Praise Awaiteth You
January 02, 2000
I want to look at some scripture this morning that I hope will help us to all work on our faith and the answering of our prayers.
I hope that this sermon will help us to enlarge and to strengthen our faith, thereby allowing us to not only expect but to see greater works from our prayers.
Let Us Pray!
Heavenly Father, we want to acknowledge your greatness to the best of our ability.
We want to thank you for your faithfulness unto us to this very moment.
We realize Lord God that we would have fallen we would have failed.
My God we would have certainly come short of the glory of God was it not for the grace and strength that You give us.
And now Lord we recognize this morning that we can do nothing Lord we couldn’t rest on any past blessing any past knowledge any past anointing we need you right now.
My God you are looking upon this audience, we don’t know one hearts need but You know every need and not only the needs here but you hear the cries of the lost ones around over this community.
You hear the cries of the ones that are sick of formal religion and seeking for the truth, MY God, My God so we stand in the midst’s of all of it this morning and lift our voice unto Thee and ask in Jesus Name Thou will be pleased to breath upon us this morning.
Lord lift us out of ourselves, carry us away as it were in the Spirit that we will be able Lord to see Heavenly things, we will be able our soul will be blessed by heavenly Spirit.
Lord our Faith will be inspired to take hold boldly take hold of greater things for Thee and Lord we know that Thou has promised as our Faith is, so it will be unto us.
So Lord God help us this morning move upon us school us, teach us strengthen us bless us my God lead us direct us and use us to Thy Glory and we will give You the Praise for it,
We ask it in Jesus Name
Aman
Now let’s turn this morning to the 65th Psalm and read the whole
Psalm 65. we want to study here a little bit about God and how He wants us to look at Him this morning.
Psalm 65:1-13
27 Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion: and unto thee shall the vow be performed.
28 O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.
29 Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away.
30 Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple.
5 By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation; who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea:
27 Which by his strength setteth fast the mountains; being girded with power:
28 Which stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people.
29 They also that dwell in the uttermost parts are afraid at thy tokens: thou makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice.
30 Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it.
31 Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly: thou settlest the furrows thereof: thou makest it soft with showers: thou blessest the springing thereof.
32 Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness.
33 They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness: and the little hills rejoice on every side.
13 The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing.
I want you to notice verse 1 and verse 2 for a little bit and then we will go deeper into the Psalm but in the 1st verse the Psalmist said,
Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion: and unto thee shall the vow be performed.
We all recognize this morning that Praise is due to God from all man kind, but the Psalmist said,
Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion: and unto thee shall the vow be performed.
O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.
I want you to notice in verse one, as we begin to go a little bit into God’s word, that when He said that Praise awaits for thee in Sion.
First lets look at the people that He is setting
before us this morning, that are certainly caught up on their Praise.
And He said that Praise is waiting for thee.
In other words waiting in expectation for the mercy desired Praise waitheth for thee and unto to thee will all flesh come O thou that hearest prayer.
God’s attribute’s, and character’s are revealed in the many titles given Him in the scripture.
God bears many different names through out the scripture and if we look Hebrew at the second verse, we find another one of God’s names.
And everywhere that God bears a name He is given that name because of an attribute or a part of His character, that’s revealed thru that name.
And here He is called O thou that hearest prayer!
One of the names given God in the scripture that bears out one of the great attribute’s of God.
Over in Hebrews the 11th chapter and the 6th verse there’s a scripture there that goes right along with this.
Paul writing in the Hebrews, Hebrews 11:6, I want you to see and read it in the light of the context of the 65th Psalm this morning.
I want you to catch this title of God, O thou that hearest prayer.
Hebrews 11:6
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
This verse of scripture let’s us see how jealous God is.
Now I want you to notice that with out Faith it is impossible to please Him!
The truth begins to shine forth to us this morning, of how jealous God is of His reputation, for hearing and answering prayer.
For some reason it has come to me and been a burden to me to deal with this thought, but many people to day are in an inner conflict with this thing about faith.
It seems like there are so many failures for the mind of man to look on and be affected by.
That we have come to a place that people have a struggle to just get it nailed down that God HEARS and ANSWERS PRAYER!
And I want to say this morning right in the beginning that God is jealous about His reputation.
Both of these scriptures let’s us know that with out FAITH it is impossible to please Him!
And when we come to Him we must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those that diligently seeks Him.
Now all of those words are hard for people to understand sometimes, but Hebrews 11:6 just means this,
I’ll put it right down in plain country language.
