Thank you. No, I couldn't. I'll be scared. Well, I guess many times we'll
let you go. Sweep over my soul. Sweep over my soul. Sweet Spirit, sweep over my soul. Good evening, let's all stand
together. We'll sing hymn number 272. 272. My hope is built on nothing less than
Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground
is sinking sand. When darkness fails his lovely
face, I rest on his unchanging grace. In every high and stormy
gale, My anchor holds within the veil. On Christ the solid
rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood, when all around my soul gives
way. He that is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. When he shall come with trumpet
sound, O may I then in him be found, Dressed in his righteousness
alone, Faultless to stand before the throne. Be seated. We'll sing hymn number 224. 224. I know not why God's wondrous
grace to me he hath made known, nor why unworthy Christ in love
redeemed me for his own. But I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed
unto him against that I know not how this saving faith
to me he did impart, nor how believing in his word brought
peace within my heart. But I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed
unto him against that day. I know not how the Spirit moves
Convincing men of sin Revealing Jesus through the Word creating
faith in Him. But I know whom I have believed
in and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've
committed, unto him against that day. I know not what of good
or ill may be reserved for me. of weary ways or golden days
before his face I see. But I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. I know not when my Lord may come
at night or noonday fair. nor if I walk the vale with him
or meet him in the air. But I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that he is able Isaiah 63. I didn't know what Houston was
going to read this morning, but I was listening to some sermons
from Cody Henson and He referred to Isaiah 55, and I knew I hadn't
read back there in a long time, so. Isaiah 63. Who is this that cometh
from Edom, with dyed garments from Basra? This that is glorious
in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength.
I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art
thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth
in the wine-fat? I have trodden the wine-press
alone, and of the people there was none with me. For I will
tread them in mine anger, and trample them in mine fury, and
their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will
stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in
mine heart, And the year of my redeemed has come. And I looked,
and there was none to help. And I wondered that there was
none to uphold. Therefore, my own arm brought
salvation unto me. And my fury, it upheld me. I
will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk
in my fury. And I will bring down their strength
to the earth. I will mention the loving kindness of the Lord
and praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has bestowed
on us. And the great goodness toward
the house of Israel, which he has bestowed on them, according
to his mercies and according to the multitude of his loving
kindness. For he said, Surely they are my people, children
that will not lie. So he was their savior. In all
their affliction, he was afflicted. And in the angel of his presence,
saved them. In his love and in his pity,
he redeemed them. And he bared them and carried
them all the days of old. But they rebelled and vexed his
Holy Spirit. Therefore, he was turned to be
their enemy. And he fought against them. Then he remembered the
days of old, Moses and his people saying, Where is he that brought
them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? Where
is he that put his Holy Spirit within him that led them by the
right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the water
before them to make himself an everlasting name, that led them
through the deep as a horse in the wilderness, they that should
not stumble as a beast goeth down into the valley The spirit
of the Lord caused him to rest. So didst thou lead thy people
to make thyself a glorious name. Look down from heaven and behold
from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory. Where is thy
zeal and thy strength? The sounding of thy bowels, of
thy mercies toward me. Are they restrained? Doubtless
thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us. and Israel,
acknowledge us not. Thou, O Lord, art our Father,
our Redeemer, thy name is from everlasting. O Lord, wisest thou,
made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy
fear. Return, for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance. The people of thy holiness have
possessed it, but a little while, our adversaries have trodden
down thy sanctuary. We are thine, thou never bearest
rule over them. They were not called by thy name. Almighty God, you are our father.
We come to you and we thank you for your mercies every day. We
ask that you would have mercy on us. We ask that you would
watch over us and that you would cause us to think on you, Lord,
for us to be happy to submit to your will, whatever it bring.
