Pray, always pray. This sermon was originally preached on November 3rd in the year 1878 by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The text for today comes from the book of John, John chapter 16, verse 26 to 27. In that day, you will ask in my name, I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. The present time in which we live is highly favored and ought to be highly valued. Let us never envy the patriarchs their communion with God. when sometimes he spoke personally into their ears or visibly revealed himself to them. Blessed are our eyes, for they see, and our ears, for they hear the things which kings and prophets waited for in vain. That which was denied to them has been revealed to us, and we are therefore very privileged Though John the Baptist, living on the very verge of the gospel dispensation, was the greatest mere man who had been born of a woman, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And we are now living in that kingdom of heaven, although there is, at present, much to mar the glory of the reign of Christ on earth. Be grateful, therefore, Oh, you sons of men who are also sons of God, be grateful that you live in this truly golden age. For with all of its sorrows and all of its shortcomings, it is an age of great mercy and of high privilege. I venture even to set the present period above that brave age in which Jesus lived here among men. We are very apt to look on that time as being the sunniest era which the Church of the Living God ever enjoyed. Yet it was not so. The dispensation of the Holy Spirit is of a higher order than the dispensation of the humiliated and suffering Savior. That was the day of the Church's childhood when her Lord instructed her by pictures and taught her letters but kept back many of the greater and deeper truths because she was not able to bear them then. Now the Holy Spirit has been given to lead us into all truth and He takes the things of Christ and shows them to us. It was only the twilight of the gospel dispensation and only its dawning hour when our Lord was here. True, He is the Son of Righteousness But his disciples only saw a little of his glory, for their eyes were only slightly opened, and they had less light from him than we have, even though the blessedness of his physical, personal presence is denied to us. At that time, there was much backwardness in prayer even among the apostles of Christ. Just before our text, we read that Christ said to them, Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. We read of our master praying and we know that the cold mountains and the midnight air often witnessed the fervor of his prayer. But we read very little, very little about the prayers of the disciples. Once they did say, Lord, teach us to pray. but they seem to know very little about the power of prayer. Now the Lord has not only taught us to pray, but he has also given the Holy Spirit to help us in our weaknesses and to make intercession for us with groans that words cannot express. In many other respects, we are far more blessed than any of the highly favored 12 who remained with Christ. or the Privileged Seventy who were sent out by Him to teach and to preach and to heal the sick. It is a blessed period of time in which we live and I want you, you who are believers in Christ, to prize your privileges. If you have been lamenting your lot, I want you to know that your birth could scarcely have been at a more favorable period and that to be living in the time when the Spirit of God has been given and his sacred influences are exercising their power in the church, it is a high honor which God has given to you. I am led to make these remarks because our text begins with the words, in that day, which is the present period. The time when Christ has returned to his father's right hand after his terrible death on Calvary. The period when we are no longer full of sorrow because he died. but our sorrow is turned into joy on his account and on our own too. It is in that day that the blessings I am going to speak of are given to us. So we are even now enjoying them or ought to be doing so. Taking the text as referring to the period of time in which we now live, I notice first the believer's daily exercise. In that day you will ask in my name. Secondly, we have the believer's privileged position. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. Then thirdly, I will try to suggest what the believer's natural conclusion from the Blessed Truth should be, which is revealed to us here. First, let us notice the believer's daily exercise. It is to ask and to continue asking. In that day you will ask in my name. The believer's daily exercise is to ask and to continue asking. It is a very simple matter to ask, but how gracious it is on the part of God to add to such a simple thing as asking the promise of giving. He did not say, desire the blessing, but ask for it. He does not say, purchase it, but ask for it, nor labor until you finally obtain it by your own efforts but simply ask for it. Brothers and sisters, if heaven is to be had for the asking, and if all that is needed to bring us to heaven is to be had for the asking, who would not ask? Whatever else a believer may fail to do, he must never fail to ask. If we have never asked God for