This sermon emphasizes the importance of praying with pure motives, focusing on glorifying God above all else. It highlights the need to surrender selfish desires and seek God's glory in all prayers, showcasing examples from the Bible and personal testimonies to inspire a deeper commitment to praying for God's honor and kingdom.

Turn to James chapter 4, James chapter 4, and look at these words, prayer changes things, does it? Prayer changes things. James chapter 4 and verse 2, the last statement of verse 2 and verse 3. James 4, verse 2 and verse 3. In the last statement of verse 2, it says James chapter 4, I know your problem, you need a page, it's page 301, got it? In my Bible. Alright, James chapter 4, verse 2, the last statement, it says, yet you have not because you ask not, okay? And then the next verse says, but you ask, we've got people here Lord that ask, we've got them here tonight, and receive not, huh? We've got people like that. Why? Because you ask and miss. You know what a miss is? I play basketball, I know what a miss is. Right? Didn't get in the hoop, that's a miss. You ask and receive not because you ask and miss, why? That you may consume it upon your lust. Very interesting indeed. But the first part of it, you have not because you ask not. Isaiah 30 verse 19, listen, it says, he will surely, talk about God, he will surely be gracious to you, talk about the grace of God, he will surely be gracious to you, listen, at the sound of your cry, he's waiting for you to cry, and he'll be gracious. And when he hears it, your cry, he will answer you. You know that's in your Bible, what a verse. Isaiah 30 verse 19. Interesting. F. The great tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer. The great tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer. The great tragedy of life is unoffered prayer. You have not because you ask not. Now I like children, I like the way they talk to God, I like how they think about God, and so I heard about a child who wrote his prayer on a wall. Excuse me, on a piece of paper. He wrote his prayer on a piece of paper, and he stuck it to the wall, and he prayed, Lord, there it is. Read it for yourself, and answer it. Amen. Ah, maybe we need our walls all stuck with prayer requests. I say, Lord, there it is. Answer it. Asking, you have not. Another child said, dear God, please send me a pony. You never know what a child prayed for. Please send me a pony. And he went on and said, I never asked for anything before. You can look it up, God. And I thought to myself, maybe God can look up on us. We haven't asked for very much. You have not because you ask not. But I like about little Johnny. He needed a hundred dollars to buy a new bike. So, he prayed for two weeks that God would give him a hundred dollars to buy a new bike, and nothing happened. So, then he decided, I better write a letter to God about this. So, he sent God a letter. And he wrote a letter to God, and he asked God for a hundred dollars to buy a new bike. When the postmaster got that letter, he didn't know who to send it to. So, he decided, he better send it. The letter was simply addressed God USA. So, the postmaster thought, I better send it to the president. Well, the president got it, and he was so amused, and he was so touched by it, and so he instructed his secretary to send the young fellow five dollars. Five dollars. So, the young fellow gets five dollars from God. Right? Send it to God. He was delighted to get five dollars, so he sent God a thank you note. And then this is what he read in his thank you note. Dear God, thank you for sending the money. However, he said, I noticed that for some reason, you had to send it through Washington DC. And he said, as usual, those crooks deducted ninety-five dollars. Aren't you thankful I didn't say Ottawa? Those children, leave it up to them, huh? Well, when I read this, Philip Brooks said, If man is man, and are you men here tonight? We talked about men. If man is man, here we are, man is man, and if God is God. You know what our problem of our day is, men and women? We have done something to God. He's no longer the God of the Bible in our minds. And the tragedy is, we have humanized him and brought him down to such a low level that it can hardly say, God is God. But I hope God has a group of people here tonight who say, we want the God who is God. And Philip Brooks said, if man is man, and we are, and if God is God, and we say amen to that, then he went on to say, that not only is it awful not to pray, it is foolish not to pray. You have not, because you ask not. Oh, my brothers and sisters, that will become a praying people. But I say here tonight, Lord, I've got people on a Tuesday night have come to Heritage Alliance Church, because I've got the askers, Lord. The askers are here tonight, God. So, he goes on to say in verse 3, you ask. I've got the askers here, Lord. But also it says, you ask and receive not. And we're here, Lord. A lot of asking, but we're not getting. We're here, Lord. How come, Lord? Because you ask to miss. You ask to consume it on your lust. What is this all about? I give a quote by Dr. James Kennedy from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a tremendous man of God who passed on to be with the Lord a few years ago. Listen to what