This sermon focuses on prevailing prayer, highlighting the story of Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20 facing a real need and turning to seek the Lord in prayer. It emphasizes the importance of genuine, desperate prayer in times of need, trusting in God's timing and providence to answer prayers and provide for His people.

I want to speak this morning on the subject of prevailing prayer. Prayer that prevails in situations when there is a real need. Prevailing prayer. 2 Chronicles 20, we will read the first 22 verses. After this, the Moabites and Ammonites and with them some of the Munites came against Jehoshaphat for battle. Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, a great multitude is coming against you from Edom, from beyond the sea. Behold, they are in Hazazonimar, that is in Gedi. Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord. Notice the words. Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord. From all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord. Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah in Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court and said, O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might so that none is able to withstand you. Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? And they have lived in it and have built for you in it a sanctuary for your name, saying, if disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before you, for your name is in this house, and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save. And now, behold, the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom you would not let Israel invade when they came from the land of Egypt, and whom they avoided and did not destroy, behold, they reward us by coming to drive us out of your possession, which you have given to us who inherit. O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. Meanwhile, all Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, their wives and their children, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jehaziel, the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jael, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asa, in the midst of the assembly. And he said, Listen all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, and King Jehoshaphat. Thus says the Lord to you, Do not be afraid, and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours, but God's. Tomorrow, go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz. You will find them at the end of the valley, east of the wilderness of Jerual. You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf. O Judah and Jerusalem, do not be afraid, and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow, go out against them, and the Lord will be with you. Then Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. And the Levites of the Koathites and the Korahites stood up to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud voice. And they rose early in the morning and went out into the wilderness of Tekoa. And when they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be established. Believe His prophets, and you will succeed. And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the Lord and praise Him in holy attire. As they went before the army and said, Give thanks to the Lord, for His steadfast love endures forever. And when they began to sing and praise, the Lord set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed. Prevailing prayer. How does prayer work? We don't really fully know. How do you view God being in charge of everything, predestinating things, controlling all that comes to pass? How do you reconcile this with Christians in the earth, in time, in space, in need, out of a need, crying out to God, in prayer, and prayers are answered? Who has worked out all the theology of that? No one has. We can't figure that out. But the Bible reveals this, that a sovereign God does take the prayers, the desperate, real prayers, of His church, His children, in times of need, and He hears them and He answers them. And He delivers and He changes situations. He sends provision in situations. You face something and you feel like something is God's will or His direction, and God puts it in your heart to pursue something like He did Nehemiah. Several times, Nehemiah said, God put it in my heart to do this and to do that in relation to the rebuilding of the wall. God puts direction in the hearts of His children about family matters, about maybe a whole church, about a church issue. He gives direction. He gives faith. He initiates guidance. And you begin to pray for God to do what man cannot do. And He answers prayer. I want to preach about this this morning in relation to our current church situation. This month of May, if you're a part of Providence Chapel, you know that this month in our prayer meetings, I've been dedicated to praying for God's direction in relation to a meeting place. So this is the context for this message, but the first application is to our church. It's a charge to our church. It's a message for you to take heart and faith be in your heart as we concentrate in prayer in the month of May. But, the truth of this applies to any Christian, individual situation. Trusting God in matters of need. To a family, you face a need. How do we approach it? As a church we are situated, I think I counted this week that as of about four weeks ago, we realized