B.H. Clendennen emphasizes that prayer is a form of spiritual warfare, drawing parallels between the distinctiveness of prayer and the evening sacrifice in the Old Testament. He reflects on his experiences in Vietnam, illustrating how prayer can rise above the chaos and darkness of life, much like the fragrance of incense amidst the stench of a fish market. Clendennen argues that true prayer requires total surrender and is essential for spiritual victory, as it is the primary battleground against the forces of evil. He warns that the enemy's greatest strategy is to undermine the prayer life of believers, as effective prayer is crucial for manifesting the life of Christ in the world. Ultimately, he calls for a return to fervent prayer as the means to combat spiritual darkness and fulfill the mission of the church.

and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. I was in Vietnam for seven years during that war. My wife and I were missionaries there. We didn't just live out there continually, but a big part of it was we were there. Saw Pentecost come the first time. Downtown Saigon was a big incense factory, and in those places, all those little curls burning all the time in Saigon. You know, you go down to where they made it, and it was a fish market. It was death. It was garbage. Twenty-five years of war. It was stench. But I don't care what the smell was, you could smell that incense. No matter how rotten the fish were, no matter how much trash is on that street, out of all that, you could pick up the odor of that incense. David was saying, I know there's a lot of things coming up there, but let this prayer be distinct enough that you hear what I'm saying. Don't let it be just a lot of talk. Don't let me be just up here asking things I don't need. Let that prayer be like that incense out of all the billions that are calling that there's something about this. He said, let the lifting up of my hands be as the evening sacrifice. You know, in Exodus 29, you have the morning and the evening sacrifice. The morning, the bullock is slaughtered and the blood taken out and poured on the altar, but the carcasses took outside the city and destroyed, burned. That's Jesus did that. That won't ever happen again. That's once and for all that blood was for us. But the evening sacrifice, the blood was there, but the bullock was put on that altar and burned right there. That's us. That's Romans 12 in one. David said, let that prayer be that a total absolute surrender. That's what it always meant to lift up your hands, you know, put that gun at you, whatever, you know, I surrender. He said, let my prayer be that. May that be the way it is with us. Our prayers be so tuned to God and so anointed to the Holy Spirit that like that incense, that fragrance comes out. You just can't kill it. We had dinner the other evening and we had making those sandwiches, had those big onions and sister was debating whether she ought to eat those onions. I said, oh, you can take a half a pot of garlic and kill that every time. I said, just don't worry about it. You know, let that distinctiveness of that prayer be real. Amen. You know, it isn't how well you can talk. I've saw people praying, you know, especially in public and they'll take on a new diction, you know, a different tone of the voice and they can begin to cry. You know, God knows cons, doesn't he? He just recognized every one of them. It's just reality. He's looking for it. Oh, may he help us. I'm so glad that Adrian had another meeting today. Thank God. It was fun. Amen. Oh, it's good. We're talking about prayer in these services. And I want you to turn with me to the book of Nehemiah this morning. This great man here, Nehemiah chapter four. I'm going to read verses 9, 17 and 20, 9, 17 and 20. This morning, prayer as a warfare is a title for Darren up there in the booth. Yesterday, we just opened this up just to remind us while you're turning. And it's always good to kind of relook at things, you know, so we know where we're going. Dealing with this thought of prayer. We said there were five aspects of prayer. Many things may work out from it, but there was communion, submission, petition, cooperation, and conflict. We've dealt with those four, first four yesterday in that lesson. And today we come to this part of it and the rest of the week will be taken up with this thought, prayer as a warfare or a conflict. And here in the fourth chapter of the book of Nehemiah, beginning first with verse 9. Nevertheless, we made our prayer unto our God and set a watch against them day and night because of them. Set a watch against them. Verse 17, move right down. And they which builded on the wall and they that bear burdens with those that laid it, every one with one of his hands wrought in the work and with the other held a weapon. And then in verse 20, in what place therefore you hear the sound of the trumpet, resort you thither unto us. Our God shall fight for us. Now if you go to the New Testament to that wonderful book of Ephesians, in Ephesians chapter 6, Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 18. Pray in all ways with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. Prayer as a warfare. The Christian life often, even in the Bible is a lot of scriptures that make us know that it is a warfare. And we know that today you have got every kind of a notion coming out. The spiritual warfare. I even see him on the sign in front of a church of Christ. They're having a series on spiritual warfare. I wondered if they was going to decide to baptize different or something, if this is how the warfare was going to work its way out. But everywhere there's a sound, spiritual warfare, mighty warrior conferences are being held. All the devil has to say boo and we run. Amen. We've forsaken the greatest mission fields in the world. That's the inner cities of America. The church has moved out to safer quarters in the suburbs. And all the while we're talking about spiritual warfare, zone off the earth. Amen. To run the devil out of certain sections of the earth, all of this. And so I named this just the conflict more than warfare, because I don't want to get your mind befuddled with a lot of presuppositions. There is a warfare and it's often reckoned to that. Very often the appeal is made to sinners out there come and join and enter into the battle of the Lord. You've heard that, but there's an irregularity about such an appeal because that sinner don't know nothing about that warfare. I mean, he knows absolutely nothing. And such a militant company, the real consciousness of the fight or the battle never takes a hold of a human till they're in here. You don't know anything about the battle. Why? Me and the devil never had an argument for 27 years. I mean, we were as close, I guess, as a man can get. I was on his side. He knew that. So there ain't no war in this life. Amen. The battle started when I got into it. Paul wrote about it in Romans 7. That terrible warfare taking place in a man. Once the camp is invaded by righteousness. And so to make the appeal to the sinner to come join this battle of the Lord. There's not right. The unconverted don't know a thing on earth about it. For them it's something merely reported. It's something you talk about, objective, outside of themselves, on which they're all together have confused and wrong ideas. But because terrorists have took that up, there's a confused idea about it inside of the church as to what spiritual warfare is all about. It's not until you and I are truly in Christ, born again, baptized into this body that we really become to realize what a warfare it is. Now you have those that talk about spiritual warfare always against the struggle, playing down the struggle. Oh, it said, you, you, you get saved. You'll never have another problem. I know the minute they got across the Red Sea, Cora told him that. He said, we're out of Asia. Now you'll never hear this again. You know, all the battles over, but that's not the way it is. The warfare never really begins until you're on