Lord, we ask that you'd be with our families that don't know
you, Lord. We thank you for this morning service and we ask that
you'd be with Brother Bruce this afternoon and you lay your word
on him, Lord. We thank you for him and for
his wife and for bringing them to us, for bringing Brother Donnie
back home safe. We ask that you would be with
him this afternoon, Lord. Cause us to hear. We thank you,
Lord. And all these things we ask in
Christ's name. Amen. Hymn number 314. I am thine,
O Lord. I have heard thy voice, and it told thy love to me. But I long to rise in the arms
of faith and be closer drawn to thee. Draw me nearer. Nearer, blessed Lord, to the
cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to Thy precious bleeding side. Consecrate me now to thy service,
Lord, by the power of grace divine. Let my soul look up with a steadfast
hope, and my will be lost in thine. Draw me nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to the cross where thou hast died. Draw me nearer, Nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to Thy precious bleeding side. Oh, the pure delight of a single
hour that before Thy throne I spend. When I kneel in prayer and with
Thee, my God, I commune as friend with friend. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to the cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to Thy precious bleeding side. There are depths of love that
I cannot know till I cross the narrow sea. There are heights
of joy that I may not reach till I rest in peace with Thee. Nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,
to the cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer,
nearer, blessed Lord, to Thy precious bleeding side. Brother Bruce, you come on and
bring what the Lord's put on your heart. Okay, push it for
me, would you? I'm ready to go. Over in Matthew's Gospel, if
you want to turn with me to my text tonight, you'll find it
in the sixth chapter of the book of Matthew. I can earnestly say that there's
no place in this world that I'd rather be than right here tonight
with you dear people, with God's saints. And the Lord knows I'm
telling the truth. I'm 375 miles from my house, but I'd rather
be here with you folks than home. And I just pray, what a blessing. I sat there, and as we sang,
and I thought, what a blessing, together on this cold night,
on the Cumberland Plateau and worship our God. What a blessing,
thank you. And thank the Lord for you. In
Matthew's Gospel chapter six, I remember the last message I
preached to you folks in the conference was on prayer. And
I want to preach this message tonight to encourage us to pray.
In Matthew chapter six in verse five, and when thou prayest,
Thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing
in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they
may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have
their reward. But thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray
to thy Father which is in secret. Thy Father which seeth in secret
shall reward thee openly. And when you pray, use not vain
repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall
be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore lacking to
them, for your Father knoweth what things you have need of
before you ask him. After this manner, therefore,
pray you, Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done, in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us
not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the
kingdom, thine is the power, and thine is the glory forever. Amen. This is a perfect example,
our perfect pattern for us to pray. The Lord didn't tell us just
to read this and repeat it as a congregation, but he gives
us a perfect pattern, perfect words to say, when you pray,
when you pray, pray like this. This is an excellent pattern.
Use these words or words equivalent to this. Get the message that's
in this prayer, what this means to pray. And I want to look at
that, but I want to look also at what he said here about, he
reveals to us the attitude of prayer. And isn't that just as
important as what we say? The way we come, our heart's
attitude when we pray. John Bunyan used to say, I'd
rather have a heart without any words than to have a bunch of
words without any heart when I pray. And there's many times
that when we pray, we don't have words, but we have groanings,
which can't be uttered. Our Father, and we groan. But
the first thing the Lord Jesus says about here, I think, reveals
to us something about the attitude of our prayer, because he mentions
this, and he said, after this manner, pray ye, and the first
thing he mentioned is this. Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowood be thy name. The first thing he mentions,
I think, is the attitude that we have in prayer. And what is
it? It's an attitude of love. Our Father. Who are we approaching? He's our Father. And if we approach
Him in the spirit and that spirit is a spirit of love, then we
must approach him in love. We have this word we call philial. I think the way you pronounce
it, philial, it's the relationship that a child has to its parents. We talk about philial fear. It
means a reverence for your parents. And philile obedience, you obey
your parents, you honor your parents and obey your parents.
And here's that love, that philile love, the love that a child has
for its father. You trust your father, you love
your father. And when God sends the spirit
of his son into our hearts, that is a spirit of love, isn't it?
And God is love, and Christ is love. And so when we pray, we
pray to our Father, and He uses this word here that draws out
of the depths of our soul this affection. Father, Father, haven't
you found a lot of comfort in that? My father, and it just
produces and draws from the low bottom of your heart this love. Father, father, father. This word, I think, is suited
for every occasion in our life. Father. Don't never, for any
reason, under any circumstances, refuse to call God your father.
If He has made you His child, then ALWAYS address Him as Father.
