In this sermon, the speaker shares a story about a missionary in Romania who was imprisoned during the time of communism. After being released, he embarked on a journey to return to his wife and daughter. However, when he arrived at their house and knocked on the door, his wife was shocked and turned pale. It turns out that during his time in prison, he had lived among the Maasai people, adopting their customs and way of life. He then preached to them about the life of Christ, and 34 people were saved. The speaker emphasizes the power of the gospel and the impact it can have on people's lives.

I'd like to know how many of you are, as a family, praying for missionaries. Can you put up your hands, please? On a consistent basis. That's wonderful. Thank you so much. You know, sometimes people ask us for our prayer card and then they say, oh, we want to put it on the fridge so that we can pray for you. So I often say to them, well, as long as you don't put it in the freezer, you know. So, but it's wonderful for us to be able to pray for missionaries in different countries of the world. We have a joy of traveling to different countries and we mostly deal with people in leadership, which means missionaries and their wives and pastors and their wives. And there is a country in Eastern Europe that was under some of the most brutal communism for 51 years. And it's the country of Albania. And about, I don't know if it was 8 or 9, probably about 7 years ago, I was asked to go to Albania and to spend time with missionaries. And then in Macedonia, they brought all the pastors and the missionaries. What's that? I always feel if I've got two dynamite sticks here on both sides of my body. So, and if it's the wild best, you feel if you've got two six-shooters here also. So, first time in my life I've been in a country where you need two, you know. Anyway, the country of Albania, we were asked to do two things, to speak to people in Albania and then to speak to all the pastors and the missionaries in Albania. And we took them, they brought them to Macedonia, which is just outside of Albania. And we were there together for three days. It was tremendous, the very first day of that conference, how God broke in. You know, one of the greatest problems on the mission field is interpersonal relationships. People cannot get on with one another. And there was tremendous friction between the pastors in Albania and the missionaries. And I didn't know that, you know. You're so glad when you go to these countries that you don't know what's going on because if you know what's going on, you won't go. So, I went there and in the very first session the Spirit of God broke in. And there was tremendous reconciliation that took place. And so that's when they came to us and they said, is it possible to come to Albania every year, which of course we are not able to do. But I became interested in Albania because Albania, you know, we are in Albania, Hungary, Romania, Kosovo, Croatia, what is called the Balkans. And Albania is a very poor country. The average income is about 30 Canadian dollars a month. If you are a doctor in Albania, your income is about 200 dollars a month. And there are areas of Albania where people on Friday nights, in the middle of the night, would go into parts of the city and look for stray cats or dogs. You say, why are they doing that? Because they don't have any meat on the tables. And people are really poor. I stayed in a house in a little village outside of the city of Tirana with a couple. And, you know, we only had bread and coffee. And sometimes they gave us bread and coffee and butter, I think it was. And that's all we had. And I didn't realize how poor they were. I was in a little room and I just had a bed and a table and a chair and a few blankets. And then when they went into the village to get something, I went to the fridge because you can't touch the water. It's so dangerous to drink. And I went to the fridge and there was virtually nothing. And this poor couple, at the end of the time when I wanted to give them a little gift of money just to try and help them. They said, no, no, you have been our guest and we want you to be with us. And, you know, there's something which I love as an African because we were brought up in Africa. And it's a thing called tripe. It's about the equivalent of a kangaroo, I should say to you. But it's sheep's stomach. And in Africa, we loved it. And my wife, being a Canadian, you know, she gives it to me once a year. I call it the great day of the atonement. Once a year, she would give it to me. She's always embarrassed by the neighbours because of the smell of the stuff. Well, this elderly lady in Tirana found out that I like tripe. And she said, well, let's go to the butcher and we get some tripe. So I said, where is the butcher? She said, out there in the bush. I said, what do you mean? Well, you come out there in the bush and there's a bunch of sheep and goats and cows standing. And that's the butcher shop. And this poor sheep stood there and thought, I'm next on the list. But he banged off his neck. And for days, I was just eating tripe. I had the time of my life. I don't think I can tell you how many times I went to the washroom. But I had the time of my life eating this tripe. But you know, brother and sister, let me tell you something about Albania. 25 years, 51 years, it was communism. Brutal. Brutal communism. He took the philosophy of communism from Mao Tse Tung. The suspicion that a child couldn't go to school and say, you know, my daddy last night said that the meat that the government gave us is bad. They would go and arrest his father. So, the level of suspicion was just unbelievable to even try to comprehend. But you know what happened? For 25 years, missionaries out of Switzerland would go from Greece to Italy. And they would take a ferry from Greece to Italy. And when that ferry over the Adriatic Sea, when that ferry would come close to the country of Albania, they would take thousands of gospel tracts. And this is how those gospel tracts looked. And they would seal them like this. And they would throw them in the Adriatic Sea. And these gospel tracts would go to the beaches of Albania. And so, for 25 years, 4 times a year, that's what they did. And of course, the communist government would find out about it and then send the army to it. And they would confiscate these tracts. But people got a hold of these gospel tracts. And when communism fell apart in Albania, the missionaries from Switzerland went into Albania. And they came into a community about an hour outside of the city of Tirana. Tirana has got about 800,000 people in the city. An hour outside of the city of Tirana. And they found a community with the name of Druos. And they figured out that that must be in that community. Communism, as for it, fell apart. The country was free. And they found that and they said it must be in that community or rather in those beaches where those gospel tracts. And they began to do recitation amongst the Albanian people. And they came across 45 people that gloriously got saved. And when they began to speak to them about the gospel, the people said, we know exactly what you talk about. And they said, well, how did you know that? And they said, because we have become Christians. And we met in secret. And they said, how did you become Christians? And they all ran to the places where they hide the gospel tracts. I was speaking in the city of Tirana. And a man came to me who was a pilot. And he said to me, I was a soldier during that time. And we were sent out with the army to confiscate these gospel tracts. And he said, I didn't understand why the government was so adamant against it. And he said, one day when no one saw me, he said, it was in the winter. I took one of those tracts and I folded it up. And I put it in my army coat where no one could see it. And he said, I hid it in the basement of the house because they would have found it. It could have cost him his life. And he said, I went down there and read it. And he said, I gloriously found