anything at all, We may be quite sure that we were never converted. Our prayerless soul must be a Christless soul, but if we are really in Christ, we must have practiced the sacred art of asking, and we ought to continually ask. If there is any difficulty in our minds, let us ask, for the Holy Spirit can solve it. If there are any needs in our homes, let us ask, for our Heavenly Father can supply it. If there is any weakness in our spiritual nature, let us ask, for God can strengthen us. If there is any longing desire of our soul, which even leads to great sorrow of spirit, let us ask, for our desire can be granted if it is a right one, and our sorrow can be removed. To ask, my brethren, is very simple. And let the Lord's name be praised that usually the best asking is that which is the most simple. To ask anything of God does not require that you must use a set form of words. The children in your family, they do not read a formal written request to you when they want any favor from you. They state their need in childish language. You understand them. and grant their request, if it is a right and proper one, and compliance with it is within your power. Act in just the same way with your God. We are often far too careful about picking and choosing the phrases that we use in prayer. Do you think that God is pleased with a display of rhetoric? Or that He takes notice of your elocution when you come to the throne of grace? It may suit a teacher of English composition to criticize your sentences, but God thinks much more of your desires than of the words in which they are expressed. It may be natural for a scholar to consider the accuracy of your terms, but God especially notes the sincerity of your soul. There is no other place where the heart should be so free as before the mercy seat. There you can talk out your very soul, for that is the best prayer that you can present. Do not ask for what some tell you that you should ask for, but for that which you feel the need of, that which the Holy Spirit has made you to hunger and to thirst for. You ask for that. Always ask. Your whole life should be spent in asking. When the morning breaks, Ask for the mercy needed during the day. And when the day is closed its eyelids and you go to your bed, ask for the protection and rest that you need during the night. Ask when your voice can be heard only by your God in secret. And ask when your tongue may not be able to move, but only your spirit whispers into the ear of God. Never hesitate to ask because of the greatness of the blessing you desire. The Lord is a great God, though you are so little, and He delights to give great things to those who ask Him. And don't be reluctant to ask because of your unworthiness. You can never have any worthiness of your own. Therefore, if a sense of unworthiness would prevent you from praying right now, then it might always hinder you from praying. Yet the Lord commands you to pray, so it must be right for you to pray. Ask when you have fought for something and cannot win it. Ask when you have toiled for it and cannot gain it. Ask and you will have it. Come before God in all the rags of your sinfulness and conscious unworthiness and ask. for that is all you have to do. Ask and you will receive is the message that shines out with heavenly radiance over the mercy seat. Read it and obey it. Open your mouth wide for God will fill it. Our Lord told his disciples that in addition to asking, they were to ask in his name In that day, you will ask in my name." This is the most delightful way of asking. We often say at the end of our petition, Lord, grant it for Jesus' sake, and that is a very proper plea. It means because of what Jesus did, won't you deal well with me? I have done nothing that can ensure a favorable answer to my supplication. but won't you give it because Jesus deserves it? Oh Lord, listen to me for his sake. That is a good way to pray, but it is a still better way if you can use the name of Christ and ask in his name. You know what you do when you go to a store, when another person asks you to go there and purchase items in his name. and charge them to his account? Or suppose that you have authorized your servant to go to a certain store, and you have said to the store owner, whatever he comes for in my name, let him have it. Perhaps he has no money of his own, possibly he is a very poor person. but armed with your authority, he can get from that store owner as much as you could get if you were to go there yourself. So Jesus says to us, use my name when you are speaking to the Father. And how far may I go in using that name? As far as Christ himself can go. Whatever power there is about the name of Jesus, Whatever influence it has in his father's heart, that power and that influence we are permitted to exercise in prayer. My Lord, I used to ask you to do certain things for your son's sake, but now I come with a still stronger plea, for he has commanded me to use his name and to ask that you will do for me even as you would do for him. My Father, if you can refuse your firstborn, then you can refuse me. And if I am asking for something that he would not ask for, then please ignore my plea. For I desire to make this the test of my prayer, both for its extent and for its acceptance. If Christ would