The Power of Prayer | Pastor John Greiner

In this message, the pastor digs into what it really means to pray with power and purpose. Drawing from James 5, Luke 18, and Isaiah, he makes the case that effective prayer isn't about begging or repeating yourself, it's about coming before God with a heartfelt, persistent faith rooted in his word. He walks through the difference between praying from your head versus praying from your heart, why consistency matters more than volume, and how praising God after you ask is just as important as the asking itself. He also spends some time on the role of the Holy Spirit, sharing how praying in tongues can take you beyond what your mind can figure out on its own and tap into something much bigger. It's a practical, energetic take on building a mature prayer life and learning to trust God even when the situation feels way too big to handle.

Transcript

Earnest Prayer From James 5

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And pick up your Bibles, please. And uh we'll get into the Word together. Let's wave your Bibles around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad. Let's see this together. Say, Heavenly Father, I'm glad to be here in your presence today with people of like precious faith. And the Holy Ghost is here. He's the executive power of the Godhead. He's here to demonstrate the power of the Word of God to change anything and everything. And we give you glory for the things that you're doing in Jesus' name. Amen. You can be seated. Let's turn in our Bibles to James chapter 5. And verse 16, and we're going to read the second part of that verse. In the King James it says, the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. And of course, he's not talking about just men, he's talking about people. And then I like the amplified. The earnest. See, the word earnest means serious, not flippant, earnest. Heartfelt. Think about that. Through and through. You're praying, not out of your head. You're praying from your heart, and you're serious. Continued, or we could say consistent prayer of a righteous person makes tremendous power. Not just power, but what? Tremendous power, available, dynamic in its working. And so today I wanted to share another message along the lines of prayer called the power of prayer. We've been sharing about prayer, joining forces with God and how important it is to have a fellowship with God. Cornania is that word. And we emphasize that for the last two weeks. And then if you weren't here Sunday night, I'd double-dog dare you. I double-dog dared everybody to come back, but a lot of you didn't. But it's a very important message that if you don't hear this message on prayer, I preached on prayer again on Sunday night.

When Prayer Becomes A Cry

SPEAKER_00 2:23

We talked about the cry against. See, prayer, sometimes prayer is not, is, is, is coming against things. We do a lot of that around here. We come against the spirit of Antichrist. You know, we come against uh uh false prophets like Tallerico. He's saying that he's a minister, he's a I'm an astronaut then. He he is no minister, he's a false prophet. He's twisting the word of God around and running and saying all kinds of crazy things. And uh, you know, anyway, they they Democrats just seem like they've got all the craziest people running right now. If the Republicans don't sweep everything, then there's, you know, I don't know what we'll do. Praise God. We'll just keep trusting Jesus, won't we? But um, so uh the cry against, and and really we talked a lot about the cry means to shout. You know, we we need to that part of being earnest about some kind of prayer. Not all prayer is real silent and sweet and oh-da-da. Sometimes we gotta lift our voice and stomp our foot. And not at God, but against the devil, against certain things. Amen. So if you weren't here, be sure and get the podcast and listen to it, and I believe it'll bless you. And then today I'm coming to the power of prayer, a little different, uh, a little different emphasis today, because this is the year, you know, God said this is the year of the new. God said told us in January that Revelation 21, 5, behold, I make all things new. Behold, I make all things new. Behold means pay attention, be earnest about that, start looking at, you know, whatever you pay attention to becomes important. You begin to put yourself there on the scene, you begin to, you know, if you don't pay attention to something, well, it just slips right on by you. He said, Behold. Look here now, as my dad would say. I make all things new. Make means create, it means to you know, to cause to happen, but it also means to lighten the ship. It means that some things need to go away. Some things are obsolete, some things need to uh to be de-emphasized in your life. It's about pruning. We we we touched on that and and spoke about that. And so, how do you know that? Well, you know you know that through prayer. And so, you know, I make all things new. New means it means fresh, it means something new in your life. I mean, you can have a new level of health, you can have a new level of finance that are blessed, you can have a new level of love in your marriage, you can have a new level of wonderful fellowship with your children, so forth and so on. There's a whole list of things, and and we we can discover the things that God has in mind for us this year in prayer. And so I emphasize that back in January. Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find, knock and it'll be open unto you. And uh, you know, you have not because you ask not. You ask and receive not because you what? You ask amiss. James chapter uh four. You ask amiss that you might consume what it is you're asking for on your own desire. See, I mean that it needs to be God's desire for you. How do you know that? In prayer. Prayer. Everybody say prayer. I'm preaching this because I want us to grow up and quit being babies. You ever had a baby in the checkout line at the store, you know, two-year-old, and he's sitting in the cart, and you and you go in the checkout line and he's reaching for the candy, he's reaching for all the stuff, it's all the goodies. They they do that on purpose, and they sell a lot of merchandise right there to two-year-olds. Because mommy or daddy can't say no. And uh, you know, so that's kind of the way our praying can be if we're not careful, if we don't pay attention, we start just praying head prayers, we start praying emotional prayers and all of that. And uh I want to teach you a better way. I want to get you shifting gears into the kind of praying that mature Christians should be doing.

