This sermon emphasizes the deep connection between believers and God, highlighting how we are chosen by Him before time began and how He eagerly anticipated having a relationship with us. It delves into the profound love and reciprocation between God and His people, showcasing the importance of intercession and the ministry of prayer in aligning with God's will and experiencing His faithfulness.

The Bible says that you're His and He is yours. You can know that before eternity, before the world began, in eternity, you were chosen to be His. And you can rest in that knowledge while you're coming to an even greater knowledge, and that is that you know right deep down here inside that what God had planned from the beginning of time is now yours, right deep down there. On His side, He always enjoyed it. On your side, you must enjoy it. He always enjoyed the knowledge of the completion of His will and of His good pleasure through the cross and Him that hung on it. He anticipated the pleasure of having you. Hallelujah. And now you, by the blessed Spirit, come into the glory and the pleasure and the anticipation of having Him and knowing Him in all fullness. Hallelujah. Since I know as now I know, I didn't always know like I know now, but amen, amen. Are you in the now of it? In the now of it is assurance. In the knowledge of the other, it's belief. And you enter in by belief into assurance of it, into the glory of it all, into the wonder of the intimacy of the indwelling God, one with you. You don't understand the workings of it. You couldn't explain the theology of it, but who cares about that? It's something realized in power. Amen. And your mind gradually begins to assimilate the truth and you begin to be able to interpret it to your understanding. But that doesn't matter even whether you can do that. It just comes there as inward solidarity, reality that can never pass away. There's, but while God and I should be, I am His and He is mine. Rage you devil if you want, mock you scoffers if you wish. Come wind, come weather, come good, come evil. Day or night, time or eternity, I know that I'm His and He's mine. Glory. That's what it's all about. Now we're going to sing the hymn through again. Loved, loved. You'll be singing that on your deathbed or as you're caught up into the air. Loved, loved. Praise God. It won't be so much that you say, I love you, but you'll know that you are loved by Him. And you're held in that love. Glory be to God. Of course love wants reciprocation. Of course love must have reciprocation. If it couldn't live, there had to be three persons in the Godhead. Love couldn't exist on its own. There had to be at least two loving one another. And that's love. It is a state created by the reciprocation and response of two beings, two persons to each other in one being by the Spirit. Hallelujah. That's what it is. Love cannot exist as an isolated thing. Amen. This is why our God just had to be God in the way He is God. He couldn't have been God apart from Him. If it's going to be love, and it is love, and it always has been love, and love will remain when all the hatred has been confined away from it. It will live in its splendor and glory and unfolding from itself all that which the mind delights to create and bring into being. That's how it was in God. They cooperated together to bring into being a world, a universe, stars and sun and moon and earth and seas and vegetation and animals and beauty and color and man. And then sin came. But love has accommodated it, and love has retrieved its loss. Amen. And you've been restored unto it. Now bask in it now. That's why I say that 50% of you ought not to need books. What's the matter with your minds if you can't live this so much that these words are the natural language of your heart and that's the way you would express it? And until you get this great affinity, you'll never be able to do this. It's when your spirit is in affinity with the words that's when they come as the natural expression. Amen. And that's the artistry of a man or a woman who can take words and put them together. And that's why I leave out so much of this other stuff that's called hymnology. It isn't the affinity of language with spirit. It doesn't fit me. I've got to labor to memorize it. But this comes up as spontaneity from the depths of my being. That's true poetry. The other is rubbish. That's right. That's why you can't make head or tail of what's called modern art. It's not the true expression of what's in you. Is it? Is it? I should think not. Yet the cacophony of noise that's called music that's being turned on. It isn't the poetry of your soul. It's the jangling of warring elements inside. That's what it is. Amen. We have nothing to do with it. Anyway, I'm not discussing these things. But it's all part of this great universe in which we live, you know. It's relevant, though it's not terribly important. We're coming to sing about this glorious love. Now let yourself go away. If you want to sit down, you can. I mean, I suppose you're all tired. It's only Norman and I who don't get tired. Listening for hours must really weary you. If you want to sit down, well, you sit down. If you want to stand up, you stand up. You can do what you please. Sing, beloved, don't say it. Sing. Give your being to it. Jesus, there's music in you. Oh, to lie forever here. Ever and ever, Lord. Who the Lord and me shall call. How we need to get away from our own puny