6796-HarryGreenwood-PrayerofFaith_128k

00:00:00 Speaker: Father, we thank you for all the good things that you have given us. And prayer with thanksgiving is an acknowledgement that we've got those good things now. Thank you, Lord, for your eternal realm, the realm of now, when you have freely given us, Lord, those things that are necessary for body, soul, and spirit. Father, this morning we pray that you'll teach us in this way. Teach us, Lord, to pray. Father, teach us that which is necessary at this time. Lord, to further your kingdom, to deepen our spiritual lives, and to make us more effective. Lord, in the ministry of that life, we ask you, Lord, something that it is your desire to do, and we glory in the fact that, Lord, if we ask anything according to your will, you hear us, Lord? And, Lord, we have confidence that we've got that petition that we ask. So for each person this morning that is looking for a key to open a door. Lord, we thank you, father, that you've got a key for every door. And Lord, we bless you, that when you open, when we open that door with that key, Lord, no man can close it. We bless you, Lord, for the certainty of your word, for the certainty of all that you say. Lord, a God that does not have to change, but can change all things. Bless you, Lord Jesus this morning. You're the same yesterday and today and forever. Hallelujah. Lord, we bless you, Lord, that heaven doesn't have to find something new. Lord, your mercies are new every morning. Lord, everything is new, Lord to us. But Lord, we bless you that everything is to you as it's always been perfect. Every good and perfect gift cometh from above. So Lord, this morning as we enter in by Thanksgiving. Help us to have an expectancy in our faith, Lord. An expectancy, Lord, that you're going to speak to us individually, Lord. Not just teach us, Lord, by the imparting of knowledge, Lord, but by the ministry of life. Lord, we want what we hear, not the knowledge of it, Lord, but the experience of it. Lord. Grant this prayer this morning, Lord, because we ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah! Whoo! Be hard to stop this morning. Thank you, Mrs. Greenwood. I'm going to read to you from another version that shall not be mentioned. But it agrees with me. If you have your King James Version, which I believe is the only inspired version. Don't quote me, please. We're reading, uh, in Peter. One Peter, chapter four. And from verse seven. Last night when God gave me that word of prophecy, if my people. I realized that God was saying something to us today. As a people. As a whole. People. And what I mean by a whole people. God sees us through the finished work of Calvary. Now, if you can just see yourself as God sees you this morning and realize that God sees you complete in him. God wants us to pray as a people, and you'll be getting a little more of that from Derek. But this day, God is calling us to do something individually and also out of our individual experience of prayer, to pray collectively. God wants us to take the situation which is in Satan's hands, nationally and internationally, and put that situation in the hands of God by faith and prayer. God wants us to do it. He can do it without us, but he has restricted himself to us. Thank you Lord, and I think it's wonderful. Now God wants us to be in a condition then spiritually, whereby he can move through us. Give us what? To pray and show us when to pray. Praying is very, very technical. It is not as easy as some people think. The disciples were well aware of prayer and they knew, as far as I'm concerned, enough about prayer, because there was a lot of people around praying publicly in the open, the scribes and the Pharisees, and there was the hour of prayer in the temple, and praying was a natural thing to Israel. But when they met Jesus, Hallelujah! They said, teach us how to pray. Now what happened? They saw Jesus get results. Hallelujah. That's the sort of prayer that I'm interested in. The prayer that gets results. They saw something in the Lord that was so wonderful. It was called perfection. Be perfect. Even as your father, which is in heaven, is perfect. You know, I think it's in Matthew five, verse forty eight. It's not. It should be be perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect. Jesus was a perfect son because he had a perfect father. Hallelujah! Be perfect. So when Jesus sent them out to do something, they brought back a perfect result. Why? They had never seen Jesus make a mistake, so they'd never learned to make one. What have we inherited? We've inherited a whole lot of theology that binds you up and ties you up and restricts. Your God restricts and quenches the spirit and restricts you. We have to shed some of the things that we've inherited. We've inherited a whole lot of unbelief and doubt and fear and failure. All we've come into is the failure of the past. But there's light shining in the past of men that found God in prayer. For a man's ministry is born out of his prayer life. You will never, never just come into the ministry overnight. Have all the gifts and the ministry that's available from God. Without prayer, there is no quick way. There's no shortcut. Today. You've gotta come God's way. How can you pray if you've never suffered? How can you pray and understand people in their condition if you've never been in that situation? Paul prayed as a man. Never prayed. Why? Because God commissioned him for a purpose that I might show him what great things he has to suffer for my name's sake. And believe it or not, God showed him many things. And Paul did not turn back from them. From them. But at the end of so many things, Paul could say, My God, not Peter's, not John's, not anybody else's, not Elisha's, Elijah's or anybody else's, or Abraham's. Isaac's, but my God. The God that I have proved personally will supply all your need. Did he find himself in a place of need? Did Paul ever find himself? He was never out of a place of need. Hallelujah. He needed God all the time. Some of us don't. We only need God in a crisis. And sometimes our lives are governed by a series of crises. And what happens? We have a testimony out of every one of them. God is wonderful, but he's wonderful in between, too. There is a place of fellowship. God doesn't always have to hit you over the head to remind you that he's around. Hallelujah. It's about the only thing that should go to your head. Maybe that's the only place God could leave an impression. I thank God today that he's doing a new thing. My subject this morning. I'm hoping I'm going to start anyway. There. Is prayer. I've preached many times. Many times in prayer. But when God starts to speak to me about it and showed me that this generation is going to prove more on their knees than on their feet. Now, what I'm talking about this morning is not theological. It's not in the realm of theology as far as I'm concerned, in this sense that it's neology. You've got to get down to get up, and the way up is down as a tree. That's what happens. The further the roots go down, the higher the tree grows up. With a name like mine. I'm an authority on this subject. I want to read to you from this version that I've got which shall not be mentioned. The end of the world is coming soon. Reading from verse seven of one Peter, chapter four. Therefore be earnest, thoughtful men of prayer. Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other. For love makes up for many of your faults. Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay for the night. Praise God you're good at that in New Zealand. God had given each of you some special abilities. Be sure to use them to help each other pass on to others God's many kinds of blessings. Are you called to preach? Then preach as though God Himself were speaking through you? Are you called to help others? Do it with all the strength and the energy that God supplies, so that God will be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen. The end of the world is coming soon. Every time man has been faced with a crisis, the answer to that crisis is has been that he has prayed and now we're living in a day, I believe, of refreshing from the Lord. And while this refreshing is going on, we have a chance for God to teach us to pray. You pray as a father for your children? You pray as a mother for your children. You pray as a brother for your brothers and sisters. Your praying life must be given direction by God himself according to your faith. Many of us pray for the sick and they don't get healed. Some of them die. It might be better off if we never prayed for them. He might have stood a better chance. God wants us to pray a prayer of faith. Now, who knows how much faith that I've got in operation? Nobody but God himself. Who knows my inability to pray only God himself. Then who's going to help me to pray according to the will of God, and also help me in spirit to pray, help my infirmities. The Holy Spirit is here to teach the church to pray, and we all need to be taught. Now, how do you learn to pray? Well, you don't learn by reading it in a book. Most people have the technical knowledge of how to pray, and they pray accordingly. And in the past, a man could hide himself in his prayer. But today his prayer exposes him where he stands with God. In the past, he could pray for twenty minutes and after putting the preacher right doctrinally, telling God who he was and what he's doing after he visited all the mission fields and returned twenty minutes and thirty minutes later sat down feeling my these people know I can pray. That sort of prayer is gone out. But the prayer that's coming in is the fervent prayer of a righteous man. Availeth much the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up. So therefore God has to teach us to pray, and we start in a very simple way by praying. Now there is a time to start to pray. Does anybody know the time? Now? Now. That's the only time that most of us haven't got. Sorry, I'm being facetious. We can afford to do anything tomorrow, but not today. We feel that we've got to build up to it. It's like coming to Christ. We feel we're never good enough. Of course we're not. We don't come because we're good enough. We feel we could put it off tomorrow and wait until we're good enough, or until we've tried everything else to see that we haven't left anything undone or left something that we haven't tried. Most of us. I'm speaking about myself as well. When I came to Christ, I went through all the excuses. I said to myself, Harry, wait. Wait til you're seventy and you've had a good run first, and then there's nothing left you can do, so you can give your life up then. Well, I tell you something. At the rate I was going, I'd never have made seventy. But coming to Christ is not easy. Coming to a decision is never easy. It's like coming to fasting. It's never easy. It's easy to fast when you're fasting, it's hard to start. And you can say, I'll start on Monday. And the moment the devil knows you've got two days to go, he's going to make sure all your relations arrive with turkeys. And that's why so many Christians chicken out of a fast. Sorry. Forget it. Don't encourage me, please. Paul said we're not ignorant of his devices. When Paul said in two Corinthians six two, now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. God's always ready to do everything now, but we're not praying conditions you to receive what God is willing to do now. Praying doesn't get God in a mood to do what he's already said he's willing to do. Praying doesn't do anything for God whatsoever, but he does something for you. He brings you to the place where you can receive what you've prayed. Praying is never complete until you've received the answer. If you are praying and praying and praying, why then have you not received the answer? Obviously you're not praying in faith because if you pray in faith, faith can receive. Now what your five senses cannot. Faith allows you to have what God says now by His Word. Now that is a prayer of faith. There is prevailing prayer. There's a fight through in against wicked spirits in high places. There is a tremendous battle that goes on. And you may suffer. You may sweat. You may cry. You may go through terrible things. And when you break all the way through there, you'll know that a battle has been won. There are wicked spirits in high places. And there they're not sitting looking at us. They're in action all the time. They're in action. But there's one important issue this morning that I think should be settled. There is a difference between Daniel praying and you praying. When Daniel prayed. There was so much opposition to his prayer. It was a real battle and eventually Heaven had to help him out. Now, can I say this today? There is one person that's gone all the way through death, hell, and all the way to glory. And that one person is Jesus Christ. And he said, if you ask anything in my name, why? Because all principalities and powers met him on the way, and they've all got a black eye. In other words, they couldn't stop him going all the way through to glory. And they won't stop the prayer that is prayed in the name of Jesus. How can they? Because that prayer has already made it by virtue of the fact that you're praying in the name of Jesus. Folks, there's nothing to stop you now. I mean the name. There may be something to stop you as a person and may have unbelief and doubt and fear. And a lot of people find that in praying, God deals with all these things. bring doesn't get you more faith, but it removes the obstacles to your faith. I believe that you can't pray for faith. Lord, give me faith. How can he give you any more than the measure of faith according to Romans twelve three? Then God's given you enough faith? Yes, but it's so cluttered up. How much of it are you using? Well, this is the point. I see some people are not agreeing with me. That's good. You're entitled not to agree with me. I found it works. Hallelujah! I have waited in the presence of God. And then after two days, I could pray the prayer. What happened? God had removed all the obstacles to my faith. Do you know what dies in the presence of God? Fear. One of the greatest barriers to faith, unbelief and doubt and a lot of other limitations. All these things die in the presence of God because you're not feeding them. What you feed grows and lives. Hallelujah and controls and influences and affects you. And when you're feeding your faith, it grows. Hallelujah. And when you begin to love God, love deals with fear. You don't have to deal with fear. What you get in the Lord, what you enjoy in the spirit, what you enjoy in his life, deals with all those things that are not of his life. Folks, we've got a wonderful way of getting delivered by getting blessed. Hallelujah! Are you still with me? Amen. You look like you are to Hallelujah. I want you to turn just quickly to Romans eight. In the King James Version. Go back to the inspired again for that simplified what I wanted to say. We are living in the end times. Therefore, men ought to pray. Now, when you come to pray. Here's the person, as I said, who is going to sort out your problems. Now and then I will go out on