refuse to pray for it, then so do I. And if that which I ask for seems to be a blessing to me, but would not have seemed to be a blessing to him, then I say, not as I will, but as you will, so that I may still be able to use his name. No person in his right mind would use another person's name improperly. And if you are asking of God something for yourself merely with a selfish motive, You must not defile that blessed name of His by linking it with such a prayer as that. But using His name properly, you have great liberty and a high privilege in being permitted to come and pray, not only for the sake of Jesus, but also in the name of Jesus. Our text tells us that this asking in the name of Christ is to be the constant exercise of Christians in that day. It is to be the constant exercise of Christians in that day. What is that day according to the context? It is the time of persecution. They will put you out of the synagogue In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. At such a time as that, Christians are sure to pray. Today in England, we do not have one-tenth of the prayer that used to go up in the dark days of Queen Mary. Ah, beloved, when brothers and sisters are in prison for the faith, when they are likely to be laid out on the rack, when the little church has to be called together because the pastor is to be burned at the stake in the morning, and the young people all want to be up early to stand around and to cheer him with their weeping eyes if they cannot do anything more for him, and when the youngsters come home and their fathers ask them why they went there, they say they went to learn the way, the way if they should have to die in the same manner themselves. Ah, then prayer is a reality. And when they gather together in out-of-the-way corners and in lonely caverns, when they dare not raise their voices lest the watchers should hear them and take them to prison, yet in solemn undertones they cry to the Lord. It is real prayer then, It is that powerful and effective prayer of righteous men. It is then that the Church of the Living God really does pray. If any of you are in your own little way, subject to persecution, be sure to pray. For our Savior said, in that day you will ask in my name. Let that persecution be a sort of reminder to you of your duty and privilege. If you have been at all slack in prayer and somebody persecutes you because of Christ, say, now is the time for me to pray more earnestly than ever. For Jesus said, especially at the time of persecution, in that day you will ask in my name. If you read further on in the chapter, you will find that that day is when the Spirit of God has instructed the followers of Christ. He said, In that day you will no longer ask me anything, that is, you will ask me no questions, for the Spirit of God will instruct you. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. Now the more light and understanding a man gets from heaven, the more he will pray. If there is any so-called light that makes a man lax in prayer, that light is darkness. Some time ago, when there were a great many people around who professed to be perfect, I heard of one who had grown so conceited that she said her mind was so conformed, so conformed to the will of God that there was no need for her to pray, because her mind and God's mind were so perfectly one and the same. Yes, and when a person imagines that he is so good that he doesn't need to pray, he had better begin by crying out, God have mercy on me a sinner. I dare say you have heard of those people who climb so high up the ladder that they fall down on the other side. And that is exactly what people do when they begin to carry any truth to extravagance and push it to a point beyond its legitimate issues. That which makes you cease to pray is of the devil. So say to him, get behind me, Satan. The very suggestion that you can do without prayer must have come from below. It cannot have come from above. The more the Spirit of God teaches a Christian the things of God, the more it makes him ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Once again, that day is a day of great joy. Your grief will turn to joy. In that day, you will ask in my name. That day is a day of great joy. Your grief will turn to joy. In that day, you will ask in my name. Perhaps someone will say, the times of grief are good times for prayer, are they not? I grant you that they are. But oh, when grief is turned to joy, and doubt gives way to faith, and hope herself becomes eclipsed by a measure of delightful fulfillment, then it is the time to pray. When your heart is ready to dance, and your mouth is full of sweetness, then draw near to God in prayer. When he has given you the most, then ask all the more from him. Suppose this is a good day for you, a day of good news, then seize such a good opportunity to pray. There is a high tide in your affairs just now and take advantage of the flood that it may lead you on to spiritual wealth and wash you up high and near to your God. Oh, beloved, if ever in your lives you pray, Let it be especially when the Lord reveals himself so graciously to you that your heart is glad and your glory rejoices. Let that be a day of asking in the name of Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters, I