he said, what a statement. He said, the selfishness of our day, don't we live in a day of selfishness? The selfishness of our day has mingled itself with the incense of our prayers. Our self-centeredness of this society and our day comes right into the center of our prayers. It is to be feared, he said, that our selfishness preys more than our gratitude and praise. He said, for even spiritual blessing we can ask for, we may even ask and even receive it not, if we only ask it that we may consume it upon ourselves. Tremendous. You know, every one of us as Christians, we can say we know if we know ourselves at best. Sometimes in our most holy moments, we discover the fact that that spirit of selfishness and self-seeking enters right into the center of our praying without us even being aware of it, it slips right in, in those most holy moments. So I suggest to you men and women, we can be praying, I'm saying today, that we can be praying for even good things with the wrong motive. And God says, I'd like to answer your prayers, but you're not praying for the right reason. And we may be praying, why? For our benefit. We may be praying for our own glory. We can be praying for our own comfort. For maybe our own ease. We can be praying for our own popularity. We can be praying for our own pleasure. I have just named a few. Why don't you add another ten reasons why we can be praying out of selfishness for God. Oh, that God would speak to us about. Oswald Chambers says like this, if my only motivation in prayer, we're talking about right motive praying, if my only motivation in prayer is to get my needs met, got it? He said, I will soon find myself in a hut with God. I'll be angry with God, but that's my motivation in prayer. One man in one of our crusades got up when God spoke to him and he gave a testimony and he said like this, he said, I've been turning over an order blank to God and things didn't come out my way, so I got bitter. You probably know some people who have gotten bitter against God because they prayed for something and it didn't come out their way. Or maybe you identify with this right now. Prayer men and women, I suggest, must be a holy exercise, untainted by vanity and pride. Leonard Ravenhill, that man of revival, he said, much of our praying today is so discolored with ambition, either for ourselves, for our denomination, for our church. He said, listen, God alone must be our goal in prayer. What is this all about? J. Hudson Taylor said like this, do we sufficiently cultivate the unselfish desire to do everything for God's pleasure? Or are we conscious that we principally go to God for our own sakes, or at best for the sake of our fellow creature? That's why we go to God. He said, how much of our prayers is there that begins and ends with the creature? It starts here and it ends right here, forgetful of the privilege of giving joy to the Creator. Men and women, could we understand this? Wrong motive praying, what is it all about? What could some of our selfish motives in prayer be all about? I could say, could be, I've just said a simple general term, it could be a prayer for material things. Selfish prayer for material things. So we can continue to enjoy the nice high level of living with our 4 and 5 automobiles and our 10 and 15 television sets. We want things to go well, to enjoy that. Do you know that's what it really means when it says, you receive not because you want to consume it on your lust? It really means, in another translation, it means you want to spend it on your pleasures. So even that context is even in that thought. Could it be that? What could another selfish reason be? Could it be, now listen to me, you're going to wonder where I'm going with this one, what could be a selfish motive praying that, I'm praying that my whole family may come to Christ. Hmm, that woke up the sleepers. That a selfish motive in prayer? What's that all about? You know that could be a selfish motive? Why do you want them to come to Christ? You know what Charles G. Finney said about it? He said, a true saint of God can even desire the work of the conversion of a soul or souls for purely selfish motives. Wow, good job. That's a good cause, isn't it? Purely selfish motive. Well, let me go a little further. Why do you want them saved? Why do you want them saved? Why are you praying for their salvation? Do you know what could even be the embarrassment of some parents, Christian parents, whose children are not living for God and the embarrassment of that to being around the brothers and sisters in the body of Christ because my children are away from God and where did I fail them and what do people think of me? You know, it could be. I'm just putting it out. Oh, you say, oh no, no, no. Could be. Oh. No, no, no, you say, no. The reason why I pray for them to be converted because if they could convert it, if they get converted, it would be so much better for all of us as a family if they were converted. We'd all be on the same wavelength and we could have fellowship together. We'd enjoy one another. It would be wonderful. Is that why you want them converted? I tell you, if they do get converted, you're right, that would happen, but is that why you want them converted? