forgiven. And our future sins, what we're
going to commit, no telling. No telling. Forgiven. Already
forgiven. Isn't that good news? He is faithful and just to forgive
our sins. He that confesseth and forsaketh. Prayer is confession. David was feeling envious at
the foolish. I guess he was feeling covetous.
He was feeling bitter. Where are his psalms? David was feeling all these things. And he came into the house of
the Lord, the tabernacle of the Lord. And his heart was smitten. And he cried unto the Lord. And
he said, Lord, my heart was grieved. I pricked in my rank. So foolish
was I. I was ignorant. I was like a
beast. How could I be so foolish? Forgive me." And he went on to
say, I don't need any of that that the wicked world has. He said, I'm continually with
Thee. You're holding me by Your right
hand and You will guide me with Your counsel and afterward receive
me up to glory. For whom have I in heaven but
Thee? And who do I desire on earth
beside Thee? My flesh and my heart faileth,
but God is the strength of my portion. I want you to love this
song. Prayer after prayer. Prayer is
confession. Prayer is by faith in Christ. Keep saying that. In Christ.
In Christ pleading His blood and His righteousness. And that's
not a recitation and a mere repetition. It's not name dropping. We really
do plead, cry, Lord forgive me for Christ's sake. No. We know. God's holy. God will by no means clear the
guilty, and we're guilty. And we know that there's only
one way we can approach this holy God, through Christ. He's
our advocate. Remember the message on the advocate?
Lord, plead with us. Will you plead for the Father
with us? When we call upon Him in Christ's name, and He said,
the Father, here He is. If you love me, He loves you.
You'll never see Him. You'll never see God. You see
me, Christ said? You've seen the Father. I go
to the father for you. I go to my father and your father.
Call him father because of me. I told you this, I'm going to
tell you again, maybe somebody hadn't heard it. I was sitting
in my study one time, this was years ago, and it may have been
during a conference or something, but I was sitting there alone
at the desk, the door was open, And this was when Hannah was
pretty young, a very young girl. And I kept hearing this voice
say, Hannah! Hannah! And I thought, somebody's
hollering for Hannah. And I kept looking down, and
he said, Hannah! Hannah! And I looked up, and
there was a little boy hollering at me. He didn't know my name,
but he knew I was Hannah's dad, and he wanted my attention. And
he said, Hannah, Hannah, I know your daughter. I need something. Boy, I jumped up. That name,
you know what that name means to me? A lot. You know what the name of Jesus
Christ means to his Father? Everything. And all those who
call upon Him in sincerity and in truth. What's truth? Christ. Do you hear? He loves that name. He loves His Son. And those that
love Him. So it's faith in Christ. And
prayer is worship. Our Father which art in heaven,
hallowed, hallowed. If we never got past that, it
would be alright. Holy, holy, holy. Hallowed be thy name. Worship. Request. In our text,
he said here, in everything by prayer and supplication. Philippians
4. I didn't mark my Bible. Philippians
4. It says in everything by prayer
and supplication. Supplication means asking for
supplies. With thanksgiving. Do not forget to be thankful,
to thank the Lord for what you're asking for. But he says, let
your request be made known unto God. Prayer is indeed asking
or requesting. And he tells us we can ask for
anything. Didn't he? In everything, ask. He tells us only what we ask
for in his will will be answered. But we can tell him anything.
Can't your children come to you with anything? Huh? Can't they?
Anything? You might not necessarily give
them everything they ask for, knowing that it might not be
good for them. Our Lord certainly knows better
than we do, don't we? But ask anyway. Request. Give us. Forgive us. As I said,
lead us. Deliver mainly, chiefly, those
things. In everything, whatever's on
your mind, ask. If it's needful, he'll give it
to you. If not, he won't. Everything, small and large,
everything and everything, and before everything, before the
day, don't take a step, because it'll be wrong, won't it? Don't think a thought. Try not
to think a thought, because it'll be sinful. It'll be covetous. It'll be selfish, won't it? But
if you pray in the Spirit that Christ told us, they won't be. Let this mind be in you. Christ
prayed all the way, didn't He? He prayed all the way. What did
He pray for? I know what He prayed for. We have several examples
of what He prayed for. He prayed for God's glory. Father!
One time He was walking along and He couldn't help Himself.
Father! Glorify Thy Name! And it thundered. I have both
glorified it and will glorify it again. He'll honor that. Father, keep the man which thou
hast given me. Pray for others. The Lord will
answer that prayer. Yes, He will. Father, if it be
possible, we have a cup to drink, don't
we? If it be possible, let this cup pass from my mouth. Nevertheless, not my will. Can you say that? I don't know. There's some deep things we go
through and we ask the Lord, Lord, please. Lord, please heal. Lord, please save. Lord, please. I'm begging you. And we keep
praying and we keep praying. And He might give it and He might
not. Can we say, can you say, Not
my will, but Thy will. Well, there's peace. There's
peace there, okay? That if it's His will, He's going
to give it. If it's His will, He's going
to heal. If it's His will, He's going to save. If it's His will,
He's going to give. If it's His will. If it's not
His will, He don't want it. And we're going to know. Someday
we're going to know as we've been known. And we're going to
thank Him. Lord, thank You for not giving me what I asked for.
