B (5:01)
Not going to say that Scripture anyhow. Praise the Lord. You're looking. You're looking good and green. Hallelujah. I'm going to have you turn in your scriptures this morning if you have your Bible, to the fourth chapter of first Peter, First Peter, chapter four. And there's a. There's a particular text that, you know, we. I checked my heart for this week, of course, tried to make preparation, and I just can't get away from it. At least as a springboard, this particular text that we've used in all these meetings so far, speaking on the subject of prayer. Amen. But say, what's prayer have to do with miracles? Well, not always what people think, because folks think, oh, yeah, we're going to pray for them different than. Different than sometimes we think. Hallelujah. And it's this seventh verse, if you'd read this with me. And it says, the end of all things is at hand. Be therefore sober and watch unto prayer. This is a great verse talking about the times that we're in. What time are we in in the body of Christ? You understand that we're not just randomly spinning on this earth, you know, just waiting for the top to run out or to fall off its. Its axis. No, we're in the things that are happening. It doesn't always look like it, but there are strategic things happening. There's. There's. Things are going on in the earth according to a plan. Now, not everything that happens in the earth is God's plan, but God has a plan. I say God has a plan. And we're in a period of time called the end times. We're not waiting to get to the end times. We're in the end times. Now, there are phases to the end times. We're not in all of those phases yet, but we're in the. We're in one of the first phases of the end times. Praise the Lord. And one of the next things that happens in the end times is Jesus returns. And we excited about that. We are excited about that. Not because we just want to get done with this, but because we want to see God's plan progress. But tell you what, don't think that his return is today. When I say, you just said something you're not supposed to say in church. You're not supposed to say that. You're supposed to say, it could be any day. And I understand that. And you said, and you might think, well, doesn't the Bible say that no man knows the day or the hour? Well, I didn't say I know the day or the hour. But there's. If you want to know that there's some distinguished pastors right here. You could come ask them. But I don't know the day or the hour. But we do know some things about his return. We do know some things about the season that we're in. You know, Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica, in the fifth chapter of the first verse, he said, brethren, you have. Concerning the times and the seasons. You have no need that I even write to you because you know some things. He said perfectly well. You can't say that to most Christians today, that you have no need to be instructed regarding the times and the seasons. No, it matters that you and I see the big picture of some things that we understand the big picture. Amen. So we're in. We're in an age or a period called the end times. Well, the end times of what? The end of the world as we know it is. Is the. Are we about to. Huh? Are we about to crash and burn? No, we're at the end of the age. What age are we at the end of. We're at the end of the church age where things are being accelerated. Things are, things are moving on a skyrocket pace almost. And there are some things in the plan of God that need to be wrapped up and what revelation says, things that must shortly come to pass. And we want that which should come to pass to come to pass. Amen. And so this thing called the plan of God, well, that requires the cooperation of his body, you understand, requires the cooperation of his church. And I don't know about you, I want to be in. I want to be one that cooperates with the plan of God. And the good thing is God will use all of us. I said he'll use all of us further. Furthermore, he needs all of us. He needs you. Did you know that? God needs you. He needs you big. He needs you. No one else can do what you can do. Amen. So what are we to do in the end? Well, first thing, we need to recognize the times that we're in. We're in the end times. It says the end of all things is at hand. And if you just hold your hand out in front of you and see how close it is, that's how, that's how close we are to the end where we're there in the sense of being in this accelerated age. So what are we to do? Well, first thing he says is be sober. Be sober. And that has to do with how you think. I said that has to do with how you think. It's important that your mind is renewed to the things that God wants us to know in these times. Amen. Be sober. We could say be sober minded. Other translations actually say be sober minded and watch unto prayer. Can you give me that? In the Amplified man, it's already called up. You know, you train somebody well, it'll really bless you. It says, it says the end and culmination of all things has now come near. Keep sound minded and self restrained and alert, therefore, for the practice of prayer. So what Peter's saying here is that, hey, the end times are upon us. Important to think right? And it's necessary to pray, right? And not all prayer, effective prayer, not all prayer is the same. And not all prayer is even scriptural. Matter of fact, a whole lot of prayer is not even in the ballpark. The heart may be right, the intention may be right, the motive may be right, but in terms of aligning with God and in terms of cooperating with God, it's just not even, it's just not even on the track. You know, What I mean. So what's necessary in our days is that the right kind of