"Prayer"

M number 51. M number 51. Praise the Savior, ye who know him, who can tell how much we owe him. Gladly let us render to him. All we are and have. Jesus is the name that charms us. He for conflict fits and arms us. Nothing moves and nothing harms us while we trust in Him. Trust in Him, ye saints, forever. He is faithful, changing never. Neither force nor God can sever those he loves from Him. Keep us, Lord, O keep us, pleading To Thyself and still believing Till the hour of our receiving Promise joy sweeping Then we shall be where we would be. Then we shall be what we should be. Things that are not now nor could be soon shall be how are old. Besated will sing hymn number 361. 361.

Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer that calls me from afar. of care and peace. We act by Father's law. Make all my wants and wishes known. In seasons of distress and grief His soul has often found relief And oft is made a tender slave ♪ By thy return ♪ Sweet hour of prayer ♪ Sweet hour of prayer ♪ Sweet hour of prayer ♪ Thy wings shall my protection bear In whose truth and faithfulness, Gainst the waiting soul to bless. And since He makes me see His face, may He leave His word. ♪ And trust His grace ♪ ♪ I will cast all fear ♪ ♪ By every prayer ♪ ♪ And wait for Thee ♪ ♪ Sweet hour of prayer ♪ ♪ Sweet hour of prayer ♪ of prayer. May I thy consolation share.

Be around and please close the door. Be by my view, my home, and take my flight. This robe of flesh shall drop and rise, ♪ Who sees the everlasting Christ ♪ ♪ And shouts of mercy through the air ♪ ♪ Farewell, farewell, sweetheart of blue ♪ Turn with me to John chapter 17. I'm going to start in John 17 and deal with it for a while. I'll read the first four verses.

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, thy hour is come. Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

Our Father, in the blessed name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we come into your holy presence. with thanksgiving and praise. Lord, you're to be praised. You're worthy of all our worship, our adoration, our praise, our blessing of you. And Lord, you've always met every need we've ever had. So many times you've even gave us our wants, and we're very thankful for that. And our blessed Savior, meet with us tonight. Please meet with us. Don't let us meet here. not be blessed by the Holy Spirit and things of Christ being made known to us by the Holy Ghost of God.

And Lord Jesus, we pray for those who have trials and those who are going through a great fight of affliction, bound in affliction. God be with them, give them abundance of grace. And now, Lord Jesus, we pray for our families, our sons, our daughters, Husbands, wives, children, grandchildren. Oh God, there's no hope for them, no help for them apart from you. And Lord, we're going to just keep on coming. Maybe one of these days, one of these days, in your wondrous grace, you might just cross their path with the gospel. And Lord, we bless you, bless you for it. Thank you. In our Lord Jesus' name, amen.

I got two announcements to make. One I forget to say for I don't know how many times just this month, but last month we had 5,100 something downloads. And the month before that is 4,600. Now you think about that. Little old one-legged, you know, Jake Lake preacher like me. That just blows my mind. And not only that, but let me mention this.

We're not going to have a conference in June like we generally do. And if you want to know why, you ask me personally, and I'll tell you personally. We'll have a meeting, but it won't be that big meeting that we try to have. We won't try to do that. But we'll have a meeting sometime this summer.

All right. Him number 292. 292 A pilgrim was I, and of one dream In the cold night of sin I did roam When Jesus, the kind shepherd, found me and now I am on my way home. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days, all the days of my life. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days, all the days of my life. He restoreth my soul when I'm weary. He giveth me strength day by day. He leads me beside the still waters. He guards me each step of the way.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days, all the days of my life. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days, all the days of my life. When I walk through the dark, lonesome valley My Savior will walk with me there, And safely His great hand will lead me To the mansion He's gone to prepare. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days, all the days of my life. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days, all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever, And I shall be stamped a table spread for me. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow. All the days, all the days of my life. All the days, all the days of my life. Look back here with me and John.

Our Lord had started at the Lord's table with his people and Judas, and John said 13, Judas had entered into his heart to betray the Lord Jesus Christ. And our Lord, he washed the disciples' feet and then he started teaching them in chapter 13 all the way through chapter 16. Just him and his disciples alone, just him and his elect. And then our Lord Jesus, after he did that, he prayed. After he spent all that time, John 13, 14, 15, and 16, just with his disciples.

Then he started praying. Now, wouldn't you like to have been there when our Lord Jesus prayed? And they prayed audibly here, so all those disciples heard him. They heard Him praying. They heard Him speaking. They heard our Lord Jesus preaching, I mean praying. And I tell you, these words spake Jesus and lifted up His eyes. Now, our Lord Jesus is praying. He's praying audibly.

