In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of reading and studying the Word of God. He encourages the audience to spend time each day reading the Bible and meditating on its teachings. The speaker also mentions the value of prayer and supplication before God, emphasizing the need for faith in prayer. He shares personal anecdotes and examples to illustrate his points and encourages the audience to share what they have learned with others. Overall, the sermon emphasizes the transformative power of God's Word and the importance of incorporating it into daily life.

Today, some of you have had some special showers and blessings. We have to learn to rejoice when we have the sunshine or when we have the rain. And this morning we're going to be dealing with one of the most important subjects in your Christian life. The Great Days, just dealing with prayer. Because it is such a big subject in the Word of God. I want to mention again three books, one of them I haven't mentioned before. It's a brand new edition, Praise the Lord of the Gospel of Luke. Some of you have seen that special Jesus film. Based on the Gospel of Luke. And this can be used in conjunction with that film or it can be used completely apart from the film. Now, this is the kind of book, you don't go over and ask, Oh, can I have one copy? But you go over and ask Him for an armful. And ask Him for a special... God wants to use His Word. And I hope we're going to get a vision to share with others what God has been giving us here in these days. My friend Mickey Walker came over here the other day. And he's down the road with another group of young people, I don't know, 50 kilometers from here. And Mickey is very specialist in speaking out in the street. And I thought, what is he going to do in Poland? I mean, in Poland, you can't go out and talk in the street. But he's been teaching all those young people how to use the chalkboard, you know, a collection board. And they have really been responding to this. They've gone out into the street each day. And people are hearing the Gospel. This is an amazing answer to prayer. We all need wisdom, and in each place where we are, we need to get God's wisdom for that place. But one thing we can all do is distribute carefully and prayerfully the Word of God. On my first day, I very, very briefly mentioned this book called, I Married You. That's an excellent book to give to someone as a gift, just before they're getting married. Because God has used this book, originally written for Africa, to help many people in their marriage. And off-stream, Walter Trobisch, he's now in heaven. And this is a very open, honest book that everybody needs to read. And then I want to do again, just remind you of John Stott's book on basic Christianity. To see you get him here to give some Bible teaching sometime. One of the greatest Bible teachers in the world. Meanwhile, you have his book. Very good to give to some Christian faith. What is Christianity really? Give them this book. We have a lot in the mind of Christians. I want you to turn with me to 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 12. Chapter 4, sorry. Verse 12. How many of you are under 20 years of age? You're still a teeny-bopper. Teenagers. That's made everybody come alive. 1 Timothy 4, 12. Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word, conduct, love, spirit, in faith, and impurity. Every day, I've given a challenge about memorizing the Word of God. How many have made a specific decision in your heart that you are going to memorize Scripture for all the rest of your life? Has anybody done that? Raise your hands. That would be worth coming here just to get you started in memorizing God's Word. The advice is 1 Timothy 4, 12, what we just read. Is when you pronounce it out loud, you say it out loud. Another thing is to write it on a little card. Then after I got many hundreds of verses in my mind, I designed a system with a pen, a color pen, or a regular pen. When I start memorizing a verse, I put a line just next to the reference number. When I have the verse half finished, when I get it almost 100%, then the line goes up the other. And when I'm finished, and just meditating and thinking on those verses again, meditating on the Word of God, we experience greater power and victory in our lives. We will also be able to use God's Word when we speak to other people about Christ. Let us just think about the subject of prayer. Combining it with this verse. As young people, you can be an example in this area of the Christian life. It talks about maturity, it talks about love, it talks about the Spirit, and it talks about faith. We cannot talk about prayer without talking about faith. They are together. Prayer without faith is of little value. Turn to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11. I'd like you to read verses 1 through 6. And we're going to have a real marathon. Because of the weather, we're not going to go into small groups. A cup of tea. A cup of tea. Oh God, open our hearts this morning. To your Holy Word, to your way of faith. Lord, we want to take steps of faith this morning. We want to enroll in the University of Pittsburgh. We believe you are no respecter of persons. Whether we are young or old, you want to teach us to pray. Deliver us of false ideas about prayer. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Now notice verse 6. But without faith, it's impossible to please Him. For he that cometh to God, that's speaking of prayer, coming to God, but believe that he is, and that diligently seek him. Diligently seek him. Is this possible for young people? One of the reasons that much of my time is spent speaking to young people is because I totally committed my life to Jesus Christ at 17 years of age. I'm talking to you about something that I have not experienced. Eighteen years in my career, you consecrate your life to Jesus Christ. A great youth preacher, a man of God, said this. He said the great sin of young people says redeem the time because prison for one or two days or, you know, under arrest. Yes, it was all a mistake. And people to realize the great adventure. And you may ask me, I want you to ask me, how old were you when you started to really give yourself to prayer? I was 17. 