a limb to reach somebody's problem in prayer. When? Sorry, I got my finger on this. One day when I came to the Lord and asked God to heal me. This is many years ago. I was very sick. He didn't heal me. So then I went to my wife and asked her to pray for me. We assume because God doesn't answer our prayer that he's likely to answer somebody else's prayer. And when people come to me, I ask them, have you prayed? And they say, yes. Well, then I'll believe your prayer. Just wait on the Lord and find out what's wrong. The blockage. Put it back on them and let them find out. Or let God reveal to them what is wrong or otherwise. They're never going to learn to pray. You're proving your prayer life, and they're not proving their prayer life. So they've gone away with nothing. Answered prayer. Isn't everything, you know. It's receiving it directly from God, not from somebody else's ministry or somebody else's prayer life. In that sense, I believe it's necessary sometimes, but not every time. I can remember when I was a young Christian. I'll keep deviating. I can remember when I when I was a young Christian and I was only a month old, and I had a real problem, and I went along to my superior. I was in the Navy at the time and he was head of my department, but he was a lovely Christian and we were off watch. And I asked him about my problem, and he spoke to me for two hours, and then he had to go back and watch, and I could leave with the answer to my problem. And as I walked away, God said to me, you're very selfish. I said, why, Lord? Well, he just had two hours off to write to his wife. He was writing. And you took that two that two hours, and you got an answer from him when you could have come to me, and I could have given you the same answer. From that day, I have never been to a man unless God has led me to him. And that's the truth before God. I've never been to a person unless God has led me to the ministry. Otherwise, I am not learning to prove God for myself. It's so easy to say I can't. But you can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth you. And when I came to my wife and I said to her. She's here. She'll enjoy this. Darling, I almost called a darling when I want something. Will you pray for me? Now, I didn't want to. I didn't want her to ask any questions. It was hard enough to bend my prideful neck, to ask her to pray for me without her asking questions. And when she knows she's got me somewhere. Hmm. She lingers over it, you know. And as I begin to squirm, she said to me, haven't you prayed for yourself? I couldn't be nasty and say to her, I wouldn't be asking you to pray for me if I hadn't, you know. But I wasn't like that. I knew if I was nasty, I wouldn't get paid for it. A very ticklish situation when you're married. Many of you appreciate it. And I said, yes. I have prayed for myself. And then the next question was even more painful. And she said, And God hasn't answered your prayer. I said, no. Then she said, there must be something wrong with you. So I thanked her for her sympathy and went back into the closet to pray. Actually, I won't ask if I was talking to her and she said, are you looking for sympathy? I said, yes, you'll find it in the dictionary. You see, I couldn't say that to her alone, because. But all of you here, she's got to find Grace. And so I went alone, and I asked the Lord what was wrong. And he said, fast and pray. Now, I don't question God. I just do as I'm told. After, when it's all over, I'll ask him why. I've learned to do that. I don't go into the theology of it or the Scripture and say, well, now, is this right? Is this the best approach? Is this the way Paul would have done it or Jesus would have done it? I just do as I'm told. I've learned to do it because God has told me to do some ridiculous things which have turned out fantastic, displaying his wisdom. Ridiculous to my mind, but to my spirit. Oh hallelujah. God doesn't always appeal to your reason. When the Lord says to you, I want you to do this, you say, Lord, be reasonable. Anyway, I fasted and prayed and sometimes through that day my sickness left me And I was wonderfully healed. I came back to the Lord then and inquired of the Lord that I should learn. And please remember this. This is one of the most important things I'll maybe say this morning. If you've made a mistake, or you've gone through something that hasn't quite worked out the way it should do, go back and get everything out of that situation that you can. Let's say, Lord, teach me. Sit down at his feet and wait, and he'll show you every mistake you've made, and he'll show you his hand in it, what he meant by it and everything else. And don't make excuses and cover up for your lack of faith and say, God gave me this sickness to teach me a lesson. And everybody I meet who says that to me? I said, have you learned the lesson? They said, yes, and I said, why are you still sick? Hallelujah! That's true. A lot of people say things, and I don't think we should cover up for our lack of faith in any way or not a lack of faith, but a problem that is there. So you learn by that mistake. And it's really wonderful to learn by your mistakes. I can tell you when I preached about my mistakes, more people have learned by my mistakes, you know, than anything else, I believe. I mean, I can remember being in a meeting and I knew that God wanted to say something. And I got up and I made such a hash of it or a mess of it. And I sat down. I said, what God didn't want to say. So this other guy stood up and he said, now I believe God made a mistake here. He didn't. He didn't have a clue until then what was right till I said what was wrong. And he stood up and said, this is it. I thought, that's it. Praise God, and I'm the sort of person, when I feel something, I stick my neck out to see if I can get it. I do in the neck. Now this is what God told me. Could he just get on up there, please? I don't want to pray for the sick before. Thank you. That certainly got to the bottom of the matter, right? This, to me, is very simple. God said to me, I did not heal you because you earned your healing through fasting and praying. All that by fasting and praying. You got me into the condition or the mood to give you your healing. I healed you because by fasting and praying, you arrive to the place where you could believe that you had received it. So fasting and praying only brought me to the place to receive what I'd already got if I was in the place in the first place. Could have said that an easy way, I think an easy way. Well, now, this is a great help. A great help, because what God was trying to say was this. That my wife knew that I wasn't right with the Lord where I should be. Wasn't that cute? And so then she did not minister to me. And I think we should just check in our spirit first. That we are not taking something from a person by ministering to them, which they again, they'll have to learn later on taking an answer or preventing them learning in the situation. I have met people who I am close to and they're in a terrible plight. And God said, no, don't you dare interfere. But Lord, he said, don't you dare interfere. Otherwise they're going to they're going to have to go through this again. And I said, alright, Lord. And I've had to wait until God allows me to speak or to minister. I cannot interfere with God. And sometimes I've questioned God in prayer. I was asked to pray for a man who was in a very, very bad condition by a friend of mine and a friend of his, and I didn't feel I should really go. Today I check it out to see whether I should go or not, otherwise I'd