Christian Prayer

Going in chapter 12, fear God, respect God and keep his commandments, for this is man's all four. He goes on to explain even further. God will bring every work into judgment, including notice every secret thing, whether good or evil. Now this is not exclusively to be applied to the nation of Israel over whom Koheleth, the preacher king of Israel, reigned and preached. This is applicable to every human being, including us in this room. So rather than get myself too wrapped up in the lives and.

Issues of other people.

I take this one to heart. Because before Almighty God, each one of us will stand. Each one of us will stand. For us as Christians, it will be before the judgment stands seat of Christ, not before the great White throne judgment. But this principle stands true. God will bring every work into judgment, even the secret things, whether good or evil. That's my answer to the question, what do you think about what's going on?

God will have his day with each individual with regard to their life, their decision making and the context in which they live. And there's no doubt, and I think this is a biblical principle, those in leadership, whether it's in civil life and part of the world, established governmental structure, or whether it's in the church in the body of Christ, leadership is going to pay a higher price when it comes to this particular management. So what am I preparing myself for? What are you preparing yourself for? This unavoidable.

Immutable.

Experience with the Lord Jesus Christ at his judgment seat. This last phrase is chilling, including every secret thing.

Whether good or evil. And I'll tell you, I'll go beyond this text here because it doesn't address it explicitly. Gathering to the net of this discussion, other texts and this includes motives. This includes good motives and bad motives. This includes doing good works because of bad motives.

This includes doing things that may not be heralded and visible in public.

But are valuable and meritorious because of good motives. So this is the, the whole enchilada. One thing about the Lord Jesus Christ is we don't. We can't shade him, we can't con him. I can't. He is so purely and absolutely holy and full of truth that to even try, it's ridiculous. These clowns that are in positions of leadership and making decisions that impact millions of people have no idea what they're headed for. They think the consequences of human beings is serious, that somehow the public that they represent is going to rise up in arms and castigate them and call for their impeachment. That's nothing. That's absolutely zero in comparison to the Confrontation of this day of judgment.

Pretty profound if he asked me. Absolutely profound.

And God is right now patiently, with great importunity, kindness and grace, wanting all men to get saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Let's go to him in prayer. Father, thank you for this day, for the wonderful word of God in scripture, for the word of Koheleth, the preacher of Israel, the king. And all this sublime wisdom comes to this conclusion.

Fear God, Fear you and keep your commandments. Stay close to you, honor you as the supreme figure and authority and power over all of life. And know that you will indeed bring every work into judgment, whether good or evil, even the secret things.

Whether good or evil. Help us make the transition in our hearts and our minds now to the word of God as Christian men, men who have been saved from eternal hell by grace, through faith in your son, father, possess eternal life. And in whom your spirit dwells. May he teach us, instruct us, incite us, make this book dynamic, vital, empowering, and help us to comply with it. We love you. So maximize the value of this moment for us, our dear heavenly father, because we hunger for truth and teach us about prayer. In Christ's name we ask this. Amen. You're on. We're on. You're on. All right. Thank you, Jeremiah.

Hallelujah.

Sunday morning, Jodell and myself will be in the saddle. I understand we're going to be in closer proximity, so rush your tilt. By the way, we have one of Coachella valley's finest in residence this morning. The water cup is with us. Thank you.

I see that you listen to things are very important and significant.

Colonel Tom.

Why is God not answering my prayer? I've heard that that question's been posed to me by many, many people over the years, both Christian and non Christian. Does God not hear? I've been praying for this for so long, fervently on my knees in my prayer. Why is God not answering my prayer? Or why does he seem like he's not answering my prayer? Every one of us in this room right now can point to particular prayers and the content of those prayers that we have trouble shot up to God or we have laid before him from our hearts and they have not been answered or seemingly not attended to. Correct? Isn't that correct?

We pray for healings of people mainly. So much of our prayer is centered in those areas and yet we see very little of it. God has heard us pray for our brother Ron and for Lorraine and ask for miracles and all of those things. Yeah, lottery. That to me is Pretty obvious gallon as to why he's not responding to that one. And let's just hope you don't do a Santa Barbara thing on us because you don't hit the lottery. But why isn't he answering prayer? I mean, this is to me a foundational platform question that launches us into our discussion of Christian prayer. And though I've discussed this particular text and this area with you in the past, I want to get into it again and fresh with you, cover a certain body of material and then open it up for discussion. I think you need to interact with me on this. I think it would be profitable if we interchange because this is so crucial to our Christian life experience. And the text that I've selected is on your outline as the central thematic text of our discussion on Christian prayer. First John 5, 14, 15. Let's read it together. I'll read it aloud.

Now, this is the confidence we have in him that if we ask anything.

According to his will, he hears us. Let me repeat that we're going to expound. If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And then he goes on and explicates and. And if we know that he hears us, that is whatever we ask, we know.

We have the petitions we have asked of Him.

You know, what might be really interesting and illuminating is if we took a poll or conducted a survey regarding the content of prayers that Christians pray in their regular life, whether private or in public.

What is the content? What is the substance? When I'm alone with God right this morning for an hour, an hour and a half, where it's quiet, this is my quiet time, where I'm in my prayer closet. What is the content or the substance of what I'm praying about as I understand prayer? Well, if we took a survey or we conducted.