Faith merely means this.
(I believe that there is a God and that He hears and answers prayer )
Hebrews 11 and 6 said that we must believe that God is and that He is a rewarder of everyone that seeks Him.
Putting it in plain language I must believe that God Is and that He hears and answers prayer.
Without that, you can’t please Him!
Now I am not going to widen out and go into a lot of detail that people are doing today to try to please God,
But friend if you don’t believe that He hears and answers prayer you can’t please Him!
God is very jealous about His reputation of hearing and answering prayer.
And just as He inspired the Psalmists to tend these words in the 65th Psalm, and I am directing your mind back there now, because we just want to look at some simple thoughts that shine forth there that should help our Faith.
See, when we begin to realize that faith simply means, that I believe there’s a God and He hears and answers prayer.
God is jealous about that.
So jealous that you can’t please Him if you don’t practice that and believe that.
See to limit God in His willingness to hear and answer prayer are those wholeheartedly seek Him is unbelief in the very nature of God.
Maybe I should repeat that again.
To limit God in His willingness to hear and answer prayer of those who wholeheartedly seek Him is unbelief of the very nature of God.
I want to lay this truth down this morning that it is the very nature of God,
too many people think that God is someone that you have to appease, and satisfy, and beg, to the place that you get Him to answer prayer.
But I’ll prove to you that it is the very nature of God, it’s a part of His being, it’s the very character of God to hear and answer prayer.
So you are not getting God to do some special thing!
It is Gods very nature, and when we fail to believe that He hears and answers prayer, were trying to limit God just as sure as we are here through unbelief it is working and we are taking unbelief in the very nature of God and in what He can do.
We go back to the Psalm and the Psalmist will teach us that.
You will notice all through the Psalm as I read it hurriedly that he lets us know and we will looking at some other Psalms here in a moment, all nature speaks of a benevolent God, a loving God.
A God that’s ready to supply our needs.
The God that made us, loves us and wants to supply all of our needs.
I know that you have heard that!
That truth is so well worn but friend it needs to be brought across and run across our mind again that God the God that made us my friend loves us and He wants to supply all of our needs!
Now let’s look again at the 2nd verse
O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.
We need to understand that the word ALL means that all of God’s creatures come to Him.
I want to show you this morning that our plan of going to God to get our needs supplied,
Is the same plan that the horses have, the cows have, the birds have, now again what did the Psalmist say
O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.
Everything that you have created looks to You to have all of
their needs met, why shouldn’t we go along with the animals and get our help?
Come on now we are going to find out why we don’t but I am asking right now why shouldn’t we?
And look again at what it says in the 5th verse
O God of our salvation; who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea:
You never saw a fish that didn’t have perfect confidence in God!
You never saw a bird that didn’t have perfect confidence in God!
None of the animals have trouble trusting and believing in God!
It’s just people!
He gave us reasoning power that the animal doesn’t have, and that is where our battle lies.
Aman, it’s just that simple!
God’s the confidence of all the earth!
We come to Him, all flesh comes to Him!
The only difference is that we have reasoning power!
God gave us reasoning power and told us to ask!
The animal doesn’t even have to ask,
they don’t have to pray,
but the same one that hears our prayer is the same God that all flesh comes to.
He’s the confidence of the ends of the earth, and even to them that are far off into the sea.
The whales and the fish, He’s their confidence.
Every creature,
Let’s read the rest of the chapter starting with the 9th verse
9 Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it.
10 Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly: thou settlest the furrows thereof: thou makest it soft with showers: thou blessest the springing thereof.
11 Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness.
12 They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness: and the little hills rejoice on every side.
13 The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing.
Aman, the hills rejoice they don’t jump and shout like you do and holler halleluiah, but the hills have got a way of rejoicing.
We need to stop and look at this again and look at God’s whole plan,
and we need to realize that just because God gave us all a little reasoning power that some of us have allowed that power to go to our head, and we have too many people living a perverted life!
When I use the word perverted I mean that too many people out there can’t think about anything but sexual perversion.
A perverted life is a life where you are not living the way that God wants you to live!
And because your life is perverted you are not able to have the confidence in God that you ought to have and live like God wants you to live, and to do the things that God wants you to do.
After all I have said several times that it’s not what we want, it’s what God wants.
It’s not the question that we know the Lord, the question is does the Lord know us.
It’s not the fact that we go to church every Sunday and never miss a time when the door is open, that alone will not get you to heaven if you die tonight, but the fact is, is the church in you?