And I think that we can learn some things about prayer from our Savior Himself. Now, I don't know about you. causes me some difficulty sometimes. It gets difficult thing to do. In fact, his disciples, they asked him in Luke 11, said, Lord, teach us to pray. He didn't say, teach us how to pray, teach us to pray. We need to praise what he said, what they're saying, said, Lord, you teach us. We don't know. And in fact, Romans says, we know not what we should ask for.

And oh my, but the Holy Ghost does. But prayer is to anyone who take their spiritual life seriously. And their spiritual health and concerned about their spiritual health. They're concerned about especially their prayer life. And our prayer life, my prayer life troubles me more than anything.

You know, and the thing is, is the lack of it. It's the lack of it. Sometimes I feel it very hard to pray. I feel very hard sometimes to, uh, let my, you know, John Bunyan said this, let your, your mouth would better your, your, your mouth, your words would be better. Prayer would be better without words is not having heart. And so I'll tell you the prayer has to come from someplace inside of us. this side of us. And I think that there are two extreme positions that people take, and because of them, we get troubled over prayer. And it's difficulty.

You know, if you ever meet anybody who claims to have no trouble at all in prayer, say, it's simple, it's easy. And they'll use a phrase all, you know, they'll say, well, prayer changes things. Prayer changes things. If you have a problem, You know, you pray, and the answer comes.

Everything's okay. And, oh, to them, prayer is the easiest thing in the world. No effort in it. They do it so easily. And if I hear somebody talking like that, that it's the easiest thing to do, it makes me, oh, well, it don't come easy for me. It don't come easy for me. And I'll tell you what. And if you try to emulate them, say, boy, prayer's easy. If it's easy for them, it ought to be easy for me. And then you end up failing. You end up failing. And the other extreme is this. It's either too easy, or the other extreme is God knows everything. Everything that happens in time is because of God's will. So why pray? What's the purpose of praying if nothing happens outside of His will? So what's the purpose of praying? Huh? How can we understand? How can we deal with a subject like this?

Our Lord prayed here. He prayed audibly. And we find our Lord praying often in the scriptures. And our Lord here is praying. And I tell you what, the only thing we can use to teach us what prayer is, is the scriptures. Not my feelings, not your feelings, not our ideas about prayer, it's what the Lord says, what the scripture says about it. And what do they say? What do they say? And our Lord Jesus shows us what prayer is. And you know, he lifted up and spake to the Father. He said, Father, And that's the first thing he told his disciples, says, Our Father which art in heaven.

Now, our Lord Jesus Christ, when he prayed, he don't pray like you and I. I mean, he has access immediately. And I'll tell you what, prayer is given great, great attention in the Scriptures. The Word teaches us to pray, teaches us to pray by precept and by example. Look over in Luke chapter 18 with me. You know, two men went up to the temple to pray. You find people praying in the scriptures, but look in Luke 18, 1.

This is our Lord talking now. He's making a parable. He's making a parable. And the reason being, he said, to this reason that men ought always to pray and not to faint. So evidently, you know, you can faint. You can get weary. You can get to like, well, nothing's going to happen.

And then he uses a judge and a woman who wanted to be avenged of her adversary, and he just ignored her, ignored her, but afterward thought, well, he didn't fear God or man. She's going to aggravate me to death, so I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to let her. I'm going to avenge her. And that's what he says.

Look what he says down in verse 7. Hear what the unjust judge saith, and shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? Oh, listen. And like I already told you, our Lord Jesus, his disciples came to him and said, Lord, teach us to pray. Teach us to pray. Two men went up to pray. One prayed, and the other bragged. One was begging, and the other was bragging.

And, oh, my, you know, when a man desires something, he asks someone who has the willingness, the power, and the ability to give it. If you seek something, when you need an answer to a problem or information, you seek to somebody who's got that information and has got that answer to your problem. And then the third thing is, is when you want to enter into somebody's presence, and you need help with your desire, with your problem, you knock. Would you let me in?

Oh, now, the Lord said, I will pray to the Father for you, He said in John 16. And oh, my. And let me give you a scripture, what the scripture says about it, a scripture admonition. Oh, look over here at that and the scriptural admonition over here. And Philippians chapter four verse six. Look at this with me. You know. And here's the thing about it, we don't come. bringing anything that we've got. Look at Philippians chapter 4 and verse 6.