that over 20 new people God has brought to Providence Chapel just in May. 20 brand new people. It's more than that actually. And so, where are we going to put them? This building has a fire code by the city of Denton ordinance that we can't have more than 186 people, is it Jeff? 186? Why couldn't they say 185? I don't know. We can't have more than 186 in here at any given time. Well, I don't know how near we are to that, but when everybody who's going to be here in May arrives, Ian and Leslie Leiter and some others, we're going to be pushing the envelope. What do we do? What are we going to do? We don't know. But in God's timing, follow this. And this is very, very biblical. In God's timing, a need arises that has to be met in your life, in your family's situation, in a church's life. A need arises, a true need, a real need, and our church faces now a real and present need. So our elders in recent weeks began to focus on this a lot more. And weeks ago we brought to you the reality to be praying. We've been praying over the last year for direction. And we felt clearly right about dedicating the month of May and our 10 prayer meetings a month to focus on our church's direction as far as where we meet. We have two prayer meetings every Wednesday in two different locations. And so we have dedicated in God's providence, we have five Wednesdays in the month of May. So the Lord dropped in two extra prayer meetings for us. We've dedicated those prayer meetings to praying for God's provision, God's direction, whatever that is. We don't know, but He knows. And the timing is upon us. And so we're going to pray in our prayer meetings every Wednesday. And how can churches approach the growing pains, the good problem, the Lord bringing more people? How can any church deal with the need of facilities? Well, there's really one of three ways historically churches have dealt with this. Number one, we could have a capital campaign of fundraising, hire an expert, and pay them a lot of money. Joel here is sitting there going at me like this. I'm just telling you what churches do, okay? Relax. And they raise a bunch of money, right? And I would never say that God has never led a church to do that. That's not where I'm going. But that's one approach. Another approach is churches go borrow money. They go borrow a lot of money and they have this debt and they're under pressure. I know churches right now in America that have had huge problems and the congregation is split in half and they have $27,000 a month interest payment on their building debt. So, if these two first choices are not wise and they're not biblical, what's a church to do? When you come to a time where there's a real need right in front of you, you've got to choose an approach, right? I mean, if you're using your GPS and you come to a major exit and Siri or whoever you're talking to tells you to exit, but you know the next exit is better by experience, you've got to make a choice. And so what's a church to do? The real answer from the Bible is to choose officially, corporately, the covenant to seek God for His guidance and His provision. Joel is now nodding toward me. He agrees. Seeking God. When churches or believers face a real need, there's always man's approach. There's the world's approach. You come up with a human approach to meet the need. Or you turn to your heavenly Father and you see what His Word says and you seek Him in a concentrated way. Hence, May is a month of church prayer given to this issue. You seek Him in a concentrated way to trust Him to do for us what He knows we need when we don't know what we need or what to do. We sang it in that hymn earlier. Happy is the man, happy is the church. Happy is the man that chooses Israel's God to be his aid. Put no confidence in princes nor for help on man depend. This is why our May prayer meetings are dedicated to this. The entire church has been called to enter into this. Our prayer meetings. We have four more weeks. We have eight more prayer meetings that we will be holding. So, if you're a part of Providence Chapel, if you cannot because of distance or because of any issue be in those prayer meetings, if you're home on those Wednesday nights through the last day of May, I believe it's a Wednesday, if you can't be in the prayer meetings, have a prayer meeting in your home as a family. And dedicate your next Wednesdays to prayer, whether with the church or in your home as a family prayer meeting. From Genesis to Revelation, God's people have turned to the Lord in time of need. Always. And have cried out to Him. You just start in Genesis and you begin to notice when saints, whether that was Abraham or Noah or whoever, came to a crossroads, faced a need, desperately had a situation they needed direction in or provision for. They cried out to God. They made a calculated decision to turn their focus on the living God and to cry out to Him and to answer with direction, with wisdom, with providence, with provision to do what man cannot do. Brethren, as a church, we can't come up with this. We don't know what we're to do. We don't know what the next step will be. But we are at that crossroads. And I'm going to talk more about that in a minute. The two middle verses exactly in the middle of the Bible if you found the exact center point of the Bible, right before Psalm 119, says this, it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. Faith in God, not dependence upon