This sermon emphasizes the importance of learning how to truly pray, focusing on the heart posture and disposition rather than mere words or physical positions. It shares powerful examples of individuals like Payson who dedicated themselves to fervent prayer, demonstrating a lifestyle of continuous communion with God. The message challenges believers to prioritize prayer, highlighting the transformative impact of a deep and consistent prayer life on individuals and communities.

If there's any prayer that needs to be prayed in the Church of God today, as far as I'm concerned, it is, Lord, teach us to pray. Not, not teach us to want to pray, teach us to pray. Teach us what it is. Teach us not the vocabulary, the disposition. Prayer is not an attitude, not a latitude, an amplitude. Prayer is not a position, whether you kneel or face the east. Prayer is not a position, it's a disposition. That's why the Apostle Paul says that it is possible to get into that place where you pray without ceasing, where every moment of your life you're in an attitude of relationship to Him, not for something you want, but that somehow God might come again and breathe. You see, the answer to America tonight is not in the White House, forget it. The answer to America is in God's house. There was another man by the name of Payson. I like to alliterate that and say he was praying Payson of Portland. He was a man who, when they prepared him for his casket, they discovered he had some hoofs on his knees. Tradition says that James, the Apostle, had calluses on his knees with prayer. Payson had the same thing. In fact, before luxury came and we got so soft, he slept in a bedroom that had no covering on the floor. It had a hard floor like this. And at the side of his bed they found two grooves, two places that were worn six or seven inches long and deep, and they wondered why they were to the side of his bed. And then somebody said this was the place where he always prayed. And actually he had plowed two grooves in the floor of his bedroom in his intercession. He was a little Scotsman. He lived a few miles north of Chicago on the border of the lake, and I got to see him for about ten minutes. He began to thank me for the books I'd written, particularly on prayer, and I hushed him and said, no, the honor is the other way. I'm honored to see you. Well, they carried him out of his little house on the ninth of February this year, and would you believe it, it was the first time he'd been out of the house in twelve and a half years. Never been out of the door of his own house in twelve and a half years. Never been to bed one night for thirty years. This isn't back in Finney's day, or in the days of the, when they were breaking the frontier here, this is in our day, in your day, in my day. Just a few months ago. Of course, they didn't put his picture on the front of Time magazine. If they did, I'd have objected to it anyhow. But this little man learned the art of intercession. He prayed every night from ten at night until five or six in the morning, whenever the burden lifted. Now, somebody will ask me the question, did he sleep? Well, what do you think he was? Of course he slept. But he learned to do what the hymn writer says in that hymn, work for the night is coming, give every flying minute something to keep in store. He pushed the day around. In case you don't know, there are twenty-four hours in it. They divide it into three eights. Normally, you work eight, you sleep eight. What did you do on the same basis? You live sixty years, you work twenty, you sleep twenty, and what do you do with the other twenty? One of the hymn writers said, I often say my prayers, but do I ever pray? Like the little boy went to church with his daddy, his daddy bowed his head, did this, and the little fellow said, what did you say? He said, shut up. Because he couldn't remember, never mind the Lord. Therefore pray, always pray. I've said this often and it's got me into trouble, but I'm still going to say it anyhow. I'm quite sure of this, that no man, I don't care how large his church, I don't care how many books he's written, how far he's traveled, I do not believe that any man or woman is greater than their prayer life. If you learn this lesson while you're young, you're younger folk, you know, nobody can impress God. Ever thought about that? The Spirit of God descended on a bunch of people at Hermholtz in Germany. You know, that in one sense is a more wonderful miracle than Pentecost in this sense, that do you know how long that prayer meeting lasted? It started at precisely eleven o'clock that Wednesday morning on the 13th of August 1727, and you know what? It lasted 100 years without stopping. That prayer room was never empty for 100 years. Little boys and girls seven and eight years of age were grown and traveling birthed for revival. Don't go out and say like people say, well I made up my mind I'm going to pray four hours a day after this. Why don't you make your mind up you're running the Olympics tomorrow? There's not much chance. You don't change overnight. We approximate to it. We get our muscles stronger and stronger in the place of prayer. You get to the place where you'd rather sweat, you'd rather weep in his presence than laugh in anybody else's presence. You'd rather God whisper a secret into your heart that breaks you. Somebody give you the prizes that all the world covets. I don't think I ever go to a prayer meeting or would I pray one simple prayer amongst others and that is Lord teaches to pray.