Christ as my personal savior. I was in Albania last year. Oh, I tell you, if I take you there, I mean, you know, it will change your life for time and for eternity. We were in the city of Patrikic. And we had sessions there with the missionaries. It's right next to a huge lake called the Lake Akrit across Macedonia. And the missionary, the German missionary Arnold Geiger said to me, one day we were driving down the road and he said to me, and a man came on his bicycle, Albanian man, a big smile upon his face. And Arnold said to me, Brother Gerhardt, he said, you see that man? I said, yes, he said, he's a wonderful Christian. I said, how did he become a Christian? Well, he said, you know, we came into Albania and we went into the mountains in the villages. And what we did as we went into the mountains and villages, we were sharing the gospel of Christ with people. Now, we see those people have no knowledge because the communist dictator said he was going to wipe Christianity out. I mean, in Albania, brother and sister, there are only about something like 3,000 Christians in the whole country. Whole country. And you know what? Of those 3,000 Christians, 85% of them are 40 years and younger. And so, he said, we went into the villages and we were preaching the gospel. And he said, we had to start right from scratch. And so, we started to the Old Testament and talk about the lamb that was sacrificed and then build it up into the New Testament, how Christ became the lamb. And he said, this man and his family sat there and he said, I didn't explain this in the right way for him. And he said, the next week, this man came down from the mountains into the village in the town of Patrgic. And he said, as he came down, he was looking for me and he found me. And when he found me, he said to me, he said, I need to talk to you, I need to talk to you. And Arnold Geiger said to him, what is it that you want to say to me? He said, I did that, I did that, I did that. And Arnold said, what did you do? He said, I sacrificed a lamb. And Arnold said, what do you mean? He said, I got my family together. He said, we decided that we were going to do this thing that you talked about the first day. And he said, we sacrificed a lamb. We sacrificed a lamb for God. And the poor missionary priest answered him, he said, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. That's not what I was trying to say to you. And the man said, no, you don't understand. We sacrifice a lamb so that we can prepare our hearts to give our lives to the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. And he led him all to Christ. Oh, Brethren, it's just right there, I mean, it just breaks your heart when you go to these people, you know. Listen, pray for us in November. We are bringing all the churches in Toronto together for a week of prayer. We are trusting God to take 100,000 New Testaments into Albania. 100,000 New Testaments into Albania. And every Christian is going to receive so many New Testaments. Gospel, literature, we are having a week of prayer. And people come from all over the country and we are having a week of prayer in the National Hall of Congress. You say, what was that? That was the place where the communist dictator had all his meetings while he was dictator in the land of Albania. Let me tell you something about Romania before we pray together. When we were in Romania last year, the last weekend that I was in Romania, the University of Emmanuel where I was teaching and the church there, they came to me and they said, we want to give you a taste of what the rest of the country is all about. And so I said to them, what do you want me to do? They said, we are going to give you a translator. We are going to give you a team of students from the Bible College who is going to sing and testify. And we are going to give them a bus and a driver. And they are going to take you three to five hours in the mountain passes towards the border of Yugoslavia. And I said to them, so what will happen? They said, well, on Saturday night you will speak in a church. And on Sunday morning and Sunday night, Sunday morning you speak in two different churches. And Sunday night in the city of Giza, there is a Baptist church with about 650 people. And then the last meeting will be there. So we took off into the mountains and, you know, it was snowing and everything. And we got to this first place. And brother and sister, those people, you know, are so hungry. I mean, these people, someone mentioned the other weekend that some folks had difficulty being in these sessions because they find it difficult to pray together. I tell you, you come to me with countries. If I take you to China, you go into the underground church in China and you've got 200 pastors and they're going to keep you busy for 16 hours because they don't know if they're going to be arrested the moment when they come out and some of them, they could pay the price of their lives. So the Saturday night when we were in this meeting, in this church, I spoke in this church. And when the service is over, you know what happened? The people refused to leave. I mean, by that time I had about 29 services already in a matter of seven or eight days. And I was just absolutely wiped out. And these people in this church, they all sat there. Service is over. I went and sat down. And no one got up and walked out. And so the pastor came to my translator and said, you need to talk to him. And my translator came and said, the pastor has got a message for you. I said, well, I just brought a message. Just give me a break, you know. He said, well, the message of the pastor is that the people refused to go home. I said, come on, you know. I said, well, I'm tired. I want to go home. Oh, no, you don't understand. You don't understand. What you spoke about tonight broke their hearts. They want to hear more. Brethren and sisters, I mean, how do you say no to people like that, you know? So I said to them, listen, I don't have energy and I am just about done. I promise you if I come back to Romania, I will come back into this community. And so we went back to the house where we stayed. Now, brethren and sisters, it's very, very primitive. I mean, the house that I stayed, the toilet is outside somewhere there, the kitchen is a little place here, and then there are rooms here, and they've got all of this stuff. And in this house where I stayed, I didn't know that that was the first church while communism was still going on. Romania has been free from communism for 70 years. And so when I came into the house, the man and his wife announced their son was a seminary student. And so I came into my room, and he came into my room and he said to me, my mother wants to tell you her story. And I said, what do you mean she wants to tell me her story? He said, well, I will do the translation. My mother can't speak English, but she wants to tell you what happened to her. And so we went into the kitchen. They gave us a cup of coffee and sat around the kitchen table. We sat there, and as we sat there, she said to him, this is what I want you to tell this man. She was the first daughter of the Baptist pastor of that church. And he was the pastor, and when she was three years old, the secret police came on the Tratesco, came to the house one day, and arrested her father. And her father went to the other side of Romania, put him in a prison. He was in labor camp, and brother and sister, 12 months later, they came back to the house, the secret police. They handed her a sheet of paper, and they said, we need to tell you that your husband died in prison. And she was just in a terrible state, and they said, you're going to need to get over it. This is his death certificate. He's dead. You'll never ever see him again. So here was this young mother with a three-year-old little girl, nothing, and she was going to face life. And so she began to go through this grieving process, and realizing now she's on her own with this little three-year-old. And you know what happened? Three years later, she got married again. A