We don't come bringing anything we've done or anything worthy that we've done that God should answer us because of who we are and what we've accomplished. If God ever blesses us and hears a prayer from us, it's because of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's only because of what he accomplished. And we'll find that out going through John 17 here. But look what he said in Philippians 4, 6.

Be careful for nothing. That word, be careful for nothing, that means don't be worrisome. Don't be worried. Don't be fretful. Don't let things bother you too much. For in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request, watch this now, be made unto God.

Let God know what you want. Let God know. He's got the power. He's got the ability. We can come into his presence by our Lord Jesus Christ. And oh my, and let me tell you something. You know, James said the prayer of a, of a effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. And I'll tell you how you're talking about righteous prayer and our Lord Jesus Christ prayed for us. But let me say this about prayer. The greater need that we have, the greater our need, the more we pray. God has to bring us most of the time into great need before we pray.

And oh my, and those who know God, know God, they want to have a relationship with him. They want to talk to him and they want to hear from him. They know God. If you know God, you want to have a relationship with Him. You want to talk with Him, and you want Him to talk with you.

And oh my, look at our Savior. God gave Him a work to do, and He prayed, and He prayed earnestly. Hebrews 7 says He prayed, prayed with great drops of tears and prayed earnestly and with tears in his eyes, with great tears in his eyes, talking about Gethsemane. And here in John, and our Lord prayed earnestly. Here in John 17, this whole thing is the Lord, this is really the Lord's prayer right here. That other one he taught's a model prayer. This is the Lord's prayer. Christ is praying here. And he's praying for certain things. He's praying for certain people. He's praying. And he's praying to his father.

And oh my, then he left here and went into the Garden of Gethsemane. And he prayed three times in the Garden of Gethsemane. He prayed once. He asked his disciples, why don't you stay awake? And he got down and prayed again, earnestly. And then he started praying until his sweat became, as it were, great drops of blood. He was a praying man.

And bless his holy name, I'm grateful that he prays for us. I'd rather him pray for us. And though I want to speak to him and I want to know him, to thank God that he prays for us. My and let me ask you this. Why would the Lord Jesus pray at all? Why would he pray at all? Why why would he he's a God man, but why would he pray at all? He prayed all night before he chose the 12th He called unto him the 12th and he prayed all night before he called him And I tell you, let me tell you this, I don't think any of us ought to make a major decision in our lives without first praying. And the greater need that you know somebody has, the more you pray for them.

And oh my. And I tell you, he prayed at the grave of Lazarus. He stood outside Lazarus' grave and he lifted up his eyes and he said, Father, I pray not for myself, but I pray for those that's going to hear me right here. Those that are hearing what I've got to say and know what I'm fixing to do. I want them to know that you're with me, that you caused this to happen. And he prayed at the tomb of Lazarus' grave, but all he had to do was just walk up and say, get up.

But he'd done that for everybody else's sake. He'd done it for our sake. But we know that he can raise the dead, dead sinners like ourselves, dead sinners like our children, dead sinners like our grandchildren. He can give life to the dead and the only one who can. And oh my, he prayed for Simon Peter. Oh, Simon Peter was so full of confidence and arrogance and pride and presumptuous. He said, I'm going to jail with you. I'll die with you. And I, Lord, looked at him and said, Peter, Simon, Satan has sought to sift you just like sifted wheat.

But I prayed for you. I prayed for you that your faith fail not. How many times has Christ prayed for us that our faith wouldn't fail? How many times has he prayed for us when we could not pray for ourselves and couldn't pray for anybody else? Oh, what a Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord. What does this teach us that Christ himself prayed?

That our Lord was truly, truly a man. He was really, really a man. Oh, here's God incarnate in the flesh. He took upon him a man, manhood. He became a human. He became a man. And here's a man in the flesh. And oh my, the scripture says he emptied himself. He divested himself of his glory. He laid it aside so everybody could see that he was just a man and that he went through things that men go through.

And I tell you this also our Lord Jesus Christ lived absolutely dependent upon his father Somebody had to be perfectly dependent on God Almighty To compensate for all the lack of dependence we have on him our Lord perfectly perfectly I mean he depended upon his father for everything He lived by faith. You know that But it's a perfect faith. When he went to the cross, he went there believing that God, knowing what God was going to do, but he also knew that God would raise him again, and he had come out of that grave, and that the Father would accept everything that he did on behalf of his people.

And, oh, my, as a man, as a man, he undid all that Adam failed to do. He did all that Adam failed to do. And I'll tell you something else about our Lord Jesus Christ. He does nothing of Himself, even though He's very God and very man. And, oh, yet He gets His will, and He gets His will from His Father, His doings from His Father. He said, I delight to do thy will. Oh, God, thy will I delight to do. Look over here in John 14, excuse me, John 8, 28. Look in John 8, 28.