Some type of poll with regard to the content of Christian prayer, I bet predominantly we would discover that most of us spend time praying for things in terms of content and substance that are not explicitly revealed in his will, that are not part of his biblical scriptural will, rather things that are outside of it. Now, I'm not suggesting that's wrong. I'm not suggesting that we can't carry everything to the Lord in prayer's hill to Himself. Far be it from me.

To quantify or quantify your prayer life or mine. I'm just suggesting that it's interesting that if we take this, I have a pull, that we would find this type, I think of result coming about. Yet our central text says notice it again, if we ask Anything according to his will, he hears us. So what does it mean? This is the driving question. What does it mean to pray according to his will?

This morning I didn't do it. But normally you'll hear me in my prayers with you guys. You guys are so very, very dear to my heart. According to your will, Father. And we're going to get to discuss this and in the precious name or any qualifier you want to Almighty name, in the omnipotent name of Jesus, your son, what does it mean to pray according to his will? All right, let's probe this. Okay, let's take a good look at this good, serious, heartfelt move. And I want to begin by talking about Christian prayer in general and offer some guidelines here in terms of a New Testament perspective on prayer.

First, notice on your outline or study guide, we want to talk about the nature of Christian prayer. The nature of Christian prayer.

Simply put, it is personal, intimate, intelligent communication with God. Very simple. Talking to God, just talking to and with God.

Therefore, any human being on this planet can pray based upon that simplistic definition regarding the nature of prayer.

But I'm qualifying it by relegating it to the Christian, to you and me. That is the dynamic, the experience of prayer as a Christian man, as a believer in Jesus Christ, who has received the free gift of eternal life and now has chosen the pathway of discipleship. But prayer, simply stated, again, his personal, intimate and intelligent communion with God.

The degree of intimacy, the degree of intelligence, the.

Nature of the personal aspect that varies among individuals. The bottom line is each one of us has a personal relationship with God, our Creator and His Son, Jesus Christ, that varies in terms of quality and depth and veracity.

Because some of us are much, much, much, much, much more serious about our relationship with him than others. So this varies in terms of the quality of it. Now, in talking about the nature of Christian prayer, although Christian prayer can be very emotional, can it not? It can be ecstatic, it can be so fulfilling in terms of our emotional Persona and our emotional self. It is never, from a New Testament perspective, unintelligible ecstatic utterances. Christian prayer is never viewed in that way, First Corinthians 14 notwithstanding.

In other words, it is a spiritual voice, a verbal communication with God or a thought communication with God that is rational and intelligible.

That's the general nature of Christian prayer. The New Testament guys, in my opinion, does not give a picture of as a legitimate option.

Praying to God in some type of ecstatic, unknown.

Spiritual.

Spiritually endowed prayer language.

Or some type of experience that's called prayer, where I pray and I don't know what the heck I'm saying because I'm uttering it in ecstatic utterances. But God knows it. In other words, it's unintelligible to me, but it's intelligible to Him. I don't see any.

Evidence in the scripture that supports that type of prayer.

In other words, there isn't a particular, high level, exclusive form of prayer language.

That a Christian can have or should get if he doesn't have it or she doesn't have it nowhere.

Now, my good friend Alberto from Guatemala is bilingual.

He speaks Spanish and he speaks English. Both are known dialects.

Confirmed.

Language families that make sense, that have their own vocabulary, syntax and all of that. So he can pray in two languages, can you not? You can pray Spanish, he can pray in English, but there is eligible known dialecto, dialectoi, dialects.

So my point is.

No matter what you see or you've experienced yourself.

In the so called prayer language construct with God often referred to as what, speaking in tongues. I see no biblical evidence or such of them. Now, this begs the question that if it's not legitimate, if this is not what God wants, if this is not according to his will, then what is it and what is the source of it? But I'm not going to discuss that. We'll save that for a radio program so that nobody can throw anything at me. It would just be Rich and I and Jim in the studio.

Let me share a humorous story in this regard. I've shared it with most of you, if not all of you before, but it was really cute when I was on staff at Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa.

My Bible studies. Though I was the pastor of the singles ministry, my Bible studies were open to all. And I used to have the privilege of teaching a broader range of people because they liked the word of God. They'd come on Fridays, married couples, older people, sit with the singles and enjoy the Bible study. Benefit from it. Well, there were a couple of elderly ladies, you know, I was young at this time. They were. I'm sure they're gone by now, but sweet as could be. And they came to all my Bible studies. So they made an appointment to come see me. I saw that they were on my counseling. They started my appointment list because they come up to me after the Saturdays and all of that.

And so they came to my office and they sat down and I opened in a word of prayer as I normally did. They sat quietly and afterwards and one of them said, as the spokesperson for this delegation. You are a very fine Bible teacher, young man, but we're very concerned about you not having your prayer language.

We're very concerned. We want to see you grow and develop with Christ. And we really believe that you have to have this prayer language if that's going to happen.

And I said, wow. I said, that is the sweetest thing. They were just as sincere, pure, emotive as can be.

Maybe not theologically as sound as I like them to be, but just really sweet. So I said, let me assure you, I have my prayer language. They said, you do? I said, I do.