He may lay the rod heavy upon your back, but He does it because
He loves you, and He's your Father. There are times in the Lord Jesus
Christ's life when it was upon this earth that He addressed
God as His Father. And it's every occasion that
you can imagine. One time, when he was thinking
of his father's peculiar and discriminating mercy and grace,
he said, Father, I thank you that you've hid these things
from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes. When we think of the Father's
electing love, what should we say? Father, we thank you. Thank
you for your electing love. When you see him call some poor
sinner out of darkness and leave somebody else in darkness, what
should we say? Father, thank you. Thank you
for your electing love. Thank him for his discriminating
mercy. When things are going well in
your life and you're rejoicing, always say, Father, thank you. Before you get up in the morning
like this morning, Oh, and the sun shining, my sister opened
up the windows, and man, the sun just lit up the whole living
room. Thank you, Father. You've let
your son rise upon us. Thank you. Father, I thank you. He's a good pattern for us, isn't
he? But you know, sometimes his joy turned to heaviness, just
like ours do. How are we to pray when we're
in the garden, our garden of Gethsemane? and our souls are
grieved even unto death. How are we to pray then? When
you're on the hospital bed, or you're so sick, or you're so
weak, how should we pray then? Father, if it be your will, let
this cup pass from me. Father, if it's not your will
that this cup pass, your will be done. Oh, that's a good time
to pray. When you're down, when you're
burdened, when you're tried sore, Father, When he was on the cross,
how did he pray? He prayed the same way, didn't
he? Boy, when he was persecuted, they'd come by and clear their
throats and spit in his face. Blasphemed him. If you be the
Christ, come down from the cross and we'll believe you. How did
he pray then? Father, forgive them. When people
have turned on you, when friends have forsaken you, how should
you pray? Father, forgive them. When he
comes down to die, I mean, we're gonna die when death's cold dew
lies on our brow. How will we pray on that day,
brothers and sisters? He's our perfect example. Father,
into your hands I commend my spirit. What a way to begin a
prayer. And it's all because of this,
because of love. It's just the Spirit of love.
God is love. The Spirit of God's Son that
shed abroad in our heart. What does He shed abroad? The
love of God. So we go to the Father, we address Him Father,
because it draws this deep affection from our hearts. Love. Love. My Father. But he says something else here.
Pray after this manner, not only our Father, which art in heaven,
But here's the words and here's the attitude we should dress
our Father in. Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be your name. Our Father, and where's our Father? He's in heaven. That's His throne. That's why prayer is so amazing
to us. We're coming into a God that's on the throne in heaven.
And He's so high above us. Geographically speaking, he's
so high above us that he humbles himself to behold the things
that's in heaven. How much more when he looks upon
this earth, this insignificant ball, and when he looks upon
us and our nothingness. He's our Father in heaven. He's
high above us, and we're to recognize that. Oh, Father, bow down. Father, bend your ear to us,
because you're in heaven, and we're upon this earth. We recognize
this when we pray. He's high above us in His duration,
isn't He? You and I are here for a few
days, and we die. We grow old and feeble and we
die. He never was born and He never
shall die. He has no beginning of days nor
end of life. He's God from everlasting to
everlasting. Our Father, You're above us. He's high above us in His character.
He is indeed the Holy Lord God. He sits upon the throne of His
holiness. He's glorious in His person.
He's glorious in His thoughts. He's glorious in His deeds, in
His words, in His dealings with His creatures. Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God Almighty. He's nothing like us. He's eternally
different from us. And this is our hope, isn't it?
If He was like us, He could not save us. But He's nothing like
us. Bless His holy name. And this
is our Father who is in heaven. He's high above us in His power.
We go weak and sickly and feeble. We can't even come to the public
worship, we get so old and feeble. But He's God Almighty. We purpose
and He disposes. We seek our pleasure and we fail,
but God does whatsoever he pleases in heaven and the earth and all
deep places. Sin is mixed with everything
we do. We're sinners by nature, by deed, by thought, by choice,
but he knows no sin. He cannot sin. He can't even
look upon it with his pure eyes. He's holy, holy, holy is the
Lord of hosts. and this God is our Father. We're
to recognize that when we pray. The words that we use are important.
We're to address Him as God who is in heaven, but our attitude
is just as important. We know who we're addressing.