be worn out running around praying for people who can't receive what I pray for, receive what I what I'm praying for or not in the condition. And it would take me a week to minister faith and get rid of their past and deliverance and everything else, till they could come to a place where they could receive the answer to that prayer. I didn't go to see this man, and my friend met me next day and he said, have you been to see him? And he was really concerned. And I said, no, and I felt really guilty. And then I said to the Lord, well, Lord, can I go? And he said, yes. Now God had to show me something here that was very important. He said, yes, you can go on one condition that you tell him that I've sent you. Right now, when I got to this man, he said, hello, Harry. I knew him for quite a while and I said, um, I heard you were very sick. And he said yes. And I said, I've come to pray for you. And he said, oh, that's all right. He said, I have prayed for myself. Oh. I said, no, no, no, you got me wrong. I said, look, God has sent me. He said, well, that's very nice, Harry, and I do appreciate the fact of you coming. But he said, I have prayed for myself, and it just didn't get through to him. And I couldn't understand why. He couldn't understand why all he had to do was check it out with heaven. That's what I. When a minister comes to me and say, God has sent me to put you right, I just check it with heaven. Did you send him, Lord? If he says no, I couldn't care less what he says. I'm not interested in his ministry of observation, of of observations. A lot of people can tell me what what? What's wrong? They can say after Milton was too much of Harry Greenwood. More than likely they're right. But I am decreasing. Not everywhere. Now, I insisted with this man, and I said. But doesn't it make any difference that God has sent me? And he said, well, um. Yes. Of course. Yes, sir. Yes, I appreciate that. But there's nothing really wrong with me now. You see, the doctor said I'm all right. And I reached out to the Lord to check it out. And he said he's got cancer. And I said, In England, you're not allowed to tell people that. And I said, you're a very sick man. And he looked at me and he said, well, I do thank you for coming anyway. Harry. So I could just pray with him and not for him. And I left, and I was grieved in my spirit. And yet I did not understand what God was trying to teach me. So when I met his friend the next day, he said to me, have you been to see him? I said, yes. And before I could think this is what came right into my head. I said, that man has got cancer, and I never knew it until God told me. And he has one month to live and one month to that day. That man died of cancer. And God couldn't, wouldn't send me, nor would he send anybody else. And God wanted to show me that that man had already rejected God himself. He wanted to show me then, no matter how much compassion and desire I had, when a man has rejected God, he's rejected me and my ministry and anything else like that. Now, this is so important for us to realize, because otherwise you're wasting your time going to people who will not receive your ministry. It's lovely to go to people because you love them, but there are people that are willing to be ministered to. If you're going to pray for somebody, find out first of all, if God has sent you. Otherwise, you're only going to see what you can do. But if God has sent you, you're going to do it. That's the whole the whole difference. Now, I don't know what took me off there, but I just have to believe it's the Holy Spirit in these meetings, in Romans eight verse twenty six, I keep coming back to what I want to say originally. Likewise, the spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. Hallelujah! But the Spirit himself forget thee itself, maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. The most important issue in prayer the will of God. Now, I don't know if any of you have experienced groanings in your spirit when God gave me a burden. And remember this God does not give everyone a burden, a God given burden. Is something to be treasured, but also something to be respected. Because you may go through fire yourself before you can arrive at a place of compassion and real desire and love, to pray for the people or the person that God has given you a burden for a burden is not answered until you have been set free from it through prayer. In other words, God does not burden you to bring you down, but he burdens you to bring you through in prayer so that he might answer, what is burdened you for. Now people get a burden for this country. Well, you haven't got a burden until you're praying. Absolutely true. People say I've got a burden for the unconverted. When did you last pray for them? When did you last speak? A burden is followed by travailing prayer action. By getting your own life corrected. And the longer you spend in the presence of God, the fire is going to burn up. What's wrong in your life as well? And prayer is so personal, and it's the only time when God deals with you personally in such an intimate way. That when he's purged you, you come out of that purging with a reverence and the fear of God that other people don't have. A man that prays has a fear of God and a real fear of God. I mean reverence, a reverence and respect of God and know of God. Look at the men of the Old Testament. Elijah. Like passion as we are. What's so fantastic about that man? He prayed. He said he prayed. No rain. Have you ever prayed? But it didn't rain. You see, we don't do things like this because we don't believe that God's going to do it. There is a place where you can pray and God can change the weather. Oh yes. I was in Phoenix and they asked me to pray when I was there that it would rain. It hadn't rained for such a long, long time. And I said no, I wouldn't pray until I left. Everywhere I go I said, it's raining. And I said, if you can just wait a few days extra. I said, before I leave, I'll pray. And this is the truth before God I've found a place, and I prayed and believed that God would send rain. They had no rain for months and months and months. Phoenix, Arizona. And when I left, it poured down and they put it in the paper. Not my prayer, but these facts. And the people of Phoenix sent me the cutting from the paper. And here was the here's what it said. The headlines. No scientific reason for rain. They could not find a reason anywhere. No scientific reason for rain. Now, does God have any problem with rain? Of course not. Hallelujah. Why? Because he's raining. Amen. If the Lord Jesus Christ you say to the winds and waves. Peace be still. There is a praying where you speak to the mountain. There's a praying where you command the devil. Where you come against, both in tongues and also in the knowledge of what you're praying and the understanding? There is a praying in the spirit that the church hasn't yet experienced. They prayed with the understanding, but the pray in tongues is not necessary to pray in the spirit. So many people think that if they gabble away in tongues that they're really praying. Praying is not with tongues, it's with the spirit first. And if you're not praying in the spirit, you're not really praying in tongues. A lot of people think that tongues in itself is something. It's only a vehicle to carry what you want to say in your Spirit to God. It's something to take what you want to say in your spirit, past your mind, but to let you know that you're saying it. The understanding is unfruitful. There is a realm of praying and groaning in the spirit, praying in other