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. We want them converted. Look at how much better it would be for them if they get converted. Look what they go through because they don't have Jesus in their life. Look what they're missing. I want them converted for their sake. Is that why you want them converted? It will be so much better for them. Is that why you want them converted? Charles D. Finney made a profound statement and this is something, folks. He made this statement in the work called Legal Religion, True Saints, and listen to what he says. Too many of us pray for sinners. That's what we're talking about. We're praying for sinners, right? Too many of us pray for sinners not because we have a sense of the evil, of sin, which the sinners are committing as much as we have a sense of the terror of the hell to which the sinner is going. And he says, it is not because sinners dishonor God that we want them converted, but because they are in danger we want them converted. Our great object in praying is to secure their safety. If there was no danger, we would perhaps have no motive to pray either for them or even for ourselves. Wow, what a statement. Can we understand this tonight? I'm laying the premise. Trust God by his Holy Spirit. Let us grab it. It will be a revolutionary night in our praying, folks. What could be another motive, false motive in our praying? To enlarge our church. We're praying, O God, to fill our church, to enlarge our church and to enlarge our youth group. Now I hope praying enlarges it, but is that the motive that we're praying? To enlarge our denomination. You know what? When we were in Rives Junction, I was telling you about the revival where people had to come an hour and a half early to get a seat. The interlude between two cornfields, a town of 250 people, there Rives Junction, Michigan, little town. The first chapter of the book, Flames of Freedom, by the way, that you get about the revival that Erwin Lutzer wrote, the book about Flames of Freedom, the first chapter talks about it. That chapter. The Church that Revival Built is the name of that chapter, the first chapter of the book, and it talks about it. But in that situation, God was working in such a way that we didn't even take a Saturday night off and by Friday night we had a Christian radio station telling the whole community what God was doing as Christians called it in the testimony. I told you about that last night. But in the light of that, people were coming in and driving hundreds of miles even to be where God was at work. And in the light of that, I sensed, we came to Friday night, I sensed compelled of the Lord to invite the people on Saturday night, when we come Saturday night, after the meeting is over we're going to have a prayer meeting because pastors have been hearing about what God's doing because of the radio and they're going to be in their church on Sunday morning and people have been touched by God are going to go to their church and give testimony and let's have a prayer meeting Saturday night after the meeting and let's pray that the Spirit of God just move out all of those churches in Sunday morning church service and God would give the pastors wisdom and so forth like we prayed for pastors tonight. And let's stay, plan on staying folks. Well after the meeting was over, the whole host of people stayed, a place as wide as this and this whole area was filled with people on their knees praying for God to continue to work and bless the churches all over the countryside that were hearing what God was doing. Got it? And wow, they were praying fervently. And one man was praying over here and he was praying, Oh God, send revival, Oh God would you please send revival, he prayed, to all the Baptist churches in America. And you know what? I stopped him right in the middle of his prayer. I said, my dear brother, is that all you want? You know men and women, without realizing it, even that kind of spirit can settle in even our prayers. So, we can talk about wrong motives, but let's get quickly to the right motive. What is the right motive in praying? Praying for revival, praying, our praying that's going to go through to God. What's the right motive? What is it? I suggest to you, everything about our praying relates to the glory of God. Everything in the right motive relates to the honor of God and the name of God. In the Old Testament, everything spoke about the glory of God. Moses, when he was dealing with Pharaoh to get the children of Israel with those ten plagues that were on the children of Israel. You know what? In ten plagues, if you study them, I can't take time to dig in, sometime when you read it, you will find in those ten plagues, you'll find at least fourteen times Moses is saying to Pharaoh, I want you to do this, and basically, for the honor of God and the name of God was at stake. Tremendous! That was the driving force of Moses in his context with Pharaoh. What was Joseph's dreams all about? Joseph answered Pharaoh, it is not in me, when they said, we've got a guy that will interpret your dreams, Pharaoh. And Joseph said, when they said, Joseph's the man, Joseph said to Pharaoh, Joseph said, it's not in me. God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace. You see, who's getting the glory? The honor of God. In the book of Joshua, you read verses twenty-two to