In this sermon, the speaker discusses the life of Elijah, whom he considers one of the greatest men in history. He highlights the miraculous events and accomplishments of Elijah, such as changing the climate, raising the dead, and subduing armies. Despite these extraordinary feats, the speaker emphasizes that God summarizes Elijah's life in two simple words: "he prayed." The speaker emphasizes the importance of prayer in a person's life and believes that a person's greatness is determined by their prayer life.

I find that the most stirring, profitable thing in my life is to read the biographies of great men and particularly to read the life stories of men in the Bible and I want to talk about one tonight that in my judgment is one of the greatest men that ever crossed the bridge of time is that ok? ok, we'll start soon his life is all wrapped up in the miraculous, he changed the climate he raised the dead he subdued armies and yet God has wrapped up the life of this man in two very simple words there are many great biographies written in two volumes Degby gave us two great William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army in two great volumes the life of the founder of the China Inland Mission is given in two great volumes and as a writer I don't think it's very difficult to condense the life of a man into two volumes but it's rather difficult to condense the life of a person particularly a man who stands as a giant in history into two simple words and God has done exactly that because he says of this amazing man Elijah he prayed. I don't believe that any man is greater than his prayer life I don't believe that any church is stronger than its prayer life the other day I saw a monstrous machine coming up the road an oversized load and as it came past the machine was almost groaning under the huge machine whatever was on it and you know I'm not an engineer but I knew that that 18 wheeler didn't have a Volkswagen engine in it because if it had it would never have pulled that load and yet we've got churches that have massive organization and yet they're trying to run on a Volkswagen prayer meeting no church is greater than its prayer life. No man is greater than its prayer life. I don't care how great his intellect is now this man Elijah came on the scene in the history of Israel in a crisis hour quite recently in the Wall Street Journal there was a statement I don't take the Wall Street Journal I don't have any investments I'm sure some of you do but the Wall Street Journal said that presently there is a revival sweeping America from the Californian coast into New York a great evangelical revival it said but it is having very little effect to me that's like saying that last night there was an earthquake 9.5 on the Richter scale but nobody felt it just as ridiculous now I want to talk about prayer and talk about revival because right now there's a spirit of lethargy over the nation. We've kicked all the old rascals out of Washington we've got a new bunch of rascals anyhow we've got a new bunch in and now the attitude is relax and be raptured what can go wrong now we've got Mr. Reagan in. There's something far more deep seated that's wrong with the nation than politics or economics or a bankrupt dollar there's no way in the world that we can turn the nation around we're always trying to bail God out the latest effort is have a moral majority why didn't Jesus have a moral majority he had the most moral majority but Jesus attacked them pretty severely you see we'll do just about anything in the world except obey God I'm trying to write a book right now revival God's way do you know why because we've tried every other way we've tried to glamorize the gospel. Tomorrow morning turn your TV on you'll see ladies swinging there in and nobody says anything that will disturb anybody because if you do you'll cut your finances off now listen let's be intelligent I'm sure you must love God and you left it to come here Saturday night that's not very normal and I'm very glad you we have the most expensive revival canopy. We mistake rattle for revival. We mistake anybody that's read the bible knows how Elijah. He went up in a whirlwind and he classified in the earth. To some people judgment won't be in America till the Empire State Building falls down and there's a new gap you know when we super started with a lot of organizations. Many organized who will do the agonizing Elijah comes on the stage 58 years after the dividing of the kingdom prior to his coming there was a wicked king by the name of Ahab he had superseded all the iniquity of every king that came there had been at least 6 kings the 2nd king did more evil than the 1st the 3rd Ahab did more evil than all then to make bad worse as the Irish say he rebuilt Jericho and they laid the foundation in the blood of a child and then he married a wicked woman you see today people are snatching the scriptures I get literature from all over the world and nearly every one of them but wait a minute you can't snatch that out of the scripture is it valid today? yes it is but there's a scripture beyond that that has a tag on it and you see the preachers like to say if my people that shoves all the responsibility on you I was in a very famous college not long ago and I just stepped around the podium and I said to all the brilliant doctors and if they graduate in weeping do you have a course on