Thank you. We're so thankful. Now they didn't probe it any further. And I'm glad they didn't, because had they asked me what my prayer language is, I would have said English.

But what these two kind, lovely, sincere, gentle older sisters of the Lord were suggesting is that there is this special form of communication with God that manifests itself by nature as ecstatic, unknown, bad works.

Or language. The New Testament offers us no validation for that experience. So if you've had a tongue speaking experience, let me assure you that it's not biblical.

I can prove that. Not this morning, but I can prove that.

Then you have to ask yourself, then what was it? And why do I need this particular prayer language?

This leads me to discuss probably the most important. I want to discuss this and then open up for questions this morning. Important part, certainly high on the list of important vital principles in the soul discussion on Christian prayer. And that is the role of the Holy Spirit. And it connects to what I just said, because many who profess to have this special prayer language known as speaking in tongues.

Connect the Holy Spirit in some way to that dynamic. Do they not? Or do you not? I don't know.

So the role of the Holy Spirit in personal prayer is absolutely crucial.

With this, I want to tell you that what I'm about to share with you uniquely and in a very specialized sense, communicates prayer from a new covenant perspective. From a new covenant perspective. Not an Old Covenant, but a New covenant perspective.

And that means that all of us, from a new covenant perspective, all of us, unlike Old Testament saints and believers, are indwelt at this very moment. And this reality became our possession at the moment of conversion by the Holy Spirit of God. Every one of us is indwelled at the core of his being by the Holy Spirit of God.

So when I came to Christ in faith for eternal life and eternal salvation, he regenerated me. He justified me before God, made me righteous, gave me a whole series of other benefits. And in essence he said, chuck, let me paraphrase a whole cottage of passages.

You're going to have the need for help in your Christian journey.

I regenerated you. I gave you eternal life. I gave you eternal salvation.

I gave you all these other benefits. But because of impediments, sinful impediments that still rest within your physical body, you're going to need some help. So I'm going to give you my spirit. I'm not only going to give it to you, but I'm going to give it to every believer who comes under the auspices of the New Covenant. Everyone who comes to faith in my Son for the free gift of eternal life and salvation is going to get the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is the unique dispensational truth relegated to New Covenant theology. Like I said in the Old Testament, the only believers, the only saved people that were indwelt by the Spirit like you and me are in this room, are the kings, the prophets and the judges, the hoi peloi, the generality of people were not indwelt by the Spirit even though they were saved and regenerate and justified by faith in the coming of Messiah. This is a special, unique New Testament New Covenant phenomenon where we all have the same spirit indwelling us.

Therefore.

After 40 years of walking with the Lord Jesus Christ, probably the last 15 have been the most fruitful. Which is always a good thing when I'm finished on. But even in the last, I would say six or seven, I've come to appreciate that because of this phenomenon, the Spirit of God entwin this gift. He's called the gift God, the Spirit of God. I have a partner in prayer. I have a prayer partner 24, 7.

Pretty amazing. I call him my perpetual prayer partner. I don't have to call him 800 Lion. I don't have to call the prayer chamber.

I don't have to invite the prayer warriors. I have a partner in prayer. And his specialized role as my prayer partner is wonderfully and beautifully expounded for us in some of the passages we're going to take a look at now.

The gift of the Holy Spirit as an indwelling presence right at this moment inside of me in the believer's heart is a New Covenant phenomenon.

And I ask you, Father, to make this real and dynamic and vital as we study these texts and engage our partner in this Christian life and experience, especially in prayer. Romans 8, 26 and 27, turn there, please. I'll give you a moment.

Turn there, please.

Subject is Christian prayer.

We discussed. I gave you a brief explanation of it. We talked a little bit about the nature of it. To begin with.

Here I'm introducing you to the role of the Holy Spirit in personal prayer.

As our partner not only in the Krishna experience in toto, but but in the prayer Life. Notice Romans 8, 26 and 27. I'm reading from the new King James Version because I agree with this translation more than any other translation or version that is out there. So this is how it reads. He says, likewise, the Spirit himself, Holy Spirit also helps us in our weaknesses. Let me stop there. I would say, for example, our prayer life, because that's what He. He helps us in our weaknesses, the indwelling Holy Spirit, who is God's gift to us, along with all these other wonderful amenities of grace. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought. Now, in this context, let me stop and parenthetically say that Paul is talking about suffering in the Christian life and experience in the broad context here. And one of the hardest.

Most challenging things to embrace while going through suffering and trial is how do I pray? The suffering, the trial, the intensity sometimes is so overwhelming that I'm confused or I get confused and I don't know how I should pray or how I have to pray. Sometimes all I can do is just groan and moan. But notice what he says. If the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Phrase with groanings which cannot be uttered. I don't associate with the Holy Spirit, but with us. He helps us in our weaknesses.

Haven't you ever done that? Sometimes if you get on your knees or you just groan and moan and you're just throwing stuff out there.

If you are in the throes of suffering or trial or test. Okay, now.

But the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groans, which cannot be. He is interceding with us as he's indwelling us and as our prayer partner. Now He, God, who searches the heart, verse 27, knows what the mind of the Spirit is, the Holy Spirit of the mind, or the mindset orientation. In other words, he's got some ideas.