New Things God Wants To Do

SPEAKER_00 7:01

And uh in the book of James, uh, this verse that we read is in chapter 5, in the first part of chapter 5, I preached on past Sunday night. It talks about defrauded wages or crying. God knows where all your wages that have been cheated. Some of you have what you've been passed over promotion, didn't even know it. Some of you have missed raises, some of you have missed job opportunities. All the money that should belong to you, some of you have missed inheritances because it was stolen from your grandparents, your great-grandparents. They should have left you an inheritance, but instead the devil got in there and stole it. God knows where all that money is, and guess what? It's it's got your name on it, it's crying. I I got into this real ex real specifically Sunday night. Again, you need to hear this. And where is this, where are these verses at? They're in James chapter 5. It's talking about the end times. This message and all my messages on prayer and on crying out for your lost wages have to do with the end time harvest. Because anybody that's in agriculture knows the cost of any agricultural enterprise is always greatest at harvest time. That's when you've got to have the combine harvested out there, you've got to have the trucks out there. I mean, I grew up in South Texas, and I mean, you know, there's thousands and thousands of acres of sorghum or grain or whatever, you know, and and I mean when it's harvest time, they they they stagger their planting so that so that when they hire the combine harvester, he goes through one field and harvests all that, and they haul it to the grain elevator, and by the time he finishes, the next field is ready, and he goes into that field, and I mean it's 24-7. They got headlights on those things. They got headlights on the trucks, it's going 24-7 until the harvest is finished. Well, you know, that's a picture of the end times. We're we're coming into the place where it's gonna take 24-7. And it's gonna take a lot of what? Money, honey. And it's gonna take a lot of what? Health. I mean, you're gonna have to be healthy enough, you're gonna have to be alert enough. Amen. I'm shifting gears now. So he says that tremendous power is available through prayer. And I don't know if you read your Bible the way I do, but I like to look at the context, the opposite. If there's tremendous power available through prayer, then there's a tremendous amount of power vacuum without prayer. Everybody say power vacuum. Guess who fills the power vacuum? The devil. The devil is the one that fills the power vacuum when we don't pray or we don't pray properly or effectively. I mean, a I mean a coronia fellowship with God over his word, and you you love him and you worship him like we did this morning, you know, and you do that in your in your personal life, and you start to pray God's word with with the with your Bible open and you take his word and pray it, and you thank him for what he's done and all of that. I mean, God begins to pour out things on you that you never heard of, you never thought of. That's what I'm talking about. John Wesley, the great uh revivalist, you know, uh, the Methodist Church came from Wesley. It's uh almost Ichabod now. They've gone off the rails. If you're Methodist, you ought to leave the Methodist church, get out of it. There's a lot of dead denominations now. But uh he said, it seems that God is limited by our prayer life. He can do nothing for humanity unless someone asks him. And that's not an overstatement. Because God, you know, Jesus is the head, and he's there. He's not down here, he's there. But where's his body? His body's down here. So if we're gonna want Jesus or we want the word to do anything, guess what? The church has got to do it. I mean, you know, you're you got your head on your shoulders and you're walking through the grocery store. Can your head get the can of beans off of the shelf and put it in the grocery cart? No, you've got to do what? You gotta reach out there with your hand and get it. Your feet have to walk down the aisle. Your head can't do anything without your body. That's exactly what we talked about last week. God, Jesus, God can't do anything without the church, and the church can't do anything without God. And so we need this active prayer life. Um Wesley one time said, you know, I pray every day two hours. First thing in the morning, I get up and I pray for two hours, and it look, if I've got a day that looks like it's gonna be stacked up and it's gonna have a lot of uh of meetings and everything, then I pray three hours. See, that's the opposite of what most people do. When they look at their day and they think, oh, God, I better cut. I've got too much to do today to pray, Lord. I'm gonna just leave and I'll I'll say a couple of prayers on the way to work. You know, I tell you, if you give yourself to prayer, God will give himself to you and give you an efficiency like you've never seen. So I wanted to say this: prayer is not trying to get God's attention because he's already paying attention. If he failed to pay attention to you, you'd croak. He's already paying attention, never loses, he never slumbers, he never sleeps, and prayer is not getting God to do something. That's some news to a lot of people because they're always asking God to heal our land. Oh, God, heal our land. He ain't gonna do it. I'm getting on that because it's just that's the common prayer that most of the denominational people are praying right now. And I'm not saying God doesn't hear it, but it's not an effective way to pray for our nation. We ought to be buying in the devil. We ought to, we ought to, we ought to be going to the voting booth in the Holy Ghost and voting for the right uh candidates in the primary. Of course, the primary is over in Texas. And uh, but I mean, you know, what what we've got ahead of us is gonna take a lot of prayer. So um, both personally and corporately. So prayer is communicating with God. We talked about the coin and neah. It's believing and receiving what God has already done. You know, God's already done everything we need, He's already healed us, He's already delivered us, He's already saved us. I mean, His protection is available, His angels are around us. We don't have to pray for protection. I think about Brother Hagin, you know, he he when he got on the field ministry, he was driving, you know, thousands of miles, you know, every month all over sometimes the country preaching. And his mother got on the phone and said, Oh, I pray, I stay up at night worried about you, son. Oh, just drive so careful. Just be sure and pray every minute that God will protect you. He said, I never do. What do you mean? Are you by what? And she just insulted her. He said, I just I just claim his protection. I mean, he's already got, I got angels, I don't have to pray. I don't have to ask God for that. It's mine. See, she just didn't. See, a lot of people just so religiously brainwashed. They hear this traditional kinds of whiny, pot, kind of whiny, please, begging, come, oh Jesus, won't you come by here? Give me a touch, give me a touch, Lord. No, we don't need a touch. We get filled with the Holy Ghost. We're like rivers of living water flowing out of us.