tongues that other people have never experienced before in this generation. God told me to pray one hour every day in tongues. Years ago I did this and I got down and I began to pray. And after half an hour, all I had was a dry throat. And then I hadn't even started to pray. Then I realized for the first time, I had to find a place of faith and release in my own spirit. So when I began to pray in the spirit, this oh, you should have heard it. The volume didn't just go up. That's not praying in the spirit. The louder you can shout. All of a sudden I was coming against something the power of God, and I felt so mighty in my spirit. If I had to face Goliath, I wouldn't have used a pebble. I'd have just blown him over. Now, that might comes from God, and how God feels about a situation is an entirely different. You can come knocking at the knees or knocking with your knees, whichever way you like to come. Paul came in weakness and fear and much trembling, but he ended up in God. And when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you are clothed with God's ability. Hallelujah! Your clothed with his might, and you feel what God feels in the situation, and that turns it all over. Boldness. Hallelujah! That's what they prayed for in acts chapter four. They didn't mess around praying for this, that, and the other. They prayed for what they needed, not what God had given them already. They didn't ask for more of it because you get more by giving it. You see people praying for power in the New Testament. They didn't pray for it. They were using it. When you're using something you're not praying for, they prayed for boldness. The weakness of the human being, the person, the individual, the individual person who is frightened and fearful. And so when God called men, he didn't call him because they were big, brave and strong. Man always wants a man to be there, to represent him as being big, strong and able. We want intellectuals to represent the church to the world. Well we don't. We want men of God who are filled with the Holy Ghost, who can do nothing in the natural and everything in the spiritual and all. Hallelujah! God expects you to do all you can, and he'll do all you can. Hallelujah! When you come to the end of yourself, you haven't come to the end of your God. Aren't you so glad? Aren't you so glad? God is not dependent on your ability? Hallelujah! Aren't you so glad? Come on, somebody say Amen or I'll pray for you. Lord, aren't you so glad? Oh, Hallelujah! And God, when he approaches, oh, when he approaches the people that he calls, I just love it. Oh, hallelujah. None of them volunteer. Either they run away and have a whale of a time. Or they're hiding away underneath the table somewhere from the Mennonites or something like that. How does God address those great men of faith and power? God addresses them as he sees what he's able to do with them. Hallelujah! Oh, I'm so thrilled. This morning he said to Gideon, the Lord is with thee. The angel said, thou mighty man of valor. Scared of the enemy, hiding away, fearful, frightened to death. That's the person God's looking for. All you've got in the natural is not going to stop God using all that he's got in the spiritual. He didn't call you because of what you can do. He's called you because of what he can do. Folks. Prayer. Prayer changes people. Praying changes you. Prayer changes things, but praying changes you and God expects you to answer his call. Not because you're able, but because he is. Now, if you want to see something really ridiculous, here is a man that thought he had it all. I'm cutting the scriptures down, in other words, so that I got the bare necessity and my interpretation, which is quite unique. You must admit, here we have, um, Moses down in Egypt, being prepared by God. No, being prepared by the Egyptians. In one sense, he had all that ability, all that wisdom and all that might. This was a man that was quite able to do something, but he had also a desire in his heart to help his people. There was a desire there to serve God. And there's nothing wrong with that desire to serve God. It's when you try to serve God in the flesh, when you try to bring the calling of God in the spirit to pass by the flesh. When you ask God to use you only in the realm of your ability. What you can do so that you get the credit and you can always do it. Now, what God is asking the church to do is what they can do. So they can't do it without him. Hallelujah. And so that's God is moving. We're not. Unless God is speaking. We have nothing to say. Isn't it a lovely day? He's stripping us that he might clothe us with all of heaven. Hallelujah! Giving us his ability. Well, old Moses, you're only forty years of age. How do you feel? I'm going to show these guys. I'm going to deliver them. I'm just going to show them what I've got. I am well equipped. Well able to do so. Let me give him a little demonstration. First of all, here's a taste of what I can do. And he smites the Egyptian. Fine job. Wonderful. And now what happens? He's on the run. Why aren't you going to come back and fight? No, he's on the run now. He realized that in his the the strength of his arm, he was never going to deliver Israel. So God sent him to Bible school For forty years. Forty years. And, um, I don't think it was. It was Egypt. Yes. Right now, you know quite a lot about sheep over here. And I won't try to pull the wool over your eyes. But do you know what it's like to be in the wilderness with sheep for forty years? I'm not suggesting that you look like a sheep when you come out, but you must act like one and smell like one and even dress like one. They don't make suits in the wilderness, and they don't have any laundry there. And you don't end up shaving or anything else like that. You end up dirty, dirty and scraggly, looking like a complete wreck. In other words, you're just a plain scarecrow. As a matter of fact, you might be even better than one. And when God called Moses, he looked like nothing on earth. He looked the last man for the job because he was going to send him down to sophisticated Egypt. Egypt that knew everything, cultured Egypt, Egypt. What a fine land, mighty warriors and everything else. And here he picks Moses, who is now complaining that he's not able to do what God wants him to do. Ha ha ha! Glory be to God. And God's called the church today to do the same thing. He's called us the weak things and the foolish things. And Nehemiah said, what did he say? Nehemiah chapter four. Will these Jews, these feeble Jews that not Nehemiah was writing? Sorry, but the people round about those people that had everything they say, Will these feeble Jews build? Will they do something that they are? They're going to build the church. What a laugh. Look at them. You know, my God is behind every week, Christian. And when anybody comes against a weak Christian, they face God's strength. Folks, if God be for you, it's ridiculous even to consider who could be against you. Here we have dear old Moses and Aaron, two scarecrows going down to Egypt to deliver not a mighty army equipped, trained in the wilderness. Not on your life. No, no. Moses was trained in the wilderness to bring the children of Israel through the wilderness. Hallelujah! Now we've got them, and we're commissioned them. Send them down now! Who sent you? Moses. Oh, I bet this will knock them over. Who sent you? I am sent me that I am, I am sent me. Mm. Wonderful. We understand perfectly what you mean. And everything else. And what special weapon have you got that's really going to frighten the life out of me? Well, it's this