in prayer until God's answer is known.
In Daniel's case it was a matter of three weeks.
Sometimes prayers go much longer than that.
Why? Only God knows.
I've told you before the story of
a wonderful lady who had a powerful influence in my life as a teenager.
When I was in high school she was
in her eighties.
To look at her face was to look at a road map.
It was just worn and wrinkled with years of experience.
And dear Mrs. Wills
shared with me on one occasion how she had prayed for her husband George.
When they had first been married she became a Christian.
George had very little use for her religion.
In fact if he caught her praying or reading the Bible he was
very severe with her. So she always calculated when he would be out of the
field and that's the time that she would pray.
She knew that he would always be out in the field
between 10 and 12 in the morning.
So that was her time. Sometime in there she would
spend her time with the Lord. And of course one of her major prayer requests
was that George
would be saved. And she prayed for that
as a young wife. And she prayed for him for a year and she prayed for him for
five years.
And she prayed for him for 20 years.
And she prayed for him for 30 years.
And it was not until she had prayed for him to be saved for over 50
years that one day
sometime between 10 and 12 in the morning he was out riding his tractor in the
field. He was a farmer.
And he was so overcome with conviction of his sins
out there in the field that he turned his tractor off, got down in the dirt
beside his tractor and received Christ as a Savior.
Isn't that a marvelous illustration
of persistence in prayer? Important praying it's called. Ian Bounds
has these statements regarding importunate or persistent praying.
Importunate praying never faints nor grows weary.
It is never discouraged. It never yields to cowardice
but is buoyed up and sustained by a hope that knows no despair.
A faith that will not let go.
Importunate praying has patience to wait and strength to continue.
It never prepares itself to quit praying and declines to rise from its knees
till an answer is received. Well that is the Spirit
that Daniel exhibits as he prays for these three weeks for an answer
and enters into that conflict in the spirit realm.
We are instructed by the Apostle Paul in the sixth chapter, the eighteenth verse
of Ephesians to keep on praying
in the Spirit with all prayer
and supplication for all saints for to keep on praying.
And so the next step you see in this cycle
is that the believer persists until God's answer is known.
That brings us to step number six
in the cycle of prayer and that is the believer experiences new strength and
victory
as a result of answered prayer. You see seeing God
divinely arrange answers to prayer
is a great faith builder. It is such an encouragement
to persist in prayer and then to see how God is answered. Maybe not the way that we
ask but God has answered in perhaps another way.
Prevailing in spiritual conflict
brings fresh strength to us. Peter talks about this in the last
chapter of his first epistle when he says in first Peter five
be of sober spirit beyond the alert your adversary the devil prowls about like a
roaring lion seeking someone to devour
but resist him firm in your faith
and then he says in verse 10 after you have suffered for a little while
the God of all grace who calls you to his eternal glory in Christ
will himself perfect confirm strengthen and establish you.
You see the end result is our being built up our being strengthened our being
established
and praying and persisting in prayer
is part of that. For when we pray we are entering into the spirit realm and
we're doing combat there and we are asking God to bring the victory we're
asking God to meet the need
and when we see God respond we are after we've suffered for a while we are built
up
with new strength and we are encouraged by that victory.
Then the final step in the cycle of prayer
is that the battle continues. Daniel was encouraged he was strengthened by the
answer that he got
from the angel and then he was
told that the war was going on. The angel was going back to continue battling
the Prince of Persia and eventually he would also be involved in battling
against the Prince
of Greece. The battle continues
which gives us as believers cause to then pray
yet again and petition God and so the cycle goes on
and that cycle will go on just as
warfare spiritual warfare will go on from generation to generation until God's
purposes are fully revealed. SD Gordon has said the greatest
agency put into man's hands is prayer and to define prayer
one must use the language of war. Peace language is not equal to the situation
the earth is in a state of war and is being hotly besieged
thus one must use war talk to grasp the fact with which
prayer is concerned. I'd like for us tonight
to conclude the service with the time of prayer.
We're going to do that by allowing
you to pray just privately where you are for a couple minutes
and I want to ask you to let God lay some
person, some need, some missionary
on your heart and for you to begin a cycle of prayer
and offer your petition to God and then
see that God, no rather that God hears
and that God is going to respond by dispatching angels
which is going to cause Satan to counter then there's warfare and you persist in
praying
the answer comes and you're encouraged and built up and the
the battle goes on. So who would it be? Who would you pray for tonight?
Maybe it'll be the Schwab family we mentioned earlier
some missionary friend that you know has a particular need at this time. We got a
letter from the Tomaszewskis
this last week as perhaps many of you did. They've been passing through very
discouraging times
there in South Africa. Maybe it's a friend of yours
or a family you know that has a particular need. Maybe there's
a George in your life you've been praying for for many years to be saved
I want us to do that but before we do I recognize that there may be someone here
tonight who's saying
pastor I am so heavy myself I'm under such pressure myself
that I can't pray. You know God knows that
and I thank God for the Holy Spirit that even when we
find ourselves too weak to pray that the Spirit of God is able to pray
through us as we are obedient and bow before the Lord.
But this evening if you're in a situation where
where you just feel too burdened yourself
with your own battle to pray I'm going to ask the elders who are here tonight to
come up here to the front row
and I encourage you just to slip out while everyone else is praying just to slip out
and come up and be seated by them
and let one of the elders of the church pray for you. Let them carry with you
that burden. Now we don't have time for counseling session
that's not why you're coming but you're coming to ask prayer and just in a brief
sentence or two express
what the burden is on your heart and not one of our elders one of our pastors
pastors who you come up to
and if no one comes that's fine but if several come that's fine too.
If you can't pray tonight because of your own burden let someone pray for you
will you? We'll close in a few seconds few minutes
but let's bow right now in prayer I'm going to ask you
men to slip out and come quickly here to the front and
if there are some of you who would like an elder to pray for you tonight
for your family for your burden
then slip out and let them pray for you. Come on up.
As the rest of us zero in on prayer
for that issue or that person that missionary
that we want to remember tonight. Let's all pray together.
We need more information about prayer so much as we need a stirring of the Spirit of God to pray.
Father I pray for our church that you would forgive us of the sin of prayerlessness
as it exists among us for it testifies all too loudly of our self-sufficiency
so we think.
We humble ourselves and ask that the Holy Spirit
would renew within us as a congregation
the sense of dependency upon you
that would issue forth in prayer.
Pour upon us the Spirit of prayer and supplication
and may today's study Father
in your word both this morning and this evening
be instructive and stimulating
to that end that we might pray more effectively, we might pray better
pray with more faith and more understanding of what's really taking place
when we pray. May we be faithful believer priests
who utilize the position, the access that we have
and who in the power of the Holy Spirit
bring our petitions to you.
You have heard us tonight as across the auditorium we have lifted our
heart burdens, those things laid upon us
by the Spirit to pray for. We thank you even now that you are responding
in Jesus name, Amen.