prayer occur. And for the right kind of prayer to occur, how many know folk need to be instructed as to what that looks like. Amen. So really, when you talk about prayer, I think just the general concept, as a matter of fact, many of you prayed before you. How many here before you were even born again. You prayed, right? What did those prayers sound like? You might have been in a car and struggled to. Losing control of that car. And you thought, this is a good time to begin my prayer life. Oh, Jesus. Or whatever it was. You know what I mean? And I remember some of the first. Now, some of the first prayers I prayed were actually pretty effective. I was lost. I was facing death, meaning I was sick to the point of death. Did not know. Jesus knew. Knew that if I died, heaven would not be my home. I just knew on the inside I was not ready to go. And I got. And my prayer was primitive. It didn't have any scripture in it, but it was heartfelt and God heard it. And I just said, God, whoever you are, show me. Show me. Help me. He brought. He had already brought somebody in my life who was trying to help me, who's trying to show me that Jesus was the way. You know, he tried to talk to me about heaven and hell. I tell him which one he could go to. Because, you know, before you're in trouble, you just think, you know, hey, I'm 18. I know it all. And you know, you know nothing. You know nothing. And then actually, really, just the night before I gave my heart to the Lord, I found myself in Dade County Jail. Dade county is Miami. It's where I grew up. And it's funny, I gave my testimony one time on a. On a Christian television station in Augusta, Georgia. You remember when we would go to Augusta with brother Hagin? There was a big station there, and I was on. I was on. They had me and a gentleman by the name of Randall Greer, who's a. He's. He's a dear friend. And I had shared. They were asking me my testimony, and I shared this part about me being in jail for one night. I was there for one night, and I prayed again. I prayed again because they put me in this holding cell with. And you got a picture. 1980s, remember the. How many? Remember the Baggie? The white. I had. I lived in Florida, okay? Remember Miami Vice? So I had. I had long, long, long red hair. When my wife met me, I had. I mean, I had hair down my back. I had a chainsaw earring. Why? I don't know. I don't know. I didn't have tattoos. Cause that looked like that would hurt really bad. So I looked when they put me in this cell with like this big holding cell with a lot of people in there. And I guess I was the closest thing to a lady they'd seen in a while, just with my long hair. And these men were making advances, forceful advances. So I'm up there with my feet locked through the bars and I start praying. I said, okay, God, you get me out of here and I will serve you. I will serve you. I will serve you. And that next day I got saved. But anyhow, we're on this TV show giving my testimony. And after me comes on brother Randall Greer, who has the gall to call me a jailbird. Yeah, he said I didn't. Anyhow, if you know his story, he spent a lot more than one night, right, for something I didn't even do. I was not. I got arrested for shoplifting. I was returning a gift. Honest to God, I was returning a gift. And I won me a little lawsuit ounce. Yes, I did after that. Anyhow, can we please get back to the end times? The end times. And so I was telling you about what kind of prayer people pray. Maybe you didn't know that about me, but don't call me a jailbird. One night for something I didn't do anyhow. Doesn't count. But anyhow, I was praying those scared prayers. I was praying like a lost person prays. But, you know, a lot of Christians, they don't do a whole lot better. And so most people's concept of prayer, you know, is, well, we got to just ask God for what we need. And that's what prayer is all about. I remember when my first church that I went to, and they were sweet people, they were good people. They had honor for the word of God. They did not. They did not accept the. What we call the baptism in the Holy Spirit speaking in other tongues. That was not. That was. In matter of fact, not only was it not accepted, it was taught that that's not even God, you know, so. But how many know? Just because they throw that part out doesn't mean that everything they preach is wrong. So they were a real blessing. They walked in the love of God and they liked me. So I stayed around. You know what's better than having right doctrine? Loving people and then having right doctrine is good too. It really is best. So anyhow, we would have prayer meeting on Wednesday night. And all it was was, you know, we would have a huge list of needs because how many know everybody's got them, everybody's come on, everybody's got needs. And so everybody bring their list of needs and they turn that into the pastor. And then they'd say, well, brother, so. And so you pray for. You pray for sister Beverly and her gout or whatever it was, you know what I mean? And so he'd stand up and he pray and say, oh, Father God, we lift up our dear sister to you who's going through a time of difficulty. Well, that's sincere, isn't it? That's well intentioned. That's a good heart. But then they say, well, if it's your will, because that's what we were taught, that you always say that because that's a disclaimer. That way nobody's responsible for results either way, right? Whatever happens, happens. And we prayed if it just. We just ask that your will be done in this situation, Which is totally ineffective anyhow. And so we pray about our stuff. Our stuff. And we just go down the list and pray for everybody's needs. And then, well, I got a brother who's not