man. This is the approach of faith always when facing a need. So in such situations, God's people are called to concentrated prayer, to heightened, increased faith. The disciples said, Lord, increase our faith. And He said, have faith in God. That was His answer right there. Use the faith you have. Concentrate on it. Focus and begin to believe God more specifically for the need that is real. Now there are several principles in this. And I want you to remember these this morning in prevailing prayer. We have a need. Now this is in your life for a year from now. A need. There's a need and God has the answer. There is a need and God has the answer. Number two, God's timing is perfect always. Number three, the providence of God intervenes and acts. And number four, prayer is answered and provision is made. Need, God's timing, the providence of God, and answered prayer. And prayer is woven all through this. George Mueller prayed for many people for their salvation, but he prayed for two friends every day for 50 years. And he died without seeing the answer in that month after his death both of those men were converted. Prayer was weaved or woven through those 50 years in God's providence work. And God was working in those men's lives. So, a need, timing, providence acts and provision is made. And prayer fuels and controls all of that. I want you to look in the text here that I read, 2 Chronicles 20, and we see the need, first of all. Let's think about the great need. The need. Israel has enemies, combined enemies, coming against them. And Jehoshaphat gets the report and his first response is fear. He feels the fear. He feels the pressure, the stress. But his right response to the fear is what? Look at verse 3. He set his face to seek the Lord, and then he called God's people to seriously pray and seek God. Focus on this because of the need that we're facing. And they began to seek help from the Lord. They began to come together to seek the Lord, v. 4 says. Then look at v. 5-12. We won't read the whole thing, but v. 5-12 is their prayer. It was God-centered. They were crying out to God to look at the situation, to see the need, and to answer. God's sovereign. Lord, You rule over all things. This is the way they prayed in Acts 4 and Acts 12. The God who rules over all things. They called Him to bring His presence, His attention, His mercy to the need to intervene and answer. And you know the story down to v. 22. God did something they could never have done. God told them, you believe Me, you believe My Word, and you stand still, and I will come through for you. I will deliver you. I will do what's needed. And indeed, He did. There was great need there. That's the point. Now you don't need to turn to it, but remember in Acts 12, Herod brought persecution. He seized. He laid hold of a number of the church. Acts 12 says. And then He killed James with the sword. And when He saw it pleased the Jews, He grabbed Peter. Put Peter in prison. He's got him there. And what does Acts 12, verse 5 say? It says this, Peter was kept in prison, but... but... but what? Well, God's sovereign, que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be. He'll do what He wants to. No. But, earnest prayer for Him, was made to God by the church. That's what we're talking about. You face this big need. What is our first response? Panic? Trusting in man? Figuring out with our brilliant intellect what's the best thing to do? Or is it prayer? Real need always should drive Christians vertically to call on God. Always. And that's what Jehoshaphat and Israel did in 2 Chronicles 20. And that's what the early church did when they faced the need. You can find different times in Acts starting in chapter 1 and 2, but especially when you get to chapter 4, they were facing real need and they cried out to God. When churches come to a place of facing real need, their automatic response should be the biblical response of saying, let's really pray together about this. Is there not a God in heaven? Is He not our Father? Has He not redeemed us? Do we not have access to Him? Has He not invited us to pray? Has He not said, call upon Me and I will answer you and I'll show you great and mighty things you've never thought about? He challenges His people in a time of need to really come and see Him show off how great He is. So, this reality of our need, this is seen in many of the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ. Just stay with me thinking about the need because you might be facing right now in your life or someone you love right now faces a tremendous need. As a church, we are in real need of direction about what to do. And we've done what the Bible calls us to do. We've dedicated this month and perhaps beyond. I mean, we started praying for this in this last year in our prayer meetings and we've mentioned it. So, we ought to be dedicated to this as a church until we see God answer, right? This isn't going away until God answers. And so, you see this principle in the New Testament where there's a need. John 2, the first public miracle of the Lord Jesus. The wedding at Cana. They run out of wine. There's a need. And the stage is set for what? For the Lord Jesus Christ to meet the need and display His glory and manifest the first reality that here is the Messiah. There cannot be a provision that glorifies God if there's not a need first. Needs that God allows and brings are God's way of giving us opportunities