unknown 14:43

Hallelujah.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

So um, so prayer is receiving what God has already done in Christ, and and he can put his finger on something specifically for you at this any given moment, and help you to understand what it is right now that you're praying about that you can that you can have weapons. You can have the Rhema word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit. And so the result of word-based spirit-led prayer is tremendous power being released. And that power is resurrection power. It's the power that raised Christ from the dead, it's the power that saved you, it raised you from the dead. It's the same power. I mean, my goodness. I mean, what we what we lose and what we miss out on when we don't have the kind of prayer life I'm talking about.

Persistent Faith From Luke 18

SPEAKER_00 15:38

So let's look here at Luke 18 and see what Jesus said, verse 1. And he spake a parable unto this end, in other words, for this purpose, that men ought always to pray and not to faint. That's Jesus' attitude. Men ought always to pray and not to faint. So then he gave the parable, saying, There was in a city a judge which feared not God, neither regarded man. Some of Obama's judges, like that, yeah, Clinton's judges. And uh there was a widow in that city, and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of my adversary. And he would not for a while. But afterwards, he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. She feared the woman more than she than he feared God. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge said. This is Jesus talking, not me. Hear what the unjust judge said. And uh I tell you, and shall not God avenge his own elect which cry. There's that word cry again. I mean, that's lifting up your voice. That's really that that word means to scream, it means to shout. Some of you praying ought to get out of the quiet zone and get into the noise, and well, God's not harder to hear, and well, he's not going to be intimidated either. If you lift your voice, the devil gets intimidated when you lift your voice. Though they cry day and night, everybody say day and night unto him, though he bear long with them. I tell you that he will avenge them in a decade. He'll avenge them in a hundred years. Says speedily. What does it have to do with your attitude and how you pray makes all the difference? I tell you, he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? I always like to say, I always like to shout, yeah, he's gonna find faith, and I'm gonna be here with faith. See, faith doesn't quit. Faith never loses heart. You know, the word faint means to lose heart, uh, to uh become coward and quit and give up. That's what the lack of faith will do. You just you just quit, you know, you don't see instant results, and things are getting worse now, and so you just kind of, well, it must not be God's will. I like what Smith Wigglesworth said in his experience and ministry that uh most of the time the the Christians that he knew uh gave up right before the answer was coming. Here are the answers right at the door, and then we quit. And then the answer just evaporates. You know, no faith. Faith grabs a hold of God's word and doesn't quit. I'm not saying that you're gonna, you know, get in God's face and intimidate him. You know, what did this judge just say? He said, you know, she's gonna trouble me. Well, it means to to uh inconvenience him, it means to uh to uh bug him, in other words, you know, intimidate him, lest by her continual coming she weary me. You know what weary me means? Weary means grab a hold of him and beat him black and blue. That's what he's that's what he's saying, that's what the Greek means right there. You mean we're gonna beat God? No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about your your attitude is you will not be denied. You will not quit until you see that. See, it gets back to earnest and heartfelt and continued prayer. Makes tremendous power available. If it's none of those three or lacking one of those three, then the power is lacking then to get the thing done that you're asking for, that you're uh praying for. So faith doesn't quit, it puts pressure on the word. See, that's what I like to say. I like to say it like this. We're not putting pressure on God Himself, we're putting pressure on the Word. That's why you need the Word. You need to know what the Word says when you pray. To pray without the Word is just like pie in the sky. No, you need the Word first. You need to know what the Word says.

