In this sermon, the speaker focuses on the forgotten ministry of ministering to the Lord. He emphasizes the importance of believers pouring out their hearts before God and waiting on Him in order to receive power. The speaker encourages the audience to learn how to abide in God's presence and not grow weary, as this is where true power comes from. He also highlights the significance of recognizing God as our rock and the source of our salvation. The speaker reflects on his own experience of learning to minister to the Lord and asserts that all true ministry comes from this place of intimacy with God.

If I was going to give the title to what I had to say tonight, and I don't often do that, it's... I think I would call this tape, if it is a tape, I suppose that's inevitable, The Forgotten Ministry. I suppose I may presume to think that you came tonight because you would think there would be ministry, ministry of the word, if you come from good brethren circles, or something like that. In other words, ministry to you. Well, that's not what's in my mind. And I think I want to turn our attention, first of all, to this wonderful thing in Acts 13. It is wonderful, really. I hope that you all are familiar with it. There were, in the church that was at Antioch, certain prophets and teachers, as Barnabas and Simeon, that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manan, which had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost spoke. So now you see what I mean. That you would have been forgiven if you had thought that you'd come for the word to be ministered to you. I want to talk about ministry to the Lord. Now I would think that we all have some kind of idea of what that means. Vaguely. Isn't that right? This word ministry, of course, is used in many contexts. Ministry of the word, as I've already said, or ministry of gifts, as we know in our well-taught circles, or ministry of this, or ministry of the other. And of course, you'll recall that word in the other famous 13th chapter. Romans, where we're told that we're to, every man, one of us, we're to submit to the powers that be, telling us that these men are the ministers of God unto us. You didn't think that. You didn't think the tax collector was a minister of God to you, did you? You thought he was your enemy, and so you groused about God. You better change your ways. I'm very serious about that. I'm not just joking. You're told that these are the ministers of God to you, but very few people believe the Bible. Not when it hurts them. They prefer to think antagonistically. What a tremendous thing it is, then, to realize that you've probably been rebelling against God all the time you've had a working life. Very probably. And then we wonder why things don't go right. Sustained rebellion for 20 or 30 years is pretty bad. And it's a great and glorious thing for us to understand. What they do with my money, which they get very little of, by the way, is not my concern. The great thing about it, beloved, is that we're to learn to minister to the Lord. And of course, the word goes on to say that they fasted. Now, you must not mistake that word to say prayer. If you turn into the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, for instance, you can find that one of the great quartets of things mentioned after these people had been baptized in the Spirit is this, verse 46. They continued daily in the temple, breaking bread from house to house. They ate their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. And they had favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. And in verse 42, these same people continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. And you know, you can say what you like. And people do say what they like very, very often and think they're saying the word of God. If you don't continue with a person in his doctrine, then you cannot continue with him in fellowship. They continued in the doctrine and in the fellowship. That's a tremendous thing to bear in mind. Because you can't even walk together unless you're agreed, says Scripture. So you can't have fellowship if you can't walk together. Can you? Well, that seems logic to me. But you mustn't mistake it for prayers. Ministry to the Lord is not necessarily prayers. In fact, you can find every aspect of what would be covered by the word prayer worked out for us in this book of the Acts of the Apostles. It's all covered. But here is this great word, ministry to the Lord. Do you minister to the Lord? You know, you can't give God anything, despite what we say. We sing, we'll give you all the glory. Of course, you can't do that. I never sing those choruses, though people burst out with them in great enthusiasm. We'll give him all the glory. Do you think so? You remember what I said on Sunday morning, if you were here. God doesn't do anything just to get glory. He does it in love. Everything he does is in love. And we may glorify his name, as we say, but I came to a place in my life where I realized, Lord, I can't give you glory at all. It's good to think that you can't give God anything, really. It's amazing the kind of people you meet in life and they say, well, I gave my heart to Jesus. You see, I gave my heart to Jesus. You usually find that the life that follows after that is pretty sticky and up and