twenty-four, chapter four, twenty-two to twenty-four. Tremendous! Again, everything about it, the honor of God. So we come to David. Well, I'm just quickly, moving quickly, so we can grab it. Here's just a little run in the scripture to give you the background. You come to David. You know the problem. He had a problem with the giant, David and the giant, with the slingshot and the five stones. You know the story. You know what men and women, the problem is, we take all the time emphasizing that God gave David the victory over the giant with the five stones, slingshot and all the rest of it. Yeah? You know what you need to do? Instead of reading those last few verses that talk about him taking the giant down, you need to back up from verse twenty-six to verse forty-seven. Verse twenty-six, you get a little bit of the heart of this young man that took that giant down. And you know what you find? From verse twenty-six to forty-seven, I wish I could read it to you, it would thrill you, you will find six times in the verses that David is speaking about the honor of God and the name of God, what this is all about. Tremendous. No wonder we come to 2 Samuel 7 and that same David, a little older in life, he can pray to God like this. And now, O Lord God, he prays, the word that you have spoken concerning your servant David and concerning the house of David, his house, establish it forever, O God, and do as you have said, and let thy name be magnified forever. Not the name of David, saying, the Lord of hosts is the God of Israel. So no wonder we can come to the psalmist David in Psalm twenty-three. Oh, we memorize that verse from the Grasshopper High and Sunday School, remember? And we read those verses so quickly and we don't even realize what we read. Psalm twenty-three, verse three, we pray, leadeth me in the paths of righteousness. Why, David, do you want to go in the paths of righteousness? For thy name's sake, hmm, the honor of God. And we come to Psalm seventy-one, verse eight, the same David. He said, let my mouth be filled with thy praise and with thy honor all the day long. Hmm, isn't that something? Thy praise and thy honor again. And no wonder we come to Psalm one-oh-nine, verse twenty-three. Twenty-one, he says, but thou, but do thou for me, O God, the Lord, for thy name's sake. Do for me, for thy name's sake. He's obsessed with this, isn't he? And we come to Psalm one-oh-nine, verse twenty-six, he says, O save me, that they may know that this is thy hand, that thou, Lord, hast done it. I'm just giving you a young man obsessed with the honor and the glory of God. No wonder we can move into Psalm one-nineteen. One-nineteen? Oh, the Psalm that you don't read when you have a Sunday School contest for Bible reading? Oh, but what a Psalm it is. Listen to what he says in verse fifty-three. He says, horror has taken hold of me. Why? Because of the wicked. That's a burdened heart for the wicked. Why, David? Why are you concerned about the wicked? Horror has taken hold of me because of the wicked are on the way to hell. Nope. Are the wicked on the way to hell? Yes, but that's not why. Horror has taken hold of David. Listen, horror has taken hold of me because of the wicked. Hear? That forsake thy law. What was the burden of his heart? God, your name and your honor is at stake. Verse one-twenty-six, it is time for thee, Lord, to work. Sound like crying for a revival, isn't it? Why? Time for thee, Lord, to work because they're on their way to hell. No, they've made void thy law. Again, the honor and the glory of God is at stake. Verse one-thirty-six, rivers of water run down mine eyes. Wow, what a burdened heart. Why, David? Because they're all going to hell around you. No, because they keep not thy law. Again, the motivation, God's honor at stake. Verse one-thirty-nine, my zeal hath consumed me. I'm talking about a burdened heart man. That's what needs to happen in this community. Our hearts need to become that. What's going to get our hearts there? My zeal hath consumed me. Why? Because mine enemies are on their way to hell. No, they've forgotten thy words. Lord, your name, your honor, your word is at stake. That's the burden of my heart. No wonder we come to one-hundred-fifty. And he says, they draw nigh that follow after mischief. What's the problem with them? They're going to hell. No, they are far from thy law. How many times do you want it? The obsession of a young man, the honor and the glory of God, everything about him. So then we can come to prophet Elijah. He's on Mount Carmel. And you know he's challenging the prophets of Baal to see who can pray down fire from heaven, right? So he can see Elijah. When Baal's prophets didn't make it, we can see Elijah, right? You know what he says? He says, I want to show these people what kind of a prayer I am. Lord, make it as hard as you can. We're going to put water on that thing. God, we're going to make it as hard as you can because I want to show them what kind of prayer I am. Huh? Now, when he comes to pray in that situation, here's why the prophet Elijah prayed. Here's why he's doing it. Let it be known this day that I am thy servant and I have done all of this according to thy word. The honor of God at stake, only concern that people know who the living God was. Nehemiah, he was