Our Lord told him this so many times. That's why when Philip asked him, if you're the Christ, tell us, tell us, show us the Father. He said, if you looked at me all this time and don't know who you're looking at, look what our master said here. He spake to them of the Father. Then said, verse 28, Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then ye shall know that I am, and that I do nothing of myself. But as my Father hath taught me, taught me, I speak these things. In other words, what my Father I got from my Father from eternity, and everything that my Father is, that's what I talked about, and that's what come out of me, because my Father was in me, and everything I know, He taught me.

I got it from Him. And then look over here, John 14, 10. Look what our Master said here. But look what he says down in verse 8. Start there. Philip said unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and that'll satisfy us. That'll be sufficient. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, yet thou hast not known me, Philip? Now listen to that. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. And sayest thou then, Show the Father? Believest thou not? that I am in the Father and the Father's in me. Believe the words that I speak unto you. I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me.

He's the one that done all these works. He done the works. The Father did in me. And oh, God gave him words to speak, gave him a work to do, not works, a work. Now he done a lot of miracles, And they said, you look at all these miracles and all these different works. But I'll tell you, he had one work to do when he come into this world, one work. And that was to glorify his father and the salvation of all the father gave to him from before the foundation of the world.

And you reckon he did it? I'm proof, I'm proof that he did what he said he's going to do. that he finished that work. And oh my, you know, as God, he didn't need to pray. As God, he didn't need to pray. But as our mediator, as our representative, as our substitute, as one in our room instead, he so identified with us and so united with us in his flesh that he prayed. He depended upon his father.

And oh, what mystery of godliness is that? What mystery of godliness is that? The Lord Jesus Christ looking to his father for everything. And now we look to the father through Christ who rendered everything to him. Oh, my. Oh, what a mystery of godliness. What a mystery. God, he didn't need to pray.

But as our mediator, our representative. We have representatives, you know, in the government. And I don't feel like I'm represented much there, but I tell you where I know where I am represented. Christ represented me before the Father. He said, I'm going to represent you. Who is he? Nobody, but I tell you what, I'm going to represent him. I'm going to represent him before you, before your justice, for your law, before your glory, before your might, your power, your grace. I'm going to present them. I'm going to represent you. I'm going to represent them to you. Oh, my, what a representative we have in the presence of the Father. And oh, my. Bless his name. What is prayer? What is prayer? To the believer, I believe it's natural. I believe it's natural. It's born of our relationship to God in Christ.

You know, I listened to a message today by, uh, Gabe Stoner. You ought to listen to it. It's on, uh, Father, give us a heart. Give us a heart. And I believe that that's what every one of us wants, a heart, to give glory and honor to our Lord Jesus Christ. Give us a heart to call on you, a heart to trust you, a heart to believe you, a heart to rest in you, a heart to have confidence in you. Please give us a heart to do that. You ought to listen to it. It's just outstanding, outstanding. And I tell you what, when you listen to it, you'll understand that everything he said, you do. You do. You can't help yourself.

And oh my, you know a baby, it don't cry till it's born. When it comes out of the womb, They start squalling when they smack him, you know, and he'll start squalling. I mean, yeah, he'll make some of the loudest noise, just fresh out of the womb. But just as quick as Christ brings us out and gives us a new birth, we're like that baby, we start crying. That's all we do most of the time, just cry. Just cry. Cry out, sometimes we throw a fit.

We act like babies a lot of times, but oh my, we're the Lord's children. We're the Lord's babes, and that's all that matters. And oh my, it's natural for a believer, I think, to pray. It's born of our relationship to God in Christ. He's our Father. He's our Father. We're begotten again by Him. He is holy. And we're His sons. We're sons of God.

Oh, my. We don't approach God first with our wants. I want this. I want that. We don't approach Him with our desires. But we approach Him with adoration, with praise for thanksgiving and blessing in His name. Oh, my. Our Lord Jesus said, oh, my. He said, when we pray, We say, our Father, which is in heaven, thy will be done on earth as it's done in heaven.

Let your kingdom come. Let it come and be set up in me. Let your kingdom come and be set up in my heart, in my soul, in my mind, in my will. And then, Lord, when you set up that kingdom, your kingdom in me, please make your will to be Paramount to me in this earth, just like it is up in glory.