saved. Well, we'd all get in on that, you know, because everybody. You don't want anybody to not be saved. So we all get. Pray hard on that one. And that was the prayer meeting. That was our prayer. And that's how, that's how I was taught to pray as a Christian. That wasn't a whole lot different than what I did before I was a Christian. And so here comes. You ready? Because you like this what we're praying. The type of prayer where you're just taking care of me and my stuff. We call that bedtime prayers. That's what you wanted. Okay. He likes that. Bedtime prayers where. That's. Because when you, when you're training your little kids how to pray, what do you pray now? I lay me down to sleep, pray the Lord my soul to keep. Because like, if you don't pray that he might not. He might just forget about you that night. And if I should die before I wake up. What a horrible thing, horrible thing to put in the mind of a young child to get them thinking about dying before they wake. That you never know if you. We need to have a prayer burning party. I'll tell you what we need to do. We need to get that. And we need to get that God awful serenity prayer. I'm just telling you. And we need to have us a party where we just Light the whole thing on. Just throw gasoline on all of it. Boom. You know what the serenity prayer is? Who can quote it? Good, good. I'm glad you don't know. It's something along the lines of, lord, help me to accept those things that I cannot change and those things that I can change, help them to change. Or something like that. No, no, no, no. And so bedtime prayers, if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. It's totally focused on me, me, me. It's me focused prayers. And even when I got saved, that's what my first church taught. It was all. Prayer was just all focused on us. And we can do better than that. We need to move from, from bedtime prayers to what? To end time prayers. Now, bedtime prayers are self focused. I'm not saying you, I'm not saying it's never right to pray about your situations. Not saying that. But I am saying that all of us need to grow to the place where we have a focus that's beyond ourselves, that we're participants in something bigger than ourselves. And so bedtime prayers are focused on ourselves. They're self focused. End time prayers are plan focused. They're. They're God focused. They're focused on something bigger. Bedtime prayers, they're always aware of the great distance between us and God. Oh, God in heaven. I don't pray that way. Well, isn't he? Well, sure, he's in heaven. So am I. I said, so am I. End time prayers aren't focused on the distance between us and God. They're focused on the union between us and God, the oneness of us and God. And really we're to pray from a place of having already arrived. I know that's not popular to say because Christians love to say, well, you know, none of us have arrived yet. Read your New Testament. Read your Bible. He has raised us up together with him, made us sit together with him in heavenly places in Christ. How much further would you like to go before you've arrived? No, I understand that there's more growth. I understand that we can all grow, but we're growing into that knowledge. We're growing into greater revelation of that. Amen. So we want to learn to pray from our place in Christ. Amen. And move away from this. Move away from just what a little kid would do at bedtime. It's okay to. Now it's okay to teach people to pray at bedtime. But don't, don't pray. Don't teach them to pray. If I die before I wake. Amen. Praise the Lord. So in the, in the end times, in the, in the times we're living in, effective prayer, prayer that's focused on God and his plan, his things. And really there's a couple different areas that the Bible talks about of that our prayers can touch. First of all, like I said, his plan. His plan over in the where did we look First Peter over in the third chapter of Ephesians. I made reference to this real briefly yesterday. Are we doing okay today? You know, I do sometimes knock over those sacred cows. I understand that. Well do worse than that. We get a ball bat and beat them in the head, beat them black and blue, don't we? But you know, nobody has ever gotten helped by just mere religious tradition. And just because we've always done it this way, that does not mean it's scriptural. We have to check what we do, make sure that it's in line with the word Amen. So did you get your green shirt selves over to Ephesians 3? In the first verse he said, for this cause I Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given to me to you word, how that by revelation he made known to me what the mystery, as I wrote before in a few words whereby when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ. And I made reference to this yesterday that we talk a lot about the plan of God. Well, at least in the King James it doesn't use that phrase extensively. It's in there we can find and in Ephesians 2 we find the great verse in the Amplified Bible that talks about God's plan uses that phrase. But what we see a lot is this phrase Paul talking about the mystery. And it's used in a couple different areas. And what he's talking about is the plan of God as it was revealed to him and that he was assigned to reveal to us. And if you turn real quick over to the 14th chapter of First Corinthians, one of our privileges is to get to pray out the plan of God. You know, some folk ought to be a little more glowing and burning than you are. But I'm just going to go, I'm just going to go with what we got. First Corinthians 14 in the second verse says, he that speaks in an unknown tongue speaks not unto men, but unto God, for no man understands him howbeit in the spirit he does