so desperate in the situation. Fundamentally, two things drove him. The wickedness of the people, he knew that was going to tear them up. But more than that, the honor of God was the burden of his heart, that he was so passionate about what he had to do in that situation. He was grieved over what their conduct was doing to the honor of God. Nehemiah loved God so much, so passionately, and God's glory that there was. You know, there's a tremendous verse about you and me in Isaiah. Way back in the Old Testament, God gives a powerful verse about every one of us in this meeting here tonight. Listen, Isaiah 47, 43, 7 and 21. Everyone that is called by my name, do you call yourself a Christian? Are you called by God's name? Everyone that is called by my name, here we are tonight, for I have created him for my glory. What were you created for? To enjoy life for yourself, to do your own thing? You call yourself a Christian, you call by God's name, God says, I created you for my glory. This people have I formed for myself. They shall show forth my praise. What a tremendous verse, what a tremendous verse. You know, Daniel, he agonized in prayer, and Daniel's prayer of agony were all because they were primarily concerned with the honor of God's name. Daniel's passion for the glory of God's name led to such deep confession and prayer for great faith. Too many times many women, our anguish is simply over our own inconvenience, our own trials, that's the anguish. However, our ultimate concern should be that of Daniel's. The fame and the honor of God's name should be the deepest desire of our praying. The praying church source book is going to be an article that you are going to get in the packet on the way out tonight. And here is the title of it. What wrong and right motives sound like. How you can tell when you are praying wrong and right motives, get that article in the packet tonight. Dr. George Sweeting, former president of Moody Bible Studies said, first of all our praying needs to aim at the glory of God. Well, you say that's all Old Testament you've been talking about. Yes. What about the New Testament? Jesus, he spoke 12 verses in the book of John, 12 verses. And one, to give you an example, 14, 3, 13, and what's the spiritual ask in my name? That will I do. Pray in my name he said. I'll do it. Why? That the Father may be glorified in the Son. See, the honor of God at stake. The Apostle Paul, he was on Mars Hill and the Bible says he looked out over the city and the Bible says his spirit was stirred within him. What stirred Paul's spirit? His spirit was stirred while he looked down over the whole city. Why? Because it says they were on their way to hell. No. His spirit was stirred within him because it says he saw a whole city given over to idolatry. What's idolatry? The worship of the wrong God. God's honor at stake. God's honor being abused. And other gods are being worshipped. And that was a stir of Paul. So, we use a verse in Romans 3, 23. When you witness the souls, lost souls, the first thing you want to tell them is that they're lost, right? And what verse do you run to? You use it in the Romans Road, and so many. And what verse do you run to? Here's the verse. Romans 3, 23. And we quote it to the unsaved man. We say, don't you know? For all have sinned and are on their way to hell. What? Oh, you caught me, didn't you? What? For all have sinned and have what? Come short of what? Oh, now we get it. See? We were made for the glory of God. Man was created for the glory of God. And the sin of the human heart is God is not receiving the glory for which he created that human being for. That's the sin. Tremendous indeed when you think about it. How many verses do you want? In 1 Corinthians 1, 31 says that no flesh should glory in his presence, that according is written, but he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 6, 19, 21. What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? And you're bought with a price? Therefore, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's. How many verses do you want? Paul, there it is. He says in 1 Corinthians 10, 31, whether therefore ye eat or drink, do all to the? Oh, you're learning it. He says in Ephesians 3, 20, 21, he says unto him be glory. Where? In the church. How long? Throughout all ages. Brings us down to our age here. World without end. Unto him be glory. How many verses do you want? On it goes. Do you know many women? The Apostle Peter says the same thing. He says you are a chosen generation. You're a royal priesthood. You're a holy nation of peculiar people. What is the peculiarity about us? Huh? We don't wear the right kind of suits? Or we don't smile? What's the peculiarity about us? Here it is. A royal nation, a holy nation, a peculiar people, the peculiarity. What's the peculiarity? What is it? That you should show forth, what? The praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. That's what we were made for. We were made for the glory of God and to show forth his praises. Oh, how many verses do you want? It goes on and on. The Apostle Peter says it. All so many times, the glory of God in 2 Peter 2, verse 9 and 12. In chapter 4, verses 14 and 16. All about, everything about it for the name and the honor and glory of God. One prophet after another. The