Do you have God in your life?
Are you working for Him?
That is the question, are you one of the five wise virgins that we talked about a few of Sundays ago, or are you one of the foolish?
Where are you today with your relationship with God ?
Now let’s go on with that scripture, an it said
and the little hills rejoice on every side.
The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing.
Have you ever been around a corn field and watched it shout for joy?
Have you ever stood and as the wind blew through the corn field?
Have you ever heard the sound that it make?
They shout for joy and they also sing. and I am sure that there are people out there that say O you don’t know what you are talking about, we have never heard a corn field sing.
Well anyone that makes that statement doesn’t believe what it says in the Bible, so they need to just step over to the side this morning because they aren’t even in the same class as us.
This is just for people that believe this morning!
They don’t believe the Bible and let me tell you this morning this message is just for people that believe what the Bible says.
Let me tell you all of this mess that you read about in the papers and all that non believers talk about everyday will more effect on your mind than you realize.
Let me tell you everywhere that you look out side is God’s creation, every living thing is God’s creation.
Thank God the corn still comes up and shoot’s up there tassels towards the heavens, and in the wind it waves it’s tassels before God, waving and saying Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord.
And the same kind of Praise that comes forth from the hills and the corn fields and the pastures,
Praise is waiting in Sion for God from His people, that realize there respective position before God.
God takes care of the grass and the animals, were talking about God!
The one who hears prayer and takes care of everything and who is the confidence of all the earth.
All the creatures have there confidence in God!
Lets look at the 104th Psalm the 10th verse
He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills.
and let’s look at verse 21
I want you to see this morning where God fits in.
The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.
Who gives them their meat?
GOD!
Come on now, right there is a good scripture for you to use on melineumnists if they are hanging around, that He is going to change the Lion.
No God made him to seek his prey, He made him a ferocious beast and that’s His way of furnishing his meat!
God is back of it!
He don’t need to be changed he is pleasing God just like he is.
The lion is just the way God made him, it’s man that needs to be changed.
And let’s read along right here in the same Psalm and just see what God can do, and you should know that what ever God does for the plant’s and the creatures of the land and the sea
He will do even more for those of us that love Him just as the creatures do!
22 The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens.
23 Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening.
24 O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.
25 So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.
26 There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.
27 These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.
Now come on I want to nail this down that God is the confidance of all the earth.
Come on we went from the forest out into the middle of the sea where the leviathan plays, they all look to God to give them their meat in due season.
You hear people say, I didn’t know that they knew that much!
Well along the line of real faith it looks like they know more than we do!
We can learn something from them.
As we go on verse
28 That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good.
Doesn’t this Psalm give you the idea that the creatures, and the grass, and the trees and the corn fields MAYBE have more faith than most of us do?
Did you ever stop and think that God go’s into perfect detail to take care of His creatures and He will do the same for all of us that will just believe in Him, have Faith in Him and put Him first in our lives!
Just look at this for a minute, the birds are living better than we do,
they go to Florida for the winter every year, how many of us can say that?
I want you all to see something this morning that these reasoning powers that God has given man will get him in trouble if we are not careful.
I am talking about a God here this morning in whom all flesh comes,
He is the confidence of all the earth.
There is not a one of His creatures that want for anything, God makes food for them, for every living thing!
The Bible says there’s a place there’s food there’s protection there’s provision,
from the hand of the infinite God!
These thing all show that where there is a need, God wants to fill it!
God takes care of all, and then He tells us, how much better are we than these!
What’s He telling us?
How much more He wants to do for us, then them.
Now look at this real close and you will see the trouble and where it lies.
Look at the little baby when he is born, the same God that performed this operation of birth, He prepares for food for that little baby, at the same time that it is born.
I ve been around when a few of them is born.
They don’t have to be born too long before they go to looking for food,
They don’t have to be taught by anyone to pucker up there mouth,
Come on who taught them to do that?
They pucker up there mouth and then the mother takes them to her breast.
The same God that produced the babe also made a way for the babe to be fed.
The same God that gave the birth also gave a way where there would be milk, there would be provision there to take care of the baby,
and where did God put the breast?
Right up here right over the heart where the baby could feel the love coming from the mother right along while the baby is eating, it is feeling love and the concern from the mother at the same time.
It was just a little part of God’s love that was way back of that mother that was producing that love and that concern for that little babe.
I am talking this morning about a God that’s the confidance of all the earth.
Someone might say, that little babe don’t know anything.