wish I could speak even more impressively on this most delightful theme. For if there is one point, more than others, that touches the very vitals of Christian existence, it is this prayerfulness, this asking of God and receiving from Him in answer to our earnest believing supplication. Is prayer a reality with you, dear friends, or is it a mere mockery? Is it a sort of religious rite that you feel bound to perform? or has it become an essential to your spiritual being as breathing is to your natural being? Is it now to you a matter of habit that you should pray? Is it as natural for you to ask your Father who is in heaven as it is for your little children to ask you who are their fathers on earth? I feel that it must be so with me, not merely praying because I should, but because I love the sacred exercise. Not praying at a certain hour because it is the set time for prayer, but praying because I want to pray, praying because I must pray. A man scarcely needs to be reminded that he must breathe. It is essential to his very life that he should breathe, and it is essential to our spiritual life that we should pray. I never thought it necessary for me to prepare a sermon to exhort you to eat. Neither should it be necessary to exhort Christians to pray. It should be to you an instinct of your new nature, as natural to your spiritual being as a good appetite is to a man in health. There should be a holy hunger and a thirst to pray. And the soul never prays so well as when it is reminded not by the hour of the day or night, but by its real needs, and when it goes to its place of private prayer, not because it thinks it should, but because it feels that it must and is delighted at the privilege of having communion with its God. My object in the second part of my sermon will be to stir you up to such a feeling as So I will say no more on this first portion of my theme, the believer's daily exercise. In that day, you will ask in my name. Well now, secondly, we have the believer's privileged position with regard to praying. The believer's privileged position with regard to praying. Believers ought always to pray because first they have the Holy Spirit to prompt them. Is that in the text? Yes, or at least it is implied in the text. For Jesus says, In that day you will ask. But how could he so positively affirm that we would ask unless he intended to send his Spirit to lead us to ask? The promise is itself a guarantee that he will see it fulfilled. So we have the Holy Spirit to prompt us to pray, and not merely to prompt us to pray, but to tell us what we should pray. We do not know what we ought to pray for until he teaches us. Someone perhaps might ask, why do you pray? when everything is ordained by divine decree. It is true that everything is ordained and it is for that very reason that we do pray. The Spirit of God leads us to desire exactly what God has decreed and though we cannot open and read the book of His decrees, the Holy Spirit can read that book. So, He guides us to pray in accordance with its secret records. and He also makes intercession for us according to the will of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. And what the Spirit of God knows to be the mind of God, He also makes to be our mind, and thus we also pray according to the will of God. A true prayer is the echo of the eternal purpose. We say that coming events cast their shadows before them, and our prayers are the shadows before God's mercies. Who would not pray when prayer becomes to him a consecrated mystery in which one person of the Sacred Trinity operates on his mind and excites his desires? It ought to lead us to be much in prayer because our prayers are prompted by the Holy Spirit. Pray, always pray, the Holy Spirit pleads. Within you, all your daily and hourly needs. Next, we ought to always pray because we have the high honor of being allowed to use the name of Christ in our prayers. In that day you will ask in my name. We ought always to pray because we have the high honor of being allowed to use the name of Christ in our prayers. If a king were to entrust us with his royal seal, or if that king had the power to make money as fast as he willed it simply by his signature, and he allowed us to use that signature, I don't think many of us would remain poor. If he would only give us that privilege, we would be sure to make a considerable sum of money before we returned his seal and signature. But our Lord Jesus does, as it were, take off the signet ring from his finger and he says to his servants, ask in my name. And therefore, we write checks on the infinity of God There is no limit put to our request except this, if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. Oh, how this ought to encourage us to pray. Will we allow such a golden opportunity as this to pass by us unused? Oh, believers, with the Holy Spirit to tell you what to ask for and the Lord Jesus to endorse your asking, Will you not pray without ceasing? But beyond all this, there is the great encouragement to constant prayer which we derive from the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ is continually making intercession for us. Our poor prayers are blotted and blurred and stained with sin, but our great high priest sprinkles them with his own most