Bible is filled with it. God's waiting for us to get filled with it. You know what? When I first started out as a young Christian, as a teenager, my brother and I gave our hearts to the Lord when we were just 8 years of age. I started preaching when I was 16 years of age. Started holding revivals. Between my high school years, we'd go out and find anybody who would let me preach. My brother and I and some folks outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, way back in the sticks, some of the dear black folks, where we led street lights and roads a long time ago. We were on trails and paths that finally led to the trail, the path that led to the path, that led to the path, that finally led to a trail, that finally led to, finally, the church. You know what I mean? And we started preaching away. And you know back there, we were challenged, and I challenge these young people, we were challenged, why don't you ask God to give you a life verse that you could say, whenever I sign my name, people want me to sign the Bible, I put my life verse there. Have you asked God for a life verse that you want to make your own? And you know, I never realized it until the Lord gave me this message and I started putting this together, that my very life verse was Matthew 5, 16. I've been signing it for years and years, from way back when I was 20 and 21 years of age. Oh, let your light so shine before men that they may glorify, see your light and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. My life verse. Oh, brothers and sisters, I suggest you tonight, your value to God and to man is in exact proportion to the extent in which you reveal the glory of God to others. So you're going to have an article in that file tonight when you pick up the material, an article entitled, You Were Created for God's Glory. Read it. Let it get in your system. Every young person, eat it up. I believe all this is saying, make sure that your purpose in prayer, men and women, your purpose in prayer for others is simply to show how great and important Christ is. The saint of God desires the conversion and regeneration of souls, not primarily to save them from hell they will be, but for them to become instruments that God will receive the glory for which he made them for. Oh, D.L. Moody says this so clearly, this is what he said. He said, if you want your sons and daughters converted, listen, let us pray that it be done for Christ's sake. If that is the motive, your prayers surely will be answered. One man said, Lord, when are you going to change my wife? How many men want to say, excuse me. Lord, when are you going to change my wife? And then God seemed to say to him, when you come to the place where you recognize that the motive for you to pray for her to be changed is because of the blood of Jesus is so worthy of her, for the honor and the glory and the worship and the honor of the God of the universe, that is why she should be changed. The blood of Jesus is so worthy of her. Now, let me go back to Charles Finney. Here is a powerful statement. When I read this statement now, men and women, I say to myself, you know, many times I wish I had lived when he preached and 125, 150 years ago, I wish I could have been there to hear him, but then when I read his writings, I'm not so sure I want to be there. I say to myself when I give you this quote, I say, and I hope God grabs us with this, I say, what kind of a God was around in Finney's day, in the minds of the people? He's the same God that's around today, but in the minds of the people, what kind of a God was in their mind that he could talk like this? I don't know that we can talk like this. I'll give it to you. I hope you don't carry me out bodily. Listen to what he said. The true friends of God and man are here tonight, right? Come out on a Tuesday night, are you? We're friends of God and we hope we're friends of man, yeah? The true friends of God and man feel compassion for sinners. That's why we're here. We have a heart of compassion for them, but the true friends of God and man feel much more for the honor of God than even a compassion for the sinners. They are more distressed to see God abused and God dishonored than even to see sinners go to hell. And if God must be forever dishonored or men go to hell, they will decide that sinners should sink to endless torments sooner than God fail of His due honor. And they manifest their true feelings in their prayers. You hear them praying for sinners as rebels against God, as guilty sinners, as guilty criminals deserving of eternal wrath. And while they're full of compassion for those sinners, they feel also in kindlings of holy indignation against them for their conduct toward or against the honor of their blessed God. What a view of God is that. That's what I was talking about. If man is man and if God is God, then it's not only awful not to pray, it is foolish. You know, some of you folks have seen John Hagee on television, one of the American preachers on television. One time he said something and I got my pen out and wrote as fast as I could write it. You know what he said? He said, my mother is 85 years old. And he said, my mother when I was a child and my brother, when we were children together, my mother every single day prayed for me like this. She