He is indeed in heaven. And our Lord said, be certain
you address Him like this, holy is your name. Hallowed, sanctified,
distinguished, separate from all other names. Stand up and
bless the Lord your God forever and ever, and blessed be His
glorious name. His name tells us who He is,
doesn't it? His name shall be called Jesus,
for He shall save His people. His name means He's glorious,
He's almighty, He's holy, He's good, He's gracious. from the
rising of the sun, even to the going down of the same. His name
shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall
be offered unto my name, and a pure offering, for my name
shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. Holy, reverend, separate is thy
name. God said this to Pharaoh, For
this cause have I raised thee up, to show my power in thee,
and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth. We're
still talking about what God did to Pharaoh, weren't we? Raised
him up and drowned him, to magnify his name, to sanctify his holy
name. There is none like Thee, Isaiah
said. O Lord, Thou art great and Thy
name is great in might. Who would not fear Thee, O King
of nations? His name, His wonderful name. This is the attitude that we're
to have when we're approaching to our Father. Just recognize
He's of heaven, He's high, and His name is holy. He's glorious
in holiness. And there's something about approaching
him this way. When it gets into our spirits
and we realize who we're approaching, boy, it brings this deep reverence,
doesn't it? I remember when we were here
Sunday morning in the conference and we worshipped and we worshipped
and nobody moved. There was a deep reverence here.
And you couldn't imagine about jumping up and doing something
silly or saying anything. Brother Donnie just said here,
remember that? Why the presence of our Father who is in heaven
was here. Can you imagine Moses, what he
was feeling when the Lord told him, you can't see me and live. You can't see my glory and live.
And then he put him in the cliff of the rock and said, I'm going
to pass by you and I'm going to show you my glory. And he
passed by him and he said, I'm going to proclaim the name of
the Lord. And he proclaimed his goodness
and his mercy and his grace and his long suffering. Can you imagine
how Moses felt when he did that? He made haste and bowed his head
and he worshipped. That's the attitude I think the
Lord is talking about. You're coming into the presence
of this sovereign holy God who is high. And it's amazing when
we feel that in our souls. Imagine how that high priest
felt when he went into the holiest of all with blood to sprinkle
on the altar and there was that shekinah glory of God overshadowed
in the mercy seat. And he felt that rope tied around
his ankle and knew why it was there. I'm approaching this glorious
God, and if I don't approach Him in reverence, they'll drag
me out of here. Imagine what he was feeling.
Imagine, Isaiah, what he was feeling. When he saw the Lord
high and lifted up, and those cherubim singing, holy, holy,
holy is the Lord of hosts. Oh, he was humble in himself,
wasn't he? I saw the Lord of glory. Woe
is me, for I'm undone. Those three apostles up on the
mountain of Transfiguration, when they were there with the
Lord Jesus, that cloud overshadowed them. The Lord's deity broke
through his humanity and he began to glow and his face outside
shined the sun and his clothes began to shine. They were in
the presence of glory, of deity. And that boy spoke from the cloud
and put a stop to Peter's silly words and rebuked him, this is
my beloved son. He's revealing His glory. Share
ye Him. And I'm just saying, brothers
and sisters, when we pray, we're coming into the presence of the
eternal God. And He's our Father. And as wonderful
it is, we come there and address Him as our Father, and our hearts
are filled with adoration and love for Him. And since He's
our Father and He loves us, what is it He won't do for us? He'll
never do us any harm because He loves us. And we know He loves
us because He's put His love in our hearts. That's why we
address Him as our Father. What is it He cannot do for us
since He's above the heavens? And holy and glorious is His
name. I think the more I learn about
prayer, The more I want to pray, just sometimes come into the
presence of the Father in heaven and just lay there before him
as it were and sometimes just say, Father, Father, Father. Some people might look at this
prayer and say, there's no gospel here. Some people say this prayer was
for the Jews. This is full of the gospel. This
prayer is full of the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't tell us here,
but He tells us in other places. Why do we address God as our
Father? How can we address God as our Father? Because Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, has redeemed us. And since He's redeemed us,
He's made us His sons, and He's sent forth the Spirit of His
Son unto our hearts. We dare not, no man will ever
approach unto God that does not have the Spirit of the Son of
God. Crying, Father, Father. And He's
our Father. Did you notice how the Lord Jesus
says that? He's our Father. When I pray to Him, I say, My
Father. But when we come up here in public
prayer, how do we pray? We pray, Our Father. because
we're one. We have one Father. How is He
one Father to us? Because in Jesus Christ we're
one. Christ has made us one. There
is neither Jew, Greek, there is neither bond or free, male
or female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ. You may be the
weakest saint ever, But God is as much your Father as He is
to those prophets or apostles of old. You got as near of access
unto His presence as anybody ever had, because your access
is through Jesus Christ, our Lord. We sang it this morning,
Brother Donnie, an advocate with a Father. That's the way we all
come and address Him as our Father, because in Jesus Christ, we are
indeed one, accepted in the beloved. And how in the world would we
go and say, Father, forgive us of our debts if there wasn't
a Redeemer at His right hand? We have redemption through His
blood, even the forgiveness of sins. We confess our sins. And it isn't amazing that the
same place we say, Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your
name, Father of God, these debts, please forgive me. Forgive me
of my sins. Those things, both are so, aren't
they? Every time you go to Him, you confess your sins, don't
you? And He forgives you for Christ's sake. And thy kingdom
come. Whose kingdom is it? It's the
kingdom of God's dear Son, after all, isn't it? So this is full
of the gospel, isn't it? This prayer's full of the gospel. Something else, just for a minute,
and the Lord often does this. He often teaches us how to pray
by telling us how not to pray. So He gives us a good example
here of how to pray, and then He tells us here how not to pray.