down. Many people are doing this. It's the sort of thing you start with amongst children and teenagers. And it's surprising how you can brand them for life with wrong ideas. You have to receive a new heart from God. He gives you one according to my Bible. He gives you the new heart. Amen. What a glorious thing it is to understand this. And, but here though, is this glorious verse that they ministered to the Lord. What does that mean? To minister to the Lord. How long they were there ministering to the Lord is not said. Supposing it had gone on for days. At least it went on beyond mealtimes, obviously, because if it doesn't go on beyond mealtime, you don't fast, do you? They abstained from eating. They might have abstained from ordinary things, quite good things, and they just stayed there to minister to God. And isn't it a tremendous thing that men and women have this privilege to minister to God? I mean, we're so used to God ministering to us. I've come for some ministry. This is quite a paraphrase. I meet wherever I go. I've come to you because I need some ministry, or I want to come and talk to you. I think I need ministry. Something like this. What if God should break in and say, I think I need ministry too. What if he should? What if God should come and take us out of our inherent, endemic selfishness? It dominates the life, even after we say we're children of God. We cannot get away from give me, give me, give me. I want, I need. Instead of getting away into the great intentions and spirit of the Lord. Oh, to be free from self. It's the last thing people get free from. It's the last thing. You can hear it in prayer meetings. You can hear it all over the place. I have just come back from America and Canada, and I intend by God's grace shortly to go to Portugal and go to Belfast and go to Australia if this be God's will for me. I shall hear it wherever I go, wherever I go. It's an indication, A, of never having been born of God yet, or B, having been born of God, remained a baby. For babies are always saying give me, give me, give me. When a baby cries, mother says it needs its milk. You see, something like that. If not, something stuck in the mouth. You see, it's like that. We cannot get away from self. The dominant self is the death of experience of God and of churches when it is en masse. And the Lord has to get us into this place where we can minister to him. Amen. Just turn for me, with me for a moment, into the Hebrews there. I'm going to move away, move along. We're going back into the Psalms. This is why I got up a little earlier tonight, although last night I did so enjoy that early period. I didn't want to get up and preach. It was wonderful, wasn't it? Yes, those of us that were here, praise God. It looked like going that way tonight, so I got up a bit early. And in Hebrews, this is what I read. In chapter one, of the angels, God said, who maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire. I've read it slightly differently, brought the break. Of the angels, he said, who maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire. They are spirits and ministers and flames of fire. What a marvellous thing. So angels are here to minister, his ministers. What a glorious thing then, to know that this is what's in the mind of God. And then our eyes drop down to the end of the chapter and we come into our selfish position, our real own. Here it is. They're all ministering spirits, sent forth the minister for them, that shall be heirs of salvation. So there we are. Now we've got a lot of ministering spirits, we're comfortable, we're fine. And again, the cursed self has come in. We cannot get away from it, but God wants us to. Now, I do not mean that you and I are to think that angels are ministering and it's wrong for them to do so. Of course it's right. What I am saying is that pile up scripture as we do and will. Because we know, as I was saying last night, we're so important to God and that the whole emphasis is on his church, we stink at ourselves. We are members of the body, we reign as kings, we have salvation, we have gifts, we want this, we want that, we do the other, until in the end we're running around ourselves and always that's in circles. So the Lord wants us to pass into freedom from self. Because until we get free from self, we're never free from sin. There are lots of people who think they can be free from the sin and about ten years afterwards get free from self. But selfishness must be sin, mustn't it? Oh, of course it's not murder, it's not fornication, it's not anything like that. But God wants us to see this, beloved, to minister to him. I've heard it coming out in the prayers, I thought, oh Lord, you've certainly been preparing the ground for me tonight, it's coming out of their own mouths. We've come into your presence, Lord, we've come to worship you, we've come to adore you, we've come to get to know you better, that's why we've come. These are the things that have come out of mouths, lovely, it's absolutely right. Well, here then, and I am sure this is what made the Antioch the great famous church in history, which you know was the place in the Gentile world, thank God for that, that God chose to be the second base of the church. And you have learned, of course, in scripture that God is a God of second things, not