to learn to trust Him and depend on Him that our faith might grow deeply when He answers. In Luke 8, don't turn there, but you have several things in Luke 8. This principle of need and God working. The storm arises on the lake with the disciples. There's real need. And they cry out. Cyrus' daughter is almost dead and he cries out to the Lord, come, my daughter is at the point of death. And Jesus begins to go. He's interrupted as He goes by the woman who has a hemorrhaging issue, a blood hemorrhaging. For 12 years she's had this problem. And she interrupts the Lord by coming and touching the hem of the garment with faith. She doesn't cry out. She touches the hem of the garment and the Lord feels virtue going out of Him. And she's healed. And He says, who touched Me? The clueless disciples. What in the world? There's people everywhere. What do you mean who touched Me? And she is helped. And then He goes on and He raises Cyrus' daughter after she has died. Real needs always. The Lord Jesus was pressed continually with the needs of people. A true, genuine need always is the setting where God brings us to Him in desperate faith, which He loves. We don't like to get desperate though. We like to depend on ourselves. We gravitate naturally to self-dependence and the ability to work things out. But true, genuine need is meant to stir us to pray and to believe God to work. Need fuels faith. Your need, whatever it might be, whenever it comes, is the fuel of faith to cause you to depend on the Lord in the present situation. A great illustration of this is George Mueller. We read some from George Mueller's autobiography this week in the prayer meetings. And many of you know the story of Mueller, but God led him to start an orphanage. There were so many orphans in Bristol, England and around the north of England. And ultimately, he got one orphan and it went to 20 and it went to 100 and it went to 300, went to 1,000, went to 1,500, and ultimately they had 2,000 orphans housed in numerous buildings. Now you think about that. Joanne, you want 2,000 kids to provide for every day? Mueller and his staff faced this. They didn't raise funds. They didn't send out a letter of request for people to send anything. And you think about this. Think of the funds needed every week for the housing, for the workers and staff to be paid and taken care of, for the food for this many. How much milk or bread is out every morning? 2,000 kids? I don't know. Clothing, utilities, furniture and beds. If you've never seen the Bristol orphanage, Mueller's orphanage, just go take a look online or find the book and look at the buildings they had to have. There was huge, ongoing, daily and weekly need. And Mueller and his staff were led to face this big, constant need with prayer. And this always drove Mueller and his staff to concentrated, dependent prayer to plead God's promised provision. Now, none of us have ever had to exercise faith at that level. Probably. None of us have ever been called to run an orphanage or to do what HeartCry Missionary Society does. Hundreds of missionaries around the world, they support indigenous missionaries that are men who can earn $20 a month working in the fields and they pastor a church. HeartCry supports monthly hundreds of missionaries in many nations. So, God hasn't called Providence Chapel to do any of that. He's called us here to be a church and to live the Gospel in Denton County and other counties and to trust Him to use us for what He wants us to do. And we are at a crossroads now. And I liken it to this. The street we have driven up to and we are at, the street is Meade Avenue. We're at that street. We are at it now. And here we are at the intersection of Meade Avenue and what? Timing Boulevard. The need has brought us now to this timing. This wasn't an issue a year ago. The timing comes into play in the life of faith. Mueller felt burdened of God to start an orphanage and he began to pray and he didn't have any orphans yet. There was a day, there was an hour when God gave him an orphan. And then they realized, we don't have a house. So they prayed for a house and a house was given. There was timing in all this. Timing comes into play. We have not as a church needed any other building the last seven years. This has been wonderful. And we've been contented because it's what God provides. We've never lacked a place to meet in the 17-year history of our church. There's always been the right situation for us in Denton or right around near Denton. God has always led us. It hasn't been time that we've ever needed something else. But now it seems it is God's timing because we can't continue here for very long. And we don't yet have a plan B. We don't know what the next step would be. There is a right and perfect time that the Lord meets a need and not before. In fact, I'm going to turn to Nehemiah. You don't have to turn to it. But I'm going to read something. Because when Nehemiah was called to build that wall, the timing was a big deal. It was a big issue. Nehemiah, it says in chapter 1, verses 3 and 4, that gave Nehemiah the remnant who has survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed. Need. The next verse says, as soon as I heard these words, Nehemiah said, I sat down and wept and mourned for days. Timing. You go on through and read the book of Nehemiah, it was another month that Nehemiah went before the king. He prayed to the God of heaven and he spoke to the