17 is a great age. How many of you are 17? You know, with God, every year is special. Christian life is one great. I was there, especially the nightclubs and I was completely captivated by the music and the women. At the same time, they would all be. All of that didn't change. There were different people saying different things. I'll never get away from. People think the Christian life is a list of things. You're not allowed things you cannot do. You don't have to do those things. 17, I discovered there was something better. Communion with the living God. God answered prayer. I've been reading some powerful thing in life. That wasn't easy for a character like me. If any of you feel it, powerful things that God is doing, how life has been changed and you just somehow feel I don't feel very spiritual. I don't feel spiritual. I feel a bit of a clergy. If God doesn't meet me, every call I do, he did said this about me. This evangelist who depopulated hell, he wasn't very good. He was worse. He couldn't speak his own language, English. He couldn't speak properly. Deo Moody would often speak about being filled with the Holy Spirit. One lady, she said, lady, because I, and you know, this is the story of my life, leaking Christian leader. Hallelujah, I know where the free reader is. This is why we want to emphasize the need to have a daily quiet time. The need to spend time with God each day. Now I want you to draw a circle on your piece of paper. Can you see this circle? I want you to make a circle. You have to have very good sight in the back if you can see. I need an overhead projector. Maybe a circle. A circle with God. And we're going to divide the pie into different sections. Five minutes. That's the first section. Is five minutes of adoration. Jesus said that God was looking for worshipers. Those who would worship in spirit and in truth. It says in the Gospel of John. We'll look at some more verses in the later section. Tozer said that worship, A.W. Tozer, and I hope you've bought all of his books. Worship was the missing jewel of the evangelical church. So when you start your quiet time, your hour of power, just have five minutes of worship. I suggest you use the psalms. I use the psalms every day. There are so many psalms that emphasize this. Praising God. You may want to use music. You're early in the morning. You're feeling very tired. You can listen to some praise music but have five minutes of worship and praise. Then the next section in your little pie about two o'clock in the afternoon of confession. Confession before we can be honest with a poor attitude toward a brother. Sometimes people bother me. Do you ever have this problem? Somebody bothers you. Somebody who talks too much. Do you ever get with these people that talk? Nothing. Clean lips. Message for your time of confession. You read Isaiah chapter six. Then you move into the third section of your little pie. Three minutes of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. That is a very important part of our Christian life. It says in the book of Thessalonians and there are many, many, many other verses that in everything we should give thanks for this is the will of God. First Thessalonians chapter five verse 18. In fact, while we're there just look at verse 16 and 17. Rejoice evermore. That's verse 16. That's an easy one to memorize. That could be the verse of the day. Rejoice evermore. Then verse 17. Pray without ceasing. Notice verse 18. Read it again. So many young people write to me. Oh, Brother George, I don't know what the will of God is for my life. Always worrying about whether they're going to find the will of God. Very, very important. If you don't do the things that are commanded to be God's will they're commanded in scriptures to be God's will. Very clear, simple, basic things. If you disobey those things how do you think you're going to get special guidance in very difficult areas of life? So here it says this is the will of God. What? Giving thanks. Giving thanks. So easy to see our problems. I have a strong negative streak. Do any of you have that problem or are you all the optimist club? I see easily the negative things. And I have to go continually to God for cleansing over my negativeness which comes in and becomes a little potsore of cynicism in my soul. Power of thanksgiving has been one of the greatest helps to me in my Christian life. Hardly ever a day passes in my life when I don't spend time in thanksgiving for the small things like these beautiful flowers, for the big things like this big tent. We're getting right over to 3 o'clock in the afternoon. 5 minutes of supplication. Do you have a word for that in Polish? Supplication. At the time of beseeching God. Of pleading with God concerning our own personal needs. For an example of that look into Psalms chapter 6. Psalms chapter 6. A beautiful example of supplication. There are many in the Psalms. I was reading this one this morning. Just read verses 1 through 3. Notice again, notice again verse 2. Have mercy on me. Oh Lord, I am weak. Oh Lord, heal me. Supplication. It means bringing our own needs to God. God is interested in you. He is interested in you. I remember some years ago after living in Nepal. We have many illnesses, diseases in Nepal where I live. I would love to talk to you about that country. 