schoolteacher who was part of the church, a single man, lovely Christian man, she got married to him, and she had two little children with a schoolteacher. And five years later, something happened. The man that was dead wasn't dead. So what happened? They lied to her. He went to prison. I've got a picture of him here. He went to prison when he was 160 pounds. He came out of prison, he was only 50 pounds. And when he came out of prison, he had this massive passion. I'm going to go back to my wife and my little girl. Now she's about, what, eight, nine, ten years old, and now I'm going to go back and start the church again, and ministry is going on. And away from the other side of Romania, he worked his way through the mountains, passed on his way back to this little community, and he's going to come back to his wife and his little girl. No idea what happened. And he knocked at the door of the house, and huge excitement. He thought, I'm going to surprise her. I'm not going to walk in. I'm just going to knock at the door of the house, and we're going to have this marvelous reunion of our little family. And knocked at the door of the house, and she came and opened the door. The moment when she opened the door, she turned as white as a sheet. And she stood in absolute shock, and she looked at him and recognized him. I mean, he was just flesh and bone of the skeleton of the man. And he said to her, I'm back, I'm back, I'm back. And she just looked at him and she said, no, you're dead. And he said, no, they lied to you. And she said, you know, they gave me your death certificate. That's what they did. And as he stood there, he saw something, and around the corner these two little ones came, and holding on to the dress of their mother, and look up, who is this man? And he said, who are these? And she said, these are my children. I got married again. We have no idea, you know. We have absolutely no idea. What those people went through. So, I trust that you've got a burden and a longing for missionaries. You know, these missionaries that went to Mozambique, our farm was five miles from the Kruger National Park, and we were 35 miles from Mozambique. Do you want to pray for them? Pray for them that those children and that they don't get malaria. One million people every year die of malaria in Africa. Humanly speaking, it's a 99% possibility that that whole family is going to get malaria. And if children get malaria, it's a 90% possibility that they're going to die of malaria. And so, if you pray for them, it will be wonderful. You know, I don't have time, but I tell you, these countries that you can go to, I think someone talked about Tanzania, or I was in a conversation, I had the marvelous privilege of teaching at NASA Theological Seminary outside of the city of Wanza in the country of Tanzania. And, incredible, when we were flying over Tanzania to the seminary, which is right on Lake Victoria, I looked down, because I love the Africans, I was brought up with them, and I looked down, and as I was looking down, I saw the African Kraals. We call them Kraals in Africa. And I looked down, and it was the Maasai Mai. I'm sure you've seen these people, tall warriors, and they're ferocious. They're ferocious men of war. And so, when I got to the mission station, I said, when I got picked up at the airport, Norm Dilsworth, who's a missionary, been there 60 years of his life, he's a white Tanzanian, was born there. He picked me up, and we were driving through the city of Wanza, a million people in the city, and I said, Norm, I said, listen, are you doing something amongst the Maasai Mai? And, you know, he's an amazing man, just a big smile upon his face. He said, you wouldn't believe this. I said, what? He said, God gave me a burden. I've been 60 years in the country. And he said, God gave me a burden for the Maasai Mai. And he said, no one would be allowed amongst them. I mean, they're ferocious warriors, those men. And, you know, one of the things for them to become the leader of the Maasai Mai, he had to kill a lion on his own. And so, these people are incredible. And some of them are seven feet and more, you know. And so, he said, God gave me a burden for the Maasai Mai. And he said, I talked to Sheila, my wife, and I said, I want to go and minister. And she said, they won't accept you. And she said, you know, you're not going to even come back alive. And he said, but I have a burden. God gave me a burden. And so, she said, what do you want to do? And he said, can you give me eight weeks that I will not be with you? And she, no norm, you know. I mean, he's just one of these men. He just said, don't take no for an answer. And he went. And he went to the Maasai Mai, and he said to them, can I live amongst you? And they said, no way. Well, he said, why not? They said, well, first of all, you're not going to make it. You can't do what we do. And he said, you don't understand. I'm a white Tanzanian. And they said, you can't. And he persuaded them. And brother and sister, you know what happened? They allowed him to be amongst them for eight solid weeks. You know what? He lived amongst them. He dressed like them. He went into hunting with them. He drank the cow blood. He ate the fat of the cow. He ate the raw meat. I mean, I don't know how he survived. But for eight weeks, that's all he did. He lived amongst them. She said, I thought I would never see him again. And after eight weeks, the chief of the Maasai Mai came to him. And they said to him, so, why do you want to do this? What is it that you want to say to us? And he said to the chief, bring the people together. And he spoke to them. And he preached to them for about three hours about the life of Christ. And 35 of them got saved. I mean, it's tremendous, you know. And they have two churches. Before I began to speak, I said to Norm Dulciffe, I said, do they have a pastor? Yep, they've got a pastor. He said, he's an unbelievable tall man. And I said, is he coming? He said, no, he's not coming to the conference. He's got eight children. And I said, let's pray. Because I took some clothes, you know. I want to give this man some clothes. I mean, my long trousers was only about short for him. I had to put them on properly. They were incredible. And you know what happened, brother and sister? The Monday afternoon, he arrived with his wife and the youngest child and bicycles and a chicken. I said, what are we doing with a chicken? He preached this Sunday. And they couldn't give him anything for his sermon. And they gave him a chicken. Don't give me a chicken when I go back to Canada, okay? Because we don't want chickens. You know, we kill them the old style African way until the head parts from the body. So watch it, the Israelis. Well, let me tell you something. I said, what's the chicken about? Well, he said, that was the offering of yesterday. I said, what are you doing with the chicken? He said, I put a tie around its leg and tie it around the pole. We feed it until it's big enough. It's the only church where you can go and preach and the offering is growing, you know. Isn't that marvelous, brother and sister? He said, it's amazing. It's just been amazing. But you know, we are amongst those people. Oh, I tell you, brother and sister, it's incredible. And you would talk to him. He said, okay, tell me about your monasticity. I said, how can I pray for you? Well, he said, you know, we're right next to the Serengeti. There's no fences at the Serengeti because it's Tanzania. So I said, what's the biggest problem that you have? He said, elephants. I said, what do you mean? He said, they come and they destroy our crops. He said, we chase them away with pots. They get aggressive. And he said, sometimes they want to kill the people. And I said, what about, oh, he said, all kinds of animals. He said to me, when my wife gave birth to the youngest child, the last child, he said, she was in the hospital in Wanza. And he said, I was going with my bicycle, about 35 miles, to go to the hospital. She was in the hospital. She was going to give birth. And he said, I