the inside. Now you become an object of the devil. The enemies targeted you. Now, you know, a rabbit, if you just stay still, never get shot at. It's when he jumps up that he gets himself in trouble. You're never exposed till you get into the, to the Christian life and you really stand up as a child of God. It's not just the warfare, the Christian life in the general and ordinary sense, though, that we're concerned with at this time. Not just a struggle. It is that warfare, which is especially connected with the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ, of which you and I are here for. It is a testimony of Jesus. That's a spirit of prophecy. That's the reason the church itself becomes a prophet by what it is. Amen. And it is, it is this warfare and this is the essence of all spiritual warfare. It isn't that we're out here just against all evil, marching in the streets, trying to stop abortion. I hate abortion, but I know if I can get a woman born again, there won't be any more of that. It isn't out here trying to get people. They brought that movie, Jesus Superstar, whatever it was, to a theater in Beaumont. And that theater, I mean, that movie, they tell me, pictured Jesus as a homosexual. And they were calling one to come down, boycott the theaters. I said, you know, folks, I'm against that kind of a thing. He don't need me to protect him. When those fools are all in hell, he's going to be God. He don't have to have somebody to protect him. He just needs somebody to live for him. You know, he needs us to enter into this. And the real warfare, the real warfare is, is to stifle this life, to stop its manifestation. God has allowed us by the Holy Spirit to be possessed with this life. And now it's our responsibility not to frustrate this life, but to manifest this life, that men and women around us actually know that Christ lives. The whole testimony of the church rests in this fact, you individually and the church collectively. Do we create conditions of life on that job, in that school, wherever we are, because of our presence there, do we truly create the conditions of life? You know, outside of this church, there's wickedness. But inside of here, I said to the pastor last night, I said, we talk about revival. All Chino needs is what was in that church last night, or in here this morning as we begin to worship him. You know, that's all. But you can take that man out there that won't listen to you. It's difficult to talk to him, but you bring him into an atmosphere like this. And all of a sudden, all those arguments are broken down. He realizes the reality of things. And that's what this warfare is all about. He doesn't about run the demons out of Chino. He'll take care of that when he comes back with his church. I can tell you, evil men are going to wax worse and worse until the judgment. It's going to be that way. We're not here to make it a better world to live in. We're here to gather people out of it for his name. We're here gathering the bride. We're not only the purpose, but we're the means through which that purpose is secured. And the only way it can happen is for this life, this testimony of Jesus be a reality, not just something we talk about, but a reality. Now, the general conception of the Christian warfare is that which has to do with evils, wrongs, vices, and the things of this world. The human conditions were taught to be otherwise. And it is there that the mistaken misapprehension of the unconverted comes in. They think the church is here, and you listen to these civil religious people that want to vote politicians in to change things. Let me tell you something, folks. If it could be won by politics, God had a man on the throne once and run him all the way to a desert. He had just kept Moses on that throne. He'd have made him king of Egypt. That's how he's going to do the thing. That has nothing to do with it. It's a civil religion that's destroyed us. We're not of this world. Our weapons are not of this world. And the warfare is not, as we've tried to put it, and the confusion that rule all part of the earth, going to run the devil out there. The only place he's run out of is out of me, amen, out of the church. We set the bounds, but he's still out there trying to get in, pressing against us all the time. But the warfare is for the manifestation of this life. All hell is set against it. You know, I just in the prayer meeting this morning, God kept bringing to me all along as I was praying, resist the devil. Amen. Give no place to the enemy. That sounds like something's attacking me, that I'm sitting here to keep him out and to keep something in. He said to Timothy, guard the deposit. There's something trying to take this away from you all of the time. It said they continued steadfastly. That means something was always trying to pull them out. Something's always trying to make them a part of something that they weren't. Always that appeal out there to pull us down off. The Tobiah said, come on down here and let's talk. I'm too busy to get down there and argue with you. I've got a wall to build. There's a kingdom to be put in place and a life to be manifested. And that's where the warfare is. They think that to enter into the Christian army means to go out and do battle with evils, with wrongs and the vices around this world. I hate abortion. I wish it never split the atom. I hate all of those things out there, but I do know you can't pass laws in Congress and change that. There's only one thing that changes that. Oh, Holy Ghost revival does come from you. It is buying through this life being made real. Now, when you really come into touch with a full testimony of the Lord Jesus, then you begin to develop another consciousness or maybe better put better, a new consciousness begins to take a hold of you. I mean, the whole picture begins to change. Now, once you've really come in contact, amen, you develop and it's not merely evils, wrongs, and sins that you're up against, but you're dealing with spiritual forces, intelligent, cunning, malicious that are back of everything else. It's not the abortion now, but there's something behind that. It's not just the evil in that street that you're doing warfare with. You know, a man can quit smoking, fornicating, and lying and still go to hell. You can cut off the limbs. It's the roots you got to get at. And when that new consciousness begins to develop, then you recognize my battle is not with that human. It isn't just that drugs. It's what's behind all of that thing. There's an intelligence far beyond the ability of the human to imagine. And it is tireless in the extreme. You win in one place, you'll come in another. And when you begin to realize this consciousness takes a hold of you, that I'm not here just to rid the world of evil. I'm here to deal with what's behind all that. It is that warfare that you and I are concerned with and of which prayer is a major key, is a major thing. He looked for a man to stand in the gap. What kind of a gap? He said, you break that hedge and serpents bite you. Once that altar has been forsaken, I can tell you anything can come in. Anything can just come in, sit down on the pew, fill the church with agents of darkness, worshiping at our altars, simply because that hedge was broken and the serpent came in. And the Bible said they looked so much like us that you couldn't tell the difference. Angels had to make the difference in the final analysis. That cannot happen until that which stands against it, that prayer, is the only weapon that holds that back. The prayer life, it is that warfare then that we're concerned with, which is related to the full testimony of Jesus as this absolute and perfect sovereignty and lordship in this universe. This is the warfare. And that warfare is not with things, but with spiritual persons headed by the great spiritual personage that the Bible calls the evil one. That's where the war is. And this is where we must keep it. Now, spiritual conflict implies a spiritual position. Why carnal people can't fight spiritual