PRAY, PRAY, PRAY

The most neglected activity among God's people in this day is prayer. On the whole prayer is low in the land. This is evident in our personal lives and in the corporate prayer meetings of the institutionalized churches. This is a strange wonder when we consider how late and crucial this hour is, and when we consider how earnestly God calls us to prayer through the bible.

The result of this, is evident in the deplorable spiritual condition of the saints, plunging the church in the situation to where it needs the greatest revival that the church world has ever witnessed!

Why is it that in the modern church today we are not seeing the dynamic results that the church of Acts experienced? Why is it today we are not "working the works of Christ?" We are not experiencing these results, or working the works of Jesus because we are not praying the way the early church and Jesus did, therefore we are lacking in their kind of faith and obedience that allows the Holy Spirit to move through us to accomplish the will of God on this earth!

Prayer is not conditioned by our degree of intellectual capacity, but by spirituality. As evidenced by what comes over the pulpits of churches today, one does not need to be spiritual to preach, that is to prepare and deliver sermons. By a combination of memory, knowledge, ambition, personality, plus well-lined bookshelves, a well loaded computer, and self-confidence, the pulpit is yours almost anywhere these days. Preaching of this type may affect men in time to conform to some outward rules and doctrines, Preaching as a result of prayer affects God and eternity! Pulpits are today more of a store window to display our talents, but if we would go to the pulpits from a place of prayer, death to self would have taken place and people would see Jesus in us and working through us.

Listen folks, we have to many dead preachers spouting out to many dead sermons to too many dead people and it is because of a dead prayer life! Oh! the tragedy of preaching without the anointing. Preaching without the anointing reeks with death unto death. A sermon born in the head reaches the head; a sermon born in the heart reaches the heart. Don't be deceived church, a praying spiritual preacher will produce a praying spiritual people. Victory is not won in the pulpit by firing intellectual bullets or wisecracks, but in the place of prayer.

Prayerlessness is the cause of powerlessness in our lives. The prayer meeting is dead or dying. By our attitude to prayer we tell God that what was born in the Spirit we can finish in the flesh.

The church today is standing in the sidelines, satisfied with the spiritual status-quo, while sinners are on a roller coaster ride an eternity without God, because we are not as Christ was in this world.

It is time for preachers to repent, and do away with powerless preaching which is unmoving because it was born in a tomb instead of the womb, and nourished in a fireless, prayerless soul. Preachers may preach and perish but they cannot pray and perish.

We need Spirit-inspired, hell-shaking, devil-chasing, world-breaking, God answering prayer. For this kind of prayer there is no substitute. We do it-or die. No preacher, no church member is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing, the people who are not praying are straying. The preacher who comes to the pulpit from a place of prayer will not use the pulpit as a showcase to display his talents but will minister under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Poverty-stricken, the church is today and it is because she is most stricken in the place of prayer. She has many organizers, but few agonizes; many players and payers, but few pray-ers; many fears but few tears; much fashion, but little passion; many interferes, but few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters; many talkers, but few walkers.

When was the last time deprived ourselves of some earthly pleasure to wait upon God for some need? If we had as much prayer invested in the prayer vault of heaven as we do money invested in the bank vault on earth, we would turn this world upside down for Christ and invest the money that we have hoarded up, into the bank of heaven, the kingdom of God.

If we are to be successful Christians we must have vision and passion, both of which are born in and maintained by prayer. Where there is no vision the people perish. Where there is no passion the church perishes, even if it is filled to the doors. The ministry of prayer, (the highest ministry within God's kingdom) is open to all, so to be a bible Christian we must pray. When the early church prayed the place was shaken, the church prays today, what happens? Today the church is more concerned about being paid and therefore she is taken by the deception of the devil. Can we deny that in the modern church the main cause of concern is money? Yet that which tries the modern church the most, troubled the New Testament the least.