precious blood and so purifies them. And then with his own dear hand, he lays them before the mercy seat. And for his sake, they are sure to be accepted. If anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the father in our defense, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. And he is always pleading for us. So, as we have a divine intercessor who never forgets to present our prayers before his Father's throne of grace, how boldly ought we to come to the mercy seat and what great things we ought to ask of God in Christ's name. Our text, however, seems to suggest to me that our Lord Jesus wished to prevent his disciples from making a mistake concerning his intercession. So on this occasion he said, I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. There was no need that he should say that just then, for he had said it a great many times already, so he did not need to repeat it. But at that time he seemed as if he meant to say, I don't want you to exaggerate even my intercession at my Father's expense. I will intercede for you, but you must not imagine that I do so because My Father is unwilling to hear you when you come to Him in My name. You must not get into your minds the strange idea that, by My pleading, I will make My Father willing to bless you, for the Father Himself loves you. This brings us to a very precious point, which is that we should be greatly encouraged to pray, not only because the Spirit prompts us and the Son intercedes for us, but because the Father himself loves us. We should be greatly encouraged to pray, not only because the Holy Spirit prompts us and the Son of God intercedes for us, but because the Father himself loves us. Oh, how we ought to pray now that we have the ear, no more than that, the very heart of the King. To have such a teacher as the Holy Spirit and such an advocate as our Lord Jesus Christ ought to be a great encouragement to us. But to have the heart of the King himself is best of all. The Father himself loves you. You know, dear brothers and sisters, that shallow thinkers often make mistakes concerning the Father and the Son in relation to the atonement. They think that the atonement of Christ was necessary to make the Father love his people. Whereas, the truth is that the Father, because he loved his people, gave his one and only Son to make atonement for them. God was always love, as truly love as the Son was and is. We must make no mistake about that matter. So concerning Christ's intercession, there is a tendency in certain quarters to fall into the error of supposing that the Father is difficult to please. and that Jesus must pacify him before he will grant our request. It is not true, for the Father himself loves you. I think that when a sinner is coming to God, he had better first fix his eyes wholly upon Jesus the mediator. But as for those of us who have believed in Jesus, we are forgiven. We are in a totally different position from that in which the unbeliever stands. We have had our sins forgiven, and we may come directly to the Father Himself. Of course, always coming through the mediator, yet all the while rejoicing in His gracious assurance, the Father Himself loves you. Pray. Always pray. Though weary, faint and alone, prayer brings us close to the Father's sheltering throne. The text says that the Father loves us because we have loved Jesus and have believed that He came from the Father. Don't make the mistake of imagining that the love of God to us is caused by our love to Christ. Oh no, we love him because he first loved us. Don't make the mistake of imagining that the love of God to us is caused by our love to Christ. Oh no, we love him because he first loved us. The first love of God is a love of benevolence, a love of compassion, A love towards the unworthy and the undeserving. God out of love forgives us and saves us. But there is another love, another love besides that which we must never forget. When he has brought us to love his dear son, when he has brought us to trust in him because we believe that he came from the father, then the father has a love of contentment and delight towards us. You can easily see the difference between the two kinds of love, for it is often illustrated in human history. A man finds a poor, abandoned infant in the street, and he takes pity on it, and carries it into his house, and clothes it, and cares for it. That is one kind of love, the love of benevolence. But suppose that child develops into a beautiful boy or a lovely girl, who with charming manners works their way into the very heart of the one who was so kind to it in earlier days. Then there springs up a second kind of love. The man says, I loved that baby when I first picked it up, a bundle of rags and filth and misery, but look at its loveliness now. See how this little one takes to the rest of the family. See how grateful it is, how it loves me. I cannot help loving it more now than I did at first. That is another kind of love altogether. And the Father has such a love as that, only of an infinitely higher kind towards all those who trust and love His Son. You know that the Father loves Jesus Christ so much that When he sees that you also love him, he loves you all the more for that reason. He had unbounded confidence in Christ when