howling? it was a stony silence what would you think if people gave a blind man a license to drive an automobile you'd say that's insanity we give boys in college a certificate to speak just because they know the word of God but they do not know the God of the word they know how to divide Romans chapter 1 to 7 8 to 11 they can tell you which is doctrinal I think so often of the disciples I guess you do, you read about them I think of them coming to Jesus and saying Lord teach us to pray I wonder why they never said Lord teach us to preach He preached the greatest sermon the world has ever had, it's got the answer for our day Christianity has not been weighed in the balances and found one thing Christianity has been tried, founded and rejected Christianity is not only too difficult for the world God's problem in the world is not communism Romanism, Moonism or any other ism, God's problem we know all the cliches we know all the words I would have loved to have heard Jesus I'm going to teach a course in the Agape not in the Agape force, they're up the street they've got the Agape force on one side of us, we've got Y1 with 250 students behind us we've got Keith Green's group down the road there we've got Calvary Commission up the road here we've got a great bunch of folk and I'm going to teach one group I'm going to teach on Hebrews and people say what's in our lives you know what, if every professing believer in America lived the sermon on the mount for 24 hours we'd turn this country round we don't know more preaching if I were a kind of a protestant Pope I'd close we've enough knowledge to give us the biggest beating we could ever get and weekend meetings and you can go into hotels and have the disciples say Lord, don't be the greatest preacher in the world preaching we stand before men on behalf you know there are people who say Jesus went to the house of to have heard Jesus pray OK I'll excuse them, they were all tired and they weren't used to it, but he took them into the mosque and they oh not again and he came back a second time and they were asleep and he came back a third time and they isn't that incredible you know pastors and teachers get discouraged and the women jump and say no the men sailed him but we got there women live everywhere no the woman didn't go there to see the resurrected Christ she went into anointing you know five minutes inside eternity every one of us will wish we'd been more prayerful more sacred, I heard somebody say the other day oh it's going to be wonderful in heaven there'll be no tears, there'll be no this there'll be no that, no the other where does it say there'll be no tears? In the book of Revelation God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes well how can there be tears if there are no tears I believe those tears, those scowling tears will pour down I'll tell you what if you want to know how bankrupt preaching is today Dave Wilkerson is my neighbour we talk together often he was telling me recently, he said Len do you know 18 different preachers went to preach to Nixon in the White House and not one of them got through to him do you think Elijah would have got through to him? do you think if Elijah preached on TV this Sunday he'd get back on TV next Sunday Elijah comes on the stage in the most critical hour in history for Israel they'd had a series of wicked kings iniquity had abounded they'd been destroyed to God, they'd built groves to Ashdod and Baal a wicked woman had got married to the king and thought everything was in order do you remember in Ephesians 6.19 Paul said pray for me that may be given to me what does he mean? he means authority in the word of God preaching can be the most authoritative thing no commission to scratch itching ears I believe the trouble with the America today is it's filled with puppets instead of prophets again prophets are God's emergency men for crisis again a prophet, the most amazing men the world has ever had before you go to bed tonight there'll be more divorced people in America than when you got out of bed this morning, there'll be more drunkards more high, almost three thousand girls under, do you think God almighty is going to put up with America much longer? I don't give up this, the greatest Elijah comes on the stage in a situation identical to ours, and everywhere smoke, and every time he sees do you love not America, forget America I left the Union Jack at the cross when I got do you love America enough to say changing the words of Patrick Henry from give me liberty or to give me the words of Rachel that didn't do her hair see we want Pentecost in our terms prayer is the language of the poor the self-sufficient don't need to pray the only people who can pray are those who realize that we need a power what do you think of government enemies of God have tried he's been mocked by shrines all and he went down the street do they anger us? do you get angry about them or just say Jehovah's Witnesses are building Jehovah's Witnesses a year after, I've been to that conference right there by the bus when I saw him I said, did you have a bad flight from Japan? No well I thought, and as I sat in the chair the man came in the morning nine o'clock till five I go, take my phonograph and he's greater than Christianity seven nights a week and I cross my legs and I meditate on my God for two hours to renew my strength maybe that sounds a bit like Isaiah 40 