That he'd like to see materialized for you and me. Because he, the Holy Spirit, noticed this is so crucial. He makes intercession for the saints. That's unto me. According to what? According to the will of God. So irrespective of my moanings and groanings, the Holy Spirit takes those and he translates. I like to call this a form of translation. Lost in translation. He translates all that I'm trying to say what I ultimately want to get to or should get to into intelligible utterances before the Father. And he makes intercession for me on the basis of that spiritual type of translation.

Not only that. In Romans 8 in particular, as well as in Hebrews 7:4, we have the Lord Jesus Christ interceding for us as our prayer partner. Since there's really no distinction, at least I don't make any distinction, because the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty between the Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, Christ indwells me in the person of His Spirit. But if we want to distinguish these two persons of the triune of Godhead, we can say God the Son intercedes for us as our prayer partner. The Holy Spirit intercedes for us. Now.

I'm a pretty good prayer partner. I don't know how much clout I have with God. You're taking a shot. Whenever you ask me to pray for you, I mean, you're rolling the dice, but I will.

But look who we have on our side in this life. You guys.

Look who's with us in this very vital and important dynamic in Christian life experience called prayer. He's able to assimilate all the data, all the stuff that's going on, all the confusion, all the strained thoughts. He's able to just collate it and say, father, this is what Chuck's trying to get at. This is what he should try to get at. This is what he needs. Will you treat him on this basis?

Look at a couple other texts. I'm going to make a couple of comments and then we're going to open up for questions because this is an important section. Ephesians 6, 17, 18. I actually practice these principles in my personal and responsible life of prayer with my Father.

And it just has embellished and enlarged and enriched my prayer life. Partnership with the Holy Spirit. Praying according to the will of God.

That helps me to settle in and accept the passage that we looked at this morning, that I use some of them as a prayer through our study from Ecclesiastes, that every man will stand in Jeff before Almighty God. All right, Ephesians 6, 17 and 18. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is what the word of God. This is the Spirit's spiritual weapon. The Holy Spirit uses God's word in this case in written form that we have before us. So take the helmet of salvation. Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Praying always, always with all prayer and supplication with. What's the next phrase? In the Spirit, in partnership with the Holy Spirit. We've already seen From Romans chapter 8, in part, and partial to his indwelling us, it's his willingness to intercede and be our prayer partner. So we pray with him.

You ever pray with your wife? You grab her hand and you sit down. My wife and I generally pray every morning together. Very seldom do we miss a morning. Not only do we discuss spiritual things, which is my responsibility to lead her in, but we pray she's my partner. And we feel that partnership. Try to transport that as you begin to develop and build in your own personal prayer life with the Lord from this point on, and I hope you will, that your partnership, praying in the Spirit, being watchful to the end, with all perseverance and supplication for all the sins. And Jude 20 and 21. Notice, turn to Jude 20 21, verses 20 and 21 in the book of Jude.

Let me ask a rhetorical question. When was the last time you consciously engaged the Holy Spirit in your prayer life.

As a partner?

Not relieving yourself of the responsibility to pray according to the will of God, which is a joy and beautiful, but understanding that he's your partner and he's the lead partner in this. Praying in the Spirit. This is not again some ecstatic expression, the verbal utterances of a spiritual dynamic. It's wholesome, intelligent, intimate, personal communication with God in partnership with the Spirit of God. This is so vital, guys, to an effective.

Peaceful, confident prayer life.

Jude 2021, you beloved, building yourself up on your most holy faith. This is doctrine.

Praying. What, what's the next phrase? In the Holy Spirit. In the Spirit. In the Holy Spirit. Praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourself in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ into eternal life. If we are praying in the Spirit, then we're going to find it very easy. We're praying in partnership with the Spirit. We're going to find it a very smooth transition from there to look or keep ourselves in the love of God and to be spiritually looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. The King and his kingdom come.

This ain't easy. This is a tough goal, this type of prayer, this construct, implementing it on a practical level is very, very difficult.

The Holy Spirit, let me summarize, is my partner in communion with the Father and even with the Son of the Lord Jesus Christ. I personally find this very encompassing.

I must learn to pray together with him, not in isolation.

Not autonomously.

But in partnership with him, according to the will of the Father. Remember, this is a special New Testament New Covenant gift to you and me.

Our brothers and sisters in Christ who existed prior to the incarnation, prior to the cross. Old Testament believers, many of whom are mentioned in Hebrews 11 as heroes and heroines in faith. They did not have a partner in prayer like we have. They had a temple. They had a tabernacle. Our tabernacle now is who? Jesus. We enter into the holiest of all by the blood of Jesus through a new and living way which he consecrated by his flesh. That is, through the veil that's been broken down, we have the Spirit of God.

And yesterday and today.

I am so grateful to our Father for compounding within my spirit this reality and helping me to pray for men of Messiah ministry for you all, for the struggles that I know you have in your walk with him.

Spend some time with your partner in prayer. I don't mean your wife or me.

Let me assure you that we won't. As well intended as these prayer chains are, and all this I found most of them are totally ineffectual. If you really trace how much prayer is answered through these vehicles.