When a church member who has crept along for years in conventional Christianity becomes spiritually alert, questioning doctrine that is not backed up by scripture, desiring to see the unadulterated word of God preached and taught under the anointing and with the demonstration of the Holy Spirit, becomes aggressive in the battle of the Lord, and with a desire to see people born again, he is dubbed as a part of a sect within the church that should be avoided. My Lord are we so spiritually subnormal these days that the normal New Testament experience seems abnormal!

You remember the saying that, "we had better be careful lest we become so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good. Brother, this generation of believers is not , by and large, suffering from such a complex! The soul shaking truth is that we are so earthly minded that we are no heavenly good.

The repeated prayer that a sinner might have a vision of hell may be entirely wrong. On the contrary, he needs a vision of Calvary, he needs to see that Jesus is still alive by observing the saints doing as He did while He was on this earth. It may be that the Christian needs a vision of sinners in hell to awaken him from the spiritual stupor that he finds himself in.

Oh how we need to have the vision of Jesus, the prayer life of Jesus, the compassion of Jesus, the power of Jesus, the anointing of Jesus and the results of Jesus.

Before the sixth chapter, Isaiah had a lot of woes for a lot of people. But in the sixth chapter he sees himself and cries, "Woe is me!" It's me, it's me oh Lord standing in the need of prayer! How true! Can the Holy Spirit be invited to take us by the hand down the corridors of our souls? Are there not secret things, secret motives that control our actions? There are three persons living in each of us: the one we think we are, the one other people think we are, and the one God knows we are. Supposing God were to remove the facade and open the real you for public viewing, what would they see in your heart?

It is time for us, like Isaiah, to look upward and see the Lord in all His holiness; to look inward and see ourselves in need of cleansing and power; to look outward and see a world that is perishing and in need of a saviour and a sick Church in need of a healer! Do people want the Jesus they see in you, for the only Jesus they see is the one in you.

I've have heard the question asked, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" I believe we need to turn that question around and ask, where are the Elijahs of the Lord God? The word tells us that Elijah was "a man of like passions as we are." but are we the men of prayer that he was! God is calling us to be men of prayer. No man can do more for God or for men than to pray and act in faith on the word of God. If the Church today had as many agonizes as she does advisers we would be wells giving forth life-giving waters, instead of cisterns that allows the water to seep through the gaping cracks in our walls unable to give the life-giving water to others.

Church if we are to do God's work in God's way with God's power and with God's results, we must be men of prayer. With that will come God's blessing and the devil's curses. A man freed, fired, filled, and controlled by the holy Spirit will be branded a trouble maker because he will not only stand against the sin of the world, but he will also stand against the sin of the church, against the sin of the pulpit and against the sin of the denomination!

Elijah lived with God; he thought about sin like God; he grieved over sin like God and he spoke against sin like God! He was all passion in his prayers and in is denunciation of sin in the land and in the people of God. Passion fired his preaching, and his words were on the hearts of the people like molten metal on their flesh.

Why is it that the prayers of the disciples and Jesus were short, powerful and produced results? I believe E.M. Bounds had the answer when he said, "short powerful public prayers are the outcome of long secret intercession." Elijah prayed, not for thunderbolts from heaven to consume rebellious Israel, but that the glory of God and the power of God would be revealed. We try to help God out of difficulties. Remember how Abraham tried to this, and to this day the earth is cursed with his folly because of Ishmael. On the other hand Elijah made it as difficult as he could for the Lord. He wanted fire, but yet he soaked the sacrifice with water! God loves such holy boldness in our prayers.

Oh! my Christian friend! Much of our praying is but giving God advice! Our praying is discolored with ambition, either for ourselves or for our denomination. But my friends our goal must be God alone. It is His honor that is muddied, His son who is ignored, His laws that are broken, His name that is profaned, His book that is forgotten, His Spirit that is misused, and His house that is made a circus of social efforts.

No Bible School can teach us the art of prayer. The most important thing a person can study is the prayer part of the book. But where is this taught? Let's tear off the mask and declare that many presidents of schools do not pray, neither do many teachers, preachers, executive members or church members pray, shed no tears, or know no travail. Can they impart to others what they do not know themselves?