they that wait upon the Lord to renew their strength, but here's a heathen man bowing down before his Buddhist God and the mystery was so confused and embarrassed what time do you get up? 7.30 you live on three how long have you done this? seven years he said you think I felt like coming home to America to talk about revival and prayer and the need in that country my simple definition is this dear friends of all the church reasons we do not have to live without it the price is too stiff don't disorganize my life don't ask me to open my business half an hour after day I mean I'm saved I'm not going to hell fire and so I'm a nice Christian again I say that no church see our revivals are predictable we ship in the best guy revival is total there's only one revival in northeast India it burst out in 1977 three years ago until that time that state was the most troubled state in India it had more crime and then suddenly suddenly there was revival but the blockage is in the church you know how effective that revival you know you test a revival there can be a reviving in the church people get there and they discover that God had come in revival and mopped up these wretched filthy aliens and revolutionized the society revolutionary statesman he lives in Hong Kong we're not living in Finney's day we're not living in a day of arrogant militant paganism we're living in a day when people boast about sin people used to do in a corner and blush if they were found out a girl used to be embarrassed and humiliated and did a letter in the area when I lived in England years ago when I was a boy 60 years back a girl that got pregnant people used to groan and now you get women on TV if that's the joy of life you think people want to live 100 years to shack up but there comes a point you see where the wages of sin is death where they can buy suicide, why? because they've given them to all the passions what's he going to do? Elijah didn't have a finance committee behind him I don't know how he got on he didn't even have a mailing list look if we don't have the Holy Ghost we better have every gadget that we can get but if we have the Holy Ghost well he's all we need I'm asked to believe these days you know when I see this that God built this place in answer to believing prayer when all the time most of these it's not that I've got why have those boys been in and the government did nothing about it so they're a pretty helpless bunch the church of God did nothing about it isn't it amazing that the Russian government will let 10 to 20,000 Jews and other people come out of Russia every year but they won't let 7 there are 7 Pentecostal people have been hiding in the American embassy in Moscow for 2 years now and they can't get out when Mr Carter was asked about it he said well of course religious people don't have human rights I'm saying that to show you the impotence there's a time when bombs and ISIS moment right now if God the Holy Ghost doesn't come on America watch out the next 2 years are going to be years of starvation and hardship such as we have never known in this country before God's problem in the Old Testament was not Amalekites, Hittites, Jebusites and Hamarites God's problem in the Old Testament was Israel again God's problem tonight is not communism and all the other isms God's problem tonight is a worldly church Elijah comes on the scene this woman has got it all her own way just like turning these lights out one by one she plunges the nation into darkness and she thought everything in the garden was lovely I think she must be near a nervous break he puts his finger up and says there's going to be no rain according to my word and he locked up heaven I think this was one of the greatest they didn't bring everybody in his brother's room and he plucks as he can't live oh I stood in bread lines in England in First World War but I had a bed at 4 o'clock in the morning are you really ready to get rid of some creature comforts and not have so much stuff stuffing in your refrigerators and then stuffing you afterwards no we want everything the same we hope gas won't get much more costly they pay 5 dollars and 50 cents a gallon for gas on a missionary's allowance can you think of that 6,000 dollars for a refrigerator that costs 600 down the road there at Sears we're still living in a paradise in America it's a fool's paradise right now but we enjoy it anyhow we've got the good men up in war relax and be raptured revival comes only through blood and sweat and tears Elijah the anointed of God he'd been in the secret place of the most high he comes on the stage of full grown men he shuts up the whole nation starves the economy terrifies the king go hide thyself I was in George's office one day a friend of his was coming out he said the doctor's in there and he's so happy he's got a little piece of paper it's rather dog-eared it's from a black man a very very black black man down in South Africa he lives in Durban, his name is Juma when I told this story up in the Carolinas for the pastor you were talking about Juma came in a church and heard the gospel for the first time and he ran to the altar and when he got up he was like bunions filled and the burden loosened off his shoulders and he was felled from off his back into an empty sacrilege and he ran down the aisle praising of all I mean you know that's not really the thing to do in the Baptist church go leaping