Build Your Case With Scripture

SPEAKER_00 20:35

So let's look at Isaiah 43. Verse 26. The prophet Isaiah is speaking for God. He said, Put me in remembrance, let us plead together. Declare thou that thou mayest be justified. See, that's really what this woman was doing. She was coming before the judge with a legal pleading. She had a right to be satisfied. We don't know what it was, avenge me of my adversary. Well, we don't know what that exactly was. Was it somebody that owed her money? Was it somebody that stole from her? Was it somebody that that harmed her? We don't know exactly what it was, but she had a legal case and he didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to, he didn't want to act on it. We've got a whole bunch of judges in this country who won't even do the right thing. We need to get rid of them. And so um, so declare thou. In other words, make your case plead. The word plead doesn't mean beg, it means to make a legal argument. A legal argument is based on what? The word of God. Is God the judge? Yes, he is, and he loves for you to put him in remembrance. Forget the word, no, but he loves to know that you know what the word says. He loves to hear you say the word to him and base your prayer on his word. He loves it. I want to give him what he loves, don't you? Instead of a bunch of religious bloney. So let's look at uh Isaiah 55 here. Another one of my favorite verses. Talking about the word. Isaiah 55, verse 10. For as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven, and returns not to heaven, but waters the earth and makes it bring forth in bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so in like fashion shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. Well, the word in your mouth will do the same thing as it as it does in God's mouth. If you'll send the word to your trouble, if you'll send the word to your re about your request and bring it before the Lord, it will not return to you void, it will accomplish what you please, what you please. See, it gets back to that earnest, it gets back to that heartfelt. I mean, we got to really know all the way through our being that we desire this thing. And it and we have to know that it belongs to us through the word of God. God told us we could have it. And not everything that belongs to us is written. So how are you gonna know? The Rhema word of God. God is gonna show you down on the inside of you what belongs to you. And then you can break boldness, you can begin to make your case. See, we're made in God's image and likeness. He said, Let us make a man just like ourselves. There in Genesis chapter 1. Let's make a let us make them masters of all of life. How did God create the whole earth? With words. And so this is the way we're designed to operate. We're designed to declare and decree. We're designed to find out what the word says and speak it forth until we have a crop. And then we put in the sickle. Are you with me now? Glory to God. So um, let's look at Jeremiah. A few more pages to the right, chapter one. I want to get you energized. All right, let's go back to verse 7. And and God is talking to Jeremiah. Jeremiah is a prophet. Somebody said, Well, I'm not a prophet, yeah, but you're a believer. And he says, But the Lord said unto me, Say not I'm a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee, that shall thou speak. Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth. Everybody say, The Lord touched his mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out and to pull down and to destroy and to throw down. See, boy, that's all negative, isn't it? Golly, I didn't know of so much negative. Well, didn't he say that we've got some things to get rid of that are obsolete? The light in the ship. That's kind of talking about that, isn't it? How are you gonna do that? With your mouth. And then it says, and to build and to plant. I mean, I I spent eight years building houses in West U doing this very verse. I would buy a lot with an old house on it, and I would tear the old house down and root everything and destroy it all and plow it all up and build a brand new one on the side of the old one. So I actually got to do this in the natural. Now I can go back in that neighborhood and see the houses that I built, you know, 40 years, 30 years ago, and there they are. Worth millions compared to what I sold them for, about 10 times what I sold them for. And uh so anytime God wants to change someone, he will touch their mouth. I mean, ask God to give you the words that you need to pray. Sometimes we don't know what to pray, so we can ask God. And he can give you the right words. Are y'all getting this now? I'm talking about getting away from this childhood baby kind of praying, you know, and get into the way that God wants to be approached. Uh so the earnest heart felt continued or consistent.