We don't know all of the workings of our Lord. I'll say this again. I'm going
to say it again, what Brother Scott said, you know. I love
it, that old man. He went through trials just like
Job. Lost his health, lost his family. He said, if you knew what God
knows, you would order your life exactly like He ordered it. Here's
peace. You would order your life exactly
like He ordered it. You wouldn't change a thing. Be not
full of anxious care, he said. How can we not be full of care? All of us are. All of us get
that way. We're so full. When you care
for people, when you love people, when you're concerned for people,
especially those that don't know the Lord, your children, whoever
it may be, when you care for them, it fills you full of care. How can we not be so full of
care to the point where we're so distraught and in despair? He said, cast all your care. How? How do you cast all your
care upon the Lord? Prayer. Prayer. You're unburdened. Prayer is an unburdening. Prayer
is getting... Do you ever have to get something
off your chest? We have these weights on us of
worry and troubles. Scripture says, casting all your
care upon the Lord. Why? Go ahead and say it. For he careth
for thee. He careth for thee. It says here
in our text, verse 7, the peace of God passeth all understanding. The trials we go through, they
pass. This too shall pass. During the
trial, we think it's never going to pass. We think, I'm not going
to get through this. Don't you? Well, we do. Don't we? This, too, shall pass. No matter
what it is, it shall pass. And it passes all understanding.
I don't know how I got through that. Yes, I did. The grace of
God. The grace of God. The goodness
of God. Passeth all understanding. Shall keep your heart. This peace
of God, our Lord... Now, this peace... Oh my, let
me say this. Our Lord Jesus Christ made peace
for us through the blood of His cross. God is not. Brethren,
we're sinners. You read with me? He said, you
being evil know how to give good. We still got this old man in
us. We still act wickedly. We act sinful, act sinful. But
God is not angry with that. God is not angry with His people. God does not, shall not punish
His people for their sins. He punished Christ. Get that
in your head. No, let it go deeper than that.
Get that in your hearts. Know this for your peace. Because
we often think, God's doing this to me. He's punishing me. No.
God doesn't punish His people. He chastens. He corrects. He
instructs. And He does it tenderly with
love and care and kindness and mercy. He hath not dealt with
us after our sin. Let us say that. He dealt with
Christ. And Christ said, peace I leave
with you. Didn't he? Let not your heart
be troubled. He just told Peter, Peter, you're
going to deny me. And he told all of you are going
to forsake me. And then the next words out of
his mouth were, let not your heart be troubled. You hear that? Let not your heart be troubled.
I go to prepare a place for you. Who? Simon Peter, the denier
of the Lord. Peace. Peace I leave with you. My peace
I give unto you. He shall not forsake his people
ever. He said, I give unto them eternal
life. Turn with me to Jeremiah 29.
Jeremiah 29. Brethren, if you haven't read
the book of Jeremiah lately, start reading it, okay? And read just as fast as you
can until you get to chapters 29 and 30. You see, our Lord
loves His people. He loves us better than we love ourselves. He loves us better than we love
our own. And He absolutely knows what's
best and He only does what is good for us. He really does have
everything and every one of us, everything concerning us in His
heart, on His mind, and in His hands. He really does. He's the one caring for you,
so don't be full of anxious care. Cast all those cares upon Him. He really, really does. Look
at Jeremiah 29. Verse 11, you have it? You'll want to mark this so you
can remember it. I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith
the Lord, thoughts of peace, not of evil, to give you an expected
end, a good end. There may be trouble, and there
is, a lot of it, but it's going to end real good. It's going
to end so good That the former troubles shall not be remembered. No matter how bad. Look at the
next line. Then ye shall call upon me, and
ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.
Ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with
all your heart. I will be found of you, saith
the Lord. Who's he talking to? Well, read
the previous verses. He said, My people are bent to
backsliding. Didn't he? All of them. But God. He said, I'm going to heal their
backs. Look at Hosea. I'm going to quit with this.
Hosea, one of the brethren wants me to preach through that, and
I remind him, I just did. Remember the story of Ephraim? Hosea chapter 14. In the beginning, Ephraim said,
leave him alone. He's got his idols. He never
gives me a thought. Just leave me alone. And all
of his dealings and then on and on goes through there. It says
that, I heard him moaning himself. And then finally he says, how shall I give thee up, Ephraim?
Can't do it. Can't do it. Can't give you up.
Look at Hosea 14, in closing, verse 4. I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely, for
mine anger is turned away from Him. There is no anger. Let this Word of Christ, of God,
dwell in you richly. Okay? And praying always, in
everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your requests,
whatever they may be, known to God. And the peace of God, which
passeth all understanding, shall keep, you have His Word, shall
keep your minds and hearts through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't let the fowl steal this
away. Okay? Talk about these things. Remember
these things. Alright, stand with me. I was
going to sing a hymn, but let's pray. Lord, thank You. And this
is truly our heart's desire and prayer that You would heal us
and forgive us. You sent Your Word to the children
of Israel, it says, and healed them. And oh, we are blind, haught,
lame, wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked. and often feel
dead. Oh, Lord, quicken us according
to your word. Open our blind eyes, our deaf ears, loosen our
tongues. We give thanks and not murmuring
and complaining. This is our prayer. This is our
heart's cry in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, give
us what we need. Forgive us our sins. Bless us
for Christ's sake. In his name we pray. Amen.