God "is able to do...according to the power that worketh in us." God's problem today is not the drunkard, nor the prostitute, nor the New Age Movement. God's problem is--dead believers!

People are not looking for a new definition of the gospel, or a new denomination, but for a demonstration of the power of God that the gospel talks about. People are not looking for men of doctrine, of which there seems many, but men of faith. Doctrine we have enough to spare, while a sick, discouraged, sadden, sin-soaked world perishes for the reality of the gospel.

In this late hour, the world sleeps in darkness, and the church sleeps in the light; so Christ is wounded in the house of His friends. Yearly we use mountains of paper and rivers of ink reprinting dead man's brains, while the Holy Spirit is seeking for men to trample under foot their own learning, deflate their inflated ego, and confess that with all their seeing they are blind. Such men, at the price of brokeness with tears, seek that they may be anointed with divine eye salve, bought at the price of honest acknowledgment of their own inability.

There are many people who have heard the gospel with the hearing of the ear, but their eyes have never seen nor has their souls ever felt the power of a divine visitation. They have every right to ask, "Where is your God, if your God is the God of the bible, where are the results of the bible? What would our answer be?

One of the most painful things in life is to face up to the truth that maybe, we don't have it all right and that some of our doctrines could be wrong. We are well conditioned to doctrine. Most of us know what the average preacher will say next. It is a sad state of affairs when a preacher will side with and teach denominational doctrine even if it is contradictory to the bible!

Bible Schools do not make preachers, they don't teach tears, they don't teach you to pray. Maybe they can't because this is Spirit-taught; and a preacher, no matter how many degrees and doctorates he has behind his name, has not gotten far unless he knows how to pray and experiences soul-bitterness over the sin of the church! Preacher don't but the blame on the pew warmer if he is not a prayer warrior or does not stain the alter with his tears weeping over lost souls, if you are not such a man.

Oh that believers would become spiritually minded and eternity-conscious! If we would live every moment of the day led by the Holy Spirit, if we did every act in the light of the judgment seat, if we spoke every word in light of the judgment seat, if we worshiped God in light of the judgment seat, if we prayed in light of the judgment seat, if we obeyed in light of the judgment seat, if preachers prepared every sermon with one eye on damned humanity and the other on the judgment seat, then we would have revival that would shake the world.

Men build our churches but do not enter them, print our bibles but do not read them, or maybe read them but do not believe them, talk about God but do not believe Him, speak of Christ but do not trust Him. Is it because they do not see enough Christ manifested in our lives to cause them to desire what we have?

Revival tarries because we lack urgency in prayer. Have you attended one of the prayer conventions held by various denominations? I have. Do you know what activity is least participated in at these gatherings? PRAYER! These preachers get together, they discuss and talk about things then at the end they kneel down to pray, or the ones that don't leave do, but after ten minutes there is hardly anyone left to pray! If the Son of the living God spent hours, yes and even nights in prayer, do we not need to spend at least as much time as He did in prayer? We need to pray to have His compassion for the lost and His love for the church. Prayer convention! Oh such lying. The biggest single factor contributing to a delayed move of the Holy Spirit is the omission of effective prayer.

God responds to the power of prayer. We talk about prayer-power, but do not fight in prayer. What could be said of us today is "We Wrestle Not!" We will display our gift, natural or spiritual; we will get our viewpoint across, we will write a book or preach a sermon to correct a brother in doctrine. But who will storm hell's stronghold through prayer. Who will deny himself good food, good company, a night's sleep, to become a spiritual person that God will use to accomplish His will on earth. Oh if only we sought the favor of God as much as we do the favor of men. Oh God lift us out of this rut, bless us with brokenness ! Judgment must begin at the house of God!

Oh, for the day when a person will pick up the bible, read it, believe it, obey it, and pray it, then God will perform it! How the rest of us will be embarrassed. We have the idea that the bible is a book to be explained, instead of a the book to be believed and obeyed. There is a vast difference in knowing the Word of God and knowing the God of the Word through prayer.