the first creation, the second creation, not the first birth, the second birth, not the first child Ishmael, the second child Isaac. All right, he's a, I didn't say second great things, I said he's a God of second things. All right, first church Jerusalem, second church, and Jerusalem fades from view, Antioch, the great Gentile church. Watch that, watch it in your experience. The first thing, wonderful, the second thing will be the stable greatest factor in your life. Watch it, make a note of it. God wants us to see this marvellous truth. These people there you see, they knew what it was, beloved, to minister to the Lord, minister to him. I repeat again, it is the forgotten or lost ministry. Do we know what it is? Beyond endearing words sung in choruses or repeated in hymns, do we know what it is to minister to the Lord? Do we? Has this dawned more clearly on my heart today and came with power for tonight's meeting? My mind went back to those early days when God taught some of us to minister to him, to minister to him. And I want to say that all I know really of God, all I know of any real ministry came out of that. Some of you have heard me say this before perhaps, I hope I keep saying it, till the Lord takes us. And with this I want to turn you to Psalm 62. Well this Psalm was a great Psalm among us in those days. Here it is. Truly, he says, this is David, my soul waiteth upon God. That, if you like, was the great rallying cry among us in those early days. Are you coming together? Are you coming to wait on God? This is the way we used to talk. Are you coming to wait on God? You know, we are all very hasty. Even the most slovenly of us, no insult intended, naturally we are very busy when it comes to the Lord. We don't know how to wait upon him. I suppose really it is because waiting upon God is not slovenliness at all. Waiting upon him. You know, David had to tell his own soul to do it. It would be a good thing if you learned and I learned to speak to our own soul. So, wait on the Lord. He used to talk to himself. He was a busy man. He was an active man. He was a great man. He was an anointed man and he had to keep saying, my soul, my soul, wait thou only upon the Lord. Don't wait for a turn of circumstances. Don't wait until things get better, if you like. Don't wait for this or for that. My soul, soul, I'm saying to you, I'm talking to myself. Wait upon the Lord. Now, it's from that waiting, beloved, that the ministry comes. Have you realised that? All the ministry grows out of that waiting. Let's read it. Or, let's pick a verse or two out, shall we? Firstly, I want to say that this waiting always results in this. Verse 8. Pour out your heart before him. That's what it results in. People do not pour out their hearts because they haven't got time to do so. They don't wait upon the Lord. That's where it comes. Wait upon the Lord. This isn't saying your prayers. This isn't saying anything. This is waiting. Pour out your heart before him. And then, here's the logical result. You start in waiting upon the Lord in verse 1. In verse 8, you pour out your heart before him. And in verse 10, God has spoken once. Twice have I heard this. Power blows onto the Lord. That's where the power comes from. You wait. You pour out your heart. The power. You, perhaps, dash into a prayer meeting and dash out. We come to a prayer meeting, an hour and away. We're busy people. Wait upon the Lord. And, beloved, we can't have power unless we do. We can have fancies. We can speak in tongues. But, you know, I can do that at all times. With even my head under water, I can do it. That's not the point. Wait on the Lord. Do you know why you wait on the Lord? Because a realization comes to your heart. Verse 2. He's your rock. He is your rock. And your salvation will come from him. From him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation. Now, David had been saved since he was a boy, to use our vernacular. What was he talking about? A man, now, grown up, talking about salvation. Is he saying he wasn't saved? That's not what he's talking about. It's what we were saying last night. If you will recall, Peter, dealing with salvation in that first chapter of his first epistle, deals with it in an entirely different way from what, say, the evangelist handles it. He tells you what the salvation of your soul is, in what it consists, and how it will come. Though you say, but I haven't been saved 50 years. The word salvation to these men of God of old, beloved, meant much, much, much more than people think it is today. And the Lord wants us to see it. He's my rock. Glory. Verse 5 again. He's telling himself, my soul, it doesn't matter what's happening. It doesn't matter what men say. It doesn't matter what comes or what goes. Wait thou only. Only wait upon God. He doesn't say, wait upon the only God. He's saying, only wait upon God. Don't do anything else. That's what he's saying. We know he's the only God. We don't need to set up our theology or doctrine again. Wait thou only upon God. Hallelujah. Again. If you wait upon God, that proves where your expectation is. I'm expecting God to do something. That's faith. Yeah. Faith without expectation is not faith at all. It's a delusion. Faith waits for God, waits upon God for what you are already expecting to take place, come or happen. My