Don’t make a statement like that.
That little babe knows enough to know that he is hungry!
And he knows enough to know when he is at the right spot!
Look at that new baby, it knows enough about life right from birth to know how to apply it’s self!
God help us!
Do you know why we have such a time applying ourselves, and get from God what we need?
Jesus tell us why right in the book of Matthew the 18th chapter
3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Do you know why we have so much trouble?
We get too grown up!
Oh I know that the bible tells us to grow and not be children, well let’s rightly divide the word of truth.
Certainly God wants us to grow in understanding!
He wants us to mature in Christian life.
But all the time we grow
We must learn to grow in our spiritual relationship but at the same time we must keep are character as that of a child!
What do I mean?
I am talking about that same trust in God that you see in a child, when that new born comes into this world it is just like the animal, in the same sense that it trust’s it’s God given instinct!
He don’t have any reasoning power!
He doesn’t have a bit of trouble trusting in his God given instinct!
And you need to know that FAITH is a God given instinct!
It is a fruit of the Spirit!
That new born baby doesn’t have any reasoning power,
That baby doesn’t have any battle going on in side like us adults have.
The baby doesn’t have the need to say am I going to trust God or am I going to do something else.
You never saw a week old baby chewing it’s nails and saying to it’s self, I don’t know what I am going to do.
I don’t know if I am going to nurse or if I am going to go and get a big Mac!
We have over struck the very God given instinct’s right within us.
And because we have a 1/2 dozen other different ways of doing things, but the way that God taught us in His word, we get confused!
It’s hard to operate Faith,
It’s never hard to operate faith when there is no other way!
But it’s not hard when there’s no other way!
See we have an enemy, unbelief!
I still say that unbelief is the worst enemy that we have in our lives today.
There is only one thing that is coming between us and God, and that one thing is Unbelief!
God wants us to become just like a little child!
Put our trust in God!
Believe that He will take care of us!
We need to have confidance in Him just like the rest of His creation!
Don’t allow our reasoning power to go to work in the halls of our minds and work against God’s word!
Friend the word of God tells us to Seek ye First the Kingdom of God!
That is the very first thing that we need to do, and without God in our lives we will continue to have problem after problem!
God has to be first in each and everyone of your lives or you are just playing with Him!
And let me tell you my friend it will not be God that will be getting hurt, it will not be God that will be having the problems, it will be you!!!
God wants us to come to the place that we are just like a little child and put our trust in Him!
Know that He will take care of us, know it and feel it and believe it.
Don’t allow your reasoning power to go to work, and work against God’s Word.
( tell the story about airline pilots and instrument flying)
Tell about talking with a pilot friend and how a lot of pilots wash out when they are in instrument training
9 out of 10 pilots will trust their eye before they will trust the instrument!
Now there is faith!
The pilot cannot see a thing he only has the instruments and he lands the plane safety and that is what we need to do today!
Have faith in the instrument and that instrument is God’s word and His Spirit!
And if we would truly trust them, we wouldn’t have any trouble.
But the reason most crackup and don’t have safe landings is because we like the pilot look out the window and say I think that I better, then look back at the instruments and say I think that I better, then back out the window.
Come on now look at
Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
You can’t see with the natural eye!
It will be contrary to what you see with the natural eye,
Jesus in the 6th chapter of Matthew
Matthew 6:24
24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
People will get in trouble every time that they try to serve to masters, you can’t even do that in the sin life!
You get in trouble can you even think about having two wife’s, or 2 husbands or 2 boyfriends an girlfriends an try to keep one from knowing about the other, you can’t do it sooner or later 1 is going to find out!
let’s go on
25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
( explain these verses )
If you seek first the kingdom of God and seek it’s furtherance stay there study there everyday then and only then will you start to see thing’s happen.
Pray about spiritual things and God will take care of you material things!
He never wanted you to give one thought about it!
Now there is not to many having break downs over spiritual things, not too many people’s health going bad over spiritual thing’s.
But listen to them yell about the things of this world, no food no water the bank’s going under and on and on,
Put your trust in God!
You need to pray for the furtherance of God’s Kingdom and He will add!
You won’t have to worry, God will add!
Do you think that God wants us to live less and have less than ancient Israel?
Ancient Israel was to be blest more than all the people of the world, they were to be so blessed of God, in there living in there houses, in there lands, that the world would look at them.
And envy them, because of God’s blessing upon them!
Now that hasn’t changed.