I wonder if God has ever had such a group of unbelieving believers as this present crop of Christians? Has He ever had a prayerless group of believers as He does today. Oh! What one among us needs not to repent! Before God gives us a Holy Spirit revival, we must give God a revival of repentance and a revival of prayer!

In this late hour in which we find ourselves, I am weary of all our mighty talk about our risen, powerful Lord, and yet the trailing powerlessness of us sickly believers! Is our powerlessness due to our prayerlessness!

Men of prayer must be men of steel, because Satan will use every means available to get him to stop praying, even to using Christians, this is one reason God warns us not to give place to the devil lest he take advantage of us.

Some of the things we hear Christians say are, "Oh, but it is so hard to pray, after five minutes of prayer I have it all said, I haven't got time to pray." Saint, let me ask you a question, do you think Jesus found it hard to pray? Yes praying is hard if it is done in the flesh, if it is done out of duty. If prayer is what we say it is, communion with God and God communing with us as we bask in His presence, how in a thousand worlds can it be hard for us to do it. If we loved God as we ought, we would desire to pray, and after disciplining the body and the mind to line up with our spirit and pray, prayer would become a delight.

Jesus did not find it hard to pray because He loved His Father and He delighted to be in communion with and to fellowship with Him, and He delighted to have God answer His prayer. Is a lack of love for God the underlying cause of our prayerlessness! As I study the people of prayer in the bible I find no one who found it hard to pray. Now I know that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, but I don't understand why we allow the flesh which is weak, to override the inward man who is renewed daily by the Holy Spirit. Are we not saying that, the flesh is stronger than He who is in us by our praylessness?

Many local churches today have a "form of Godliness but deny the power thereof." They say all the right things but where is the manifestation of the Word. PRAYERLESSNESS BRINGS POWERLESSNESS!

Prayer is more than talking, if all we do when we pray is talk then I think our prayers are lopsided. We need to act on our praying in faith and obedience to the Word of God and what we have prayed in the will of God will be accomplished. There is nothing that Satan or hell fears more than praying men who act in faith on the Word of God, for in prayer man is linked with God and in that union Satan is baffled and beaten. As the first atom bomb shook Hiroshima, so prayer will release that power which will shake the dead preachers, the dead churches and dead people, awake, so they can arise to advance the kingdom of God in the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit. The fear gripped, sin-sick peoples of this earth can only be moved to God as the Church is moved of God in prayer for their lost condition!

What is the use preacher or lay-person of a great standing with men if we have less standing with God! What is the use of religious piety if we have soul carnality! Why strut physical strength if we have spiritual weakness! Of what use is worldly wealth if we have spiritual poverty! What is the use of being popular with people if we are unknown by the devil and his demons! Prayer takes care of all these spiritual maladjustment's!

The person that desires to be free from false spirituality needs to spend time in prayer. We need to see the Lord high and lifted up and cry, "woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips, I am undone." Then we need for Him to touch us with a live coal from the alter and go forth to do the works of Jesus today, "There is none... that stirreth up himself to take hold of you."

If the Church of today were presenting something vital and victorious as the early Church did; would it not effect the sin-sick sinner and the spiritually and physically sick saint? However! The early Church was a praying Church and in the mists of a faithless generation, they lived and worked by FAITH!

This is an hour when we need burning hearts, trembling lips and brimming eyes!

If we wept as much in the prayer closet as the Jews did at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, we would now be enjoying a prevailing, revival! If we would return to apostolic practice--waiting upon the Lord for apostolic power--we could then go forth and accomplish apostolic possibilities!


It seems that the Christians go to church in this day to become happy and to get blessed. The Church has become nothing more than a bless me club, to raise us out of the doldrums of a weeks activity of serving self! Listen we need to come together, prayed up, worded up and fired up, so God can use us to bless others! The Church must repent and weep before we experience fire around the alter burning up the dross of sin in sinner and saint! For the church to be made whole, it needs to humble itself and get back to the cross of Jesus and its life giving stream.