expectation is from Him. He only is my rock. Again you see. Oh. Trust in Him. Verse 8. At all times ye people. Look, this is what I'm doing. Now all my people over whom I am king, listen to the exhortation. Listen to the fear. Listen to what your king has to say. You people. He's my salvation. Well, aren't we saved? Aren't we in the promised land? Aren't you our king? See, this is the tragedy. Amen. He's your rock. He's your rock. Amen. Oh, trust Him. Pour out your hearts. When did you pour out your hearts before Him? I don't mean in the Shakespearean sense. I mean in the biblical sense. You say, what do you mean Shakespearean sense? Well, you know the famous mercy speech, don't you? Full of compassion come I with complaint against my child, my only child. Yes, and so he goes on. All right. Merchant of Venice. But you don't do merchant of Venice stuff and Shakespeare was a blasphemous, twisted up man anyway. Although people adulate him, they've never read him properly unless they've seen through him. Talk about God and that. Well, devils talk about God. The whole glorious truth, beloved, is that you see people pour out complaints. Oh, look what's happened. And call that prayer. That's not what he's talking about. It is until God burrows deep down under all that and shatters all that and brings us to reality that we even begin to pour out our hearts under him. Heart content. You can pour out your heart when you haven't got a word to say. You can pour out your heart through a multitude of words. Surely you know that? I do both. I do both. I want to tell you, if you only do one of the two, you're wrong. You're twisted. You've got it all upside down. It's got to be both. In the tabernacle, I'm coming back to that in a moment, God demanded silence, absolute silence in the holy place that we were singing about. Outside he wanted plenty of activity and sound, balance. That was his tabernacle or temple. And we're supposed to be his temple, aren't we? Both individually and collectively. So the Lord moves us on. God has spoken. Well, of course. Why did God speak to him? Because he waited on the Lord. And when he said to him, he didn't say, David, you've got my power. He said, David, power belongs to me. That'll put you right. When you wait on God, you never get off balance. You never become clear, I mean, up here or in your ways, when you wait upon God. I'll ask you a question. Be honest now. When things have gone wrong in your life, whatever serious or wrong, isn't it because you've been rushing about hither and thither and you're not waiting upon God, involved in this, involved in that, you do something else, you go somewhere else? That's right. But who could have been a busier man than David? The Lord has to teach us so much, to minister to him. Beloved, don't you know the greatest thing you can do for God is satisfy his needs? You say, but God doesn't have need of anything. No, that's true. He could have been wrapped up in himself completely. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost could have been wrapped up in himself. No sin, he had no need. But somehow we learn of God. He just wanted us. He's lovely. To be able to minister to him, isn't it precious? Not only minister to his needs, beloved, but this is what he's really seeking. He's seeking to educate us in the ways of God, for he wants you to learn self-detachment, away from self, pouring it all out, and who better than upon him? He made you. Who better? Who greater? Not to get anything back. Not to get anything back at all. Now, this great word, pour out, always comes when you wait on God. If you don't know how to pour out your soul, it's simply because you don't know how to wait upon God. That's it. And that's a serious hold up in your life. And in the life of a church, it is slow death. And beloved, let's take this word pour, shall we? Notice it's indicative of God. It's the same word in the Hebrew, shed forth. Now can you connect that in the New Testament, the word shed forth? Does your mind think about it? Acts 2. Here is Peter ministering, if you like, on the day of Pentecost. Alright? As you drop down the chapter, you get to this verse. He hath shed forth this which you now see and hear. Glory! He hath shed forth this. Or again, it's poured out of his spirit. That's it. This is God. And until, beloved, we come to this great position in our life, there's something within us that is not integrated. When we are integrated, we can pour out. Now I know there are some people have what we used to call in London, excuse this, the gift of the gab. If you're Irish, they say, you kiss the blarney stone. I don't know what they say in Scotland. Perhaps you flow like the fourth or the first or something. Here's the thing. But beloved, it's so true. It's so true. You say, I'm not much good with words. You will be when you wait on God. It's there. It may be a shortcoming in your natural life, but God has put the fountain of everything in your heart. You'll find words when God's moving your heart. Dumbness. Oh, you'll find words. That isn't to say because you're a born talker that you are now in the great clutch of God. It doesn't mean that at all. It was said of David Lloyd George, the Welsh wizard, that he could talk a bird out of a tree. That's what they used to say. I don't know whether he