wars? You know, we, we, we have, you see that coming out. You just read some of these books. Some of the most foolishness, if you know anything about God at all, is written under the title of spiritual warfare. In our district, we have a mighty warriors conference, you know, and I thought, now that's wonderful. We just create these mighty warriors. And I began to look into what kind of warriors it was. And they wind up with clown suits and snow cones doing war against Satan on city streets. Now, don't you know, hell gets disturbed when you got a bunch of people looking like clowns down on the street, supposed to be representing the Lord Jesus Christ and doing war against the devil. Why that's him in that suit. If you drink anything about anything, they'll make Jesus look like a clown folks. We're not talking about a clown. We're talking about the Lord of glory. We're talking about the name that's above everything to me. I don't think there's anything more disgraceful than to see people dress up like a clown and supposed to be representing him fools market sin clowns are always have to deal with lightness and foolishness. Amen. There's nothing foolish. He said, don't let foolishness be named among you. I know every time I get on this, I'm treading on somebody and their sacred deal. This is how they're doing the warfare. Well, I can tell you, you're losing the war. If you are, cause that in is a man. It implies spiritual warfare implies a spiritual position. This warfare is related to a position. It's a consciousness, which only comes to us in a certain realm. It don't come until you arrive somewhere in God. Then your eyes are open to the forces about you. Amen. You, you, you got somebody in the congregation, uh, giving you trouble and you, you just figured this is the problem here. That's not the problem. It's the thing, pushing that individual. There's something there somewhere. You got to get behind it to know what it's all about. You may be a Christian and you as a Christian may realize that you're up against adversities, difficulties, oppositions, which things, which make the Christian life full of conflict and strenuous and call out all militant features of life. And yet you may not entered into the ultimate testimony of Jesus at all. You just know things are against you. That's the reason you have so many people. Every time that things get a little hard, they thought, thank God has forsaken them. They began to accuse God. Why did God let this happen to me? I can tell you folks, you don't need that. Why in that you fool around, you're going to get age. You can just mark it down. If you smoke, you're going to die with lung cancer. No need to ask you nobody. Why? And if you don't go on with God, then your life is going to be confused and messed up. But if you go on with God, you're going to meet the devil. There's going to be a war. All hell is going to come against you. And everything that can be knocked out is going to be knocked out. If you can be, then I'm not going to see you in the rapture. Now you can mark it down. If you can be shaken, you will be shaken because God doesn't protect his people. He's given me a life that's overcome death. And I must prove that in this world, spiritual death, spiritual death is a testimony that you've lost it. But no matter what comes against me, I can stand. If I keep those lawns gird about with truth, this life must be demonstrated. Now I represent Christ in a world where he was rejected. Amen. And I must not misrepresent him. They're going to reject me. They hated me. He said, they're going to hate you. You're in the same world I'm in. Make me real. There's going to be a war everywhere he went. They're trying to throw him off the cliff. They're trying to find him to kill him everywhere he went. It was a constant thing. Why do you think you're going to be different? If the testimony of Jesus is coming through that church, the only reason we're not hated, we don't have any gospel. Just let the thing be boiled down to a little newspaper deal. But we make him real. I can tell you, there's going to be a turmoil. There's going to be a war. If you come as a believer to the revelation of the full of Christ and his personal sovereignty and lordship and the greatness of his work of the cross in every realm, then into the light of the church, which is his body. Then you immediately at that point, you enter into the realm of that conflict. When you see the revelation of the greatness of the work of that cross in every realm, and you bring that into that body, which we are. It's at that point in time, there's a different consciousness now about what we're warring and what we're fighting. You realize city council has no authority over this. If I win here, I'm going to win it in this altar. It is here, the violent taken by force. It is a people that lay hold of God. When Zion prevails, sons and daughters are born. Why is that? It's because the devil has taken them captive at his will until the church realizes Satan's control over the laws. She's never going to effectively win them because it is at that altar. The Bible said in the book of Isaiah that he would not open his prison doors. So somebody has to open them. Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against you. Gates don't jump up and attack you. He just said we got to open those gates. The prisoners got to come out, and it cannot happen apart from prayer. One of those times, two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning, I just wake up wide awake. I ain't hurting. There's nobody breaking into the house, but I'm just wide awake, and I lay there to listen, and I heard this voice. How many people you think in hell because you haven't prayed? How many folks you reckon are lost because you refuse to prevail? If when Zion prevails, they're born, then when Zion don't prevail, they're not born. The war isn't won. Somebody has to break that hold of darkness. That's the warfare we're talking about. Only that life. It's said that that Red Sea fled from the presence of God in Judah. Now until that river is released, hell isn't going nowhere. Until somebody makes him go away, he is not going away, and that victory isn't won in the calisthenics of religion. The apostles learned that. They left the altar and found the devil wasn't subject to them. They'd been casting them out. They'd been winning the victory. You get to Mark 9, and this power failed in the hands of the apostles because they thought just learning how to do something's all necessary, but it's keeping in contact with that throne that makes a difference in it all. You become increasingly conscious that it's with the devil directly and nakedly that you have to deal with, no matter what the thing is, what it looks like, whether it's the finances being stagnated, or whether there's a gossiping and murmuring going on in the house. You come to learn that it's with the devil directly and nakedly that you're dealing with, and that you cannot handle him. The seven sons of Seba left bruised and naked, trying to take on the devil apart from the strong man. It's at an altar of God Almighty that the victory is won, and that's the one place most of the churches have left. You can get them to anything but a prayer meeting. You can get them out to anything but a prayer. But that consciousness is bound up with a specific position. That's what we have to know. That consciousness. You can't get that carnal mind to know that. The church has to be brought up to a level spiritually, the individual, before they can recognize where the war is. And if you don't know who the enemy is or where he is, you're going to lose that war. You can just be sure of that. An experience of believers is that they go on with the Lord, which means going upward, away from the earth to the heavenlies. That's what it means going on. You see the contrast between the Corinthian church and the Ephesian church. It's just a matter of position. That's all. Paul called them both saints. You know, it's hard to even believe they're kinfolks, but