was going to the hospital. He said, I was going alongside this dirt road right next to the Serengeti. And he said, I was flying down this hill with my bicycle. And he said, before I knew what happened, there were two male lions walking right in front of me. And he said, I had no chance. And he said, I came right at them. And he said, I hit one of those male lions right in his ribs with my bicycle. And he said, the moment when I hit him, he said, I was flying through the air. And he said, as I was flying through, he said, I knew the moment when I hit the ground, they'd be on top of me. He said, you know what happened? I knocked his wind out. And he said, I landed there, and he landed there. And he said, we both ran in different ways. Oh, Brethren and Sisters. I mean, you know, I mean, this country is the driest of bones. Why don't you go to the mission field? Huh? I mean, you know, let me just tell you this, because I keep you all day telling what's going on in the world. You know, you know, there are two missionaries there. You should hear them. Because these were two white missionaries. And in Tanzania, they had a little truck, and they went to buy groceries, and kidnappers came with AK-47s. They call AK-47s African checkbooks. So, they came, drove them up the road into this little dirt road. So, they little truck, this missionary's wife, and drove them off, pushed them into this dirt road, and they jumped out these Tanzanians with their AK-47s, and they blew the tires out, shot the tires out, and they thought, okay, this is it. They're going to strip everything, and then they're going to kill us. And so, these Tanzanians took everything that they could from this little truck. Two missionaries stood there, didn't know what to do, and lo and behold, they didn't shoot them. But they're out there in the bush. There's no way that they can get anywhere. And they stood there and thought, what are we going to do? We are stuck. There's no way that we can get out of this. And do you know what happened, brother and sister? Two Maasai Mai warriors, you know, in the winter, they come into the city of Wansa, and because they're such fierce, they use them for security in the city. And so, they become security guards. And two Maasai Mai warriors, there's this trail coming through, and they were standing in these missionaries' foot. What are we going to do? And here, out of the blue, two Maasai Mai warriors came on this trail, and they were coming right to it, and as they came, you know, with their swords and all their clothes and garments and stuff. And as they came, they saw these two missionaries, and so they began to talk Swahili. And so, the missionaries said, they said to the missionaries, what happened? And the missionaries said, you know, we got robbed, the tires got blown out, they took everything that we had, and we really stuck. And the one Maasai Mai warrior said to the missionaries, so what are you going to do now? They said, well, we don't know. And do you know what happened? This is exactly what happened. That Maasai Mai warrior dig into his garments and opened it up and opened up, and do you know what happened? He took out his cell phone. He took out his cell phone and said, phone the mission station. I mean, you know, these missionaries, you know, they would sit and they would tell you a story, and they'd crawl on the floor as they were laughing about this. Because, I mean, to them, it's the greatest thing that has happened in the history of mankind. Anyway, there we are. Better stop now. Let's pray together. I want you to just get two or three or four people, and why don't you just spend some time in prayer. I'm going to close, and then we've got a few minutes to turn to the Scriptures. We've got another session tonight also, so if you can stay. So, can you turn around and find a couple of people that you can pray with and let's spend some time in prayer. Heavenly Father, we want to thank you so much for the tremendous encouragement that it brings to our hearts when we pray together and when we counsel one another unconsciously, as we listen to the prayers of those who unburden their hearts and as we unite our hearts in the place of intercessory prayer. Father, if you, in this beautiful Adelaide Valley and in this country of us here in Australia, could raise up men and women that are going to climb underneath God's burden in prayer in such a way, what a difference this can make to this country. And we want to pray this afternoon that somehow here in this land that God will give birth to a prayer movement the way that you have given birth to a movement of prayer in the land of Peru the last three years and how the churches have caught the vision of becoming houses of prayer and begin to see what God is doing as a result of lives and ministries of intercessory prayer. And Father, you have said unto us in your Word, you have not, because you ask not. And you said unto us, you ask and when you ask, you ask amiss and you ask outside of the will of God. And God cannot answer those kind of prayers. And Father, we do not know this Sunday afternoon what it's going to take for God to come upon the so-called evangelical church in Australia and to see the church becoming a house of prayer and to see men and women and pastors and missionaries and evangelists and lay preachers and men and women in leadership to see them coming to the places in the relationships of God where they will become saturated in the spirit of intercessory prayer. Father, I've been amazed and I'm so grateful that you have not allowed me to become discouraged or disillusioned, but I had a huge expectation in my heart that if we are going to have an Easter conference like this and we are going to put the emphasis upon spending time with God, somehow, dear God, I had a sense of anticipation that the response is going to be so overwhelming of men and women that wanted to learn about prayer. And yet, Father, it is so true that sometimes when we come with the understanding that we cannot separate the answers of prayer from that which God is doing in our own lives, that sometimes it just scares the very life out of people. And they feel threatened and they feel intimidated. And Lord, I confess this afternoon I probably totally missed the boat in my understanding and my perception and my expectation and anticipation of men and women in this country that could be hungry for prayer. And yet, Father, I do believe in my heart that they are there. That the remnant of God's people want to know about prayer. They want to know how God answers prayer. How God is able to manifest Himself. How God is able to send revival as the result of redemptive intercessory prayer. And we just pray that the seed these days that has been sown in our hearts and in our lives, Father, we may be just a handful of people, and yet, Lord, You have enriched us in our understanding. I thank You that You have come to my own heart with new concepts of what a life in the ministry of prayer all needs to be about. And there is a spirit of prayer that prevails in this country. We pray that You will give us the insight. We pray that You will give us the vision. We pray that You will give us the comprehension to be able to somehow come to grips with this understanding of the spirit of prayer. With the understanding that You said unto us that if we then who are evil know how to give good tithes unto our children, how much more shall our Heavenly Father keep on giving the Holy Spirit to those that ask Him. And Lord, I am sad in my own heart to think that there are churches and maybe fellowships within this country and this community and within the Adelaide Valley that virtually don't pray together. And that there is this understanding that we just don't pray together. God, it's such a sad thing to realize that Your Word puts so much emphasis upon the necessity of what prayer is about. And so we ask that the seed that has been sown, that somehow that the Spirit of God will come and fertilize this seed so that we would become men and women. And Lord, I don't know if