what he speaks mysteries you got, you got my Amplified there for me. Thank you. The Amplified said, in the Spirit he utters secret truths and hidden things not obvious to the understanding. Other translations say sacred secrets. These mysteries are things that pertain to God's plan. God's plan for the church. God's plan for your life. Individually, how many know that his plan for you is part of his plan for the the church? We're in this together, you understand? All in this together, right? We in this together. Your plan is part of the plan. And so one of the, one of the characteristics of maturity as a believer is that you're interested in God's plan and you understand that when you're praying things about his plan, you're also praying things about his plan for you. Your part in his plan, instead of being focused just on you and your needs. And when's my ministry going to take off? Let me tell you when your ministry is going to take off. When you stop thinking and asking when your ministry going to take off? Why don't they call me to preach? Because you keep thinking about it. Hello. Must be tapping into other people, other people's anointings, you know, sometimes. So one of the ways, one of the ways we can pray out the plan of God. Because how many know if there's things that are mysteries concerning his plan? What's a mystery? It's something that's just not fully revealed, right? If there's mysteries regarding God's plan, how are you going to take care of that? One of the ways we can do that is by praying in other tongues. And we need to do that. We need to do that. The end of all things is at hand. Be sober minded and watch unto prayer for the purpose of prayer. Prayer is a huge factor in God's plan coming to pass. So one of the things we pray for is the plan of God. And that's a huge thing. That's a huge thing God's got plans for. And some of his plans have been revealed. And there's ways we still pray for them even though they've been revealed. There's details that we know, there's details that we don't know. And if we'll cooperate with the Spirit of God in prayer, we can touch it all and we can co op. We can get all that needs to be done done in prayer. Hallelujah. Now you have, that's one aspect and this is just an overview. You know, we could talk the entire week just on praying out God's plan. But there's another thing that God Dealt with me about when we're talking about moving from bedtime prayers to end time prayers, taking, taking more responsibility in prayer. Well, another thing that we touch in prayer, not just God's plan, God's power. Now what do we, how do we pray? How do we need to pray regarding God's power? Well, over in James, chapter five, you want to turn there. You're familiar with this, because I know you are, because when we were here last year in these miracle crusades, I think we probably turned here. Bless him. Bless him. So we're going to teach along these lines just a little bit. And then we are going to actually do this. We're actually going to. We're actually going to pray. Hallelujah. Somebody. James, chapter five and verse 16, you've heard it, it says the effectual fervent prayer. A righteous man avails much. What's it mean to avail? One of the definitions of avail is to turn about effective prayer. Effectual, fervent prayer. If there's effectual prayer, how many know there could also be ineffectual prayer? If you can be effective, you could be ineffective. Which do you want to be? We want to be effective. Huh. And then I, you know, we, most of us know this, the amplified. But how many know it's not what you've heard before that blesses you, it's what's, what's real in you now. So, you know, forgive me if actually, I don't ever mind hearing this stuff over and over and over and over and over. So the, the end of verse 16 in the Amplified says the earnest, heartfelt, continued prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available, dynamic in its working. That's miracle power. That's talking about miracle power, making it available. What do we mean, making power available? How many know that God's power is ever present in the spirit realm, in God's realm, but how many know that you and I don't live like, you know, 99% of our time fully in God's realm? We're contacting the natural realm and where God's power needs to work the most as far as our lives are concerned, as far as his plan for the earth is concerned. And we need God's power working in the natural realm. And the, the right kind of prayer, effective prayer will help bring God's power to the forefront where it's easily accessed from this realm. Now, if you've been here at these, in these meetings, just these, just these first couple. I mean, even this morning, there's a, there's what we call a tangibility here, that if you. How many could say you've sensed God here, you can. You can just sense it at times. I mean, during. During the worship this morning, and, and at other times, there is activity in the God realm taking place. I'll say this. And again, I. This. This is just me. These aren't my meetings. You know what I mean? So if. So if something that I say doesn't go, just. Just put it on the shelf, just throw it out. But I'll just say this. When Pastor Nancy was preaching on the goodness of God, just those scriptures, the Lord is good, I realized this, that the more you declare his goodness, the more he manifests his goodness. And maybe partly because of the office I stand in or whatever, but there are times where I can see into the spirit realm and I can see the manifestation of God's glory and God's power. And I've seen it here all week. I don't say, you know, don't say about it to draw attention to me, but to draw attention to God and his power. And so