he called them both saints. But the difference was one was in the heavenlies and the other was the earth. You take the word man in the book of Corinthians, and it has all to do with man right down here on this earth. But when you get into the book of Ephesians, it's a heavenly man. We moved out here now. We're in the heavenlies. It's not a matter of the things of the earth. And they understood it was to them Paul wrote this Ephesians 6, where he said, put on the whole armor of God, because you know war against flesh and blood. It was to them he could make, because they were conscious of where the war was. The Corinthian people, I'm a Paul myself. Well, they said, well, not me. I'm of Apollos. Amen. All talked as men, and there's no need in telling them about no armor of God, because they don't know who they're fighting. You don't put this armor on against a human being. It's a devil. It's invaded that place. And the only way to understand that is at the altar. It is this prayer becomes a weapon of conflict, but it never does until you recognize where the war is, as long as you think it's a people. I've got this brother giving me all this trouble, but what's behind that brother? Amen. Where is it at? I mean, you got to come down to grips with it. You may have to cast the devil out of him. And if you can't, then God may have to cast the bodies in out one way or another, but the thing will have to be purged out. But you got to recognize that it wasn't just some body. There's something behind all that. It's always going upward more and more away from the flesh to the spirit. And the more closely that the Christian comes in contact with the ultimate spiritual forces of this universe, and the conflict then assumes new forms all along the line. The warfare takes on a new character altogether for spiritual people. Amen. You keep it down that carnal, you've got people buying airplane tickets to go to Saudi Arabia to run the devil out of there. Amen. And they don't even know who the devil is for the most part. But when you come, the more you move away from the earthly to the heavenless, then you realize where this warfare is. And you recognize you don't deal with him with words or with arguments. You deal with him, the Lord rebukes you, Satan. But that's a position you must be in, or else you're going to leave naked also. There's no way that you can do this. It is a warfare linked up with the position to which a believer comes. The consciousness comes to us of this only in a certain realm. Only in that spiritual place do you come to understand. And until you understand, then you can't win. It is a fuller measure of spiritual warfare. And being a spiritual warfare, it presupposes a spiritual state of the believer. It just absolutely presupposes that. And again, that's the reason God could talk to that Ephesian church along this line, because they were there. The others would never know. To put that in another way, the more spiritual we become, the more spiritual does a warfare become, and the more intense comes a conflict. Somebody said, seem like the harder I try to get closer to God, the worse it gets. Certainly that's so. Amen? Because you're coming up against a more sophisticated devil. You're not just dealing with snuff now, I'm telling you. That's all down there that's got to be laid aside. You're dealing with the devil. Amen? And of course, the more spiritual you come, you said, well, I fasted and prayed for 10 days. I quit. I'm telling you, father, I went the worst things God. What do you expect? You're moving out against him. Now you think he's going to play dead because you didn't eat two or three days? No, no. He sees there's a possibility of a breakthrough here. And I can tell you, there's going to be reinforced demons come here. You can believe it. There's a whole lot more demons against Living Waters Church. This January, it was when I was here last January, because you're closer to pushing through. He's determined. You know, always a weak point in the line. When I was in the Marines, we began to bolster up. This is where he's coming. We got to have more troops here. You know, that's the reason that at that point where you're about to break through the hell as amassing them demons. Therefore, we must come more and more into this altar. When in Azusa Street, Mr. Seymour, that black man that God used to bring that, he was praying five hours a day. And God said to him, you're not praying enough is a problem. So it went to eight hours a day. I mean, all hell has come against that little house down there, because there's going to be a breakthrough that if Jesus doesn't come and long enough down the road for historians to write, I'll promise you the most powerful revival ever with this earth has been what broke out in Azusa Street. There's nobody on this earth that I know of that didn't at least have a cousin as Pentecostal. Wherever you find him, I mean, everything, everywhere has been affected by what broke out. Well, I can tell you if I'd have been the devil, I'd have been over there. And if I was a devil, I'd be against what's trying to break loose here. So the more you move into that spiritual realm, the more intense is this war going to be. And you must be, you must expect that. They told us when we're going into Peleliu, we're expecting 85% casualties in the first wave. I'm in the first wave. Listen, I mean, the war got bad, not only of riding that boat, but in my mind, they said only 15 of us out of the first hundred is going to make it, you know, 150 out of the first thousand, 85%. That's about the way it worked out. The closer you move into it spiritually, the more intense it becomes. The more spiritual the warfare is in our consciousness, in our knowledge, so that we realize that it's because we have become more spiritual ourselves. And now we can discern what's going on. When we're carnal, the warfare is carnal. Now, I speak of believers, not unbelievers, because I can tell you sinners are not carnal, they're sinners. That word carnality only applies to believers. And when we're carnal, then the weapons are carnal. The unbelievers never referred to as carnal. He's natural. When our warfare is carnal, we meet men on their own level. I mean, let me tell you, if they come up with an argument, I just got a good argument, say, God, that's the way it is. If they come with reason, then meet them with reason. Come with a fierce temper, get mad with them. Just let them know you're not going to run over me. They come with criticism, give them back what to give you. Amen. Well, he said it to me. That's when we come and we believe we got a right to be bitter. You know, if you're bitter and you've been did wrong, God allowed that to happen. You to show you that's been in you all the time. The battle, the war never made anybody. It just showed what is there all the time. You know, I've had folks get up and walk out while I preach and said, does that bother you? I said, oh, no, not at all. Because great peace have they that love thy law and nothing offends him. Nothing offends that man that loves the law of God. He's just very happy when something comes along. But I can tell you, whatever went along in that life, whatever happened in that life, if you love God, then God allowed that to come to let you know what's been there all the time. Man, great friend of mine, his wife was diagnosed with cancer. He'd married a lady from Hawaii, one of the sweetest ladies I ever met in my life. And they were very, very close. And she's diagnosed as cancer. For some reason or another, God never healed her. She died. But when when that cancer was diagnosed and the doctors told her, that she couldn't live, he called me up. No, he's a ranting at God. He said, why God let this happen? I paid tithe. I did this. I did that. Amen. I said, I'll tell you why it happened. Because of this terrible accusation you're making against God. He said, well, I'm making that because of what happened. I said, oh, no, that's always been in your brother. It's been there. It just brought it