I ever in my life will be able to do something like this again here with this group of precious, precious people of Yours. But I just want to pray that all that the Spirit of God will follow up the seed and fertilize it, and all that we would have been of brokenness of heart and burden of soul and men of great hunger and thirst after God as it relates to prayer. Lord, our time is gone. This hour and a half that we have committed ourselves to these services that we did not want them to be extended and that is virtually gone. And yet we want to ask that as we take the last few minutes of this little afternoon that has become so refreshing and we just ponder upon Your Word, minister it fresh to our hearts, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen. Wonderful. Brethren and sisters, why don't you turn around. I wonder if I could ask some of those back that sat at the back. We've got a ton of chairs open here. Those of you who are at the back, would you mind to come and fill these spaces and then we are kind of closer together. So, I'm going to ask you to come forward and then we've got 2, 4, 6, 8 spaces open right here at the front. And if you would come and fill those areas, that would be wonderful. That's great. I so, so, so appreciate that. That's wonderful. Thank you so much. There's some spaces in this. Some right here at the front, so just come forward if you don't mind. I want to remind you that we have material that we have made available to you and we're going to put some of all of this out there. You say, did you really want to come and sit us at the front? Well, the reason why I wanted to do that was to make sure you don't fall asleep in the next 15 minutes. You see? There's more than one way to kill a cat, you know. No, that was not it. This morning, and we said I think on Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon, I can't remember, that we said that yesterday we want to spend on prayer in the Old Testament and then today on the New Testament. And this morning, those of you that were able to be with us, we have some visitors here. This afternoon, we began to look at what we would refer to as the Lord's Prayer. And one of the observations that we came to the realization in what we would refer to as the Lord's Prayer that it's not necessarily a prayer that God wants us to repeat. People say, well, is it wrong for us to repeat what we would consider the Lord's Prayer? And I say to them, no, not necessary. But the distinction is that the version or rather the assessment of the Lord's Prayer in the Gospel of Matthew is not the same as the one in the Gospel of Luke. And I think if Jesus would have given us that prayer just to repeat it for the sake of repeating, we probably would have found it exactly the same in those two Gospels. But the secret in understanding that is simply the words in the Greek language which is the words, which really means that Jesus said, when you pray, I want you to pray along these lines. And so if you and I would study what we would call the Lord's Prayer, we discover in this prayer the ingredients in developing a personal and a private prayer life. And I've discovered a whole, probably as many as 9 to 11 possible ways that we can develop principles in developing a personal and a private prayer life. And so this morning we spent time on the pertinence of time when Jesus said, when you pray, which means that God wants us to spend time within His presence. And then secondly, we began to look at the place. And there were all those wonderful concepts, the plan of prayer that He gave unto us, the purpose of prayer, when He said, Pray to your Father which is in Heaven. The priority of prayer, when He said, The hallowed be your name. The program of prayer, when He said, Your kingdom come. The plan of prayer, when He said, Your will be done. The provision of prayer, when He said, Give us our daily bread. And the protection of prayer, when He said, Forgive us our debts. And the pardon of prayer, and the protection we seek. So there are all kinds of aspects of developing this personal life of prayer. And we also touched this morning on the necessity of a place. And Jesus said, When you pray, go into your closet. And because of the fact that the Gospel of Matthew was predominantly written to the Jews, Dr. A.T. Pearson, in his wonderful little book on prayer, made this emphatic point that he said, It seems to us that those early disciples, that when Jesus spoke about this closet, that the only thing that they could think about or consider was the holiest of all. And how Christ, when He died on the cross, and the veil of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom, and how the epistle to the Hebrews is saying to us, God has given us freedom so that we would be able to enter into the... And then the beauty of the meaning of this word. That four times, brother and sister, you come across this in the Greek New Testament, and you discover the beautiful concept of what this is about. It's speaking to us about a secret den, and it's speaking to us about a storehouse. And so I want to ask you this afternoon, have you got this secret den where you spent time alone in the presence of God? It's not when we pray together. He said, when you pray... And so we need a place where we can meet with God, where we on a consistent basis meet with God. You say, why do we? Christ had a place like that. You say, how do you know that? Isaiah chapter 50, when the prophet Isaiah was prophesying about the life of the Messiah, he made this statement. And he said, and I wish I could translate this out of the Hebrew language. He said, morning after morning, he was awakened. Why was he awakened? So that he could listen to the voice of his Father. One of the greatest statements on prayer in the New Testament is when Jesus said, my father's son can do nothing unless he sees the Father do of it. You see, the secret of prayer, brother and sister, is to discover the will of God in prayer. And when we discover the will of God in prayer, and we pray according to the will of God, and we do what God wants us to do, God is going to bless that which is in the center of His will. That's why the apostle John said, this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, that He's in the process of listening to us. And if we know that He is listening to us, we know that we are the petitions of those things that we are asking of Him. That's why the Lord Jesus said in John chapter 15, He said, if you abide in Me and My word abides in you, He said, you shall ask anything that you will and it shall be given unto you. And I hear sometimes students come and say, oh, isn't this amazing when it comes to prayer? I can ask whatever I will. And I just stare. I said, you have no idea what you are speaking about. The condition is ferocious. If you abide in Me and My word abides in you. And brother and sister, if I abide in Him and His word abides in me, I would be so passionate about the will of God, that I would not dare to ask anything outside of the will of God. And do you know what's one of the greatest things when we pray in the will of God and we spoke about the burden of God yesterday, that Hebrew word, masah, and how the burden of God brings brokenness, and how brokenness brings cleansing, and how cleansing brings in the Spirit of God into my life, not just to be resident, but to be present, and how the spirit of prayer would come, and how the spirit of prayer leads us to the will of God in prayer, and how the will of God in prayer is surrounded with the promises. One of the greatest things about Scripture is to pray according to the will of God. So why do you say that? Muller of Bristol that we referred to once or twice over the weekend, the man who had 85,000 answers to prayer, someone came to him one day and said, Mr. Muller, do you ever stop praying for people? Do you ever stop praying? And Muller said, No, you know the longest that he prayed for someone? 