he sent him into the world. And when he sees that you also have confidence in him, he loves you. He loves you too, for you too are agreed on that matter. Nothing binds people together so much as a common love to the same object. If there is one person who is dear to both, There is at once a tie between the two. How often a husband's heart is held firmly by the wife because between the two, there is a little one who is dear to both of them. Perhaps in some foolish fit of anger, they might have left one another, but their child is the bond that holds them together. And between us and our God, In a sense infinitely above my poor comparison, there is a wonderful union because he confides in Jesus and we confide in him too. The Father loves Jesus and we love him too. And now because of this, our Savior says to us, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from the Father. I cannot explain this marvelous mystery, but I want you, you who know that you do in fact love Christ and believe that he came from God, just to open your hearts and try to take in this sublime truth. The Father himself loves you, not pities you, not promises to help you, not considers you, but the Father himself loves you. It is no use attempting to explain what love is. You must feel it if you would realize what it is. You didn't doubt your mother's words when you were little and she took you into her arms and said, I love you. You believed her. You rested in her love and you returned it as much as you could. So the great God of the universe says to you, I love you because you love my son. There are many faults and failings in you, but you love my son, so I love you. Didn't you just say, Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you. You said that to the Lord Jesus, and because it is true, The Father himself loves you. I remember when one of the sweet passages in the Song of Solomon came home to my heart with absolutely ravishing power. It seemed to carry me right out of myself. It was that verse in which the heavenly bridegroom says to his spouse, all beautiful you are, my darling. There is no flaw in you. That is what the Father says to his people when he sees them in Christ. When he perceives that they love Christ, he says that his delight is in her. The Father himself loves you. This little sentence is not so much a theme for preaching as it is quiet meditation. You need to get alone in your bedroom. and to sit down and just ring that silver bell again and again and again, the Father himself loves you. Loves me? Why should he love me? How can he love me? Yet Jesus knows, and as he says it is true, then so it is. Glory be to his holy name. I only have a little time left to speak of the believer's natural conclusion, which he is to draw from these words of Christ. First, he says, If all this is true, then what power I have! What power I have at the mercy seat, with the Spirit to prompt me, Christ to plead for me, and the Father himself smiling at me as I come. and saying to me, come and welcome, for I love you. No one can be more welcome than you are. Come my child, ask what you will and it will be done for you. But beloved, have you ever really believed that you have this power? Haven't you asked and hoped when you ought to have asked and believed? Haven't you asked as if there was just a bare possibility that you might be heard? Haven't you prayed thinking to yourself that your many pleadings and your abundant tears might move the hard heart of God? Hasn't your supplication often been presented on some such theory as that? If so, I hope that in the future you will be able to rise to the believer's true position and say, I am God's child and He loves me, and coming to Him through Jesus Christ His Son and moved by His Holy Spirit, I will ask of Him whatever I need, for I know that I will receive that which I have asked of Him in the name of Jesus and for His sake. If you ever realize that you have that power, and I earnestly hope that you will, then be sure that you use it. Use it for your children. Use it for all your relatives. Use it for those in church, those who sit near you and are unconverted. Pick them out and pray for them by name and do not be content until you hear that they are saved. May I also ask you to use this power. Use this power in prayer on my behalf. I will be so rich if you who have power with God will pray for me. My preaching will be poverty stricken if you cease to pray for me. You who can pray, I beg you to plead with God for his church, for his truth, and for his cause on the earth. These are dark days. But you can bring on a spiritual summertime if you know how to pray the powerful and effective prayer of a righteous man. Truth seems for a while to be suffering defeat and the battle becomes hotter and fiercer. But the banner of victory will soon float in the breeze if you know how to pray properly. The praying army is the conquering army. Bring to the front the men and women who can pray, and the devil will tremble and flee, for he clearly knows that those who are mighty with God are mightier even than he is. The history of the future depends very largely on the prayers of the present. If you and other believers restrain prayer, you may help to bring on long, dark, chilly winters for the Church, the