Ask Once Then Praise Continually

SPEAKER_00 27:12

All right, let's look at Luke 11 now. You get anything out of this so far? I'm not finished, so you've got more to go. Luke 11. Ushers, lock the doors, don't let anybody leave you. Luke 11. And you know, the first part of this is the apostles want to ask, you know, ask, teach us to pray, you know. John's disciples learn how to teach the Lord teach us to pray, and he gave them the Our Father. And then let's go on right after that, after the Our Father, verse 5. Right after the Our Father, he gave them how to pray, and then verse 5, and he said unto them, which of you shall have a friend and shall go unto him at midnight and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him. And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not. The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give thee. See, so got rebuffed. That's his friend. The word friend is covenant. Friend is not buddy and pal. When you see friend in the New Testament, it's it's a covenant partner, and his covenant partner wouldn't answer him because of his inconvenience. See, it kind of reminds you of the unjust judge, doesn't it? Jesus is talking about in the context of praying. You're knocking on the door and you get rebuffed. I say unto you, verse 8, Jesus is saying this, I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him because he's his friend, see, he should because he's his friend, shouldn't he? But he won't. So why will he do it? Yet because of his importunity, his shameless persistence, he will arise and give him as many loaves as he needs. And I say unto you, ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be open to you. Everyone that asks, receives. Everyone seeks, uh, finds, and everyone that knocks, it shall be open unto him. And of course, that word ask means ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knock, keep on knocking. So that means, you know, you're not gonna quit. You're not gonna stop. He's talking about prayer. You want to know how to pray? Jesus said, you're gonna have to have some boldness, some shameless importunity, you're gonna, shameless persistence, you're not gonna quit. You're not gonna faint. Are y'all getting this now? It takes persistence. Now, what do you mean, Pastor? Should I just ask some? You know, I've heard people you know pray like this. Oh Lord, give it to me, give it to me, give it to me right now. Oh Lord, give it to me, give it to me, give it to me. No, I'm not talking about that kind of silly praying. You ask once. If you ask in faith, you don't have to ask but once. Then what? Then you praise him. Now, praising is over and over. You praise him until the answer comes. You praise him until it shows up. You don't, and then after it shows up, you praise him. I mean, you don't quit praising him. See, that's the that's the shameless persistence right there. Every time you praise God, you're knocking on that door again. You're reminding him, oh, I've I he's he's holding my word in front of me. Glory to God. Come on, lift your hand right now. Don't don't be praying over and over, vain repetition over and over and over. You know, once I lay hands on somebody for healing, I don't go lay hands on them again. They might have a terrible report. I'm not gonna lay hands for healing because I already did that. But I can lay hands on them and agree with them that it's done. I can do that. All right. So uh everybody says shameless persistence. See, consistency. There and that that that word consistency. And uh, you know, in our in our uh corporate meetings, our our prayer meetings, we're we we back in 21, 22, we had Power Hour Plus on Sunday night a lot of about once a month, I guess, wasn't it? And we prayed over the country. We prayed again, we cried against the election that had been stolen. We knew it was stolen. And you couldn't say that on uh online because they would cancel you out. And if I said, you know, I Facebook canceled me one time because I said it on Sunday morning. You know, they they're they're they're cutting off our free speech. I double dog dare them to do it now. Because they're not gonna be able to cut it off. It's a it's an it's a fact. We've got a whole list of traitors in this country, people that belong in federal prison, if not a firing squad. And it's a fact. There's no there's no guessing about it. We are we've got the proof of it. And so um uh I think about the praying that we did was the power of unified speech. That's what happened in Acts chapter 4 when they all said, Lord, behold their threatenings. You know, they were threatened not to preach and teach in the name of Jesus there in Acts, uh, you know, where that man got healed uh at the gate, beautiful. The lame man went walking and leaping and praising God, so they went and preaching and teaching in the name. And they were jealous. They said, Don't you dare, we threaten you, don't you dare. We're gonna, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna throw you in jail if you keep preaching and teaching in that name. Lord, behold their threatenings. They got into a prayer meeting. Grant that with all boldness we may preach thy word. And the whole place shook. So that's the power of unified speech. We're living right now in the fulfillment of some of that praying. We prayed that God would uncover that. Well, he's done it, hasn't he? He's done it. Now we're not the only ones praying, but I know what we pray. I can't speak for anybody else. I speak for this church, and I know this church, the power of unified speech is accomplishing a whole lot of things right now. It's so important.