Because they're not focusing on this truth. Now, if you have a prayer chain, so to speak, or a vehicle by which we as men of Messiah will want to utilize in terms of prayer and it is embracing these principles. Powerful.

Okay, let's stop here and let me entertain any questions or if you make some comments, then you want me to respond to what we do thus far. The next section is capital B where some types of forms or expressions the per can take. We'll go over that. But this is so foundational, you understand why so foundational. But I thank you for persevering. I'm glad we got this.

On the Internet and hopefully we'll get it archived because this is, you know, this is a heart and soul. Dennis, you raised your hand first verse 20 of Jude 20. It's interesting. I was involved with the.

Church that is prismatic in that respect. John's church, it says here, praying in the Holy Spirit. One of the things that was confusing was that phrase in the Holy Spirit. You're going to give it to him, then you would do the utterance. This was where all this confusion came from. So in the Spirit. In the Holy Spirit here as we're talking is just call on Him. Is that my understanding? Well, yes, Let me explain the phrase. That's a good question. And this phrase is, interestingly enough, is interpreted in various ways.

That is why I appeal to Romans chapter 8 is a foundational text. Holy Spirit indwells me right now, he's in you, he's in me. Unobtrusive, but there very core of my being residing within me and one of his desires. And part of his role is to be my partner in prayer.

So I would take the phrase in the Holy Spirit. Nothing more esoteric or spiritual or supernatural than simply turning to. Consciously turning to my prayer partner.

And inviting him.

Submitting to him.

As someone that will join me before the Father in prayer. Because he lives in you. He lives in me. So you. When I'm praying in the Holy Spirit, I am basically, that's 10amount to engaging his partnership.

It's like any other partnership. When you engage each other in partnership to complete a task. You interact, you share, you talk. We're partners in this ministry. We interact, we share, we talk, we communicate. In this case, we are talking about prayer and the various forms and expressions of prayers that we'll talk about. That is being facilitated, empowered, accompanied by the Holy Spirit. And therefore we're praying in the Spirit. We are consciously. This morning I consciously addressed him.

Because he knows all the languages.

What's that got to do with Anthony?

No, he's bilingual or trilingual, multilingual. He's a polyglot of language capacity. The beauty is that this is a new covenant privilege. But with that comes more responsibility. Doesn't.

Does for me. I have no excuse to have an ineffective poor prayer life. No excuse. I've got all the resources, all the goodies, all the rich offerings that God could give any person to have a fruitful, productive prayer life. And it all comes down to God Almighty. The spirit of God is God. You understand that? He's God living in me, Christ in me, the hope of glory, the Holy Spirit in me.

Why are we so dull to that reality? In Christian life and experience.

We go off and we do things and we say things for days and hours sometimes. And we never consciously really address him who's living inside of us the way we should. Little late there, Ken. Yes, sir. You okay? Well.

Here'S the Adams. All right. So in the Spirit is just in partnership. I wouldn't make much more out of this phrase dramatically. There's not much you can do to twist this into something real special.

Peter, you got a question? Did you raise your hand? Oh, I'm sorry. First John, that's.

According to his will.

We're going to get into that.

That's not obviously lined up with according to his will.

So how do we get to that? I know it's not my will, but yours be done. Who said that? Christ. I have a will. He recognized he had a will as a human. He had a desire, he had wishes. But he set that aside. I'm going to let that go, and I'm going to capitulate to the higher source of truth and knowledge.

Most of my will. Passenger.

Temporal things.

Oh, Les, that's so honest and so refreshing. I mean, every one of us can identify with that. Every one of us can.

But if we get this eternal perspective and it really.

Like a roto root, it just roots out all this stuff and replaces it with eternal varieties. Man, your prayer life changes tremendously. You begin to see through the eyes, through the eyes and the lenses of the Savior himself, who, for the joy set before him, for the joy set, endured the cross, despising his shame. And when he finished, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty of Nazareth, always looking to the future water cup.

So Thomas.

All that stuff is Shamala.

So that's just an act, Just people acting. All right, Richard Gilgala's question is.

Fundamentally, I can redact it down to the sample of symbols is, what is biblical tongues? And if you're saying, Chuck, that what we see and is purported to be biblical tongues is not, then what is it? Right. You're asking, what is it? Well, you, you know, you answered that question like Barack Obama.

Somehow I knew that was gonna.

Well, it's not an insult insistence. I'm just tipping my hat to your political note to answer the question that you want to answer. Well, let me say this, Rich.

Just quickly, since it came up, we'll address it. And since it is related to our topic, so I won't dance around that.

Biblical tongues.

Is a spiritual gift.

That God gave to Christians in the birthing of the church for this purpose, to share the mighty deeds and works of God and to evangelize unbelieving Jews.

That, to me, is confirmed by its use in the book of Acts, as well as the only other New Testament passage where tongues is alluded to, First Corinthians 13 and 14. Well, the gift of tongues is not.

First Corinthians 14. Actually, 12 is where the gift is mentioned. In 14. That's it. You research all the other literature, the Gospels. No mention of it, any of the Gospels. You search the epistolary literature. Other than that one passage, there's no mention of it.

So.