there are things that would normally be in an unseen realm that are so close and so available and just so really palpable that you could just, as we say, reach out, take it to yourself. Well, see, that's power being made available. Matter of fact, I'll just go. Since I'm talking about it, I'll just go one step further. About a decade ago or more maybe, I was in a service with Dr. Dufresne in Jamestown, New York. I pastored not too far from there. And in that service, I want to say you came the next day, Pastor, because you were mad that you missed what happened that first day. You say, I don't appreciate those things happening when I'm not here, is what you said. But Dr. Dufresne comes in the service and he sits. He's just looking around like this, like this. And he said, there's two angels up there spinning around, like spinning angels and releasing things. And he talked about it because he saw it, and he said, they're releasing the power of God. And you might say, well, that's weird. I'm sorry, I'm not talking about my experience. I'm talking about his experience. But anyhow, those angels have been here and I've seen him two or three times. No, not with my physical eyes, with the eyes of my spirit. And when pastor's talking about the goodness of God and they're spinning around and power is released and you can see it, sense it Sometimes. Well, not everybody's going to see it, you understand, but everybody can partake of it. Everybody can sense it. What is that? That's power. Miracle power. Being made available, being brought to the forefront, to where it's. That's exactly what we want. That's exactly what we want. Because if you don't have that, you can circle the wagons, as they say, all day long, and maybe a certain percentage of. Real small percentage of people might latch on and get something. But we want the power of God so permeating the room that even the most unknowledgeable or new believer or even the unbeliever can just have it all slopped over on them. If we can say that and can partake of that power and experience the results of that power, this is exactly what we want. Listen, this is why during what we call the healing revival of the 1940s and 1950s, the. They said this. They said it's just like healing was in the atmosphere. The atmosphere was so saturated with healing that people could just. I mean, they said ministers with hardly any experience were getting blind eyes open. All kinds of things were happening. This is the testimony of those that were there. I wasn't there in the 40s or 50s. Praise the Lord. I'm not going to. Nobody else is that old either. Praise the Lord on this row. Hallelujah. But they said it was just like healing was in the air. It was so easily accessible. And people with. Because don't think that they had, like, all this advanced knowledge of how to cooperate with God's power. Not so much, but it was just so saturated that it was able to spread. Come on, listen. Have you ever studied the healing revival? Some of those ministers weren't even living right, but there was so much power there that they were able to help people access the power of God. Now, listen, how many know it's better to live right? There's a lot of reasons why. Why you want to live, right? Amen. So we're not saying don't do that. You'll understand. Hallelujah. You got to always throw out that disclaimer. Yeah, power available. So what. What helps facilitate that prayer? Because, listen, I don't know about you. I've been in services where there wasn't anything tangible. I've been in services where there were no spinning angels. Don't get. Don't take what I say and form a doctrine out of it. You understand? You don't have to have spinning angels to get results. But it sure is nice when they're There. Hallelujah. Amen. There's. In these meetings, there's been. So it lets me know. I didn't. I haven't asked the pastors what they've been up to, but I think you made more than just natural preparation for these meetings. Amen. So that's, that's the second area. And again, we could take just, you know, the whole week, just preach on that, on that area of powers. I'm talking about things, three areas that the Lord dealt with me about, actually. This morning when I was trying to eat some breakfast. What was that first area we talked about? The plan. The plan. The second area was power. God's power. The third area, I'm going to have my wife come and share some along these lines. We have God's plan, God's power, and then prayer can affect things with God's people, God's people, particularly those in leadership. I'm not going to have you turn there. But you're familiar with First Timothy, chapter two, verse, first verse, where it says, I exhort, therefore first of all, that prayers, intercession, supplication, giving of thanks be made for all men for kings, that those for kings and those are in authority, that we may lead a quiet, peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Remember that. So whether or not leaders function as they ought, I'm talking about God ordained offices, whether they be civic offices or. Sometimes we look at that verse in First Timothy 2 and just think it's only talking about, you know, government. No, no, no, honey, no, no. There are spiritual leaders. There are spiritual leaders. And just as, just as our president needs prayer, how many agree that he does? How many know that no matter who the president is, they do. So, so there's civic leaders, but there's also spiritual leaders and your. The spiritual leaders that God is raising up will not function in the fullness of their place without the supply of prayer that's necessary. Is this good for you to jump in here? Jump in. They're tired of me. You want a microphone or just shout loud?