Holy Spirit Help Through Tongues

SPEAKER_00 33:34

So in Romans chapter 8, we we covered this a little bit. I want to want you to look at it again. Because many times we have things that are going on that just seem like they're so uh big, maybe beyond us, maybe feel like we're uh, you know, your your emotions tell you, well, there's no point. You're you don't have enough faith to get that, you don't have enough faith to change that. But you're not in this by yourself. You got the Holy Ghost, you're tapped into the omnipotent one. He's living on the inside of you. And so Romans chapter 8, verse 26. Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. Infirmities means frailty of mind and body. Sometimes you feel too weak to really pray effectively about this circumstance. It just seems like it's too big for you. Don't look so innocent. I know I'm not the only one that's ever felt that way. That's what you call an infirmity. Well, the Holy Ghost will help you, He will take hold together with you against that. That's what that means. Help. He takes hold together with you against your insufficiency or your weakness and your lack of knowledge on how to pray about this thing. And so it says here, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. You know, sometimes we just try to touch it with our brain tissue. We try to touch it with our limited amount of knowledge. Well, God's the one that knows all about it, all the ins and the outs underneath the surface, everything else. We don't know. So let's let the Holy Ghost help us pray about that. And how was he going to do that? It says here. We don't know how we should pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Or, in other words, when you've looked at groanings which cannot be uttered, it's not just travail, it's not just groaning, it's not just crying. I talked about that a little bit last week, but it's just praying in other tongues. I like to pray about what to pray about. Sometimes it's good to pray about what to pray about. You don't know what to pray for. What's what's what's uh what's more important right now? We tend to want to go where the dumpster fire is and pray and pray and pray against that, but maybe there might be something else. That's a distraction, and maybe there's something else over here that you don't know about. He's sneaking around the end time, end run, he's fixing to do something, and you're over here praying about the dumpster fire, but he's got something over here, and the Holy Ghost knows it. And if you'll just pray about what to pray about, you can direct your attention in a different place. Are y'all getting this now? Oh, glory to God. Thank God for the Holy Ghost. Woo!

unknown 36:38

Hallelujah!