down the aisle and praising God the pastor of the door said well how are you and did you enjoy the service they say give you what give me a church you know the first six months you're saved you're God's chosen people and after that we're God's frozen people who knows, that was a big advantage he didn't know about, nobody brainwashed him I can't give you a church the man turned up again going out the pastor said well how are you, could I help you he said yes give me a church oh now I remember who you are well you haven't been in this church for over a month have you, no sir and I haven't been in any other church, where did you go I went up the road outside of Durban and I came to a forest and I found a footpath and then I found a stream and then I found a cave and I took a rock and I made a mark on the wall and I went in that cave for 21 days and nights and said Lord, you tell me whether I'm going to preach, I don't want to listen to men either you tell me I am or I'm not and if you tell me all hell won't shake me and he said the Lord said I've called you to preach and I'll give you a healing ministry give you a what give you a healing ministry well I'll talk to the deacons about it and the deacons said you know across the track we have a little county it's just made of metal and there are only 5 people go there so we let him preach to them because after all he's no education and no training and you know in 3 or 4 weeks they'll be fed up of listening to him and they'll close it down the strange thing is that church is going even today 40 years after, tomorrow morning it's nearly tomorrow morning over there in South Africa and you know they'll have 1400 people there listening to this amazing man yet God healed a six-year-old man he called the elders, meet me at the hospital we need to pray, he called the elders one night meet me at the hospital and they checked in with the lady at the desk you know and said a pastor said I want to pray for so and so she said yes he's in ward 13 what did you say ward 13 ward 13 is the morgue the pastor just walked down the aisle and the deacons went and said pastor this, this, this this is the morgue so he pulled the screen over and there was a man lying and all sorts and little Juma pulled across and then he climbed on top and he said in the name of Jesus Christ who is the resurrection and the life well if the corpse had got up with me on top of it I'd have hit the but you know what happened the corpse got down and walked isn't it terrible when you've only got you know when you can't look on your diploma and say that's where I say I mean that's where I got my diploma and then you look at the other one and that's where I got my PhD and that's where I got hey but wait a minute are you suggesting that man has run 30 years on one fill up you've got a new automobile you expect it to last with one fill up of gas till you die the trouble with most people they had appendix of 20 I forget the day it was maybe the 17th of November when the little black man went into that cave do you know what the smart man did every year since then he's gone back in that cave for 21 days and nights along with God to get a new anointing to get a new vision, to get a new strength and yet we just say well I can't take time off you don't have a church to fuck one woman came to one of our meetings isn't it amazing get many of your tithes excuse me all your tithes and if you give God a tenth of every day I tell you what if everybody tithes go hide thyself I see Elijah so big he doesn't even get into Hebrews 11 where all those guys you need to get proud some people say well you can't live without sin everybody needs a little bit of sin to keep you humble well why not have a lot and be real humble doesn't need sin to make you humble all I need to do to get my faith and not one of them he said it all the old hen house on the foundation said Elijah the man of faith the ravens fed him in the morning and fed him in the evening maybe that means we should only eat two meals a day I don't know but what now happened the brook dried up before the ravens stopped bringing the food the brook dried up the natural resources dried up first and then he heard the voice of the Lord saying get up and go where do I go go down the road you'll meet a woman a widow woman and tell her to feed you oh Lord I can't go this is a test of humility isn't it I mean who wants to stunt on a woman apart from radio evangelists you don't ask a little widow woman to feed you are you oh put your pride in your pocket meet the little woman and say you make me a cake and she says well I suppose I may as well die today or tomorrow what did she say she said I'll make you a little cake I was going to make one for my son and myself we were going to eat it and what this man's prayer will be he wants revival without any suffering maybe our option really is this either we concentrate in prayer or we pray in concentration camps which do you want God isn't concerned about Standard Oil or anybody else people say well if we can't have money the missions are going to close down all the streamlined, chrome lined evangelism you'll see tomorrow on TV almighty God passed it and all our computers and all our bible schools and all our seminaries and sent revival up in north east India a very repetition of the acts of the apostles signs and wonders and miracles the dead have been raised and I like