little existence. Move into the darkness of race suffering. And of racial joy in the newness of Christ. Do you understand what it's all about? The heart that throbs. And the heart that's filled with joy and love. Was filled with grief. The man who wrote from prison and said, Rejoice of all the way. And again, I say rejoice. Also wrote, My heart is full of heaviness. God is my witness. And he says, I have continual sorrow. For my kinsman according to the flesh. That's what he said. He wasn't burdened by sin. He'd got rid of that. He wasn't burdened by pressures of the devil. Nor he. He knew how to dispose of those. But here's something he could never get rid of. Here is something. Why he was an apostle. Of great, great wrestlings in spirit. Of getting under the burdens of other people. Sharing in the sorrows of the world. Not to distress or depress him. But in the strength of a love. That all was calvary. Amen. I said to Norman, I think I might talk about prayer one time Norman. In this fellowship. In this conference. But I'm sadly tempted to launch straight into it this morning. But I'm not going to do that. No. No. We have to learn what prayer is. The heart of all prayer is intercession. We don't know that yet. We come into prayer. We come into the heart of prayer. By asking simple things. We don't know anything about it. We come in. And finally God makes us an intercessor. And then we learn that everything is from the basis of intercession. And your prayer wouldn't have been heard in the first place. Except there had been an intercessor there. All prayer is accepted upon the basis of intercession. And intercession is mostly wordness. Intercession is being. It is a being between God and man. Jesus the intercessor. Wordless. Groanings. Feelings. The giving over of self. Unto the achievement of the most excellent. Whatever it be. And once you've learned and you come in by asking and receiving and supplicating and praying. And you can take all your Greek or Hebrew words that are correlated here. You come finally to learn that intercession. And that's why the Holy Ghost has come to you. That he should make the groanings within you. And that's not speaking in tongues. You understand that? It cannot be uttered in any tongue. It is groaning. Romans 8 will tell you. And then when you come in there. And you start on the ground of intercession. Why the Holy Ghost has come to make you an intercessor. He's the intercessor in your heart. Because you couldn't live your life without it. It has to be. And that's when you start praying from there. People rush into utterance when first they should start with a groan. Did you know that? But if you didn't know it before, will you believe it? That's why I say it doesn't require words really. Not really. Hallelujah. Oh, intercession is a ministry. And that is a man given over to the Holy Ghost. Do you understand? Amen. Hallelujah. I'm not going to talk about prayer. I've just given you the heart of it. But everything should proceed from it. I'm sure God answers prayer. I have proved God answers prayer. Glory to his name. How many of you know it? Hmm. An earlier vintage than the sort of modern spate of choruses that's coming. But I learned it when I was this boy at Sunday school. I believe God answers prayer. I am sure God answers. I have proved God answers. Glory to his name. I'll try and sing it too. There are those who know it. I hope they haven't got a different tune from me. This is one of the things that shuts you up when you go around. You hear choruses sung in all different kinds of ways. And so you have to catch on to what that particular group is trying to do. But here then is the chorus. I believe God answers prayer. I am sure God answers prayer. I have proved God answers prayer. Glory to his name. Now you ought to know it. Ready? I believe God answers. I am sure God answers prayer. I have proved God answers prayer. Glory to his name. Now sing it then. I believe God. I am sure God. I have proved God answers prayer. Glory to his name. Now think of a prayer of yours that God answered. And then you won't just be singing a chorus. You'll be singing reality. And you'll sing with gratitude. Ready then? I believe God answers. I am sure God. I have proved God answers. I'm the proof God answers prayer. Glory to his name. Is that right? That should get you going. Ready? I believe. I am sure God. I'm the proof God answers. I thought they ought to stand up for that one. I'm the proof God answers. I'm going to minister to you on the word that I intended to minister to. Because there wouldn't be time to do it justice. But to take up the theme and thought that has predominated our last three quarters of an hour or so of prayer. I wish our brother had gone on to minister to us on prayer. I confess that I am the proof that God answers prayer. And not the prayer of words. Amen. Because I despaired of words and gave up praying in words. Because there were no words left to express or to convey what I wanted to pray. In fact I confessed to a brother that I could pray no longer. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And then God answered. One of the great passages of scripture that delights my heart that I never tire in expounding is that lovely 17th chapter of John's gospel. That great and glorious prayer of Jesus put into words by the Spirit and inscribed there. For our encouragement. For our exhortation. For our inspiration. To create faith within our hearts to believe that what God prayed and eternally prays in his Son by the Spirit. On our behalf as that great intercessor whose whole life is an intercession to God for us. To realize that we are the answer to that prayer. Are you the answer to that prayer beloved? Glory to his name. I was one of those people brought up on written prayers. A prayer book. I have a number, I should say a multitude of anthologies of prayers. Books. From which one was taught to read. I think I learned the book of common prayer off by heart as a child and as a young man. Knew it far more realistically than I'd ever known the Bible. In fact I could never remember reading the Bible until I was 18. I heard it read but I'd never read it. I had no understanding concerning its content but I'd learned the prayers. And I thought I knew how to pray. After God moved upon some of us in the power of the Spirit. I remember taking the brother to whom I made reference to the other evening. Who inspired that sermon, that revelation on the countenance of the Lord. I remember taking him to a prayer meeting. In fact we went out to tea with some people in Worthing. And they very apologetically said, Do you mind if you go to a prayer meeting with us afterwards instead of spending the evening here? And we said no, not at all. So we went to this prayer meeting and in the middle of this prayer meeting the brother was moved upon by the Spirit of God. And he began to pray very quietly in tongues. And as he prayed he soared beloved. And heaven literally opened. And God came down into our midst and it was as if there was no one else there but God. And I remember coming out and standing in the pathway of the brother's home in which we had met that evening. And Phil Williamson said to me and I said to him, Well if that was prayer then we'd never prayed before. We thought that we prayed. We thought that we knew how to pray. But when God moves, beloved, by the Spirit and takes a man beyond what he can all understand in his head and supersedes all the limitations of his mind and his thinking and his terminology and carries him away in the Spirit, it's then that you discover that heaven's open and that throne of grace that is available unto which the Spirit invites us come in time of need is ever there. It's when you come to that place you know that your prayer is being heard. You know that your prayer is being answered. The brass heaven has melted away. And you're through to a place of reality where you're in fellowship. You're in contact with God. I pass this is our biggest problem for most of us, beloved. And that was a tremendous experience. But then some little time later, and some of you who are here will remember the occasion. I don't think Mr. North or I will ever forget it. We were at a conference up in the Longcroft when a need was brought of which we had no information, only general knowledge, no specific information. It was concerning that great land of China. And our brother knew that I had a particular love for the Chinese and for the people of the East. I'm glad that in a few months' time or a few weeks' time now I shall be gravitating in that direction. Praise the Lord, that thrills my heart. And he turned to me and he said, Brother, will you lead us in prayer? He said, that's evangelical, that's old, he's just told us. But that's what he asked me to do on that occasion. Things he says, beloved, today, yes, because he will have got greater revelation. Amen. He would have said to me he contradicts himself. No, he doesn't, beloved. He just lives in fellowship with the Lord. And when the Lord tells him something better than he already knows, he's quite happy to say it, even if it contradicts what he formerly said. Amen. Amen. None of us, beloved, know all. We're all learners. When I come to a conference like this, I just want to sit and learn and listen. That's why I find it no difficulty. I don't find it difficult, beloved, to give way to someone who has been in the way much longer than I. No difficulty whatsoever. Amen. But he turned to me on that occasion, beloved, in that conference and he said, Brother, will you lead us in prayer? I stood upon my feet and all that was natural and all the intelligent part of me, beloved, had a desire to pray. It had a measure of understanding because of the interest. It had feeling and emotion and involvement with those very people, although I'd had little to do with them at that time. And yet I opened my mouth, beloved, and it was as if all my vocal faculties had seized up, all my understanding or knowledge of the situation had suddenly drained out of me. And all my ability to lead anyone in anything, beloved, had suddenly fled. And I didn't know what to do. I stood before the Lord and it was as if something deep down inside of me for which I had no explanation or no understanding, beloved, began to well up. I know what the Apostle Paul meant when he said that he talked about praying with groanings, the spirit praying with groanings that cannot be uttered. I know what he meant, beloved, not because it's in the book and because I understand it in my head, but I know what he meant now when he said he travailed again in birth. I know what he meant, beloved, when he said the very deeps of him seemed to all break up inside. I am not a woman, beloved, and have never been pregnant and known what the experience of bringing forth of a child is, but in the Spirit I know what that's all about. And