63 years. That person became a Christian three weeks after George Muller of Bristol died. And they said, Mr. Muller, do you ever stop praying for people? He said, No, as long as God keeps the burden in my heart. He said, I pray for those people. Why was it, brother and sister? Because he was praying according to the will of God, you see. God gave him promises for that person, and as he prayed according to the will of God, the Spirit of God was working in the lives of those people. Can I ask you this afternoon, do you have a list in which you pray for people? Systematically praying. You say, what do you mean? You see, brother and sister, we mentioned the other day and you know, our time does not allow us to cover all this ground and someone has come to me this weekend and said, you know, it's so overwhelming, I can't handle it. I thought, man alive, you know, we just need to come to grips with the reality of truth. Brother and sister, if you study the New Testament in prayer and you look at those 248 passages and you go to those 12 aspects of New Testament prayer, you say, listen, what do you discover? You discover fellowship praying. You discover routine praying. You discover task-oriented praying. You discover praying within the realm of the Holy Spirit. You discover the life of faith as it relates to prayer. You discover praying in the will of God. You discover praying in the name of Jesus. You discover the high priestly ministry of Christ as it relates to prayer. You discover what does it mean to pray through. You discover the place of the Word of God as it relates to prayer. You discover the dealings of God's Spirit in you. And there are 12 aspects and you know, listen, if you and I would have taken these 12 aspects these days and I would have taken those 248 prayer passages and we would bring them and we would take a passage as a basis in understanding this aspect of what prayer is about and we develop that passage and then we go to the rest of the New Testament and we bring the Scriptures in. Brethren and sisters, it will change your life for time and for eternity, you know. I mean, this is our problem. We know so much about the Scriptures, but the Scriptures doesn't know us. So you say, what about the life of Mullah? What about the routine praying? Praying for the same people every day, year after year, day after day, seeking the face of God for those people. Fellowship praying is a wonderful word in the Greek language when it speaks of this understanding of fellowship praying, what this is all about. You know what this word worship means in the New Testament? It's no concept of what we think as worship today. I mean, what we hear today, I tell you, I don't know what's going on in Australia, but if you go to North America today, there are pastors who are in such agony because of all the stuff about worship and music, what's going on in the church. A North America pastor said to me some time ago, he said, you know, Brother Gerard, he said, when Lucifer was cast out of heaven, he fell in the midst of the worship team. That's exactly where he landed. Brethren and sisters, the styles of worship today has got nothing to do with fellowship, you know. That's only styles. You say, what is worship? Worship is sacrificing. That's why Abraham said to the servants, the son and myself are going to grow up younger. What are we going to do? We are going to worship. How is he going to worship? He was going to sacrifice his son. That's why Jesus said in John 4, God is a spirit, and those that would worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Do you know what this word worship is all about, brethren and sisters, in the Greek language? It means to be prostrate before God. It means to crawl in the very essence of what the presence of God is all about. You say, how do I understand worship? I don't want this to sound complicated. I got the impression that Ron has been after me a few times and he said, you know, it's a lot of material. And I keep saying to my heart, Ron, just wait until it gets down there and you're in deep trouble. You're in deep trouble. But let me explain to you something. If you want to understand worship, brethren and sisters, and it comes to the Old Testament, the only way you're going to understand that is you need to come to grips with what happened when the people of Israel were at Mount Sinai. You see, God brought them out of Egypt. He brought them through the Red Sea and He brought them into the wilderness. And He brought them to Mount Sinai. And at Mount Sinai, three things happened. The will of God was unfolded through the law. The way to God was appointed through the tabernacle. And the walk with God was revealed through the book of Leviticus. And if you want to understand Old Testament worship, you need to discover what God said to His people those 11 months and 19 days. And then you and I come into the New Testament. You remember the essence of worship in the New Testament. You say, where do you find it? In the 2nd chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. You say, what is it saying? 3,000 people were saved. And when they came to Christ, they were baptized. And they came to the early church. And then this is what the Bible said to us in the 2nd chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. He said the early apostles came together for the apostles' doctrine, for fellowship, for breaking of bread, and for prayer. Can I tell you something this afternoon? Those four pillars become the essence of New Testament worship. And so what is it? The meaning of the word? It means to crawl in the presence of God. It means to be prostrate in the presence of God. You know, we've got out where we live in western Canada, we have two golden retrievers, a brother and sister. And when they were babies, oh, we had such fun with them. Listen, if you ever get a dog, get two, because they keep one another busy. So we had these two. And when they were puppies, Monica and myself, we had the time of our lives playing with them. Because I had two old shoes, and you get these little dog biscuits which are treats, and you put them right in the front of the shoe, and then you bring the two dogs closer and you put their noses in. And they put their noses in there and we had races. Now most of the time they just crush their heads into poles and trees and tumble all over the place. That's why they don't have enough brains today to give them a headache. But we had just the fun of our lives with these dogs. And you know, when we had these dogs, Rusty and Sunshine, Rusty is the brother and Sunshine is the sister. And when we had, I would leave him at the campground, at the conference ground with our caretakers, and then I would take Sunshine home. And when I bring Sunshine home, because she is a retriever, she would get into our backyard. And when she is in the backyard, we have a beautiful lawn, when she gets bored, because she is not there, and she would dig a hole into the grass, and I would come out and I would be so upset with this dog. And I would say to her, Sunshine, you have been a bad girl. And this golden retriever, she was an incredible character, she would come running to me, wouldn't run away, she would come running to me, and she would lie right on the grass like this with her two little paws, and then with her face right between her two paws, and she is flat in the grass, and she wouldn't look up, she just lies like this, because she knew she did something wrong. You know? I mean a typical woman, no, that's not it. She knew she did something wrong. And she was lying like this, and as she was lying like this, I would go to her and I would stand right in front of her. Now she doesn't look up, her eyes are just like this, and sometimes she would look like this. And I would say, Sunshine, Sunshine, you have been a bad girl, and in the tail everything is flattened, and then I would say, Sunshine, and she would look up, and I would say, you have really been a bad girl. And do you know what happened, brother and sister? She just rolls over and she lies like this. I wish everyone would do that. She just rolls over and lies like this. And you know what she said? I've