the phrase that Paul Copeland gives there he says this was not imported gifts of the spirit nobody told them about speaking in tongues nobody told them about miracles nobody told them about interpretations nobody told them about signs and wonders God came in his sovereign right and this is the only answer he's not an alternative it's the only answer for our day and God has said he'll pour out his spirit on all flesh your sons and your daughters did you go to the temple and ask the high priest who are the best and most God takes the things that are not so many people have said to me did you ever meet Smith he was a character he was in a meeting not far from my home there was a lady at the front there she had a big tummy on her and he thought well that old girl can't be pregnant she's far too old so while they were singing he went down and he blabbered in her ear are you pregnant he said close your eyes she did he shook his fist kicked her in the stomach like that he said you're healed she was rather dead one of the two you don't hit a woman in the stomach like that when she's been kicked by a mule there was no way of repeating it on four occasions people raised from the dead and yet I want to tell you tonight I've seen signs and wonders and miracles I used to go off with Miss Kuhlman I took her Bible classes a number of times in the Carmichael Hall in Pittsburgh talked with her many times with Dave Wilkins and had dinner with her supper with her, breakfast with her, talk with her and saw some great miracles there and now I've only missed the earlier blind people's up to see cripples walks and what have you but that's not the answer for America today America has had more healing in the last thirty years than all the nations under heaven put together but where are we do you know what the greatest miracle is that almighty God can do the greatest miracle almighty God can do is take an unholy man out of an unholy world make that unholy man holy put him back in an unholy world and keep him holy takes all the power of the atonement to do that plus the indwelling of the Spirit of God and all the promises of God and what God is looking for in this day is not people with accurate theology He's looking for people with cure He's looking for people that are totally selfless He's looking for people who want to see God glorified alright let me hurry here he went and the lady made a cake and then he said make yourself a cake and she goes back to the barrel and finds it's pulled to the top and this little oil can is shooting like an Oklahoma gusher no I don't think so I think she took the last handful of meal out of that barrel every day and put the last pot of oil that's the way God tests faith I guess I know twenty millionaires and multimillionaires many of them tell me I've opened Sesame to their bank account I've never asked anybody for a penny since I left a very fine church in 1949 and that's a few years ago it's over thirty and I got my boys through school and college and university and never asked for a dime and I never will I believe every time we ask for money it's a slap in the face of God He's promised to supply our needs not what I think I need but what He thinks I need we don't have to trail God's name in the dust to build some monument to send you tithes to keep some of this private jet up in the air each day until God sent her harvest she made a caint and one day Elijah came in and she said and now I found you out I see who you are now you come into my house and my baby died oh he said don't worry about that I didn't like to tell you this it's rather egotistical I'm the greatest miracle worker in the world oh we can take holy things and make showmanship out of it to me the holiness of God is too great to go on TV programs tell me this when you come here tomorrow or the church you go to are you going there to meet God or are you going to hear a sermon about Him I believe 99% of people who go to church tomorrow are going to want to hear a sermon about God not me to holy God Elijah said give me the child and he prayed and nothing happened he prayed again and nothing happened the third time he prayed he ran up into a loft have you got a loft in your life or a basement or an old chair where you always feel you're nearer to God than any other place he ran up into a loft and he prayed now this time he laid himself on the corpse a sign of his compassion and love and he prayed and the child's spirit came into it again Mike I would have fainted I'd like to faint back I'd like to faint the man coming down that staircase outside the house with a little laughing child in his arms and a woman there do you think he went up to the lady and said excuse me the kid's alive I think he went down so full of joy and said hey look here's some liver do you remember what she said by this I know the heart and mind of God not by the barrel of meal not by the oil by this by what by the fact that he brought life where there was death isn't that the business of the church you happy quick and do a dead in trespasses and in sin Jesus didn't come into the world just to make bad men good he came into the world to make dead men live well that looks great doesn't it by this I know the heart and mind of God who's the greatest man of prayer in the Old Testament Jacob? no you say he prayed all night he didn't intend to he prayed all night because he was in a jam wouldn't you pray