He has given us the kingdom of God, where men come in old time repentance confessing their sin, and God brings a change of heart, change of nature, change of life!
The King of glory moves in, in power!
They began to press forward in the great Kingdom of God, and the same God that sustained Old Testament Israel, sustains us.
And supply’s are need, I miraculous ways as we spearhead the Kingdom through this dark world.
When we call upon God to answer our prayers He will be there if we are there for Him and put Him first in our lives!
See the animal’s can’t say no to God but people can and they do!
And that’s what gets us in trouble.
See, we have reasoning power!
The animal can’t say no to God, we can say no to God and we do say no to God!
Because we do that it puts us in a shape where we can’t operate that confidance in God!
Like God wants us to!
1 John 5:13-15
13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
See, He is the confidance of all the earth!
Man can have the same confidance that the rest of the world has!
Now we pointed out the fact that the Psalmist said in Psalm 65 an 2 that unto God all flesh comes and He is the God that hears our prayers!
We are a little different than the rest of God’s creatures.
Since we have reasoning power we have got to ask!
We don’t have to ask if we don’t want to, we can seek other realms.
Now look at this Prayer is the one link between the seen and the unseen world!
A prayerless life is a Godless life!
Many people today are bound up in the temporal life.
Thank God this morning,
A prayerful life transcends these barriers and takes hold of things unseen!
Things that are eternal!
Things that have no end!
Powers that are never hopeless!
Powers where there’s always hope!
A prayerful life takes hold of these things!
A prayerful life will cause you to walk with God!
And it will cause you to endure as seeing Him who is invisible.
I want you to see this morning that when the saint of God gets down to pray in real faith right before God and to believe Gods word in it’s teachings of what He has promised us!
Believe God’s word about paradise and where it is where the glorified saints are my friend when you get down in prayer and begin to get a hold of God you go right by the glorified saints!
God’s word tells us that we go right to the very throne of God!
What would you do if there was a law passed that forbid prayer, one day a week?
And that day would come up on a day that you were sick or that you were dying or worse yet you were living in an area of the world where you could never pray.
Do you know what the sad part of that is?
We are all allowed to pray whenever we please and there are still hours or days that go by with you living in a prayerless condition!
You only cry out to God when there is a crisis in your lives.
You never think about God’s existence except when you need Him, and that my friend is using God and that just won’t work!
Do you know that if the president passed or tried to pass a law like that people would stay up all night to fight for there freedom of prayer!
But here you don’t have to fight for it and you don’t even use it!
I want you to see that there is a power working on us, it may not be coming right now through the laws of Washington, but there is a law working against God’s moral law that’s binding people!
It’s working so today that people can’t stand freedom!
We need to realize something this morning!
God has blessed us and not only has He blessed us but He has commanded us in this thought of prayer!
Do you know my friend that the very things that you would like to see pass have a starting place and that starting place is prayer.
Without prayer we go nowhere!
Searching first for the Kingdom of God and all His righteousness in a greater way.
We have got to seek the furtherance of God’s Kingdom in our hearts and our lives, prayers a starting place!
There’s too many that fail to realize that they commit sin when they fail to pray!
You hear people say thank God I haven’t sinned but I just have failed to pray!
Let’s look over in
Luke 18:1
And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
1 Thessalonians 5:17-18
17 Pray without ceasing.
18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Prayer is one of the great laws of God’s moral government!
What is His will?
That you pray without ceasing!
Stay in the attitude of prayer with your heart and mind and your very way of life in tune with God!
I am going to tell you right now, you will have a whole lot less trouble living a whole life if you will get your meditations of your mind straightened out.
We need to do some more praying without ceasing!
Keep your mind full of spiritual thoughts and the thinking on God’s word and the promises of God!
You will have a whole lot less trouble getting carried so far away even in temptation!
David wasn’t meditating on the 23rd Psalm when he committed adultery!
He was thinking about something else!
Pray without ceasing, it’s the breath of the soul.
Holding that unceasing contact with God is the breath of the soul!
It’s the thing that keeps the soul alive.
When God said that this is the Will of God that we should pray without ceasing!
I want you to see that,
This is a commandment of God’s moral law.
He has ordained according to the scripture that we must ask in order to receive.
And when He said to pray without ceasing, I know that you have noticed in the scripture that God never did God command us to sing without ceasing!
Nowhere in the bible did He command us to preach without ceasing!
Neither did He ever command us to work without ceasing!
He said that there is a time to work and a time to rest, but He said always Pray without ceasing!
No time to quit praying!