could or not, but the Lord really needs us beloved. And this is it. You see, he began our era. That is the era of the church by pouring forth. I need not remind you of the Lord Jesus, need I, who poured forth his precious blood as we sing. Need I? But let's move from God, shall we? Let's move to the New Testament where ordinary people are concerned. And in this, may I say, brethren, we're outstripped by the women. Outstripped. You know who I'm going to talk about, don't you? The two women who came and just poured everything upon him. Poured it. Just poured it. That's it. And why pray, if I may term you to this particular one, if not the other one, in John chapter 12, beloved. Is it to say at the end of verse three, these words, the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Listen, I don't want you to stretch your minds too much or fly away into the realms of fancy. I guess God's house was filled with that odour. Oh, but it was the home of Simon the leper. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Have it your way. I'll have it mine. Because I know it's true. I know that as that house there in Bethany was filled with the odour of that poured out spikenard, I know that God's house was filled. Because that's what she was doing, pouring out, pouring out, pouring out. And of course, the other person who they say is Mary Magdalene. All right. She did exactly the same. She was the only one there who did it. In both cases, these two women were the only ones who did it. And what she did was way beyond the comprehension of these men. Every one of them, including Peter, James, John, beyond their comprehension. For if you read your Gospels carefully, you will find it wasn't only Judas that complained. You'll find that Matthew tells you that likewise said they all. They all said it. We say, oh, Judas, he would complain. That's because we never read our Gospels properly. They all said the same thing. None of them had a clue. They could work miracles, man. They could do this. They could do that. They could do the other. Ministry. They had ministry. But apparently Jesus didn't get any. Apparently not. It was he who said whatever you write in your Gospels, he didn't put it this way, whatever you write in the Gospels, and he could have said, Holy Ghost, hear me, because he inspired them, this has got to be included. This has got to be told throughout the whole world. It doesn't matter, John, if you don't put any of my miracles in your Gospel. He did put a few. It doesn't matter if you don't put one parable in your Gospel. Put this in. John never missed it. John heard it. John heard it. The others didn't seem to. What a tremendous thing. Just upon the Lord. That's all. That's all she did. She's famous. Of course, some of it fell on the ground. Of course, it all spread. A whole box full of ointment, of course. But what did that matter? Hallelujah. Listen, my love, will you let me smell the odor of your outpourings, will you? Will you just give me a chance to do that? I don't mean your exact logic in praying. I don't care if you pray upside down or back to front. Oh, we didn't say that right. What does that matter, as long as your heart's right? What does it matter? You can say it all correctly, and I don't smell any ointment. What the Lord wants, beloved, is this. Wait upon the Lord. Wait upon the Lord. You can know that Mary just waited for her opportunity, didn't she? And that's what the Lord wants. Power belongs to the Lord. I've heard this twice, David said. Apparently, he needed reminding. Perhaps that's why he said, all my people wait on God. This is the second time I've heard it. But what a glorious thing it is for us to understand what the Lord is talking about. And you know, I want to go back again into the Psalms. And this time, I want to go to one of the smallest Psalms in the whole Bible. The one preceding it, the one I'm going to look at anyway, it's not the 117th, that is the smallest. But the one that precedes this other small Psalm is one that we know very well. But we're going to look at 134 and not 133, at least not first. Here it is, verse 1. Behold, bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord that made heaven and earth. The Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion. Glory be to the name of the Lord. What a lovely little Psalm. And you know, we converted this to a chorus, lift up your hands in the holy place and so on. And I believe I can distinctly remember anyway, one Sunday morning during the flow of the meeting, when I said here, what did he mean when he said, you servants of the Lord, wait upon the Lord and so on in his house, lift up your hands in the holy place. Well, just precisely this beloved, that all Israel was asleep. They weren't bringing any sacrifices. The evening sacrifice had been made and that closed it down for the day. The final offering was the lamb. All right. And then what did the priest do all night? They had nothing. They just stood there. And you know who they were? Ministers. Ministers ministering to him. You say, well, all night long. Yeah. Oh yeah. They just waited before the Lord. They waited upon the Lord. That's what they did. Oh, they were the Lord's ministers. You could have looked at it another way. If you'd have been a person in Israel, you could say, excuse me. These