stuff that I've got. Uh, it's a secret weapon for. Oh, Moses. Moses can hardly speak. And these two, I mean, they must have had a good old laugh in Egypt. But God delivered by the hand of Moses and Aaron, the children of Israel from Egypt. I praise God for his wonderful love and mercy, for his wisdom which I bow to because he's called this generation to face a day that nobody else has ever seen. A day I'll tell you something. We are facing the end of the earth. We are coming to the end of the world in this sense, the end of of this time, I believe. And we're very close to the Lord's coming. Now, what's God going to do? Allow us to limp away to glory, excusing ourselves for being here. I'll tell you, the glory of God is not going to come until this world has seen it first through the church. The Lord's not going to come until he's been seen first in the church. And what is God doing then? He's getting his people together in the time of refreshing, in a lull in the storm, in a time where we're not in limbo, but a time where we're in between, in transit, if you like. Now is the time to pray. You may not get a chance later on. Now is the time to read your Bible and to study, and let God prepare you for the days that are to come. Now is the time to go through those things that God wants you to go through. Now is the time to begin to understand the mind of God, and to learn to be led and walk in the spirit. Most people think that they don't need God because everything is alright. It's not alright folks. It's all wrong. The whole church at the moment has to go back to scratch, because my prayer life completely changed when I was baptized in the Holy Ghost. God began to teach me how to pray. He said, first you must feel what you pray. Next, you must believe what you pray. And third, you must receive what you pray. Write it down and remember it. This is a day of praying and fasting. This is a day of praying and fasting. Have you ever prayed and fasted? Now this is a point. Many Christians are looking for something from God, and it's only maybe a day or two days of fasting and praying away. Many are waiting. Come into a ministry of God. Maybe fourteen days or seven days of fasting and praying away. Most people are waiting for God to give them something. And they're not prepared to receive it. God is preparing a people to receive things. God doesn't give weapons to children. They'll destroy themselves. He doesn't give power to immature, immature Christians. He doesn't give authority to immature Christians and to children who are tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. God is maturing the church by the things that he's asking them to do today. God wants you completely dependent on him. He wants you to live by faith and not by feeling. Evening. Praise God we've left the realm behind. Of now, Lord, we come into thy presence. Anybody praise that? Just ask them where they've been all day. Lord, we come into thy presence. You're in his presence and we practice the presence of God. I'm not looking for God now. I've found him. Hallelujah! And God is so gracious. He taught me this year so many wonderful things. And I love the Lord when he speaks to me personally. He only gives me what I need of himself. Nothing more and nothing less. He doesn't give me any extra unless I've used, as we heard last night from the Lord, unless I've used what I've got. And a lot of people are looking for more faith, and they've done nothing with the faith that they've got. They want more power, and they're doing nothing with the power that they've got. And God showed me that as you are moving in faith, you're moving from faith to faith. As you're moving in the spirit, you're moving from power to power and from glory to glory. This is the day when the church should be moving and the moment you start moving, God gives direction. You start moving on your knees. When God starts to move in your life, he starts to move through your life for what he has to say to you. He has to say to everyone, not maybe in the same personal way, but basically in the same, uh, whatever, in the same thing, whatever he's done for you. Now, I can speak a lot about prayer, but I feel that in particular this time and this, this conference, God is going to speak to people this morning, and those people are going to reach out in faith and believe from this day that God will teach them how to pray. Now, I believe you've got to start now. Don't start setting a time Lord. I'll give you five hours. And then after one week, you're coming and asking for prayer. Because you're condemned. Because you let God down. Because you can't give him five hours. Let God determine determined the time. Let God lead you that God direct you. Now I want to be practical for a few more minutes. Most people don't know how to wait on the Lord. I'm going to ask this question, and I want you to be very honest with me. Hands up those who know how to wait on the Lord. Alright, put it this way. Hands up! Those who don't know how to wait on the Lord. Really don't know how to wait on the Lord. Would you raise your hands, please? Thank you. Now I've in this little message. I've maybe been preaching a little more than I've been teaching. But I have to provoke you to come out and see your responsibility. Responsibility? To begin praying. Not that beautiful prayer. The ten minutes in the morning. Bless mom and dad, Auntie and myself, us four and no more, you know. And that's what something I'm not talking about. The bless me prayer. I'm talking about the prayer that God gives you faith for God only gives you faith of prayer that you can receive the answer to write it down. God only gives your faith a prayer that you can receive the answer to. Now, can I explain that I must be very careful here? When I was in Fiji last, um, a member of government met us and, uh, an Anglican minister, and this member of Parliament led us into the meeting, a meeting of Fijians and also Indians. And I was very conscious that I was not aware of their background and many other things. And a lot of people studied the background of the country that they go to and the culture and so forth, and this maybe puts them at an advantage quite often. I haven't got a clue what's going on, or I haven't got the time to study as I did when I went to Japan. All God did was bless there and do it. In spite of the fact that I didn't understand their culture. Apparently the Lord knew all about them. Therefore, give me a message that reached them directly. So I trust the Lord that while I do the preaching, he's doing the explaining. Amen. Now I went there, and the person that went with me was very concerned because I had decided to pray for the government. You got to be very careful when you pray for the government of a country, especially when you have a member of government present or the press, they'd love to quote you and the preacher prayed, send fire down from hell or heaven, wherever it is you know. And by the time they finish quoting you, you can't get back to that country again or something like that. So you've got to be very careful. The devil will take what you say unless it's directly from the Lord, and then he can't gain faith. Now, this was the trouble. There was an airstrike on and I stopped off to minister at Fiji. We had enough fuel to get there and that was it. Plane couldn't get back, I believe. Now, how was I going to leave Fiji? If I'd known Fiji was so wonderful, I wouldn't have prayed to leave it. No, no. Now, how was I going to leave it? So I decided to pray for the government in the first meeting. Now, be very careful when