Is this not a day when Christ is "wounded in the House of His friends?" Does not the Holy Book of the living God suffer more from its exponents than from its opponents!

People are to loose in the use of scriptures, lopsided in their interpretation and to lazy to appropriate its truth to their lives. Mr Preacher will wax eloquent in speech and fervent in spirit, serving the Lord with vigor and perspiration to defend the inspiration of the Bible. Yet that same man a few breaths later with deadly calmness will be heard rationalizing that same inspired Word by out dating its miracles and by firmly declaring: "This text is not for today." Therefore the new believers warm faith is doused with the ice water of the preacher's unbelief.

The Church alone limits the Almighty God, and she is skilled in doing it! What is any more dead than a preacher, preaching about the Holy Spirit without the anointing of the Holy Spirit? We pray for the Spirits grace but do we want the Spirits purging fire?

How many Churches are prepared to pray, "Oh my God if you can't do something with us and through us, then please do something without us! Bypass us and raise up a people, (not a denomination) and endue them with the Holy Spirit for a ministry of the miraculous! Send them to revive a sick Church and shake a sin-sick world!"

We must rightly divide the Word of truth. The text of Rev. 3:20, "Behold I stand at the door and knock" has nothing to do with sinners and a waiting Savior. No! Here is the tragic picture of the Lord at the door of His own Laodicean Church trying to get in. How many times have you heard the verse quoted, "Where two or three are gathered in My Name, there am I in the midst"? But to often He is not in the midst; He is at the door knocking to come in and in our so called praying we don't even hear Him knocking!

Oh, we are a bankrupt, blind, boasting group of believers. We are naked and don't know it. We are rich ( never had we more equipment), But we are poor (never had we less Spiritual power)! We have need of nothing (and yet we lack almost everything the Apostolic Church had). Can Jesus stand in our midst while we are so unashamedly spiritually naked? Oh, how we need the fire of a prayer conditioned Church!

Brothers, in the light of the "bema seat." it would be better to live six months on fire for God, denouncing sin in the high places of the church as well as in the world and turning the nations from the power of Satan to the Power of God, rather than die loaded with ecclesiastical honors and theological degrees and be the laughing stock of spiritual nonentities. The sheep are tired of men in soft raiment and softer speech who use rivers of words but with no unction or anointing. They are also tired of preachers yelling and screaming trying to work up the unction when all they work up is a sweat. On comparison with the apostolic Church we are so sub-apostolic, so sub-anointed, so sub-powered and so sub-standard! Sound doctrine has but most believers sound asleep, for the letter is not enough. It is the letter plus the Spirit which "gives life." We need a fire-baptized Church because it is going to take a blazing Church to attract the world, so that from in its midst they will hear the voice of the living God, and see the works of Jesus being done through His Church. Preachers, believers, people go to hell-fire by the millions today because we have no Holy Spirit fire, due to a lack of prayer!

The churches of today with its preachers are responsible for this generation of sinners. At the very doors of our churches are the masses--unwon because they are unreached, unreached because they are unloved. Thank God for all that is being done for missions overseas. Yet it is strangely true that we get more "apparent" concern for people across the world than for our perishing neighbors across the street or the dried up saint in the pew.

With the words of Charles Wesley let us cry:

"O that in me the sacred fire

Might now begin to glow,

Burn up the dross of base desire,

And make the mountains flow.

Holy Spirit fire destroys, purifies, warms, attracts and empowers. We need men born of the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, living in the Spirit and walking in the Spirit. Like Wesley I strongly believe in the need for repentance in the believer including the clergy.

We have a cold church in a cold world because we have cold prayers that produce cold preachers. THEREFORE, "LORD SEND THE FIRE!"