out. God let this problem come to bring out this awful thing in you. Amen. He knew that the day he didn't do what you wanted to do, you're going to point a finger at him. And I can tell you, sir, you can't win in that. You may defeat the adversary of being a man. But if God becomes your adversary, you lost. And you just know that. And when you when we realize when we're carnal, we fight back with those weapons, meeting them always on their level. This is carnal warfare with carnal weapons. When we cease to be carnal and quit all that carnal ground and become totally spiritual, we find ourselves in a new realm now. And we're dealing with spiritual forces and not with flesh and blood. And so all bitterness is gone. I've had people, I passed church 35 years and people, I've had people, they're going to lose their home. And me and my wife, with money we didn't have, one family, four months, we paid their house note to keep them from losing it. Amen. And it wasn't six months later they turned on us like a wolf rending us. Amen. Just turned on us. Well, you know, if I had believed that's them, then I'm going to be very bitter. But when I recognize it's a devil, then in bitterness, I'm angry spiritually now. And it is against him that I recognize that this warfare, not against, not against the people. We come in touch with that, which is behind that carnal. What drives that carnal? The carnal man is utterly helpless in the presence of a spiritual man for the simple reason he can't get that spiritual man to come down to his level. If you won't come down there, he is no match. I don't care who he is, how much money, maybe the banker. He may be nothing, whatever or everything, but he cannot do anything with you unless you come down. We're too busy to come down and talk to you. We're not going to get down on that level. It is here because you're able to see beyond all of that. What's really taking place, sooner or later he'll have to recognize that this man is superior to me. Hell will have to know that. I give you power over all the power of that devil. And I can tell you it's a spiritual place where that soul, you don't have that just sitting there in your carnality. It is when you walk in the light as he is, you walk in the spiritual way as God does, then you have power over whatever comes. But the authority is not just in that the spiritual man is on a new level, it is that he's meeting, not the man naturally, but the force behind that man. That's the key. It's a spiritual warfare now, and that's what the warfare is all about. We cease to fight after flesh, we cease to fight man, we cease to battle with the flesh, our warfare's in another realm altogether. Now that represents spiritual advance, spiritual growth, and spirituality. When we come into the real spiritual warfare, a spiritual state is presupposed. I say that over and over, not being redundant, but you've got to know that you're not going to know anything about it as long as you sit down there in that carnal thing with all those feelings in your heart, hating somebody because they didn't, they said something against you, or they didn't act like you wanted them to act. They never going to act like you. What difference does it make? Well, they act like you, you be right. It don't make any difference about them. Amen. It doesn't matter. I just do what's right myself, and I leave all the rest of it to God. He can handle it, and he will handle it. But when I step out and move to their level and harbor these things, he said, well, if you want to, just have at her, son, you can do it. And the next thing you know, the church is tore all the pieces, amen, and the devil won, and you're outside wondering why God let something happen to you. He didn't let it happen. You just wouldn't let him do what he would did if you would have stayed in the place you ought to stay. There is no place in our life for self-pity. There's no place for discouragement. There's no place in this life for bitterness, no place for envy, absolutely no excuse for it. And the worst kind of bitterness on this earth is that man that says I have a right to be bitter. There's nothing on this earth you can do about that. Nobody has that right. If it was, then God would have never looked in your direction. For what you did to him is far worse than what every human. Every time I look at this cross in this morning praying, I say, Clinton and your sins put him there. He wouldn't have had to go there if it hadn't been for you and I. And here I'm going to sit around and hold some grudge against some human being that was driven by a power outside of himself. I don't mean he was possessed. I'm just saying it was under the influence of that, and it is that to which we come to deal with. In that realm, that spiritual place, the natural man's resources are utterly useless. Oh, that's the hardest place to bring that flesh man, to realize he don't have one thing about him naturally that can affect anything in this warfare. He comes to know that everything is useless, and for that warfare, only spiritual equipment is permissible or effective. Otherwise, you're just playing games that you're going to win. Then the warfare is with spiritual weapon, spiritual resources, spiritual equipment. Ephesians 6 finds us in the heavenlies, battling with flesh, not with flesh and blood, with principalities, powers, and we're equipped with spiritual armor, clad in the armor of God. That's what you find in the book of Ephesians. And the reason that you find it there, again, is because they were in a spiritual state, that they could see what the man of God is talking about. The Ephesian church would have said, what's a man of God trying to tell us? Has he gone crazy? Amen. We know what to do with this. Amen. And we know where we are, but he was here. So having said that, let me tell you where the war is. Your prayer life is the objective of Satan. He's not trying to get you to drink liquor. That'll come later. Amen. You show me a man, preacher, that's left that altar, more interested in the golf game than he is Christ. I'll show you a preacher in a little while, have somebody else's wife in his mind. Just works. You can't, you cannot let that flesh have a part of it without having the fruits of it. You show me a church, let's the carnal get up on the platform and sing. Let's see a different work down there with the children. I'll show you a church that has adultery in it. Amen. I would have given anything on this earth to met elder, uh, Duke, elder Downs. I'd like to I've talked to the brother Duke and he's telling me they went to, went to one of these singings and said their dad sat there and had one look at him. I've did it. Uh, I've did it over and over. I trained. I don't go to any of them. Amen. Let the folks in his church. I'd rather hear sister here saying than all the most professionals out there. But you don't see that if you're down here where that is, it presupposed. So the prayer life is the objective of the devil. I can tell you his whole battle against you is that prayer line. Once he's won there, he don't care how religious you are. You can go, you can get up here. This I've found a smile and you can carry on and you can get the music just right. He don't worry about it. He don't, if he gets you there, he has one. And if there's no prayer in that church, he has that church. He runs it. You said it looks like constant trouble. Then we never can overcome it. That's right. You get closer to him. The enemy's going to come, but he don't get in. So the battlefield is war and warfare is prayer. When the apostle Paul was shown the whole panoply of God, the armor and all its parts and exhorted us to take it up, to stand and withstand it as if he spreads the ground under our feet and says, listen to it with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, watch him down to with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. The battleground of this warfare is prayer. The whole effort of Satan is to stop that. If he can shut that prayer down and he pretty well