all night if your brother was going to murder you you'd have a police escort round the house I've seen a crowd of men coming one of my scouts came and told me it's your brother the last time I saw my brother he said I'll kill you next time I see you get all the cattle here give him just a few of the sheep and if he's pacified he didn't want to give too much away a few sheep if he'll take them and if you have to give him give him them all but if you can pacify him do your best and then he sent his wife and family away and then he stepped over a brook and he got behind a rock and just as he got behind a rock somebody jumped on him well who do you think he thought it was huh? his brother my brother jumped on him boy I'm going to die fighting that doesn't sound like a church prayer meeting sounds like a church business meeting but not a church prayer meeting and the more he thought the tighter the grip got on him and suddenly he realized this is not my brother do you know what I learned out of that situation that when Jacob went into that night of prayer he was a tall handsome prince and after a night of wrestling there he dragged his leg the rest of his life he was a cripple and the reason we don't pray is the flesh is too weak to pray the body gets tired or some other petty excuse the rest of his life he dragged a wizard leg but he was changed to being a prince with God I think the greatest man of prayer in the Old Testament was Elijah, pardon me, was Moses you know America has a very vivid strange history it's been such a blessing to the world it's been such a curse to the world a curse? well Mormonism was born here and that's cursing the world Jehovah's Witnesses were born here and they're cursing the world Spiritism was revived here and that's cursing the world Man alive we talk about the Pentecostal revival in Brazil but brother there's a shocking revival of Spiritism and Voodooism in Brazil right now and in some of those South American countries we curse the world but you know you can tip the scales the other way we have had some of the greatest men of prayer in modern history just the other day my dear wife and I were in a shop the lady came up, hi Mr. Ennis how are you? I've heard you preach a number of times in one of your books you quote David Payson and she has a great library and she said nobody has ever quoted David Payson except you and I've got a volume on his life would you like it? I said sure I've given mine to my son David Payson I call him praying Payson of Portland origin he had a bedroom like the floor like this you know not that nice wall to wall rug like you have hard like this and when he died they found a groove in the floor and a few inches away another groove in the floor and they found out that when he prayed he used to pray in a room with intercession praying Hyde I preached in a conference in Lake Okoboji in Iowa some years ago 1951 actually a dear mystery came he said did you ever meet praying Hyde? I said no I'd like to have him. Oh I heard him there in a cyclops convention in India a friend of mine said to him one day Mr. Hyde could I pray with you tomorrow just let me pray with you once he said alright meet me at 9.30 and he said my friend went to the back room at 9.30 and there was John Hyde and we knelt down to pray and he said for 15 minutes it was total silent I didn't pray he didn't pray and then he said I prayed but he said at the end of 10 minutes I prayed all I knew how to pray and then John Hyde started to pray and he hadn't been praying very long when there was a knock at the door and this man said well I'm not going to the door this is the only chance I'll ever get to pray with this man I'm not going to the door and there was a loud knock at the door finally somebody pushed the door open and said Mr. Hyde you have a schedule at 3 o'clock to preach on praying and it's now a quarter of 3 his friend said it can't be a quarter of 3 we started praying at 10 o'clock it can't be a quarter of 3 and he looked at his watch and found it was a quarter of 3 they had been praying for 5 hours Portland of Patience praying Patience of Portland John Hyde E.M. Barnes you can buy 7 volumes of E.M. Barnes they cost you about 3 or 4 dollars each you can buy them all in one book I put them all together you can buy them as you leave it's called the Treasury of Prayer and we think all the great men of prayer lived 100 years ago there's a man lived 50 miles away from where I live he's 32 years of age he prays 10 hours a day here in America right now come on you fellows at Pompeiian and show your strength how much stamina do you have to pray how much vision how much passion how much burden there's a man outside Waco 60 years of age who prays 6 hours a day again I live in an area of celebrities David Wilkinson lives behind us the Agape Force just up the road Keith Green lives down the road Barry McGuire lives just up above us Dallas Holm lives just behind us Dave Wilkinson's building his new place on Mile Promise, 2nd chapter of Acts have just bought 10 acres by the side of us, Jimmy Oiner's just bought 10 acres 2nd chapter of Acts have bought 100 acres Jimmy Oiner's bought 10 acres star-studded area you know the most attractive thing is we have a prayer meeting on Friday night in a mansion across the road from where we live a Quaker family very lovely people and we get 100 to 120 students and you know how far they come