Most people pray for everything in the world, but for a relationship with Christ, a relationship with God, pouring your heart out. How many of you, I'd be afraid to say, I'd be afraid to say how many times you wake up in the night and you start praying for somebody. You pray for somebody that's in your family, somebody that's having trouble, somebody that you feel like they have a need, it's a child, whatever it is, you wake up in the night and you start praying. How many times have we done that over our lifetimes?

God only knows. God only knows. You know, the believer, He's interested in his relationship with God. He wants to know God, not about Him. He wants to know Him. Know Him as our Father. Know Him as the lovers of our souls. Know Him as our Savior. Know Him as who to know is eternal life. And prayer also is expressing our faith in God. If you didn't have faith in Him, you wouldn't call on Him. If you didn't believe him, you wouldn't call on him. You believe that he is. And he's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. What's the reward? What's the reward? Christ and God meeting with us and hearing us. Oh, my. We have confidence that we know we have confidence in the promises of God. Oh, the promises of God.

The promise I'll never leave you and I'll never forsake you. What a promise. What a promise that I will, that they be with me with glory. What a promise that where you are, I am. that I won't leave you like an orphan. I'll have somebody come and be a comfort to you. I'll have the Holy Ghost come, and He'll be your comfort. He'll take my place, and He'll teach you, and He'll guide you, and He'll help you, and instruct you, and uphold you.

And oh, what a promise is that we're kept, kept by God's power. We couldn't keep ourselves no longer to snowball in the 4th of July. But I tell you what, our Lord Jesus Christ, He keeps us, keeps us by His power. Oh, we love to express our confidence in Him. We love to acknowledge our dependency upon Him. We acknowledge our need of Him, our desire to know Him. And all this is why we talk to Him.

And I tell you what, Prayer does not change his will, it changes us. It changes us. It changes us. And oh, let me, we pray to learn God's will. That's one thing I don't want, I don't want left to my will, my own way. We pray to learn God's will. God has chosen to work in this world and to do it for us. And prayers is the means that he uses. I'm gonna show you something.

Now this is a very mysterious thing. Look in Isaiah 65. In Isaiah 65, five, 24, excuse me. Isaiah 65, 24. Look what a strange thing over here that Isaiah says. Oh, the greatest object of our prayers. We'll see in a minute, but look what he says. Isaiah 65, 24. And this shall come to pass, that before they call, I'll answer. And while they're yet speaking, I'm going to hear. Well, you called on him.

You know, Daniel sat by the river Chebar for days. And the reason that the answer didn't come, he would stood, the Michael, the archangel was coming with the, Satan withstood him. But when he got there, he said, oh man, greatly beloved, thou wast heard from the beginning. But Satan, And Michael, the archangel, got in a fight. And guess who lost? Oh, guess who lost?

Now back over in our text, and I'll wind this thing up. You know, the greatest object of our prayers shows us right here, especially in this chapter. Verse one is to glorify God. Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee. That's one of the great objects of our prayers, to glorify our Father. Glorify our Father. And look down in verse four. I've glorified the earth. That's what we want to do, glorify him on this earth. or to do what God calls us to do.

He delights, I'll tell you something, God delights being told what He already knows. He delights in telling Him what He already knows. Tell Him what He already knows. He knows He's holy, but we still call Him holy. We know he's sovereign, and still we call him sovereign. We know he's just, and we rejoice in his justice. And yet he forgives sins.

And oh my, we're like our Savior. We plead with God also. I hope that's been a blessing. That's just the, you know, we won't get out of verse one for a while. But oh my. We have access to God by the Spirit and having access into the presence of God. That's why our Lord says, you know, it says over there, let us come boldly, freely to the throne of grace to obtain mercy. You know what else it says? In time of need. In time of need.

Oh, Lord, blessed be your name. How wonderfully gracious, how wonderfully patient, how wonderfully long-suffering you are with us. And Lord Jesus, you know our hearts. You know how difficult sometimes it is for us to pray. You know how sometimes we get taken up in the world, things we're doing, and we often forget to pray. But Lord Jesus, thank you for praying for us, interceding for us, being our representative, being our substitute, being our mediator between us and God. And thank you that we can come in your name and be accepted, accepted. Blessed be your name. Meet the needs of these dear saints tonight and the needs of the saints that's watching and listening. We pray for them in our Lord Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

♪ Jesus, Jesus, Jesus ♪ ♪ There's just something about that name ♪ ♪ Master, Savior, Jesus liked the fragrance after the rain. Kings and kingdoms will all pass away, but there's something about that name. It's the name above every name. All right, see you Sunday, God willing.

"Prayer"

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"Prayer"

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About Donnie Bell

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