When I collate those passages and I understand that the. In context, Rich, here's what I see Our Father doing in the birthing of the Church. The Body of Christ in Acts, chapter two, giving to certain individuals. The capacity here we're talking about on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem where you have Jews and Diyote gathered together from all various parts of the Mediterranean world who speak different languages. The Spirit comes upon those who have believed in Christ for eternal life and are saved and give some of them the gift of speaking in tongues to the unsaved, unbelieving Jew. I don't know where this gift is ever used evangelistically or in any other way to the Gentile world.

This was a phenomenon in the form of a gift that was given to the early church. Remember when the church divided of Christ, what we call the body of Christ, Church was born into existence. It was fundamentally Jewish, it was Hebrew, male and ethnically. Then the Jews, then the Gentiles were bled to the end. They were grafted in as Paul began his missionary journey.

So speaking in tongues, or what we call glossal later, here is the spiritual. The operation of the spiritual gift given in the early church is certain individuals to speak the mighty works and deeds of God and to evangelize and impact unregenerate, unsaved, unbelieving Jews.

There's not any evidence, to my knowledge and in my study Rich, of this particular phenomenon and or gift.

Being expressed as a ecstatic.

Type of prayer language where the speaker, the tongue speaker, speaks something that he doesn't understand, but God does. And somehow the spirit of God translates that and makes sense out of it. Even Romans 8 has nothing to do with that. Let's talk about our partner in prayer, where we're hurting, we're going through stuff and he comes alongside of us or is inside of us. He gathers himself together because we're not. And he prays on our behalf before the Father according to the will of God.

Let me just say this, but the whole area is spiritual gifts. Something you should do if you're interested in studying this, doctor, now is you should isolate all the spiritual gifts. And there are three primary texts.

One of which is Thomas.

And ask this question, what is this gift and for what purpose was it given? And is this purpose still a needed purpose today? Every one of them?

And if you're like me, you may not be, God forbid, if you're like me, you're going to check some of those gifts off. You're going to say these were foundational gifts. These were gifts that God gave to the body of Christ in its inceptional beginning because they were necessary in laying the foundation. Apostles, prophets, speaking in tongues, interpretation.

Miracles, healings, that was foundational. But now the foundation has been laid, as Paul says in Ephesians 2:20, by the apostles. And the promise, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, we're building the superstructure. So we ask what gifts are necessary to build the superstructure? Once you laid the foundation, Jim, he's a builder, what do you do first? Jim, you lay the foundation. You don't go back and relay the foundation. Then you take time building the superstructure. And that's where the fun is, right? As an architect, as somebody that builds, I want this room this way. I want two, three stories. We build a superstructure. That's what God's doing at the church. But. But to lay that foundation, which God chose to do through gifted human beings who are members of the body of Christ. These particular gifts were foundational and therefore transitional.

In my study of the New Testament, speaking in tongues, utilizing the gift of tongues is never anything other than a known dialect, a known people, extant, language.

Of the world. There's some great studies that have been conducted in this area. How is that with that? Okay, Rich.

I mean, does that answer your question? Okay.

Yes. The way I look at it is if it's a gift and the modern church.

Want you to seek, seek it, pursue it, It's a gift, and it is a gift. Why do you have it's a gift? You just received a gift, you know, go through gyrations, machinations to get it.

That I agree with. I think that if we're talking in New Testament terms, God gives a gift, it's exactly that. All we do is receive it. My study of the doctrine of spiritual gifts tells me this, that at the moment of regeneration and new birth, at the possession of eternal life, everyone in this room, Rich, me, Skip, Chuck, we all got. We all got a spiritual gift, at least one. He gave that to us sovereignly choosing which gift he wanted to give to us. That's his choice because he's the head. Now, we need to discover what that gift is and partnership with the Holy Spirit, use it to the glory and honor of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the benefit of mankind. My gift is pastor, teacher. I may have other gifts too, but I know that that is one of them. There's a gift. I didn't ask for it.

But coming to terms with what my gift is is a process. You know, sometimes I've talked to many Christians. I don't even know what my spiritual gift is. They tell me I have one. What is it? I don't know. That's a dilemma. That's a process. So we have to trust God to lead us in our understanding of what our gift is or gifts. So we study the scriptures, we let the scripture explain to us what are these gifts. Then we look at ourselves and what we're doing and what we want to do and our desire and what people are suggesting that I am doing that has merit and profit in the body of Christ.

And I think we can separate all the gifts into two general categories. Speaking gifts or serving gifts. It's not that the speaking gifts are not serving, they are, but their focus is upon utterance, verbalization.

Some of us are obviously.

Gifted with a gift to get. Hopefully what we're saying has substance and merit and is pleasing to the Lord Jesus Christ. You're right, Les. It's a gift.

I don't know of any text. He says you need to seek this particular prayer language called speaking in tongues. And until you do, you're going to be on the short end of the stick. Both spiritually, you know, they refer to this sometimes as evidence of the second baptism of the Holy Spirit, which has no biblical basis. Again, this is theology rooted in the desire for emotional fulfillment. That goes all the way back to the holiness movements and the Pentecostal heritage and that sort of thing. Chuck.

Don'T know that we have the gift. We should be in godly ones, God's like manner to perform whatever gift does not know of.