they come as far as 250 miles round trip every Friday night just to pray not to hear celebrities sing what have we got singing upside down did the disciples say Lord teach us to sing did Jesus say my house shall be called a house of song for all nations did Paul say sing without ceasing did James say if you're sick sing one to another, did Jesus say my house shall be called a house of song for all nations do you now sick the churches that you can put a show on and charge $5 and you can get 2 or 3 thousand people to go and they'll go 100 miles to the concert and it'll cost them a lot in gas and they have to eat when they go and they go to the show and then it's over and they get back 2 o'clock in the morning and they'll go by the thousand and you book the same hall for a prayer meeting and charge them nothing you'll get nobody there that's how sick the church is and nobody loves singing more than I love it I finished where I began no man is greater than his prayer life the greatest living expositor in the world, I talked with him in London a few years back and he said to me I don't have any trouble I don't have any trouble writing commentaries on the bible the hardest thing in my life is prayer I found it so difficult to pray I think that a prayer closet should be the most magnetic place in our lives you know in England in society the greatest honour is to be invited into the presence of the Queen of England and when you go you receive instructions how to go, what kind of clothes to wear how to observe the right manners just don't go in your old clothes and drive up in your beaten up old truck or something to the Queen do you ever visualise when you go to pray that as you kneel in your little humble home or mansion that you're talking to the same God that Elijah talked to, the same God that Jesus talked to, the same God that Moses talked to that little you because of Jesus Christ making us a kingdom of priests unto God that we can just go into his holy presence. In the revival in Scotland Duncan Campbell had had a series of meetings where God invaded the community and he was in one church and nothing happened he said the heavens seemed like brass so he stopped the meeting there were a lot of preachers here, a lot of church deacons there, a lot of men in the clerical attire and he said I do not sense God in this meeting he pointed to a young man, Hamish, which is Scottish dialect for John, Hamish the personess of him ah he said laddie would you stand up and pray the boy was sixteen years of age sixteen, here are all the theologians the preachers, the famous dignitaries in the Christian world and he called on a sixteen year old high school boy to pray the laddie stood up in Scotland when they are contemptuous they say ach the boy stood there and said ach what is the good of praying if we are not right with God and he quoted Psalm 24 who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord he that hath clean hands and a pure heart and he went on and recited it and then he prayed 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes 40 minutes, 45 minutes and as he finished praying it was just as though God pulled a switch in heaven and the glory of God came on that building and he came on the dance hall at the other end of time and he came on the tavern at the other end of time and they never opened after that but do you know why because when the boy finished praying with the authority of a man that sounded like a Jeremiah or an Elijah or an Isaiah he just turned as though he could visibly see something and he said Satan get off this territory go out of this community in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost I command you through the blood of Christ and the power of the Spirit be gone and as the devil pulled out the glory of God came down I get scared that God will keep one of his promises you know we like God's promises if they are convenient for us but remember it wasn't to the Mormons and it wasn't to the Mooniites that God said I'll spew you out of my mouth it was to his lazy backslidden church the Laodicean church which is the day in which we are living I'll spew you out of my mouth and God says hey Moses come here a minute I know you are discouraged I know you are weary of these people I know they have broken your heart you know they have broken my heart too I'm as tired of them as you are now look you go tell them I'm going to wipe them out I'm going to wipe the nation out and out of your loins I'm going to raise up a new nation and if Moses had had half an ounce of ambition for himself he would have said Lord I'm just so happy because I've had headaches and sleepless nights with this bunch that's so rebellious and lawless and disobedient I can't wait till I stand on a rock tomorrow and say look the holy one of Israel is going to destroy you for your abominations and your sin you're going to hell and you deserve it but I want to tell you something before you go he's keeping me here because I'm so holy do you know what Moses said in the eleventh of Deuteronomy there he says Lord the weight of this nation is so great upon me you better do something or else kill me in Romans 9 the apostle Paul says I can wish myself accursed a plain translation from the Greek is this I'll be damned if need be if my damnation, if my destruction will release the mercy of God on my generation when you go to your bed and sleep nicely