SPEAKER_00 36:41

So he says that he takes hold together with us against our infirmities, makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Intercession means he takes over now. He's he's praying. The Holy Ghost is praying and using your mouth. See, he's touching your mouth, but you don't know what you're saying. In your head. Your head doesn't know what when you pray in other tongues. Your head doesn't know what you're praying, but God did what? He touched your mouth, and you're rooting up and you're destroying, and you're you're getting rid of all kind of stuff, and you're building in your place. Come on, glory to God. You your brain doesn't need to know everything. It would just go tilt if it knew a lot of things. All right, so then the next verse. 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. So when you pray in other tongues, you're praying the perfect will of God. You're lined up with heaven, you're lined up with what God wants. Why would you waste time with a bunch of head prayers and a bunch of yang, yang, yang, gimme, gimme, gimme, and all that stuff when you can tap into the power of the Holy Ghost and know that you're making progress. Glory to God. When you pray in other tongues, let me just remind you, when you pray in other tongues, your your spirit prays, but your understanding is unfruitful. You don't understand what you're saying. But but the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 14, 4, that you edify yourself. You build up from a foundation, you you construct, you establish. Jude 20, building up yourself on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost. It's good to edify yourself so you can edify others. Brother Hagin used to just spend hours meditating in the Word of God, praying in the Holy Ghost, and he wasn't praying especially about the service uh coming up. He was just edifying himself so that when he showed up at the service, he's full of the Holy Ghost. And when he's just, there's a force, there's a power that comes out. Now the second thing is that uh uh well that you edify, your spirit prays, your birth, your understanding's unfruitful. Uh verse 17 in 1 Corinthians 14 says, you give thanks well. And uh 1 Corinthians 2.4, you speak mysteries unto God. And finally, Galatians 4.19, you birth things. You birth things. We talked about that last week. When you're praying in other tongues, sometimes you're bringing things out and you're birthing them. You know, uh just a few months, I think it was May, I had open heart surgery in January of 2018, and then, you know, I had some recovery at home, and then I showed up on Easter and preached for the first time, and I started uh just slowly getting back in the pulpit and uh gaining my strength. And uh one morning, I think it was in May of that year, I was in my study at home and I'd been reading my Bible, and I just I just started praying in other tongues. I prayed in other tongues, prayed in other tongues 30, 45 minutes, and uh I didn't know what I was praying about. I didn't feel anything, I didn't have any goosebumps. I just prayed in other tongues. And then, you know, as I prayed, I started seeing something. I could see a uh this uh field, and on the other side of the field is this, you know, there's this grass, you know, like a like a pasture, and there was this big wall, about 10 foot tall, covered over with vines and brambles and stickers and stuff. And and uh all of a sudden, in this middle of this wall, this big door opens. And it it was like, oh, I don't know, 12, 18 inches thick, a big, thick door, and it opened, and God began to speak, and he and he and he said, You know, I'm opening up to the door to preach the gospel in the regions beyond. Paul talks about the regions beyond where he's he's preaching the gospel in the regions beyond, and he doesn't he doesn't go trample over someone else's territory that's already preached in an area. You know, he he that's confusing when you've got one apostle over here and he's preaching here, and then you come in behind him, you know, and and say something else, you know. No, he he said, I'm I'm going where Jesus has not been named in the regions beyond. You know, that's being fulfilled right now. We're going into the regions beyond. We're going to all these states. We went to, you know, Texas State Capitol, then after that, Louisiana, and and you know, we're going all over the place now. Oklahoma, Louisiana, Michigan, Maine. Boy, Maine needs what we've got done. Got a crackpot that they're running for Senate. I mean, that guy's a communist. Nuts. Anyway, see, there's an answer for that. See, that we got people praying there in the Capitol. Are y'all getting this now? So we don't always know uh what to pray for as we ought. And so we need to process the plan of God. Process the that's what I call processing the plan of God. We just pray about it in tongues. And we pray about it in tongues. We prayed about that door. I didn't know what it meant. I thought maybe God was going to start a church somewhere else. I didn't know what he meant. He didn't give me all the information. What did I have to do? I had to just pray, and I had to pray, and I had to pray, and we all prayed. And it just little by little by little it just all started assembling until we had my God votes, and now we, I mean, we've we've got influence in Harris County. We've got influence in the state of Texas, we got influence in some of these other states and across the country. I couldn't do that by myself. I couldn't just decide that. God had to give it to me and I had to process it. We processed it. Are y'all with me now? I remember in 2009, I uh I woke up one morning and uh pretty early, and I just woke up with a burden of prayer. I just knew I had to get away. And I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what for, I didn't know what the deal was, but I didn't I didn't hear a voice, but I just had this burden to get out of town and go to Galveston, which is where I go to pray. I go to Galveston. And so I packed my bag and told Gladys I'm leaving, and didn't, you know, just I left. And I went there and I did my normal thing. I received communion first, and then I went by. I didn't even have reservations, but sure enough, I was able to get my hotel and and had a better room than I'd had in a while, put me up on the eighth floor instead of the, you know, it's kind of kind of cool. And uh, but I'd prayed in tongues all the way there. I I prayed, you know, I prayed and received communion and I laid up an offering. I always lay up an offering for the Lord. I give him, I don't come into his presence like that without without an offering to offer. Honor him. And I laid it up. And then I got in my hotel room, started reading my Bible and praying with the Bible open. And just praying and praying in tongues and walking up and down. I'd fasted. I hadn't eaten anything. And mid-afternoon, God began to impress me. I can't really describe it, except that I knew that this country had five terror attacks that were about to be released on it. This is right after Obama is elected. He's been in, you know, just a short time. I mean, horrible president. He's the worst, one of the worst. Him and Biden running head in head with the most damage that they've done to this country. Horrible damage. He's still doing damage. His people are doing damage. Y'all remember I warned you in 2007. I warned you. Don't vote for that guy. He's a fraud. And so it's proven out, hasn't it? Most of you are saying yes. The ones that aren't saying yes, well, anyway. So five terror attacks. And he said, now these, and he began to, when I had this number five, and he said, there's five terror attacks. And if you'll pray, if you'll pray, I won't let any of them manifest in in Texas. And so we started praying. I prayed against it. And then we had prayer meetings, and we prayed against that. And if you'll recall, that was uh the year that, or and within that year or two, uh, there was a Times Square bomber that they got before he blew it up. There was a uh the shoe, the guy that had the bomb in the shoe. That's why you have to take your shoes off at the airport. Stupid. You know, and and and then they had the uh the printer that was in Europe that they'd planted a bomb in a printer that had been ordered and it was going to go to a company and blow the company up and kill a bunch of people. They found that one. And uh, I forget the fourth one, but the fifth one was it in uh uh here in Texas at Fort Hood. And I was kind of disturbed. I said, Lord, we prayed. Now that's he said, that's not Texas, that's federal property. I said, oh, okay. And that that one we couldn't stop. I said, that one we couldn't stop. And that was a horrible thing. I don't remember how many uh soldiers died, but this Muslim uh guy was doing jihad, and he oh he had a gun, he opened fire and killed, I think, six of our guys, wasn't it, or something? A bunch. And uh they declared him insane. He's not insane. He's he knows exactly what he did. He did it on purpose. He's following the Quran, he's he's a terrorist, is what it is. It was a terrorist act on an army base where everyone couldn't carry a you know, we we have these guys, they can carry weapons on the battlefield, but you can't carry a pistol on the base. Are you stupid? All it would have taken is one one guy in there with a gun, and it would have stopped a lot of the horrible stuff that happened. He's the only one that had a gun. And finally the MPs got in there and stopped him. And he's paralyzed. He shot him, but they didn't kill him. He's paralyzed, he stood trial, and they gave him, you know, uh to go to an insane uh facility because he's, you know, he'll get out one day. It's it's wrong. It's wrong. And then what did Obama do? Obama uh declared it to be a workplace violence, and that meant the families of the ones that were killed could not receive veteran benefits. Now, that's something that we prayed against and we couldn't stop. Are y'all getting this now? Why couldn't we stop it? Because our country is on the wrong track. We had we voted for a demon, we voted for a guy that shouldn't have voted for him, and God could not protect us from the consequences. See, that's why it's so important for the Holy Ghost to be in charge of the politics, to be in charge of the voting booth, to be in charge of all of it. I mean the Holy Ghost. Because this is a Christian nation. Amen. Are y'all getting anything out of this today? Glory to God.