When the gift of tongues was given in the upper room.

You spoke in different languages, different cultures or people.

When you speak Babel like guys do for 30 some years, say 20 some years, you might focus in symphonies.

I think that the Holy Spirit can interpret everything you say, express, written, I believe. So I think you don't know the exact words to say to express the pain you feel inside. You give another reason for word that makes us excited to speak a lot. I like to tell by Peterson and prayer to the Holy Spirit.

So he's got the plan. I don't know if you came in, Ken. Excuse me. After I heard Romans chapter 8 and the verses in Romans chapter 8. But I expounded for quite a while on the partnership of the Holy Spirit in prayer. And that's exactly what I'm talking about, brother. What a comfort it is for me to know that even though I get confused and incarcerated in my prayer life and I'm not sure whether I'm praying fleshly Or I'm praying selfishly, or I'm praying godly. The Spirit of God is with me in this. And so he's able to take all of this that I'm confused about, either in thought or verbally. And he redacts it down to that which is the will of God, as he knows, because he prays according to the will of God. And the Lord searches the heart and he searches the Spirit, and he listens to the intercessory prayer of the Holy Spirit. So we have a prayer partner in this whole dynamic. And I am so, so thankful as our mediator.

That's a little different. That's a little different role. Christ is our mediator and our high priest, but it involves prayer. It involves prayer here, specifically focusing on the prayer partnership that we have with the indwelling spirit and its relationship to the will of God.

You know, I remember when my wife fractured her back up in Idaho and she was playing on the water, just still, man, I knew something. I knew something snapped. And all I could do.

I was trying to pray.

I was hurting so bad, insane. I felt so helpless. All of a sudden, this great theological mind and heart was just devoid of life. I was hurting. And yet I know the Spirit of God took even those groanings and groanings and translated them before the Father in a way.

That the Father could respond to in our best interests. And my prayer life on behalf of Darsh during that time period was very shaky. I mean, I just. I didn't ask why. So that began a real journey and search for me. I realized I really didn't understand what perilous. And this is seven years ago. I need to really get a grip on this according to the will of God, which we will take a look at next week. More details. Any other questions? Yes, Chad. I just want to say I think it's pretty easy with the Holy Spirit because my prayers are kind of short sometimes because I just say, you know, in my heart what I want to say. Beautiful, beautiful, or, you know, what I do, Jack, is, you know, what's best for me. I get conflicted here. I see value in going this direction and praying for this. And yet, on the other hand, I see value in going in this direction and praying for this. But they're contradictory. This is the beauty of having a prayer partner who's superior in intelligence and in knowledge of the will of God.

Minimasiah ministry today is where it's at as a testimony to the grace and love of the Lord Jesus Christ, because we committed to the will of God, it's his work. I don't know what's best. We just fly by the seat of our pants sometimes. Do you want to hear a quick story? Sure. When I first came to the Lord, I lived in Dallas, Texas, and Bonnie was living in Waterloo, Iowa. And I was working on St. Louis, Missouri.

And right after it came. What? Nobody. I didn't know any Christians. So I got on and I saw this television preacher in Dallas. So I thought, I'll go to church there. And I went to Sunday school sitting there. And this is probably a month after the Lord came into my life. And I'm so happy, so ecstatic. And all of a sudden, these people are starting to speak at tongues and they're hitting each other, slaying in the spirit, whatever that is. I've got ideas. That's kind of gruesome to me. I had already. Maximus gave him a check for 25 bucks.

The only thing I'm thinking of is, how am I gonna get that 25?

That's Captain Jack in terms of practical economics here.

Yeah. You know.

The Lord will sort all of this out again. We'll come back to our ecclesiastic. Every one of us is going to stand before him in judgment.

But as a biblicist and as one who has a responsibility to pastor, teach, and rightly divide the word of God, you know, I'm trying to share with you the results of years of study and also emotional and practical experience, and let you make up your own mind.

I don't contest with the sincerity of those who disagree with me.

But sincerity notwithstanding, it is never a substitute for truth. Never. You can be as sincere as the day is long. You're all familiar with the elapsing, or the way to hell, or the pathway to hell is paved with what? Good intentions. Good intentions? Yes. Wrong? Absolutely. But good?

Obviously. Thank God. He said he's coming back.

Not all doctrine is very important, but faith works by love. That's the most important thing. Right?

They work hand in hand. They're handmaidens. They're two sides of the same coin, Scotty. And that is sound doctrine.

Whether it's intelligible or tongue is not understandable. Of all men on this planet right now, Scott, of all people on this planet right now, at this moment, I hope you realize to some degree the privilege of this little concealing of human beings. Each one of us in this room, on this planet, with 6 billion people at large, have a personal relationship with the living God that we can. That is unending and inexhaustible. In terms of developing and experiencing the joy.

The love, the grace right here in this little room on this planet right now. This is a very, very august group of folks.

And I think it's very conceivable that some of us in here are being groomed for joint airship with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords when he returns. We have real loyalty, we have real political power in this room, not in this life, but in the ages to come. Yes, Ron, for me.

Speak up a little bit, Ron. Not just praying for results, but for me, the process and the act and the gift of praying is so special and wonderful. It gives me that opportunity.