has shut it down. That's the reason you have all of this trash that's come into the church and calls itself the gospel is because the hedge was broken and a snake has bitten the same man. The snake has come right in through the holes that were left there. The battle is won or lost on the ground to prayer. Amen. These forces are dealt with and defeated on the grounds of prayer, not, not in little committees, not getting a psychologist in to try to figure out why they act like they do. I know why they act like they do. The devil's in them. The devil controls them. I don't have to go to some psychiatrist or get some counselor in the back room somewhere to try to figure out what's wrong with these people. I know what's wrong with them as a devil behind them, influencing them, driving them. And until I break that whole, they're not going to change because it can't change. The Bible said he's took them captive at his will and they sit on the church's stairs claiming to be born again. That don't make any difference. It just makes it worse. And the only answer is here that being sold the chief objective of the enemy is a prayer life of that believer. He's aiming at, this is a focal point of the enemy's attention. Everything he's focused. Let me tell you, I'd said to me, when I began to realize this, the most important thing with God is prayer. Else, why would all hell set itself against it? Amen. Nothing, nothing is important. You may preach like an angel, but if you're not backed up by prayers and weeping in that altar, all you're doing is just being a good pulpit here. They're all over the country, draw crowds by 10,000. But when it's all over the people that set their same as they were before they ever came, because he just a pulpit here, he learns how to talk. Jonathan Edwards was so near, so nearsighted that he, that he, he had to hold the paper right to his nose to read it. And he read the sermon verbatim sinners in the hands of an angry God stood up there before those people with that right against his nose reading it. And men grabbed the pew for fear of falling into hell because the man of God had been there. It wasn't his eloquent ability to talk. It was a power of that prayer life that brought conviction and revival to new England. It had nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. If he can in him by any means destroy that prayer life of yours individually or the church collectively, collectively, he's gained the day and he frustrates the ends of God in the church. The enemy fights prayer persistently, energetically, violently, and cunningly. He fights it in many ways. Oh, he's subtle. He doesn't, if he probed at you one direction, if that don't work, you'll come another. And I can tell you in many, many ways we draw our own temptation because he comes in the weakest point where we're vulnerable. We draw them to ourselves. That's the reason they must be always in that altar. But he comes again and again, violently, cunningly. He fights along preventative lines. Amen. There has to be a tremendous battle and conflict to get prayer. You know that it is a struggle. I come down here this morning feeling wonderful. I can tell you, I was here 25 minutes before I really began to know that I was in tune with things that God was working. It's a great effort to get with prayer. Why do you think that's so? God invited me into this place. He said, come bowling. He said, I've rented. There's a new and living way. Just come on in. But I've come down here 20 minutes before I got in. Why do you think it's so? All hell was waiting on me at this altar when I got here. You're not going to touch him. I don't care how many words you say. I don't care how much you talk. Just as long as you don't touch the realm of that Holy Ghost, as long as you don't touch that life. And he was here before you got here this morning. You can believe that. You got here at 730. He is here at 630, making sure everything is geared. He knew who was coming and he meant to meet you at that door. I can tell you it's a struggle to get to prayer, to give ourselves to prayer. And when we contemplate prayer, we meet a host of difficulties, unsuspected, unseen, suddenly rising up to ambush us and to keep us. Anything to prevent you, anything. You know the terrible tyranny of the urgent. It's always something urgent keeping me doing what I ought to do. I'm going to pray this morning from 630 to 730 or 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock. That phone will ring. Everybody will come to the house. Amen. There'll be a thousand things. And we're so afraid of hurting somebody's feelings, we hurt God's. Amen. Wigglesworth said, I'm talking to God. I have no time. I'll talk to you later. But this is an appointment I've got. Amen. If I have an appointment with the Pastor Duke, if I was here and he told me to come at 10 and I come at 10, he said, I'm sorry, I've got other things to do. Then I can tell you, I wouldn't be looking for many more appointments with him. Amen. I mean, it forces that on him, but I'm just talking about. Amen. With God, we have an appointment. He'd make an appointment. We're going to come pray. But then the least little thing, grandma calls or somebody's got a little problem. It's always something. A great friend of mine, one of the great missionaries that I knew, I met him in Japan and I brought him to America when he came, rather he came home, furloughed, came to our church and I set him up with meetings in the church. And he wasn't acquainted in that area. And I put him in a, in a good church, just 60 miles away in the city. And he, he went, one of the brothers took him and he come back, stay in my house while he worked there. And the breakfast the next morning, I said, how did it go? Well, he said, we had a good meeting. I said, but I mean, financially, he said, well, didn't get much money because time got around the altar time. We got around to receiving the offering. He said, everybody nearly was gone. I said, why was that? He said, well, brother, right in the middle, here come this woman fell in that altar. Amen. And just weeping. And we dealt with her for about an hour. I said, one old broke down Pentecostal that falls in the altar. Every time anybody has one open, kept you from giving an altar call for 90 million people. I said, why don't you drag her off back in the back room somewhere and get one of the saints, some wither. Oh, he said, well, I didn't, I didn't want to disturb the Holy Spirit. I said, that wasn't a Holy Spirit. I can tell you that as a different spirit that brought her into that altar. You can believe that to break up here, Japan, 90 million people. He is there that offering is an altar call for a heathen nation. And one woman that lives in church breaks up the offering. Let me tell you, it's hard for us to recognize that's a devil, but I can tell you that was the devil. No matter how religious it look, how much she cried, you know, somebody ought to met her on the way down and said, sister, we're going to go right on back here in the prayer room. But she was able to break it up and he never got a hundred dollars when he ought to got 5,000. He knows what he's doing. Amen. There is this awful battle to get the prayer. Once you get there is a terrible difficulty to pray. One of the most difficult things, not the most difficult is to be able to get the prayer, give ourselves a prayer and then rise up above all those things that come against us. I'm not saying something you don't know. I know that, but I am saying in order that you may recognize it and all of these things, it's not an accident. That's the enemy coming to get you off of your knees because he knows if he can do that, he is one. It's not just ordinary circumstance. It's designed. Satan knows what he's doing. It's a well laid plan for that church. Amen. The enemy rather than to object, he'll promote occupation with a thousand things. Oh my, he'll have more program in that church than you get committees to handle. He'll promote more work. He'll have you running. You