something inside of me began to move until it broke, beloved, and all I could do was cry and groan so much so that my whole physical form became involved and I fell upon the floor and so did the majority of the conference, beloved. And they groaned and they ached and they cried and they wept and they sobbed and they longed and they ate, beloved, and they knew nothing about what it was all about apart from the fact that it had some connection with this request for which we had been asked to pray. It was the following day, beloved, that the news announced of the tremendous need and the terrific persecution which was coming to our brethren in China. We didn't know it. Information wasn't known in the West, beloved, but the Spirit of God involved us in that great prayer and ministry of intercession. Glory to his name. And, beloved, after that I wondered whether I had ever prayed before. I'd said words. I'd communicated desires and longings and yearnings of my heart to the Lord, but I wondered whether I'd ever prayed. I'd never been touched like that. I'd never found myself involved like that. I'd never been moved like that. I wasn't conscious that on behalf of another that I'd ever wept as a grown man in public, beloved, so uncontrollably as I did on that occasion. I was oblivious of it all. It didn't matter. I couldn't have cared what anyone was thinking or saying, but, I mean, it no longer mattered. Since that time that's happened after, have you ever found yourself involved like that, beloved? Not just for someone you don't know, but for the very needs and people known to you. Brother has been talking on a number of occasions and it's an indication that it's something, that it's bearing itself deeply in upon his heart in these days, the tremendous need for men and women who really are concerned and exercised and by the Spirit have within their heart that tremendous love of God that can no longer sit back and see and observe the needs of people that have been there for so long, which seems so deep, that seem to respond to no ministry. All the talking and all the discussing and all the analysing seems to get them nowhere, beloved. The tremendous need that there is in the Church of Jesus Christ today for people who are prepared to put themselves at the disposal of the Eternal Spirit and come together and pray and fast and wait upon the Lord and let the Spirit in unhindered time, beloved, move to the liberating and the emancipating of people. I know people, beloved, of whom as far as I have understanding, one has almost despaired but for the fact that you know that God cannot fail. He said to me, Do you think that there are people, beloved, who would be prepared not to come to a conference to listen to someone expound the Scripture and to educate them in the glorious truth and to minister to them for their sakes, but to come together to minister unto the Lord in such a way that their lives become involved in that great intercessory activity with God that will go out and minister to the needs of men and women that we know, let alone all the myriads of people throughout the earth that we don't know? It's costly, beloved. The greatest prayer that God heard in heaven, I believe, was the extended form of His precious Son in sacrificial love, hung up on a cross, providing the answer and ministering the glorious provision of God to remedy man's greatest need for all eternity. Amen? And didn't it involve His whole person, beloved? He didn't just come down in words. He didn't just come down in spirit. He came down in totality of person, spirit, soul and body. I was going to minister to you on what it means to be involved unto your body, beloved. I will do before the week's out. It's not just spiritual theory. It's not just mental appreciation and understanding. It's not just feeling, beloved. It's the implication and involvement of your whole person. And to become involved in this great ministry of intercession, beloved, means being fasted away from everything and everyone else, to be entirely at the disposal of God unto that end. Hallelujah. It won't be for our much speaking that we will be heard, beloved. Amen? It thrills me to discover that God, on the basis of His own integrity, beloved, answers prayers before we ever ask them. I was travelling in a car. Some time ago. And a person asked me if I would give them a lift. They wanted to go in the same direction, but as it were, it was to kill two birds with one stone. She wanted to talk to me. So I gave her a lift. And as we travelled along, she shared her heart, expressed her need and the problems that were involved and the implications of those problems. The embarrassment that was crewing unto her and her greatest regret was that it was implicating the integrity and name of the Lord, because someone else was taking advantage of her problem, her situation, her need to mock the Lord. And that hurt her deeply. And as she shared, beloved, and I was driving, and I was already late for the meeting at which I was going to minister and had little time to pause for anything else other than to drive like Jehu and listen to the cry of her heart. And as she shared, beloved, it just passed through my mind, through my heart, I believe. Lord, I wish I was in a position to rectify that situation for the testimony of Your love and faithfulness. You see, I've discovered that God is faithful, beloved. Truly I'm the answer to His prayer. I stand before you as