Look here what He says in verse 5. He gives us this example of
how not to pray. It's vainglory. And then he says
about the heathen, there in verse seven, vain repetition. Look,
we learn a lot. We learn a lot sometimes by negative
things, don't we? He gives us the positive and
he gives us the negative. He tells us what to do, and then
he says, you do it like this, but don't you do it like this.
So look what he says in verse five. And when thou prayest,
thou shall not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray. They love to pray. Hypocrites
pray and they love to pray. Ain't that amazing? You say,
boy, that's a praying man. He may be, but he may be a hypocrite.
You know, every time something happens to somebody now, I mean,
everybody jumps on the media and jumps on the internet. Let's
pray for this person, pray for that person. Okay. Everybody
pray. I've got no problem with that.
But just because a person prays is no sign they're a saved person.
The hypocrite prays. And the Bible says here he loves
to pray. He loves it. You don't always love it. Sometimes
it's a burden. Sometimes it's a struggle. But
a hypocrite loves to pray. And one of the reasons he loves
to pray is where he prays at. Where does he pray at? Standing
in the synagogue. He's always wanting to be in
a prominent place. And there's a reason for that.
He has to be heard. This is the reason he prays.
He prays to man. He just prays to be seen and
prays to be heard of men. I never pray at the restaurant
anymore. I quit doing that. I've seen
people. I've seen people go in the restaurant
and they pray with one eye open, see if anybody's watching them.
I've seen people do that. I have actually seen people do
that. Oh, Father, thank you for our food. I've seen people do
that. I usually, before I go in to
eat, I'll thank the Lord. Sometimes I'll thank Him in my
heart. But when people pray just to be seen, or just to be heard
by man, the Lord said, don't you dare pray that way. Don't
you do that. And what did He say? They have
their reward. Everybody gets rewarded when
they pray, don't they? The hypocrite gets rewarded.
He's seen of man. He sees that man is watching
him, man is hearing him. Man said, boy, you must be a
holy Christian. You must be a fine Christian
man. I've seen you pray. I've seen you pray over your
food. They pat him on the back. What a pretty prayer. And that's
his reward. He just eats it up. Yes. He's got his reward. That's all
he's going to have. The child of God's got a reward
too, but who does he pray for? Two. First of all, he don't care
to run in the synagogue and get up front and stand there to pray.
Where does he go? In his closet. That's where he
really feels comfortable at, getting in his closet, and it's
not enough to get in his closet, he shuts his door, which means
he shuts everything out. Nobody's welcome here. My wife's
not welcome here. My kids aren't welcome here.
I'm praying to my Father in secret. And you know the Father rewards
him. He that prays in secret to his Heavenly Father, he will
be rewarded. God the Father will reward him.
Ain't that a reward? Oh my goodness. He knows how
to reward you, doesn't he? Don't you be a hypocrite. Don't
pray like the hypocrites. Get along with your father. Vain
glory is all that is. And he says here in verse seven,
vain repetition. But when you pray, use not vain
repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall
be heard, for they're much speaking. They just chat something over
and over and over again. There's a Catholic radio station
somewhere up in Kentucky, and when I'm traveling sometime,
I used to listen to it just to see what they were saying. I
was listening to Mass one day while I was traveling. And they
repeated, Holy Mary, the mother of God, pray for us sinners.
I counted 20 times. I think it was like 30 times.
Holy Mary, the mother of God, pray for us sinners. Holy Mary,
the mother of God, pray for us sinners. Why would you do that? Why would you use vain repetition
like that? They think God will hear them.