Paul calls the Holy Spirit as a witness that he could wish himself "accursed" for his brethern (Rom. 9:3). Brainerd and John Knox were "men of like passions." When brother, was the last time we heard such praying in a prayer meeting. We cannot have big results from our small praying. The law of prayer is the law of harvest: sow sparingly in prayer, reap sparingly; sow bountifully in prayer, reap bountifully in spirituality. The trouble is, we are trying to get from our efforts what we never but into them.

Paul's was an expanding life. There are to many preachers today, who are satisfied to preach the scraps from another man's ministry. But Paul built upon no man's foundation (1st Cor. 3:10), for his brain was not so steeped in doctrine that it became an ecclesiastical machine, merely grinding out the metaphysics. He spent no wearing hours speculating on prophesy. Neither did he hide away in some spiritual laboratory dissecting truth or labeling theological doctrines, nor did he go around complimenting himself, or do anything to receive compliments from the denominational brass. The reason for this is very clear.

Paul did not only preach the life of Christ, he demonstrated it. He did not conform to man's religiosity, or to some denomination's statement of beliefs, but he preached and demonstrated the living Christ. Oh that preachers did that today! Ah! But preachers must pray as Paul did if they want to preach as he did. Just think, Paul withstood some of the original apostles ideas and creeds. Today most preachers haven't got enough of God to stand against the rules, regulations and creeds of denominationalism even when they can't be backed up with the Word of God. It is time for people to pray and become a preacher of the Word instead of some denomination's flunky, mouthing what they believe because you are afraid of losing your credentials!

Paul was sold out to God. Every beat of his heart, every thought of his mind, every step of his feet and every longing of his soul were for Christ, yet his cry was that I might know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering. He upset synagogues, had revivals or riots--either one or the other, sometimes both. (We seem to have neither!)

Though people let him down--"all men forsook me" (II Tim.4:16), he lived in the power of the Holy Spirit and went on. But with his daily bread he had daily death, for he said, "I die daily". Where are the fearless men of dedication as he was?

Paul, a man transformed, empowered, Holy Spirit controlled, reveals that we all could be "like him." Hear him as he stands before Agrippa-- "I would to God that not only you, but also all that hear me this day were both, and almost altogether as I am, except these bonds." Notice, he does not say that all would write as he has done, nor does he say that all would establish churches by his example. Paul does not say "as I did," but, "as I myself am" (1st Cor. 7:7). The Spirit that filled and controlled Paul is the same Spirit that desires to fill and control us. We need an Exchanged Life whereby we no longer live--but Christ lives in us.

How much your life and mine would benefit if we could experience the same surge of Christ-life that moved Paul and be able to understand his words, "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus" (Gal. 6:17)!

One thing is sure about these words--they were an acknowledgment of Christ's ownership. Paul belonged to the Lord Jesus Christ--body, soul and spirit. He was branded for Christ. It was not a bodily identification by outward imitation that Paul was speaking of, but a spiritual identification by inward crucifixion. He had been "crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2:20).

The marks of Paul's inward crucifixion were plainly evident:

1. Paul was branded by devotion to the task that God gave him. This is evident because he out-paced, out-prayed, and out-passioned all his contemporaries. In his mind was blazed: "One thing I do." He was blind to all that other men gloried in. Unsponsered, unwelcomed, unloved--made little difference to Paul. On he went--blind to every jewel of earthly honor, deaf to every voice of siren-ease, and insensitive to worldly success.

2. Paul was also branded by humility. But notice, he never fished for praise with humility's bait, but in the long line of sinners put himself first (where we would have put him last). "What things were gain to me, these things I count as lost for Christ" are the words of Paul. What peace there is in the virtue of humility-- the great joy of having nothing to lose! Having no opinion of himself, Paul feared not the losing of his credentials, or a fall from some high office, for in his opinion he had no credentials or office, he counted it all as lost for Christ.

3. Paul was branded by suffering. This wandering Jew "made war" on all that made war on God and man. This prince of preachers and the prince of hell, spared each other no beatings. It was a free-for-all with no holds barred! He did not forsake prayer and giving himself to the word for the ease of an administrator, or some High position on some denominational board. He did not compromise the truth of God's Word to bow to some denominations interpretation of scripture in order not to rock the boat, or avoid persecution, but fought in the forefront in preaching and demonstrating the whole council of God.