It provides me comfort and joy and gives me the strength to know that wherever I am, I'm not alone.

You know, one of my wife's hammering verses is one we'll look at next. Philippians.

Philippians 4, 6, 7. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything and everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all, understand, shall guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. I'm going to remind you of this next week. Just let me say that text, which is a text of prayer.

Paul tells us that the only thing we're guaranteed with thanksgiving, we take all of our petitions before God is peace. Not an answer to the prayer necessarily, but peace and the peace of God, which suppresses understanding, which means understanding that I may not get what I'm asking for, even though I am compelled to ask for everything in thanksgiving, but what I am guaranteed is the peace of God. Should I take this text and apply it and it's just for nothing. But in everything.

Anxiety is replaced with peace. And with that peace is the acceptance that even if I don't get what I'm praying for, specifically, like hitting a lot of it's okay. It's okay because my heart, the real me, is guarded by the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. So that's what your experience is. The. You know rod very well. You could be taken home before us very well, unless the rapture happens or one of us goes before you. But you know, in that transition, your experience with God.

Will be what you what you made in these days you have left with him. Comments like that really encourage me, brother, because you're focusing on what you aim.

Such a beautiful savior, such a beautiful master, such a beautiful high priest. There's so many angles and ways we can articulate this. But remember, when you walk out of here, Today you're walking out of here with a partner living inside of you. Rich, when you do your show today, you have a partnership with the Holy Spirit. When you guys go about your day, if you play golf, run the golf, whatever you do, he's there. And especially consider him. Especially.

In prayer.

Yes. You're saying about prayer change, the effectiveness thereof. Asking the Holy Spirit is what?

Throw it together. We're going to look at a passage next week that suggests that the most viable, not the only but the most viable and distinguished apparatus that God has set up in the church for people getting healed through prayer is through the elders. Through the elders, not through prayer warriors, not through women who have a propensity to pray, not through a prayer group, but through the elders, qualified leadership in the church. One text that suggests that.

So if a church body has qualified elders, and I've yet to see one that does, but if they did, if they did, God says, I'm going to use this. I set this up, these spiritually calibrated men that I'm going to use to help this person who's lying in their sick bed, maybe because of sin, maybe not.

This anointing with oil, these prayers, shawls and all that stuff is nonsense, in my opinion.

It's nursery school stuff.

God is Talhad patient with us. He wants us to grow and he wants us to come out of that sort of mindset.

But that doesn't stop us. And the text goes on to say, as we will look up in James 5, that there is an impact of the individual.

Who is godly and righteous and walking with God in terms of his prayer life.

The energetic, dynamic prayer of a righteous man avails much. So there is a place where individual prayer can have an impact in their lives.

Not only him, the righteous person, like Elijah, but in the population.

I'd like to know how many of us in here are righteous enough that we can ask God to stop it from reigning for three and a half years and that he would comply with that. I mean, that's pretty awesome, but he's the pattern. This is real. This is a human being impacting God so much with his fidelity and loyalty that God says, yes, I'm going to do that.

Or I'm going to heal your wife, or I'm going to give you the resources you need because your prayer is effective and energetic.

And you're right with me daily. You're right with me. All right, let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Jim, thanks for persevering, man.

All right, so Sunday morning Turn into the show. Listen to two brothers trying to honor and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. How many people saw. Actually did some of you guys listen to it?

It's on the web page too. So when you go right on the web page you can.

Buy it.

Has it been archived? It is. It's right now. Right now it's archived.

This will be archived and this one will be replaceable. One that's on there and then that one will go to the archive, right? Yes. And then Sunday that, that'll this next Sunday replace this one here. So what you'll see on the homepage when you go is the most recent study. Whether it's a Friday morning or it's show Rich and my son, speaking of study, are you still contemplating. I know your ministry has got a lot of things going right now. You had mentioned this part a while back about the Tuesday night study. Is that still in the works? Yeah, I want to do something with the rescue mission too. And these guys are such good brothers and the Lord is maybe opening up some boats. I've just got to take it a step at a time. But the Tuesday night study or the weekly study probably won't happen until the fall. Yeah.

And we were at that time often have everything perfected where we can stream live and all that stuff.

In partnership with the Holy Spirit. You guys, I encourage you to think about praying for my precious, precious Darcy. I covet your intercession. We'll see what type of form of prayer is intercessory person. Okay, bring your outlines back next week.

Thanks to Jim and Jeff for working through this stuff.

I'm going to pray for you.

Father. Thank you for the brotherhood that we share together.

Bound together for eternity by the blood of the new covenant, which is the blood of your son shed for the full and complete remission of sin. We stand justified and in the peace of God and we have a standing in grace that is immutable. Help us to access that grace in this day.

Pray throughout the day in the Holy Spirit. And I ask you to protect my dear brother Rich, to keep him safe, clear headed, sound, using his beautiful and very entertaining personality and knowledge to ultimately lead people to examine and come to the throne of grace that we present under your leadership on Sunday mornings.

We love you and we realize that this life is so.

Aptly described as a mist or vapor by your servant chains.

And yet while we're here, namely completely and fully learn not only how to pray according to your will, but to do your will in the name of Jesus Christ. Our Lord.