had it. I have had it. If you learn the secret of worship, you know one of the greatest aspects of the Christian life is this thing of the pardon of prayer. When Jesus said, when you pray, you say, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And brother and sister, in the life of prayer, when we begin to discover the beauty of our need of God, you know, it frightens me to death when I meet people that are speaking about prayer, and they give you the impression that they've got everything of prayer together. And I thought, they have no concept of brokenness. Do you know what's the greatest times of my times alone with God if I would be allowed to share this with you today? It's not those times when the burden of God comes and you dissect the burden of God systematically. And as you dissect the burden of God, you step by step pray it through. And you say, how do I dissect the burden of God? I mean, this thing, you know, is so massive, it's so incredible, it's so... Brother and sister, you can't take it on on its own. It's going to destroy you. I mean, it's just going to tear you apart. So you say, I need to dissect the burden of God. And I would say to God, God, just give me one aspect of what this thing is about. And I separate it. And then you go to God, you say, give me promises. And you write it around this aspect of the burden of God. And then you systematically pray it through. And sometimes, you know, this spirit, I've been praying for 25 years, brother and sister. And I'm not through yet, you know. I'm not through yet. And you say, is that the greatest aspect of prayer? No, no, no, no. It's wonderful when you come to the place where you begin to pray things through and the witness of the Spirit of God comes and this deep sense of assurance comes and the witness of God's Spirit, not just the emotional experience but also the joy and the confidence and the sense that I have touched the throne of God. But now, out of the Scriptures, God is coming and He's confirming and He's confirming. He has answered the prayer and you are through to God. And now He stops you and says, all I want you to do is to give thanks. I want you to thank Me. You say, is that the most wonderful? No, no. Do you know what's the most wonderful aspect of prayer in my own life? These times when I just come into His presence and I just linger in the depth of my need of God and you just have fellowship with Him. Listen to the Old Testament. How can two walk together except they agree? Have you learned to walk in step with God? You say, what is it? It's fellowship prayer. You say, why do you say that? Because He's our Father, you know. That's the paternity of God in prayer. Brother and sister, He's not a slave driver. He's not a dictator. He's not one that is standing there with a whip and the moment when you do something wrong, He slashes you as hard as He can. No, no, no, no. He's God the Father. He loved you so much that if you were the only person on this planet, He still would have given you a son. And incidentally, when Jesus referred to God the Father, He didn't use the Greek word pater. You say, what did He do? He used the Aramaic word kaba. You say, how do I discover the Fatherhood of God? Brother and sister, you know what you do? You go to the Gospel of John. And you went to every place in those 879 verses where He was speaking about Him and the Father. I and the Father. We are one. And you discover the beauty of that relationship. And you know what He does? He brings your heart into a place of submissiveness to God that becomes so broken, and so vulnerable, and so open in the presence of God. Can I ask you this, brethren? Have you lost the art of worship? Just sitting in His presence, lingering on the greatness of God. Our time is gone. I want to close with something. You know, when we speak about this place, this secret place, we say it's not just the secret den, it's not just the holiest of all, but it's the storehouse of God. Brother and sister, have you discovered the storehouse of God? I mean, it's immense, you know. You say, what's the storehouse of God? It's the Scriptures. And oh, when the Scriptures becomes part of our lives. Janice and Monica and myself went on a vacation this year. And we were in a prayer conference, and a man came to us, and he said to us, I want you to pray about something. And I said to him, What is it? He said, Well, I want to do something for you and your wife and your daughter. And I said, He said, I want you to pray about it. I said, What do you mean? He said, I want you to pray about the possibility of me and my wife sending you and Janice and Monica for a vacation to the island of Maui in Hawaii. And I mean, it's that serious. And so I said to him, I said, So? He said, He said, How much time do you need to pray about it? You know, I said, Very little. Very little. I mean, there's things, you know. And so he said, So how does that work? I said, Well, the Bible says, Before you ask, I will answer. Anyway, you know, he did that. And brother and sister, when we went there, one of the things that I did, and this has been the blessing of my life in the last number of years, is that God would come, and just in your times of prayer, He brings the Scriptures, and you just pray through the Scriptures. I tell you, it's so wonderful. You just let the Scriptures just flow. And you say, what is it? You see, it's the storehouse of God. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing is coming unto us. How? Through the Word of God. And so when God brings His Word, and we are in the storehouse, and faith is mixed with the understanding of the promises of Scripture, it becomes the storehouse of God. Let me close. You know, I was born and brought up in Africa. And brother and sister, when we were brought up in Africa, the first, I would say, the first 15 years of our lives, we were desperately poor. We were brought up in the Orange Free State in Southern Africa. It was after the years of the Depression. It took that country a long, long time to recover, probably longer than other countries. And we were just desperately, desperately poor. And I was about 11 years old. We lived in a little community with the name of Parais in the Orange Free State. And if I can be honest with you, there were many times that we would go to our mother and say, Mama, what do we have for breakfast? And she would say, bread and butter and coffee. And sometimes in evenings with bread and butter and coffee and sugar. And that's what we have. I mean, to be honest with you. You know, I've been staying in this trailer and it's no reflection on Robert and Karen because they will overwhelm you with food. But you know, one of the things that I've loved eating in the trailer these days has been bread and coffee. I mean, I still love this stuff. You put the butter down, you're not going to see me doing it. But I dump it in there and I'm having the time of my life. Okay, don't you do it because you Australians probably get the sickest dogs. But anyway, this is what you do. And you know, this is the way that we were brought up. I mean, we didn't have food. So you say, what happened? I didn't even have shoes, you know. I mean, we were so poor. And you know, I was in this primary school and one day the headmaster of the school brought us together as a school and he said to us, he said, children, he said, something is going to happen and he said, two other classes in this school is going to be chosen to go to the big city of Johannesburg. Now, I've never in my life been to that big city. I mean, to us, it was just a fantasy dream of going to the big city of Johannesburg. And so he said, two other classes are going to be chosen to be allowed to go to the big city. And lo and behold, my class was chosen. I ran to my mother and my father and I said to them, Mama and Papa, we speak a different language. I said, my class was chosen to go to the city of Johannesburg. I said, but I need shoes and I need a little bit of pocket money and we didn't have money, you know. And my dear mother and father, you