know, I'm so busy. I can't pray. Well, the hell has done controlled you. He's possessed you. Amen. He's got you right where he wants. Preachers become just glorified business managers. I've gone to churches. They don't know when the last time they prayed. You call a prayer meet and everybody be there, but the preacher, he's off in the back peddling around with some paper somewhere while the things are going on. Then wonder why the church isn't going anywhere. I can tell you, you don't need a new program. You just need to get back to an altar. You need to get God back into the thing. And then as many as should be saved to be saved. I'm not saying we don't need to be in the prisons on the streets and ever. I'm just saying that's all useless unless we're first in that altar. Here's a, he's, he's not trying to keep you out of the prisons. He wants to keep you out of the altar. Then when you go down there, you're ineffective. And then when the prisoner gets out, he said, ain't nothing that religion anyway. They come down there with it. I saw what happened to that. He don't mind how busy we are in God's work. You know that he does not mind how often we're found preaching, conducting meetings, doing many, many works for the Lord. He knows quite well that all the work of the Lord, which is not founded upon triumphant spiritual prayer, won't have any effect on the darkness. Nothing, no matter how well you say it, it'll have nothing. You'll remember when the children of Israel began to talk about leaving Egypt, they began to contemplate getting out of here. What the devil do? Oh, he got, get your own straw. I mean, he got them so busy, he wants to get their mind off of getting out of here. The whole thing, get them making bricks more, get your own straw to make bricks. He piled the work on them. Amen. I've seen him do that in the church. Church looks like it's going to break through. He'll get that pastor so busy with things that anybody can do. He's not called to be a messenger or run errands for a church. He's a man of God. He's here to talk for God. How's he going to talk for God? All he can do is talk about God, unless he has time to be alone enough with God for God to tell him what to say. All he can do is get up there. Anybody can go down to the bookstore and get a book full of sermons. Amen. But to know what God is saying and to come from that altar into that pulpit, the people out there, they are troubles. I can tell you there's trouble in this place this morning. There's folks here don't know how they're going to pay their bills. Others are stressed. Children are lost, all kind of problem. And whether they say it with these lips or not, their heart is saying, doesn't God have anything to say about this? Is there any word from God? And if that man of God is chasing ambulances, then he's never on this earth going to know what to say. It's there, right there. I can tell you one word from a man of God that he heard in prayer is more effective than a thousand sermons. Just to get one word from God in that altar to speak to that church can change everything about that church. Immediately when you begin to think about a fuller prayer line, the enemy launches a new scheme for keeping you busy. Oh, he's got them occupied, heaping up work, crowding in demands so you'll have no time, no opportunity. Of course, there are arguments you have people about duty, about responsibility. Put some things aside to pray. Some folks, you know, make all kinds of dangers sometime about sin because there are people just looking for excuse not to do nothing. But I'm talking to responsible people here today. But if we see prayer is utterly ruled out or brought down to such a limited place that is completely inadequate for a life of spiritual ascendancy and victory, we've got to say to God, Lord, I'm going to trust the responsibility of these other things to you. I'm going to that altar. Whether some things get done or not, it really doesn't matter. But I'm going to trust you to this. Those winners have to be taken care of. So Peter says, find six men out here somewhere to look after that deal. I'm going to give myself to prayer and the Word of God. I've got a responsibility here that if we speak for God, then God will honor that. The principle of the tithe, I believe, works here, folks. There's 24 hours in a day. We need to give him that tenth part, especially the man of God. God give God his portion, his place. And you find when you've given him that tenth, you're able to do more in the 90 percent time than you were in all that other. You won't be running around 24 hours a day, never getting to rest. The principle works. There's a battle for prayer. That's what I'm telling you. Because that's the warfare. He didn't out here run the devil out of Saudi Arabia. It's to have prayer in the church. That's the war. Powers, principalities. Because if there's prayer, then Jesus is made alive there. And that's the only thing that frightens him is life. He don't care how about the organization. He'll help you with that. I told you last night, his greatest effort is to maneuver that church into a place where God himself has to be against it. If he can do that, all he got to do is promote the system. I can tell you he's promoting many of these crusades out there. He's telling everybody, you ought to go to this meeting. They're going to heal you out there. Amen. They're going to do wonderful things for you out there. And they're not going to be any of this legalism. You know what they mean? They have no rules. You just live like you want. Why you go out there in your bikini? They ain't going to say nothing against you. Nobody is going to put any condemnation on you. Well, I'm going to put it on you if you're not right. Not me, but God. And a man pray is going to deal with things because it's a pure body. You're better with a hundred people God can pull through than 10,000 that the devil's promoting. There's a battle, need for being strong, a deliberate, determined to stand, determination to stand in Christ by the victory of his cross to get prayer, to bring in full weight and value of the victory of that cross of Jesus into that. Amen. That, that ground may be held for prayer. I mean, to stand that there's going to be a place of prayer. Nothing going to rob us of that. You take Shammah of the Old Testament who stood in that little patch. Amen. You know, he stood there with a sword in his hand, single-handed drove those Philistines away from that patch. He never give it. I can tell you your little patch may be your prayer ground and you're going to have to stand for it. He will take it. Amen. He will take it. And all the while, when he takes it, you'll think, well, just, I'm so busy for God. I don't have time for that. You're not busy for God. You're running errands for the devil. He's got you on that tight rope and it doesn't matter that it's religious. It's him got you on that stake and he's robbed you of that little patch of prayer and made that church ineffective because God is not moving in it. We have to often accept the situation that is not possible prayer just now. Things are such to make it and they'll continue to be that way if that devil has his way. The cross is just as effectual in securing time for prayer in your life as it is for anything else. That cross, put to death them things. I am not going to run errands. Amen. Get up in the morning. I said, there's a man over, he can go to that hospital. Somebody dying down there have to have me. I'm going to go, but I've got to go talk to God. I can go with all I want to. You know, you can run around the bottle of oil, but if God didn't win you, the oil ain't going to do nothing for nobody. Amen. That's he just get the form of it. The form of it come to us. That's how antichrist got in. He come with a form. He could talk in tongues. We woke up that horse out there and the minister talking in tongues. We just let the thing in because he lacked it. Like we act, they don't matter. You know, everybody ever feel where the whole ghost talks in