95 percent cannot read. Only if... Yet the church has been growing. When I lived there there were maybe only a few thousand believers. It is a Hindu kingdom. Now we have 20 or 30 thousand believers. We're going to hear about those people and we're going to pray for those people on Monday night. A little lump growing here in my... near my stomach. And one doctor looked at it and he said, oh, it's nothing. Very small thing. But it's not too small for God. We can take our small burdens about our health, about our struggle. We can take those things to God. He loves us. He's concerned about us. As we are sitting here now, everybody is looking up at us, at Henio and at George. We seem outwardly, we seem to be more important right now. We're up here on this pulpit right in front of all of you. I love the Lutheran churches. They have the most beautiful pulpits, especially all over Germany. He's concerned about each one of you. 1 Peter 5, 7 says, casting every care upon him, he careth for you. What a great verse. You write that down and memorize that and use that verse again and again. It's a beautiful experience. Supplication before God. And then, ten minutes of just Bible reading, the next section in your search. Just reading the Word of God. Try to cover at least three chapters. You read in three different places at the same time. One chapter in the early part of the Old Testament. One chapter later on, Psalms, Proverbs, the Prophets. And one chapter in the New Testament. Just spend at least ten minutes in reading the Word of God. And then, just before the half past, the hour, five minutes of further worship and supplication before God, thanksgiving. Responding to what God has said to you from His Word. And that will take you halfway through your little circle. And that brings us to half past ten. I am going for my cup of tea. And you are going to do whatever the leaders are telling you to do. And we move into one of the most important aspects of our prayer time and of our prayer ministry. Let me say that I only share this as an example. You can find your own system. That is no problem whatsoever. You may want to spend more time in one thing and less time in something else. This is just one person's way of approaching a daily quiet time. There are many, many other ways. And when you are having time with God, I am discouraged if you have some failure. You may even fall asleep. The disciples fell asleep. In OM we have many prayer meetings. One time, very late in the night, actually early in the morning, the great leader of the prayer meeting sitting in the front row fell asleep. Ah, you can be sure there were many stories the next day. Headlines in the Gospel Gazette George Berwer Falls Asleep in Night of Prayer. Sometimes I have problems No problem is too big for God. Do you think you surprise God with some of your funny thoughts? I remember one time I was in a prayer meeting in Switzerland. You know, sometimes our temptations and our wrong thoughts can come even in a prayer meeting. When we are in a prayer meeting we are still human beings. We have not yet been elevated to angelic position. And I was having a wonderful time in this prayer meeting and then this very attractive girl walked into the prayer meeting with this beautiful dress. Sweet chaos! See anything? The temptation became bigger. And so I just let my fingers open just a little bit to see. And I found it a real struggle. Many people are discouraged in their prayer life because they have some of these struggles when they're actually praying. One thing that has helped me when I'm praying privately is to pray out loud. Then it's harder. I often try walking around. Oswald J. Smith was a great missionary leader. Ten months ago I was with him at his bedside. He was becoming 96 years of age. He had a great burden for Poland, Oswald J. Smith. Some of his books, they used to be in Polish. And he went to be with the Lord a few months ago. He would pray walking around his desk. Some people pray on their knees. Bucks sing in India. He likes to always pray on his knees. We're all different. You have to find the way that's best for you to pray. In our little pattern that we're sharing with here, the next ten minutes is intercession. There's a beautiful picture of it back in Exodus 17 and verse 11. Exodus 17 there is a great battle going on with the Amalekites. And we find that Moses is interceding on the mountain. Read verse 9. Moses was going to stand on a hill communing with God on behalf of the army. Moses actually got tired after some period of time. Read verse 11. Read verse 12. Because of that intercession with God it says in verse 13 that Joshua vanquished the Amalekites. And of course they then wrote this for a memorial in the book. Verse 14. And verse 15 Moses built an altar and called the name of it Jehovah Nisi which means my banner. The Lord is my banner. Now turn over to the book of Acts for a New Testament comparison of this kind of intercession. Acts chapter 12. A very important picture. Verse 5. Peter therefore was kept in prison but prayer was made without ceasing by the church unto God for him. Prayer was made without ceasing. Now in our little circle we are talking about your private prayer life. We are saying in the church. Some years ago I wrote an article for a magazine a well-known Christian magazine called What Happened to the Prayer Meeting? Maybe that someday will get put into Polish. I wrote this article because it's one of the greatest burdens that's on my heart to see the resurrection of prayer meetings within the church. I believe that God's key for accomplishing His work is the local church. God wants to do great things in our churches. Firstly He wants to bring revival. He wants to bring greater reality greater honesty greater love and this is going to happen as we learn to pray. Every Christian should belong to at least one or two prayer groups perhaps one within his church at least and maybe one other one that maybe with Christians of different groups. And let us not think that prayer is just some kind of therapy for those who are praying. Even in some of our seminaries today in certain countries they are giving the idea well God doesn't really answer prayer. I mean prayer doesn't actually accomplish anything you know out there like if you're praying for India. It's a therapy. We can tell all of our problems. Now that may be true to some degree but that is not the basic goal of prayer. God is alive. God hears and answers prayers and here in Acts 12 examples