the evidence of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I'm the proof, beloved, that what Jesus did those years ago works in the twentieth century. I make no apology for that. The cross isn't a merely historical fact that I relegate to the past, beloved. It's an eternal and present truth that I know operative on this very day. I know the faithfulness of God in things both great and small. I know, beloved, that my life, my experience, my testimony, my biography is the answer to prayer based on the faithfulness of God. Glory to His name. The following morning, beloved, I went to my study. My mail was on my desk. I lifted the first letter and I slipped it open. There was just a small folded piece of paper with these words on it, to be used at your discretion for your own personal need. And I opened the other piece of paper that was wrapped up in the first piece of paper and it was a check for exactly the same amount of money that the person had confided to me to be her plight the night before. All that I did, beloved, was take it out of one envelope and put it into the other envelope and put on the front with love from Jesus. Amen. Before we cry, He will answer. Now that's a very material and mundane thing, beloved, but a very real and precious, practical manifestation of His integrity, of His love, of His ability, of His faithfulness. I have yet to find Him unfaithful. God spoke to me many years ago and He said to me, if you put me first in your life, I'll take care of everything else. In other words, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these other things will be added unto you. I want to testify to you this morning, beloved, that I have never once had to remind God of His own precious word and faithfulness in relationship to my own personal needs or the needs of my family. Never once. Glory to His name. I testify to the fact, beloved, that God is true and what He says, He does. And as we find access into His living presence, oft times merely or wholly to lie there and let the Spirit implicate us and involve us in His own great and glorious ministry of intercession, beloved, I believe that that liberates from that blessed throne of grace the glorious benefits provided for all men in Jesus. Hallelujah. I'd love to know what our brother would like to minister to us about prayer. I hope he doesn't disappoint us. Glory to His name. May he ever teach us, beloved, and lead us on so that increasingly we know the reality of prayer being answered in us so that we can say, I am the proof that God answers prayer. Let's sing that chorus again, shall we? Come along. I believe God answers prayer. I am sure God answers prayer. I am sure God answers prayer. True, beloved. Your life, the answer and proof. Let's sing it again then. I believe God answers prayer. I am sure God answers prayer. I am the proof that God answers prayer. Glory to Thy name, Lord. Thank You, Lord, that it's not theory. Amen. Thank You, Lord, that You've got us beyond the mere verbosity and limitations of our own persons, Lord, unto that place where we know communion and fellowship with You. Oh, lovely Lord, where all that You are, Lord Jesus, becomes involved in all that we are, and where all that we are becomes implicated in all that thou art, Lord Jesus. Hallelujah. And our lives become that testimony of Jesus Christ, Him crucified, oh God, to this generation, Lord, with all its need. Oh, Father, that what You did in Your Son so long ago is eternally true and relevant even today. Oh, glory to Thy name, Lord. I love Thee. I love Thee. I love Thee, Lord. Praise Thee, Lord. Jesus. Oh, Lord, thank You for hearing the prayer of desperation that it did not speak, Lord. Oh, precious Lord, praise Thy lovely name. Father. I want to ask You, Justice, whether You will become an intercessor. You can have no higher calling? None. None. The Holy Ghost basically has come for that. Jesus. To make on earth what is in heaven. For Jesus is the advocate and intercessor in heaven, and the Holy Ghost is the advocate and intercessor on earth. And He comes to thee to do this thing, that everything may be done from intercession, and everything may prove, may move from this basis. I don't know whether I should preach to you about prayer. I got you to the heart of it in the five or ten minutes in which I spoke. I could have gone on for another hour, but that's the heart of the matter. And you need to know it, and come into it, and stay there. The Holy Ghost has three basic works. One, He comes into your heart at new birth, crying, Abba, Father, that is for life, for birth. He comes into your heart as the anointing, that is for guidance and certainty and assurance for the rest of your life, that's your christening. He comes into your heart to groan as an intercessor, and that is the basis from which it all must move. And you will find that these three integrate and are one. And you will move off from that basis in the life in the Spirit, and you cannot live the life in the Spirit apart from it. These three are one, and bear witness in the church. Even as there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and three that bear witness on earth, the water and the Spirit and the blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth. So do the birth cry of Abba, Father, the anointing of the Spirit for guidance and assurance, and the groaning of the Spirit for intercession. Testify one life abandoned unto the Spirit. Amen.