4. Paul was branded by passion. A man must be in the dead center of God's will, and walking the tightrope of obedience to call upon the Holy Spirit to bare witness to his witness. Yet in Rom. 9:1, Paul does just this. Preacher is your passion so consumed with doing God's will that you can call the Holy Spirit to witness all your doings! He witnesses it weather you realize it or not!

The living Christ who was within Paul (Gal.2:20), as manifested by his soul passion, was the devil's despair and a threat to hell. But it was also the reason for the growth of the Church and the delight of his Saviour (who was seeing the travail of his soul and was being satisfied.

5. Paul was branded by love. He loved his Lord, loved men, loved his enemies, loved the word, loved prayer. Paul's love carried him to the lost and the sick with the message that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Paul's love for God caused him to stand against the traditions of denominations and men to stand for the truth of God's Word.

The list could go on, he was branded by holiness, power, forgiveness, faith, faithfulness, joy, etc. Oh for a prayer life that would cause preachers and laity alike to be branded as Paul was.

We live in a world where people are on a roller coaster ride to hell and in order for this to turn around the church needs to be revived. No wonder the Holy Spirit is not wooing sinners to our alters, for where are the "mothers in Israel" to care for them? How many of our believers could lead a person out of darkness into light, to where the life of Christ is ruling, reigning and flowing through them to bless others. Most can't, because they have not experienced this Christ-life themselves. Oh, they can lead someone in what is called the sinners prayer, then leave them to survive on their own to be a clone of a denomination. But can it be said of that type of Christian as was said of the early church believers, "they that have turned the world upside down have come here also". It would be as sensible to have spiritual births in some of our churches as to but a new-born babe into a deep freeze!

If in Canada, during the past century, the physical birth rate had been as low as the spiritual birth rate, Canadians would now be almost extinct.

You have heard it said that "we must pray to live the Christian life," and this true, but the truth also is, we must live this Christian life to pray. Prayer is more than asking, It is being in subjection to the Holy Spirit to where we are controlled by Him so that He can work in and through us.

Preacher, if your soul is barren, if tears are absent from your eyes, if prayer is the least important item on your schedule,if there are no new births, if saints come to Church spiritually and physically sick and leave the same way, then take no comfort in your popularity; refuse the consolation of your degrees, your well lined bookshelves, your secure position within your denomination or your charismatic ability! Sincerely and passionately invite the Holy Spirit to wake you out of your stupor so you can see and understand why the believers and the alters are so barren. Oh that the deathlike stillness of the sanctuary would be shattered with the praises of the saints and the cries of spiritual newborn babes!

Are we so barren because we don't know God? The Bible says that in the last days when wicked men shall do wickedly, "the people who know their God shall be strong and do great exploits." Not those who sing about God, not those who preach about God, not those who work for God, but those who know God. We can only know God as a result of time spent in prayer and in the Word and acting by faith in obedience to what He says to us in prayer and in His Word.

Church, we are beaten by the time element. The preacher and church who are to busy to pray, are busier than the Lord would have them be. If we will give God time, He will empower us for ministry and give us souls for our labor.

Surely the Church today is in need of revival. I am aware that there are preachers who in their sleepiness will emphasize the sovereignty of God and say, "When God so desires He will send revival." That is only half-truth. Do you think that God is pleased with the 100 or so people that die every minute without Christ? Have you fallen for the idea that the Lord is now willing that many should perish? Do you say that, when God decides He will lift up His hand to scatter His enemies, then a mighty visitation will come. Never! God needs a body to work through in this earth realm, and you are that body. Quote part of a verse and you can make the bible say anything. For example; "God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." Stop the verse there and it means that "God is able to do it, but as yet He has not bothered to do so." This verse, misquoted, leaves the lack of receiving anything we need from God on the steps of God's throne. But finish the verse... "able to do--according to the power that worketh in us," and it means that we are the cause if the channel is blocked; it means that God cannot get through to this generation because of a lack of power in the Church. So the lack of revival or spiritual vibrancy is our fault.