king and he asked permission if he could have a work leave to go back to Jerusalem because God had put in his heart to go back there. He went. There were a number of days of preparation. And you read in chapter 7, I think it is, it says, and the wall was finished in 52 days. Timing is always an issue. Who controls time? God controls it. He created time. He doesn't live in time. He lives outside of time. And He controls time. But God controls the timing in the lives of His children for what He wants to do. And so, a true genuine need is always in a setting where God brings us to Him and He stirs us to pray to Him to act in His perfect timing. That's exactly the way it works. A perfect and the right timing. Why? Because God knows when something needs to happen and He's not going to do it before then. You remember in John 11, Lazarus was ill and Mary and Martha desperately sent a message to the Lord Jesus. He whom you love is sick. And what did Jesus do? He waited. He stayed where He was. Until what? Until Lazarus died. See, these delays, God's timing is not our timing. And the Lord was going to come and not just heal him, He was going to raise him from the dead and do a greater thing than just healing him. So the Lord knows the right timing for us. And that's why we've got to have contentment and wisdom to wait on Him and be thankful and be contented. And then when the time's right and you begin to realize the time's right, something's got to happen and God begins to stir you more toward prayer. The timing of meeting the need is perfect always. Need. Timing. And the third thing that comes to play in this is when need and timing meet, God's provision begins to come. Prayer begins to be answered. He begins to work His providence. He speaks to someone to be a player in this scenario. He creates circumstances where you can't stay where you are. He works His providence. He opened doors that no man can shut. He gives what is good. He speaks direction. He creates provision. He can and He will hear our cries when the time's right. Always when the time's right. He can give. As Philip Neely said last Sunday morning when we shared about this during our announcements, he said God tomorrow can have somebody call and give Providence Chapel a building. Or give property. Or open doors we've not thought of. Or direct us to buy property that we already know about that we could buy right now. We could buy it. But we can't step out without clear direction and the right timing to have absolute unity about what God's will is. Discerning, proving what the will of the Lord is. It's always safe to wait on God. And so, God can send large gifts. The need, the timing, and His providence begins to work in answer to prayer. Here's the church praying for Peter. They don't know when he's answering. God sent an angel to the inner prison and delivers Peter out. Peter shows up at the prayer meeting. They did not know while they were praying when God was going to deliver. They may have had faith that God was going to deliver Peter, though He hadn't delivered James. James was martyred. But as they were praying, providence began to move. God began to move in His providence to deliver, to send large gifts, to give us clarity. As 2 Chronicles 14 and 20 says, we know not what to do, but our eyes are on You. Looking unto Jesus. Our Father knows what we have need of before we ask. Little flock, fear not. It's your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. So, God's providence begins to work through answer to prayer. As we concentrate and unite in prayer, asking Him to make a way, asking Him to send provision, asking Him to bring a contact, asking Him to have someone call, asking God to give us just clarity of what the clear path is. Someone said iron gates yield to united prayer. Why that term? Because the inner prison, the iron gate opened of its own accord and Peter walked out of the prison. An angel opened it. Iron gates yield to believing prayer. God is greatly glorified in answering prayer that is real, that is focused, that is truly dependent on Him. He doesn't answer great, perfect prayers. He has the great God answers real prayer. Genuine faith, dependent prayer. God's provision in answer to prayer. I thought about three examples in my own life. And I only ever share these because I know I'm to give glory to God for answer to prayer. And you should too. When God answers a real prayer in your life, you should share it with somebody and give glory to God. One year, I had been going to Eastern Europe a lot. I didn't have a warm coat and it was very cold over there. And I couldn't afford, honestly, a really warm coat because those things are pretty expensive to get a warm one. And so, I began to pray and look too expensive. Pray. Remain contented. Look too expensive. I was in Illinois preaching and going to Hannibal, Missouri. And I saw a men's clothing store. I said, well, I'll just look. Maybe they've got a clearance. Anyway, I looked. $500, $600. Got in my car. Thank You, Lord. You have the right coat at the right time for me. And I remained contented. An hour later, I was in Hannibal meeting a pastor for dinner at 530. I was there 15 minutes early. I walked in a thrift store right by the restaurant. Looked at the men's clothing rack. An Italian, warm, cashmere, full men's coat on the rack in perfect condition except one button was missing on the front. $20. I left Hannibal with my prayer coat. I