men, these ministers are my ministers. They minister to me. They take my lamb, they take my bullet, they take what it is and they put it on the altar. They're my ministers. They're helping me. That's what you could have thought. And you would have been exactly right. And you would have gone home with the me complex again. But you say, well, isn't this all vital? Isn't it necessary? It had to be, didn't it? Yeah, that's right. But isn't it a shocking thing that God in his goodness, in doing things for us, still suffers at our hands? Suffers disappointment, I mean. I've made my sacrifice. The blood's been shed for me. The sacrifice has been made for me. These men have helped me. Oh Lord, I'm very grateful. Turn over. They were still there in the tabernacle, in the temple. Hallelujah. Think of it when you sing that chorus, will you? Just think of it. We'll read the psalm before. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his garments as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. Now run to your next psalm and get it connected. Amen. Hallelujah. These are songs of degrees. You should have it heading each psalm. That is, that they were degrees of revelation and expression. They were sung as they went up to Jerusalem on the special feast days, the progression of truth. Amen. And Aaron, you see, it's to do with the priests. Now you will know, beloved, that these men who ministered, they were special people. The priests were special people. They couldn't minister to God in anything else but what God told them to minister. They couldn't do that. You see? And I need not remind you, need I, that we are that chosen generation in the New Testament. We are the priests. We are the ministers. We are them. And you will understand, don't you, to minister to the Lord, they just had to be clothed in their proper raiments. You know, they couldn't have a brown tie and a funny colored shirt, don't know quite what color it is, and trousers like that. They couldn't fancy a nice gray one with flowers on it or a pink one with stripes on it. They couldn't do that. We know that their clothing was symbolic, beloved. They were clothed head to foot in pure white. The only color that could possibly have been on those garments was blood splashed from the sacrifices that they handled or stained here and there with oil of their anointing. That's right. And they just ministered to the Lord. Glory be to God. You know, they came with empty hands. They'd washed them in the labor. They just washed them. And God didn't say, I can't see anything there on your hand. Where's that heave offering now? Well, Lord, there've been no bullocks killed since just before sundown. All right. All right. Lift up your hands, man. It's you he wants. He didn't want you to bring anything particularly. Do you know how to pour out everything? Do you know? Tell me, beloved. You needn't do it loud, but you'll be telling the Lord whether you speak out or whether you don't. Do you wait on God? Can you wait on God? Do you know how to wait on God? Do you? I'm a busy person. You'd feel ashamed if you saw David's program. Yeah. Wouldn't you? What a tremendous thing it is, beloved, to get to this position. Oh, the glories when hearts are poured out. Oh, the wonders. I tell you, beloved, you don't know what fellowship is till you've lain on your face or gone on your knees side by side with him, her, them. You don't know what it is till you've been through that. You don't. Like you may say, well, the sun shone in Scotland. You don't know what warmth the sun is till you've been down into the equator. You say, but the sun shines. You don't know what it is. You don't. You say, well, I pray to wait on God. My expectation is from thee, Lord. Come to minister to thee, Lord. Oh, glory. Of course, we can say, well, nothing in my hands I bring, and so on. That's right. It's a good start. But it's only a start, beloved. That blessed self of yours that we were talking about last night, redeemed, washed in the blood, purified from sin, coming into his presence. Oh, that's what he wants more and more. See what he's got me. Oh, no. Please don't talk like that. When he first got hold of you, what you would call your new birth or conversion or whatever phrase you want to live, to use, of course. But you, now a person with ability to think and to imagine. Yes, you, a person with ability to laugh strongly. A person which by new birth has been constituted a child in his sight to pour all that out. You might say, well, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know how to do it. I don't know what you mean. That's the tragedy. And you know what you've got to do? You've got to learn to lie in his presence, kneel in his presence, without going to sleep after about five minutes. Say, I'm tired. All you need is something wonderful to happen to you. You won't think that you're tired. You won't go to sleep. Power belongeth unto me. If we go back into this psalm, into these psalms, I'm looking at 132. Listen. Verse 1. Lord, remember David and all his afflictions, how he swear unto the Lord and vowed unto the mighty God of Jacob. He saw what he was doing. It was a solemn and serious thing. He says, surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house nor go up into my bed. I will not give sleep to mine eyes or