know, they tried to scrap everything that they could together. They got me a pair of shoes and Papa was collecting old tickets and sixpences and shillings those days and he got some pocket money together and he was able to sit in and send his little boy of eleven years old. And brother and sister, we were so poor. I mean, I'm just honest with you. We didn't know what chocolates was in our house. When you speak about having a Coke, it was to us a delicacy. It was something that there was just not money for. That's the way that we were. And you know what? I was allowed to go to this big city and I would never forget the day. Got my shoes on and everything. We met at the school. We had our clothes. They gave us some stuff and sleeping bags and stuff. And we took off to this big city of Johannesburg. My class and another class. And so they were going to take us around and they were going to show us the city. And you know what happened? We were in the city and they took us to one place and they took us to the other. And one night, the teacher came into our room. And brother and sister, when he came into our room, he said to us as boys, he said, the lads, he said, so how are you all doing? We said, so we're fine. Are you enjoying it all? Yes, this is wonderful. And he turned to us and he said to us, now tomorrow morning we are taking you to a factory. And so we said, which factory are you taking us tomorrow morning? And he said, well, as a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, we are taking you to a Coca-Cola factory. Listen, we never have money for Coke, you know. And so, my kind of ears just lit up. Coca-Cola factory. That's interesting. So the next morning, we went to this Coca-Cola factory. And brother and sister, they took us into this factory and they showed us how they make Coke. And I mean, my 11-year-old heart, and I was just watching all this. I thought, man, look at all this Coke. And you know, we don't have money for Coke, but look at all. And they showed us and then they showed us how they were pouring the Coke in the bottles and how they were shifting it. And then, when everything was through, they brought us into this massive room and they turned to us and they said to us, children, and as we came in this room, it was full of Coke, brother and sister. And they turned to us and they said to us, children, you know what? And we said, yes, sir. And he said, you can drink as many Cokes as you want. Oh, brother. You say, what happened? Listen, forgive me. I was 11 years old. I had a bladder probably the size of a cricket ball. You know what? It became a soccer ball. I mean, brother and sister, we never had money for Coke. And you know what happened? I sat there and Coke after Coke after Coke. Man, I tell you, it was the greatest thing. And it was this one because we never had money for Coke, you know. To us, this was a storehouse. You can't think of that, you know. Well, you say, what happened? We went back that night. You say, where did you spend that night? I'm not going to tell you. I mean, you know, you know, it comes in one and it goes in the other and so watch it, you know. And it was just, it was just a disaster. I mean, that night and everything. And so, and so the next morning the teacher came into the room and he said, so, lads, how are you doing? We're doing okay, sir. He said, did you enjoy yesterday? Oh, yeah, we enjoyed yesterday, you know. He said, I've got some news for you this morning. So, he said, what is it? He said, today we're taking you to another factory. And we said, oh, okay. And I said, where are we going, sir? And we said, we're going to a chocolate factory. Oh, brother and sister, you wouldn't believe it. We went to that chocolate factory. I mean, when I heard the word chocolate, I recovered totally from a coke. And when we went to that chocolate factory, they took us and they showed us all the whole process how they were making chocolates. I had no interest in that. I didn't care how they were making chocolates. You say, why not? Because there was a room. And there was a moment when everything was done. Everything was done. And they brought us into this room. And as we came into this room, it was just stacked with chocolates. I mean, you name it and it was there. And the man turned to us and he said, children, I need to tell you that you can eat as much chocolate as you want. Oh, brother. You say, where did you spend that night? Just about in a hospital, you know. You say, what was it? What was it? You know what, brother and sister? It became a storeroom. I mean, we never had it, you know. We never. And as a young boy of 11 years old when I was exposed to it, I couldn't get enough. Didn't he ask you a question this afternoon? What about the storeroom of God? Can I ask you? When last did He break your heart? When last did you spend time in the storeroom of God? And suddenly the God, the Holy Spirit came and He grabbed you by the throat and He advanced upon your soul and He tore you apart as the tears were just shedding onto the Scriptures because of the speaking voice of God. What is it? It's prayer, you see. What does it cost? It costs absolutely everything. Why does it cost absolutely everything? Because it will cost me more to miss the Word of God for my life than it will cost me to find it. Father, we thank You. Thank You for the blessing, the blessing of the wonders of Scripture. Thank You that in this weekend that we have been together. Lord, there have been times when we've plowed into the depth of what Your Word is all about. And we are so grateful that Your Word has become more and more precious to us. And Father, maybe for some of us this has not been an easy weekend. You have searched us and Your Spirit has ministered to us and You broke us in many different ways. And yet, we have submitted ourselves to You. And we say, God, we want You to take every aspect of our lives. My brother and my sister, as we bring this afternoon to a close, I just want to ask you, as you sit here in this little gathering and you say, you know, Gerard, I want to commit myself to God in this thing of prayer. I don't understand it. I cannot comprehend the fullness of it. But I need to begin somewhere. And somewhere, God needs to begin to teach me how to pray. And you sit here this afternoon and say, you know, I just really want you to pray for me. That God will pour out upon me a spirit of prayer. If that's the cry of your heart I'm just going to ask you if you would like to stand up. I'm going to close in prayer and I want to pray for you. Whenever there's someone like this, and you say, you know, I really want you to pray that God will pour out upon me a spirit of prayer. Would you just like to stand up if you will? You say, that's the desire of my heart. God, I want a spirit of prayer upon my life. Father God, You are the One that I've been looking at us this weekend. This little group have crawled so deep into my heart. They have become so dear and so near and so precious to me. And I sat this morning in this little spot so smashed up and thought to myself, how can I take them with me? And we just become a prayer band of people. And we go from country to country and we just climb underneath the burden of God and we pray these places through to You. But You've called them to Australia. And Father, I pray this afternoon in Jesus' name that You will come to their hearts individually and that You will just pour out upon them a wonderful spirit of prayer. Wake them up in the middle of the night as You have been doing with my life for years. And when You wake them up, that our God and our Father, I just want to ask You that the burden of God would come to settle upon them and that they would climb underneath that burden. And that one day we will hear about Adelaide Valley, that God has sent revival because a group of men and women found their way through to God in the place of prayer. And they made a covenant with God. And they said to God that we will not let You go unless You help us to pray through. We thank You for that today in Jesus' name.