you pray in public for a person or something else. And I reached out for a prayer. And this is the prayer that God gave me. Pray for the person to be removed who is causing the strike not to be settled. Now the strike was so big, now it was affecting everybody. So I prayed that God would remove the person. And I finished my prayer and prayed something else and that was it. Now I believe that the prayer was given to me by God. Therefore, I receive the answer. So I no longer had a problem with the strike. You understand what I mean? You can't have a problem after praying. If God's got a problem, you must have an answer. God hasn't got the problem until you've got the answer. Is that helping somebody? This is most important. The next day, there was headlines. Prime Minister has a dream. And in this dream, he was told to go away for three days. And the first day he was away, the strike was settled. That's the truth. I got home on time. Isn't it wonderful? Praise the Lord. I'm only just one person. But you want to see the size of my God. Hallelujah. It's the same thing. The same thing? When the ticket office say I'm sorry, we're booked up and there's no possible hope. I knew I should have. I should be in New Zealand at that time. And so what did I do? I took no notice whatsoever and went to the ticket office. I prayed first of all, and thanked the Lord for my ticket and everything and asked him to arrange it because obviously the airlines couldn't arrange it for me. And when I went there, I just booked in as if everything was all right. Just said, here's and I'll ask. And they said, oh, we do just have one seat vacant. Little do they know who's really running the airlines. Hallelujah. Prayer. Folks, we haven't learned to pray yet. I believe in the will of God as God intends. But he is teaching us to do this now. To wait on the Lord. This is the place where God brings you by waiting on the Lord to that place where you can receive the prayer and the answer. I. Most of you know the story, but my wife and I had been waiting for a house for a year, and my wife said to the Lord, we're not looking for one. We're not going around all the places looking for one. But, Lord, we want you to bring the house to us. And then God told me just before Christmas to fast and pray. And then in the middle of my fasting and praying, God said, you can have your house. I took it and thanked him. It took me two days to arrive at the place where God could speak to me directly about receiving something, and I thanked him. Say, for instance, you decided well, in these meetings, while these meetings were going on to fast and pray, then God would bring you to the place where you could receive what is being ministered. You'd receive it right in your seat. You'd be healed. One person in particular could be healed. And I believe that cataract on your left eye could wither up and die. He just sought the Lord for it. I believe you can lose your cancer. I beat in a meeting when the cancer has come off the body of the person. Yeah. And you want to hear something that that just. Oh, I tell you, I could keep you here all day. The wonderful things that are happening, the receiving of the people, receiving what God says. Because today they are praying and finding themselves in a position where they had never realized they were before. How do you know where you are? You might be just in that place where God wants you to receive. Right, I started off. Or when you wait on the Lord, you start off first of all by being practical. Now you know the sort of person you are. Put a telephone in the house and you'll answer it. Go to a place where there isn't one, where the outside world is. You're going to fast and pray for a week, or you're going to wait on God, and you're going to wait in his presence, and you're just going to wait on the Lord. Go to a place or find a place. Ask God, and he'll give you a place where you can be alone. And first also find out how long God wants you to be there. That's important. when he wants you to start, because he has to fix up a whole lot of things so that they don't interfere. You're fasting and praying, and being alone with God doesn't interfere with all the things that are going on round about you. God has a divine order for things, and if you ask him, he'll tell you when to start. Next, only bring the Bible with you. Don't bring anything else, just the Bible with you. Now this is not. This is how God deals with me. It may be different with you. Now, the next thing is, you've got to bring all your thoughts into that one room that you're in. That's nearly impossible. Bring all your thoughts into subjection. It may take your whole day to do so until you're living in that room, in the presence of God, so that you're not thinking outside of that room. You're not working things out, anticipating things or anything else like that. You're in that room and you're in that place with God. Now you rest in the Lord, not wrestle. Rest now as you begin to rest on the Lord, let the Lord condition you. Let him deal with you gently. Let him draw you out as you begin to pray, and as you begin to praise and love him, and then rest again in the Lord, when he will stop praying, and then let him bring you to His Word. And again, as you read, don't read till you're bored to tears. When again, when you come to the place when God has stopped speaking to you or it's touching you, what you're reading, leave it. Go until that time lengthens as you are conditioned to it, because many people just cannot get down and pray for an hour straight off. If they're not used to it, it's nearly impossible for them. They're fidgeting. They want to do this. They want to get up. They want to think, I'll turn the tap on and see if the water is still running. They want to do anything, any distraction. You just name it and you'll get it and all the rest. And the devil knows that now he is conditioning your spirit to receive directly from him. Life. And all of a sudden you are finding yourself being drawn out to him. Drawn out to him. Now you've lost your fear at this realm, and all of a sudden you're rejoicing deepens and your praise deepens and your love deepens. And now you have a real desire to pray. And then as you pray, you go right through again to glory. And then God starts to speak to you about your personal life. Now, in this place, he can operate because the patient's patient is in a condition to be operated on. And this is what begins to happen. Then God begins to touch things in your life and begins to ask you to put them right. And you're in the place of grace and love where you want to and you can. And then all of a sudden, out of that, putting them right, you become, you come back into praise again and into worship. And I'll tell you something, if you go on, you'll go on to glory. Hallelujah. And if you've got somebody to stone you like Paul had. That'll help you a great deal in the flesh to be free in the spirit. I can tell you now. And you come to a point when you can. That's as far as you can come at this particular time. And then you come to the end of your fast and you're praying now you can lose it all as you come out. You must be so careful you have not arrived at a spiritual status where I have fasted and prayed for two days. I am holy, don't you touch me. If you enter into pride because of what you have done and go around boasting about it, you'll lose everything in one second that it's taken you two days to gain. You'll quench and grieve the Holy Spirit. God resists the proud. Folks, this is a very delicate matter. Relationship and fellowship are the