slumber to mine eyelids until I find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob. There you are. That's David. What a glorious thing it is. May the Lord move upon us. Now don't think I'm hinting that you should all go out and stay up all night. That's not what I'm saying. What I am pointing out, beloved, is this great truth, that we should become aware of it, awake to it, be able to wait on the Lord, be able to wait on the Lord. Amen. Now you're growing. Now you are defeating even your own nature. Now you are moving into the things of God in a great, great way. Hallelujah. This is the way you learn to pray. I could almost wish we had another evening so that we could cover extensively this great realm of prayer as it is in the scripture, so that we can see what the Lord wants us to see, beloved. Amen. Not just into our own little ways. You just think how habitual your prayers are. It's right, isn't it? You say, do you mean I've developed the prayer habit? You say, isn't that good? Oh, yeah, that's good. But I mean habitually you go over the same ground. Isn't that right? You say the same things. Well, isn't it right I should keep on praying for my mother or something? Yes, yeah, yeah. Don't misunderstand me. What I'm trying to show you is that we're habitual. What I want to say, too, is that if you learn to wait on the Lord, you'll reach such new realms of prayer and outpouring. They're unexplainable. And that's what God wants. We are a capacity, beloved. There are no limits whatsoever. None. And this is what the Lord is wanting to do. Where, as we sometimes sing, we forget about ourselves and we're away in the Lord. You wait on the Lord, beloved, and I'll make you a promise that all those other things that will be given unto you, I'm almost afraid to say it lest I give you the wrong motive for doing it. All those things will come into line. All those things will happen. I've heard it. Have you heard it? Power belongeth unto me. Power belongeth unto me. That's right. But don't go because you want power. Because if you do, he'll say, power belongeth unto me. What a glorious thing it is. I want to get into this more and more. I want this church to get into it more and more. Why do you think, beloved, touching on something I might have taken up tomorrow night, but let's look at it and perhaps we'll close with this. I must have run my allotted span tonight. I'm looking into 1 Timothy just to touch on it. That's all. But nevertheless, beloved, to see it because this is linked. In 1 Timothy, when Paul, as you will remember, is talking to Timothy and saying to Timothy, which you will find in the first chapter, putting it in my language, Timothy, I left you at Ephesus and I left you to do this. Verses 3 and 4 furnish that. I left you, Timothy, to do something. All right. Now chapter 2. First of all, oh, and that seems to come last of all. You read it for yourself. First of all, oh, where does it come in your life? First of all, do these things, do these things, do these things. Now, let's get it right. First, he had to deal with all the things that were wrong. Oh, there's many of them anyway that are mentioned here. And in dealing with those, I guess a lot of other things got uncovered and cleared up as well. Always happens that way. Now he says, first, supplication, prayer. No wonder the Ephesian church was such a great church. Sort of the same, see? Why was the Antioch church such a great church? Why was the Jerusalem church such a great church? Will you tell me? I'll tell you. It was launched in prayer, waited on God for 10 days, between the 40th and the 50th day. That's right. You know, one of the great occasions in the life of this church, so far as I was concerned, you may not agree with me, but I think perhaps you do, was that week we had of prayer in there, and then extended it to 10 days, and then people said, oh, I wished it could have gone on. That's right. You agree? Not because it was in there, you know what I mean, it's got nothing to do with the venue, it has nothing to do with it. I don't know, it was part of my selfishness because I was in comfort. But here's the thing, beloved, oh, let it go out, let it get into you. Come away from the me, me, me, me, me. Isn't it right then to make prayers and supplications? Oh, yes, yes. But I will tell you this, beloved, and you yourself will bear it out in the logic of the unfolding of truth. Did the waiting upon God, the ministering to God spoken of in Acts 13 take place before Paul wrote that letter to Timothy? Of course it did. That's why there was a Timothy. Paul was in that meeting. Separate unto me Barnabas and Saul, God spoke. So Timothy comes in, came from waiting on God, ministering to God. All the churches of the Middle East there came into being because of that. They waited on God. They ministered to God. Is that right? Yes, it's right. But we're so blind, we don't see it. Do we? Pray God we've all seen it now. But you know, to see a thing brings a responsibility. Not a crushing burden, but a responsibility. You must respond to this. You say, but I don't know, I can't do it. Take my yoke upon me, he said, you and learn of me, he says. I'm meek, I'm lowly, I won't bring a whip to you, but I'll teach you. I'll teach you. And so we learn the right ways of the Lord. I'm finished. Let's pray.