tonight they'll just be going round the casinos up there in Las Vegas and elsewhere else and the discos they'll be taking their clothes off and the nakedness and the promiscuality and now they tell me in France nobody goes to see the girls strip anymore they go to watch acts of homosexuality and you think God's going to put up with a nation that has more Bibles we have 600 million Bibles in the nation and if you say there are 15 million Christians that's 4 Bibles to each person and we have more gospel radio broadcasts and we have more churches and we have more seminaries and we have more Bible teaching and Bible companies than all the rest of the world put together and yet we have more broken homes with divorce more broken bodies with drugs, more broken bodies through venereal disease, more broken girls bodies through homosexuality through childbirth everything's broken this nation has never been so broken but do you know what the greatest tragedy is? the greatest tragedy in the world tonight is a sick church in a dying world, the church of Jesus Christ isn't broken over it he was born in Gethsemane and that revival that revival that he had in Nagaland do you know why it came to the surface? because for 20 years a hidden group of people have been praying and travailing for revival I know some of the greatest praying people in the world you couldn't get them to come and stand here publicly they won't let you write an article about their prayer life you know you can come on the platform and strut and show your ability and your scholarship and how clever you can maneuver a crowd but I challenge you to start swaggering when you shut the door and you're alone with God you don't swagger in the prayer closet you can impress people that nobody impresses God we're naked before him God says I'll utterly destroy these people you know what? it's a very wonderful thing when God reaches from heaven and takes hold of a man I only know one thing more amazing that's when a man reaches up and takes hold of God and God says to Moses leave me alone that's not Moses knowing that God has a grip on him it's not Moses saying God almighty take your hand off me it's God saying Moses leave me alone and the old Methodist hymn book paraphrases that he says this let Moses in the spirit roam and God cries out let me alone that's praying our praying is so feeble our praying has to close at 9 o'clock tell the Holy Ghost to go home I don't believe you can run a healthy church in America or anywhere else without that church having at least one night of prayer a week and the best time to have it usually is Friday night because folk don't have to go to work the next day every church I've been in I've been in churches in the last 3 years that have 4, 5, 6, 7 thousand members and my joy has not been to just see altars filled but to establish a prayer meeting on Friday night and in those churches they pray from 9 o'clock at night to sometimes 1 and 2 o'clock in the morning all earthly things with earth will fade away but prayer grasps eternity you can test your spiritual life not by how much Bible knowledge you have I'm not concerned that you know the word of God though that's good but I want to know do you know the God of the word I'm not just concerned you run with every burden to God does God lay any of his burdens on you his yoke is easy his burden is light Moses was one who had nothing a hand clapping time a good time 5 minutes inside God of eternity again we all wish we'd be more prayerful more sacrificial more obedient more submissive the government isn't going to get this nation out of trouble and the banks aren't going to get us out and the armies aren't going to get us out it's going to take one great merciful act of God or we are sunk we've had more light more privileges the last 25 years and all nations in the world put together people say well prayer can do anything well read the 14th of Ezekiel where God says it the three greatest men that ever lived make intercession I will not hear them even for their own children they won't save their own children never mind the nation if I could find God's time piece and say do you know what time it is on God's clock you know what I think we're not living in the last day not even living in the last hours not even living in the last minutes I think we're living in the last moments before judgment falls and before revival comes Father we thank you tonight for this privilege of being in your house we thank you for these precious friends that the world didn't have any pull on them tonight or they wouldn't be here but Lord many of us tonight have a broken down prayer life many of us know nothing of intercession we need to get our hearts cleansed from selfishness and worldliness and carelessness and get centered on God himself we need to be cleansed from all vanity and trivia we need to get married to the will of God we need to be totally spiritual we need to hear your voice we need to see as you see we need broken hearts for a broken world not just a broken nation a broken world we think of the millions locked up tonight the Mohammedans and Buddhists and Confucianists and Muniites and others and Lord we're not penetrating their kingdoms we're not entering into the devil dominion have mercy on us just with your head bowed and eyes closed ask God what he wants you to do tonight and I'll ask the pastor to come and close the meeting