tongues. If you haven't talked in tongues, you haven't been filled yet. I'll make that very plain. That is an evidence. I can tell you today, it has to be more than that. There's got to be a life there too, because that smart boy out there learned how to do that. He'll teach you how to say those kinds of things. Now we have to approach prayer on victory ground. Prayer must be, we must say everything on the human side makes it impossible, but I'm claiming this time in the name of Jesus. I am going to pray. Amen. I'm going to pray. You know, you know, you're going to preach Sunday morning, 11 o'clock. You're not, you're not going to allow some little frivolous thing to keep you out of this pulpit. But if during the week you've let some little thing, keep you out of that altar, then maybe better you wasn't in the pulpit because you're going to misrepresent when you get up there. It's not only the many things that press upon us, the external lines that leave no time for it. Not just that. Amen. How true it is when we're actually on our knees. Prayers withstood on the very threshold. We even come, it may be nothing from the outside, maybe no doorbells ringing, no telephones, no callers coming. We may be in silence. We may be shut in our room, actually on our knees, ready to pray. But then the activity commences. Maybe physical suddenly don't feel too good. Amen. A little headache. You got, you got indigestion. Something will come. He can, he can create circumstances and feelings. I'm telling you, he can just bring them on. Most of the time we quit praying and then we suffer all day with what went away. We've said, devil, you're a liar. I'm going to pray with a found that is him. He'll come. Sometime it's physical. We may even develop positive symptoms of illness. Then mental condition may come in, which are never there before. The mind becomes occupied by way of reflection. Things we must not forget, which have troubled us until that moment. Everything you ever got to do today will come a riding in on you. About the time you pray and I see I've got to do this and people get down to prayer. How do you know this? I'm a, I'm a man. No been through there. You get down there. The first thing, you know, you're trying to talk to God and plan what you're going to do today at all at the same time. You know, I'm talking to a man. He looked at me and I see he's looking past me. I just, I just shut up. Is that right? I don't want to talk to people. I go listen to what I'm saying. You know, I've, I've been there. I've seen them. You're looking off out there. He says, huh? We come down the mind planning all day long. What we're going to do. Amen. All the while, if you listen, no, you don't notice it, but you say, no praise the Lord. You know, just, just if you record it, you can put it in. I'm not being facetious. I'm just telling you folks that's dangerous ground. Oh my God. That's a devil done that. He come in and put all them things in that mind because he knows if it's human being praised through here this morning, I'm in trouble. I mean, if you really touch, then I'm not going to be able to push him around anymore. If he really gets through to me, the unreality that if you pray audibly, that your voice will sound strange. You're far away. Then the devil come tell you, I've had people said, you know, I can't pray for that. And over there praying out loud. I said, no, your problem. Not that your problem is you listening to them. You ought to be down here talking to God. I pray better for talk out loud. Amen. I just do better. I just don't say anything out of the enemy comes in, but a thousand things and your problem is not that person. It's so easy to join that your problem is you're not wanting to pray anyway. You just want to be there to criticize somebody. Then he was out to prevent prayer. And there's a phase of the battle, which has to be gone through in order to get to prayer. You know, that if you've ever prayed in your life, you know, there is a phase of that warfare that has to be gone through before you ever get to prayer. Amen. It's a warfare of saints to get the prayer, not only to pray through, but to get there. There has to be a standing. There has to be a taking a position. There has to be a withstanding of all kinds of things. We've got to fight for our prayer life is what I'm telling you. What's involved in prayer. Don't it strike you with considerable force that this resistance to that prayer life on the part of the enemy does positively declare to you that that's the most important thing with God. You don't have him fighting about so much about singing. He don't do much battle about the preaching, unless a man's ready to pray through, then he comes against. But just if he just worked around Saturday night, eight hours before we had to get here and got a little something together, you know, he don't worry about that. But you can believe, boy, when that man of God says, we're going to have a week of fasting prayer, boy, bristles go up. I'm telling you, you got all kinds of things begin to come against that camp. Yes, sir. I tells you one thing in your own life, individuals in that church collectively, that is the place God recognizes. That is the important, his name, his testimony are pre eminently secured in prayer. Amen. If that's not, if that's a focal point of the enemy's activity, it means the Lord's highest interest are served in a prayer meeting, not in any other activity, but in that prayer meeting, he puts prayer first. The enemy always tries to make it last. He always, anything else in relation to God before it, prayer last. Does not matter what you say, it matters nothing that you say to Christian people out there, you cannot get home. They'll say, well, it's only prayer meeting tonight. Yeah. Well, it's only prayer meeting. You go in church, no, just prayer meeting tonight. How much of that goes on? Some of you said that Sunday nights and items, the word preaching, singing, everybody's out there. Wednesday night, just prayer meeting. Well, I'll catch up with them Sunday. You see, the enemy is having the field day. You may, you, you may say anything you like, emphasize it, but it doesn't make any difference. The key to it all with you individually with God, that church collectively is prayer. Amen. It's a prayer. Look at Jesus. He prayed all night. He got up a long while before day to pray. He was a man, everything he did seemed to work between prayer meetings. They knew that went along with him. They didn't say, teach us how to open blind eyes, teach us to pray. They knew the secret to everything was in that prayer. Hallelujah. Prayer is a warfare. We're going to continue. In, in, in our lesson tomorrow with this thought of the conflict as a warfare, we're going to, we're going to see the examples of it. And I pray that come Friday morning, they will have been birthed in us the realization that unless we pray, we're just religious people. And no matter how you point your finger at other people, unless you pray, you're just adding to that. That's all. And if that church, if that pastor isn't, isn't as adamant about prayer meeting as he is about preaching, then that church is losing ground all the time because we win or we lose individually, collectively in the prayer meeting. Children are lost. People run around. I have people all the time. Pray for my boy. What are you doing about your boy? Amen. I, that boy get run over, got a leg broke. Doctors say, don't know what he's going to live. That mother, I've seen him sit in that hospital until the feet swell to a strut, sitting with that little boy. I mean, sitting with that teenage boy, he looked like he's going to die. I said, why don't you go home? Let some of the ladies at church, we'll call you. No, I cannot leave. But yet the same boy going to hell and you have prayer meeting after prayer meeting, and they're not in that altar, but there's always that request. Pray for James. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. We must weep. If we're going to see results, let us stand.