Were preaching what the bible says this morning!
Pray without ceasing!
My He commands us!
Back in 2 chronicles the 7 th chapter when Solomon built the temple of Jerusalem and dedicated it to God you can note something there.
But God never once said that He would come down and listen to the songs of the choir.
Nowhere did He say that He would be looking for the smoke of the alters of the many sacrifices.
Nowhere in the Word did He say the He would be listening to the words of the priest as they speak.
But He said in 2 Chronicles 7:15
Now my eyes shall be opened and my ears will be at tent unto the prayer that’s made in this place.
Now I want you to see the place that prayer holds with God.
You can get the best preacher to preach for you that can stand there.
The singers that can lift there voices in singing.
But back of all of that when we sing we are singing for the glory of God but we are singing for the people.
Right here this morning back of all the good singing and back of the message right now, do you know what God’s eyes are watching for?
Do you know what God’s ears are listening for?
The prayers of you people while I am preaching!
Do you know why we have so many dead services?
Do you know why we have sinners that have come in before and slept during our services?
But God didn’t move.
Why?
God was waiting for the prayers!
God was waiting for the prayers!
What did He say, My eyes will be looking, My ears will be listening.
What is He looking for?
What is He listening for?
To hear the prayers that ascend from this place.
You can measure every service by your prayer life!
Friend I want you to see this morning without prayer back of everything it has no meaning.
We have seen movements of men that once had the power of God on them fall into dead formality.
And I say one great reason for it one of the great reasons that attributes to it is that people are losing the burden of prayer.
Don’t lose the burden of prayer!
Isaiah 56:7
7 Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.
Did you ever stop and think at how little praying is done in our services today.
Now I am not finding fault.
I said in our services, I put myself right on the level with you.
God help me and God help us.
I can remember the day when prayer was given quite a place in the services.
And I am not one that thinks that we need to have an hour of prayer service in the middle of a worship service no sir.
We ought to do the big end of our praying before we come into the service and the saints ought to be ready to hold an agreement of prayer.
I am telling you this morning that if we get into the place that we need to be before God,
where we have confidance in God,
where you people get right a hold of God in prayer,
right behind my preaching and let me preach with an anointing that comes because God has been pleased,
because He has heard the real prayer and concern of the hearts!
You will see effectiveness as never before.
Back of everything that take place in the world today God is watching and listening for prayer!
There is nothing pleasing to God without prayer!
Hebrews 11:6
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Let’s look at another connecting scripture to our text this morning,
I want you to see this morning that I am merely trying to get you to see that we are just a part of God’s creation like the rest.
The same God that ordained a way for everyone of His creatures to live and provide for their needs God has made a way for us.
We are a twofold creature we have a spiritual being and a physical being.
God give us double provision!
And if we will just get our lives straightened out with Him.
There is only one thing that hurts our confidance with God is something in our hearts that’s contrary.
Come on Psalm 65:5 said that He is the confidance of all the earth.
Why don’t we have confidance?
1 John 3:18-22
18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
Now He’s teaching us right here that what we do we need to do more that just like the religious world is, but get right down and actually do it in deed and in truth.
19 And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.
20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.
21 Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.
See we have reasoning power, we can say no to God the animal can’t.
And because of that my friend we do say no to God.
Oh we don’t vividly say no to God, but by our actions we say no.
And because of that condemnation comes over our heart and when condemnation comes over our heart we cannot have confidance.
But with condemnation gone we can then have confidance.
It’s either condemnation or confidance!
We must not understand that to assign our obedience as the reason that God gives us something when we seek Him in prayer.
No the fundamental reason for God bestowing the blessings is His goodness and His love.
And all goodness comes from His infinite fountain of goodness, our obedience is only the condition by which He bestows it.
The message this morning is simple and plain the thing boils down to this and it is a God that hears our prayers.
22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
The message this morning is simple and plain, the same God that all flesh comes to is a God that hears our prayers.
If you will seek first the Kingdom of God, know that your heart is right, and the go out with confidence in God, to win a lost world.
You will see people being won over to God one after another and when you have this kind of close contact with God you will see your material things being taken care of.
Just remember this morning that God love you, He loves you so much that He gave His son of you that you should have everlasting life,
And in closing this morning let’s read one more very familure scripture and grasp on to it and hold on to it
Philippians 4:19
19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
When everyone was talking about all of this Y2K silliness I hung right on to that scripture, I even had preacher friends that were worried but I hung right on and God came through.
Let us bow our heads in Prayer!