Final Principles And Closing Charge

SPEAKER_00 48:28

All right, so just some final thoughts. Uh wrap this up here on prayer. The power of prayer. Number one, tremendous power is available to those who pray. So make yourself what? Available. Make yourself available. If it's if power is available, then you need to make yourself available. And he won't do that for you. He can he can open the door, he can do like he did me and stir me to go away and pray. And and I prayed over something that I was, I mean, it just seemed like it was too big for me to pray over, but we prayed. And God heard. Are y'all with me now? So, uh, number two, anytime God wants to change someone, he touches their mouth. So ask him. Ask him to touch your mouth, ask him to help you pray his word, ask him to help you tear down and root up and get rid of anything that's that's obsolete in your life that needs to go away, any kind of association, any kind of friendship that's really not of godly uh uh of godly uh reason for you to have that friendship. You know, a lot of friendships are soulish, and they're really not God's plan for you to be hooked up with somebody just because you went to high school with them. I don't know who that's for. Sometimes we hold on to unfruitful uh friendships, and those people are not serving God, or they're not, they're not anything like you are, and you have nothing in common. Why are you holding on to that? It's diverting your attention away from something that you need to pay attention to. There's no extra charge for that. Praise God. It was free of charge. I give you no nope no charge. So, and then the last one is don't be overwhelmed at what you pray for. Pray in tongues. Let the Holy Spirit pray through you. He'll take hold together with you against whatever, however, big it is, however, however, whatever mess it is. God is the Holy Ghost is not ever afraid of any mess. You can pray in some kind of mess. It looks like it's tangled up, it looks like there's no. I tell you, the Holy Ghost can get in there and he can unscramble eggs. I mean, God, Holy Ghost can do things that we can't do in the natural, he can do supernaturally. The power of prayer. Come on, lift your hands and receive today. Glory to God. Do you get anything out of this today? Hallelujah. Come on, let's rejoice over the word.