call it that now. God will answer prayer when we wait on Him. But I remained thankful and I was contented. And God heard my cries over about a year praying for a coat. The same thing happened in another way in my life. I used to drive an old two-door Ford. I don't even remember what it was. It was a Ford something. The heater was going out and I was driving to Illinois in February to preach. And I knew what was coming. So I packed my long johns. I packed my hunting socks. I packed my gloves, scarf, everything. The heater went out. February, northern Missouri and Illinois. It was cold. Coming home, I met a friend. Walked in for dinner in the evening. Leaving the next day. And he said, well, your face looks cold. I said, yeah, the heater in my car is out. We had dinner. Spent the night. Next morning, I'm getting ready to get in my car. He says, come in here to my office. He said, that old car of yours is too old to drive around the country preaching the Gospel. Let's go over here to the Chevy dealership and get you another one. Three hours later, I was driving home in another car. And I had prayed for a year and a half with contentment for the Lord to meet this need in His timing. Listen, beloved, if we only realize that our Father cares about our needs and we are to constantly learn to live in dependence upon Him, bringing the need to Him with contentment, with thanksgiving, He will answer your cry. My third personal story. Four years ago, I found out I was going to need another open-heart surgery. And like Jehoshaphat, I was scared. And our insurance was all messed up at the time. It wasn't working right. And so, I was talking to my cardiologist. I wasn't telling him a lot. But he said, well, I want to call the hospital. I'm stepping out. I'm going to call the hospital. He called the head of Baylor Heart Hospital. And he comes back in and he said, Matt, the whole heart surgery is on us. Baylor Heart Hospital is taking care of everything. I think I spent $20 on it. Now that's a deal. Because I had committed my way to the Lord. I asked Him to guide me. Now God could have worked out the insurance, but that wasn't His way in that situation. He wanted to do something to really honor Him. And He did. God does act and intervene. Yesterday, I was in Greenville, Texas. I had to take some books from the fellowship conference over there that were left here to be taken to Missouri. And I met a brother. And John Green, the pastor from Mount Pleasant, met me for breakfast. And he had told me about it before. A young woman in their church named Amanda. She doesn't have children. She and her husband live there. And she has had this long-term disease where her lungs are failing. And for a while, she's had 18% breathing capacity in her lungs. She's dying. She's on oxygen all the time. She panics when it gets bad. She lives with this. And it's been this way for months. She's been on a waiting list from a Houston hospital. Lungs that will match her have to become available. She wasn't even at the top of the list. So yesterday morning, John Green and I had a time of prayer in his truck. And we said, let's pray for Amanda. Let's ask God this morning. We cried out to the Lord. And we felt a desire to pray for her. Just for God to intervene, because here's a real need. And we said, Lord, we don't know if You want to let her live, but if You want her to live, now's the time. Open the door. Guess what? This morning, the hospital called and they brought her to Houston. They have lungs for her. God heard our cries. Not just ours, but months of their church praying. The point is, when there's a real need and the timing is right and we wait upon God, He will answer. He will respond. So let us, as a church, enjoy this month of May in prayer to seek our God for His direction. To see what He's going to do. Let us make the prayer meetings or have one at home on these Wednesdays. Let us call on the living God who is our Father to move in our behalf, to guide us, to direct our steps, to open a door that nobody can shut to answer our united prayers. He is hearing us already. He will answer. And He will be glorified and honored by providing for His people in answer to asking Him if we persevere in prayer that can prevail. Let's trust God together as never before. Let's pray together. Father, we have been talking about You here in this message. We have been hearing about and thinking about You and Your greatness and Your power and Your willingness and Your providentially causing needs for us to face and Your timing in all things that is always perfect and You moving in Your providence to engineer things because You want to answer prayer to glorify Your name and to build our faith. So, Lord, this morning we ask You, unite our hearts by the Holy Spirit in true prayer with prayers of faith, with united prayer the way the early church had. Lord, we pray You'd hear our cries. And this morning we ask You, Lord, we affirm with those Old Testament saints we don't know what to do, but Lord, our eyes are on You. Help us. Hear us. Answer us. Guide us. And teach our hearts, Lord, to trust You. We bless Your name, Lord, this morning for the encouragement that Your Word brings, the exceeding great and precious promises of God that are ours. And Lord, great faith, true faith, genuine faith, persevering faith pleases You. Lord, help us. And hear us today in the name and for the glory of Jesus Christ we pray in His name, Amen.