most delicate, the most personal, The most intimate. You cannot be as intimate with any person as you can be intimate with God. And then I'll tell you something. And this is the most precious thing. God will begin to reveal himself to you in this time. He'll open his heart up and reveal how he feels about people and about things. You'll see maybe visions that will fade as you come out of that realm of the spirit. And later on it goes. When you come back into it again, you'll see it again. But a lot of people have got a vision on their knees before God. A lot of people have got the whole family saved after three days of fasting and praying, because they could come against the enemy. They saw exactly what was wrong with their wife, the obstacle, and they could pray against it and deal with it. There is a spiritual insight. I could hear everything that God said. God spoke to me and minister to me directly from mouth to mouth. God spoke to me face to face in this way that when he spoke to me, everything inside of me received it and saw it as being God, giving himself, not words that were isolated from himself, but giving himself. And I'll tell you, I was fearful in the presence of God. I know what it is to be in the presence of God, where I've been really fearful in this sense, I've been fearful to speak. I've been in a in a meeting where the ministers could not stand. They were all kneeling. There wasn't a person that could stand in the presence of God. I've been in a prayer meeting where the whole meeting's been on the back, knocked out by the power of God. I've seen some wonderful things, but the most precious thing that I've ever experienced is God revealing himself. Folks. It's fantastic. It'll change your whole outlook. The Word of God becomes so powerful to you because you know the person that is speaking. And this morning, I believe God wants to change your life. And the only place he can do it is on your knees. I had a time of intercession in my life when God called me to prayer. It was about an eighteen month period where he called me to the ministry of prophet, where I had a word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord. And that's where my word of knowledge developed, because I knew who was even coming to the door. I knew people, I knew things that God revealed. And God doesn't reveal things for me just to be a nosy parker. I only want to know things from God whereby I can minister to the person on the knowledge that he gives me. I don't want to know anything private about people yet. I can find it out. I was in a house, staying in a house and I went to this. Actually, I went to a convention with a brother. It was an old Roberts convention in Wales And I'm finished in two minutes. He went to, I went to Noel Roberts convention in Wales and I was invited with other ministers and we had a wonderful, blessed time. But my friend said to me, this ministry, he said, Harry, where are you going to stay? The place has been booked up for a year ahead. I said, not alone. Will I have a place to stay? But I'll be having sausages for breakfast. Now God even talks to me like that. I mean, I've asked the Lord for a supper that I really liked when I was going to visit this place. I just fancied something. Especially, you know, I've been working hard all day and I think said to the Lord, Lord, you think you could really speak to these people and give them the menu? And I've got what I've asked for people. It's absolutely true. It's absolutely true. And people say to me, but that's ridiculous, Harry, you mean. I mean, you know, God spoils you. Of course he does. I expect him to. Do you know what happened? We. I went to drop this man off at the place where he was staying, and I carried his cases upstairs. And the lady said the landlady. She said, what about your friend? Has he got a place to stay? And this other minister said, no, he hasn't got a place to stay. Well, she said, if you don't mind, she said, I can put another bed in your room. He said, no, I don't mind. So I got myself a room. Hallelujah. And we were having breakfast together. And as I was cutting my sausages. I said to my friend, sausages for breakfast, you know. And God covers the details. You know what I mean? Now, this is the point. While I was in that house, there was a tremendous evil influence, a spirit. There was something there that so affected me that I waited when everybody had gone to bed until two o'clock in the morning, and I fought for two till two o'clock in the morning to find out what it was, and I couldn't. And the next night I did the same thing, and God spoke directly to me, and he said, that man's wife hates him. Hates him to such an extent she's only waiting for him to die. And I had now got the knowledge that I didn't want. Now I had to go and tell her. So I faced her and I said, excuse me, but, um, you hate your husband, and I use another term. You know, a very strong term to the stomach. I said, you hate your husband's stomach. And, um. And she's a sort of crude woman. And I had to give it to her straight. And I said, you're just waiting for him to die. And that woman sat back, shocked in her chair. And when I finished, I got the story. She was a Salvation Army captain and married a man who was an unbeliever, and found out that marriage wasn't what she was really looking for, and then turned around and began to hate her husband. And do you know what God did in that home? Healed our husband, saved him, and brought him back together. Grace actually delivered that woman from hatred and the power of the spirit, from that spirit that was tormenting her. As a result of opening herself up to hatred, you open yourself up to despise a person, to criticize a person, and to hate a person. You open yourself up to evil spirits tell you now, even as a Christian, you expose yourself to evil, evil spirits. And so I'd like to finish this little, quite short Bible study off with the fact that I didn't want to preach on prayer, but God told me to do so because he wants you this morning as he speaks to you to respond and commit yourself The prayer. Lord, teach me to pray. That's all. I'm not asking for anybody to volunteer for four hours a day or anything. I just, Lord, teach me to pray. Now some of you are already in the process. God is teaching you. It's not you that I'm talking to. It's the people here that have never started. God's not reaching all the spiritual people here all the time. By the way, he's reaching the people that haven't even started. Praise God. He's talking to us collectively. But there's a place when the church prays, when they can pray for nations. And we'll hear it later on. Um, sometime, maybe a little more about that. But I wanted just to deal with the individual where praying changes you. Prayer changes things and people. Now, I want you all just to close your eyes, please. I really haven't touched prayer this morning in any great depth, but I believe that God has spoken to many people. Now, I know when God speaks to people. First of all, I believe the message that I have given. Second, I believe that there were people there to receive it. And I want you to be very careful now because you enter a journey now. That may cause you to face up to things that you don't want to face up to. I want you to count the cost this morning. Praying means that God will deal with you as a person to bring you to the place where you can really pray. When you know what deliverance is, you can pray for others. You can enter into the fellowship of his sufferings. When you've gone through things that God wants you to be delivered from.