What has the devil and hell to fear other than a God-anointed, prayer-powered, Holy Spirit controlled, bible obedient people?

Preacher, it is time to put away all trifling. Forget denominational issues. It is time to lay aside all programs and call a solemn-assembly. Let us "give ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word," "for faith commeth by hearing and hearing by the Word."

To smite the iniquity of this sin soaked world and shatter the complacency of slumbering saints, a change is desperately needed. Vital preaching and victorious living must come out of time spent in the prayer closet. The secret of praying is praying in secret. Books on prayer are good, but not enough. One could read a library of prayer books and not increase their prayer power. We must learn to pray and we must pray to learn to pray. You can sit and read the finest book there is about health, but that alone will not make a person healthy. So a person may read about prayer, marvel at the endurance of Moses, or stagger at the power of Elijah's praying, and yet not be able to stammer the ABC's of intercessory prayer.

There are spiritual plateaus in God that has yet to be reached and they can only be reached by prayer. Prayer is as vast as God because He is behind it. Prayer is as mighty as God because He has committed Himself to answer it. I wonder at times, if at the judgment seat the most embarrassing thing the believer will face will be the smallness of his praying.

Elijah was a man who knew how to pray. He prayed and the course of nature was altered, prayed and the dead was raised, prayed and the fire fell, prayed and the people fell, prayed and the rain fell. We need the fire because we are so cold, we need the rain because we are so dry and the churches are so parched that seed cannot germinate, we need to fall to rid ourselves of rigamortis.

In order to reach this sin-hungry world we need a prayer hungry Church.

Whatever you do for God, if it is not born of prayer and done through prayer, it will not survive the test. Prayer creates a hunger for souls; hunger for souls creates prayer. The understanding person prays; the praying person gets understanding. The Godly man prays; the praying man gets Godly.

The Church began in the "upper room" with prayer agonizing--but today is ending in the supper room organizing. The Church began in revival; we are ending in ritual. The Church started virile; today it is sterile. Preachers and members of the Church were men of heat and no degrees; today many hold degrees, but have no heat! Ah, my brother, flame-hearted praying men are the crying need of the hour!

If the preacher is not praying, then the Spirit is absent. If the Spirit is absent, then the preacher's study becomes a laboratory for dissecting doctrine and developing it into lifless dogma.

At this moment a rushing mighty wind of false religion and lukewarm Christianity is bombarding the world. Warned of false fire by fireless men, we to often settle for no fire at all! God help the people, ruined with man-made religion, cursed with man-made cults, and doomed with man-made doctrine!

As the Church goes, so goes the world! What would happen if preachers took one day to prepare a sermon and sandwiched that between a day in prayer to get the sermon from God, and a day of prayer to prepare the preacher to preach the prepared sermon. Oh the anointing that would be upon such a man.

We need Joshuas to lead the Lord's people into the Promised Land of Spirit- empowered living. Like Israel we have escaped Egypt and Pharaoh (which in our experience means the world and Satan), but failed at Kadesh-Barnea. What should have been a steeping stone has become a stumbling block.

People, if we don't die to self, the world and its attractions and the devil we will never affect this world for God! We will never die if we do not pray; we will never pray if we do not die! We must die so that the life of Christ will live through us to bring the dead to life. Prayer is the key. In the New Testament, prayer is the real ministry of the church. It must be the same today. Lord teach us to pray!

Church, we are in an emergency. We cannot afford to be giving our time, our strength, our money to anything but to the one important need of getting God on the scene in the power of a mighty, Holy Spirit Awakening! Away forever with idleness, contentions, wasting precious moments and priceless dollars on useless things. God help us! The times are desperate but the saints are not. There will be no spiritual awaking where there is no prayer. Preachers and saints, let us pray!

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