If I keep repeating this enough, God will hear me. The Lord said,
don't you do that. Your father knows what you have
need of. You need of mercy, then ask him
for mercy and he'll give you mercy. He knows you need mercy. You need strength, just go say,
Father, I need your strength. He'll give you strength that
you need. Whatever you need, just tell him, Father, I need
this. And you don't have to keep repeating
it. He knows what you have need of better than you do, better
than I do. Vain repetition. Often think of that. occasion
where Elijah was up on Mount Carmel. Was it up on Mount Carmel
where he built the altar? I think it was. Was it, Brother
Donnie? I can't remember now. But Israel had left the Lord
and Elijah got Israel together up on the mountain and he said,
you fellows build you an altar and you sacrifice to your God
to Baal. And then I'll build an altar,
and I'll call upon God, and whoever answers by fire, let him be God.
Remember that? And they built him an altar,
and they begin to chant. All the Bible says they prayed
was, O bell, hear us. O bell, hear us. O bell, hear
us. The Bible says they went from morning to noon, O bell,
hear us. O bell, hear us. And Elijah began
to mock them. He said, you need to cry a little
louder, he's probably asleep. Ain't that what he said? He's probably on a journey. Maybe
he's talking to somebody. Need to get his attention. He
started mocking them. They got so upset, they started
cutting themselves and jumping on the altar. Oh, Belle, yes. Oh, Belle, yes. There was no
voice that spoke. There was no fire that fell from
heaven. Could you imagine how anxious
Satan was to do something that day? And the Lord told him, you
stay away. You just get away from here.
You're not going to bring a little match and light a fire under
their sacrifices. Stay away. And nothing happened. The one
Elijah built an altar, put his sacrifice on it. put the wood
under the sacrifice and said, bring these tubs of water and
they poured on it and soaked the sacrifice and they dug a
big ditch and the water soaked the wood and filled up the ditch
and he said, oh God, let it be known today that there's a God
in Israel. That was simple, wasn't it? And
the fire of God fell, consumed the sacrifice and the wood and
the stones and licked up the water in the ditch. He approached the living God. What a time that was. Don't use
vain repetition. Tell the Father what you need. Our Father never slumbers. He
never sleeps. His ears open to the cries of
His own. He knows what we have need of
before we ask Him. Therefore, approach Him in love.
Approach Him in this holy reverence, these two wonderful graces. Make
known unto him the desires of your heart. Tell him your petition,
and he'll answer you according to his own will. And that's enough,
isn't it? After this manner, therefore,
pray. Father in heaven, our Father, our gracious Father, our glorious
Father, you're God alone. There is no other God. in the
Trinity of your sacred persons, your God, the everlasting God. Why you would look upon such
as we are is amazing to us. Why you would humble yourself
and pity us as a father pities his children is amazing to us,
but we believe that you do. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for coming
down from that holy and happy place. to teach us to pray, to
teach us that your father is our father and your God is our
God. And that as he loves you, he
loves us and accepts us as he accepts you. Oh, give us grace
to understand this and live in the faith of it. Everywhere we
go on all occasions to address you as our father in heaven.
Bless this dear congregation. Bless them more and more. Revive
your work here. Revive your dear pastor here.
Use him for your glory. Oh, Lord, on this mountain, visit
this mountain. Let your great grace be upon
it. May your glory abide here in this place. Visit your saints
here at night upon their beds. Visit them when they work. break
in upon them, reveal your great mercy to them, your love, amaze
them by it, and they'll praise you for it. We ask these things
for your glory, your glorious name. Amen. Thank you. I know we sing this one often,
and it doesn't do justice to the message that we just heard,
but it'll have to do for now. Sweet hour of prayer, hymn number
361. 361. Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour
of prayer, that calls me from a world of care. and bids me at my father's throne
make all my wants and wishes known. In seasons of Dear stress
and grief, my soul has often found relief. And oft escaped The tempter's
snare By thy return Sweet hour of prayer Sweet hour of prayer
sweet hour of prayer, thy wings shall my petition bear. To him whose truth and faithfulness
engage the waiting soul to bless. And since he bids me see his
face, believe his word. And trust His grace, I'll cast
on Him my every care. And wait for the sweet hour of
prayer. Sweet hour of prayer. Sweet hour of prayer. May I thy consolation share,
Till from Mount Vizca's lofty height I view my home and take
my flight. This robe of flesh I'll drop
and rise to seize the everlasting prize and shout while passing
through the air Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer. We'll meet again Wednesday. We're
going to resume Wednesday services this week. Anything else that
needs announced? All are dismissed. Have a good
week and we'll meet again Wednesday, Lord willing.