Church of the Living and Holy God. But if you and they are aroused to go up, as Elijah went up to Mount Carmel, and if you cry out mightily to the Lord God of Israel, surely as the Lord lives, you will see the skies covered with clouds and there will be the sound of an abundance of rain. I speak reverently, yet truthfully, when I say that the keys of heaven swing on the belt of the man who knows how to pray. I don't mean commonplace praying, such as some practice, but such prayer as I have been speaking of, prompted by the Spirit of God, first purified and then presented by the Savior and offered by a man who knows that the Father himself loves him. I am awestruck when I think of the tremendous power of which prayer is capable. It is not omnipotent, yet it commands omnipotence. It is not omniscient, yet prayer is like the very eye of God. He who can truly pray has first read the heart of God and then spoken out what is there. Prayer overcomes the eternal. What more can I say of it? When Israel sinned against the Lord, Moses pleaded for the guilty nation even after God had said to him, now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make of you a great nation. And the prevailing prayer won the day. For then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. May God teach you, you who are loved of the Father because you love the Son, to pray such a prayer as Moses did. In an especially careful manner, my brothers and sisters in Christ, we ought to mention the answers to prayers which we have received. It would not be prudent, proper, or even possible to mention all of them. For there are love passages in prayer between Christ and the heart which must never be told, unless it is in very special company and on rare occasions. Some of our conversations with the Lord Jesus are too sacred, too spiritual, too heavenly ever to be spoken of this side of the pearly gates. But the bulk of the Lord's replies to our petitions are such that they may be written in the skies that every eye might read them. Make sure that you do not hide these gracious facts. Don't hide them by your ingratitude. Imitate David, who tells us in the fifth verse of Psalm 118, In my anguish I cried to the Lord, and he answered by setting me free. Yes, and declare not only how God answers prayer, but tell of the power of faith and all the ways in which it moves you. Sit down in your living room and tell your children what faith in God has done in your life, so that they may tell their children and to the generations yet to follow, that all men may know that all things are possible to him that believes. Tell of the fulfillment of the promises to faith, deliverance from trouble through faith, and the enjoyment of supreme happiness through faith. Declare throughout your neighborhoods that it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in kings. Ring out clearly such words as these. Trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. Tell everybody why you know that it is true, for you have turned to friends in the time of trouble and they have given you the cold shoulder. You have even been foolish enough to hope for help from great men who had it in their power to aid you, but they've looked down on you with disdain and wondered how you dared to ask them for such assistance from men of their high standing. Let all men know that the majesty of heaven has never in this way ignored your humble appeals. From the throne of the highest, there has never come a harsh reply or a contemptuous rejection of your lowly position. No, the Lord has been better to you than even your hope expected or your faith believed. God has answered you richly, helped you efficiently, gladdened you abundantly and filled your spirit with a sweet contentment. Truly God is good to his people. It is not a vain thing to wait upon the Lord. The path of faith is the path of strength and safety. How unhappy are the lives of some here today who never pray. It matters little what other power you possess. If you have no power with God, you are powerless. To those who never pray or who insult God with an empty form of prayer in which there is no heart, there will come a day when they will pray. As surely as they live and die as they now are, they will pray, but then their prayers will not be answered. The rich man in hell prayed for a drop of water to cool his burning tongue, but his request was denied, for it was too late to pray then. Yet he might have had the water of life to drink had he prayed while he was on the earth. It is in hell that prayer of a sort abounds, but then their prayers will not be answered. Since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster. I will mock when calamity overtakes you. Ask now, I beg you, for God will hear you if you call on him now. But once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, then no amount of knocking in that day will cause him to open it up again. No pleadings, moanings, groanings, cryings, wailings will have any effect, for prayer will have had its day, and justice with its drawn sword will stand before the mercy seat, barring the way to it forever. May the Lord bring every one of you to believe in Jesus Christ and to fervently love him with a pure heart before it is too late. For his dear name's sake, amen.