prayed, dear God, this is my son. And if he ever does anything to shame your name, please oh God, take him in his infancy. Did you hear me? How many mothers would pray that? All the arthritis here tonight, amen? Oh, what a prayer. And you know what John Hagee said? I was glad for life next week, I was still alive. And you know what he said? He said, my mother is 85 years old and she hasn't changed her prayers yet. What a high view of God is this. Warren Wiersbe, he wrote an article and he gave his testimony and he said, you know what God said to him? God said, Warren, your prayers are too small. And this is what he said, I fear I had a commercial view of prayer. I prayed in order to get things from God. Not only was my attitude commercial, but it was quite mechanical. Can you identify with this? If I met certain conditions, if I used certain words, God had to answer. I studied books about prayer. I studied hoping to find the right formula to make my prayer life success, he said. I was also attracted by some innovative prayer meetings that were going on at that time. But he said, I learned the hard way that novelties aren't always improvements. Much of my praying had been selfish. I was concerned about my needs and not God's glory. My prayers were small and selfish because my view of God was small and selfish. I wanted a God only big enough to meet my needs. Then I discovered that prayer was not a commercial or mechanical arrangement between me and God. To begin with, he said, I saw that God's concern had to come before my own concerns. I centered my thinking and praying on God's name, on God's kingdom, on God's will. Another result of this was a deeper understanding of why these needs and burdens had come into my life. That's what we're always asking. Why God? Why this need? Why this burden? God had permitted them so. Why? That I might, listen to this, through prayer use those needs and burdens to glorify God himself. The thing that God had been trying to say all the time was, son, your prayers are too small. I had to learn the greatness of God. I had to learn the greatness of prayer as God's ordained means of accomplishing God's purposes in the world. To bring glory to his name. Jesse Panluos had asked God to teach you to pray from God's standpoint, the standpoint of eternity, the standpoint of the spiritual and not the material view of man. We pray for him. Now, I had been looking for, for a long time, I had been trying to answer to one question. How come the country of Wales had such a revival? The Welsh revival? What was the reason for and what was the basis of the Welsh revival? I finally found a little paragraph and I give it to you. Here's what it said. Why the fire fell in Wales? You know what happened in Wales? 70,000 Welshmen were converted in three months. Tremendous movement of God. Why the fire fell? Here's what I found. As one Welshman said, Wales provided the necessary tinder. They had the right kind of wood. What was it? Thousands of believers, unknown to each other, in small towns, in villages, in the great cities, crying out to God day after day for the fire of God to fall. This was not merely a little talk with Jesus. No, but it was daily agonizing intercession. I think that's the burden that Charles was verbalizing tonight. Are we going to get ready to make a commitment and commit ourselves to the reality of these truths? He said they had placed the wood on the altar and they had fully surrendered themselves to the claims of their Redeemer. In other words, they first of all had to get their own hearts right with God and surrender everything about themselves to God. Then it says, here it is, the last statement of the paragraph, they had a holy jealousy for the name of their God and they wept sorely because the fact that Satan was being glorified all around them and not their holy God. They had a holy jealousy for the name of their God and they wept sorely because Satan was being glorified and not their God. Do we live in a society where that statement is identical of what's going on? When are we going to weep sorely on that basis for the name and the honor of God? What a view of God. A radical and total jealousy for the glory of God is our need today. Jesus' disciples prayed to him and said, Lord, teach us to pray. That's what we're going to say, Lord, teach us to pray. Do you know what the Lord did instead of giving them a form of praying when they said that? The Lord instead gave them a greater vision of what they were to pray toward, the glorifying of the Father, the advancing of the Kingdom of God and the uniting of the people of God for this cause. That's what he told them to pray for, for thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. I'm holding up here a picture of a tombstone of a young man who died at the age of 46, 46 to 47. A young man was one of the most powerful young men in my country for the cause of Jesus Christ. He got teams of young people like this. He would have 20 young people and go and hold a crusade and they would do the music and they would have children's meetings and young people's meetings and they'd get into the public schools and have multimedia presentations and write thousands of letters. This man, young man, passed away at the age of 47. So Lord, you've made a colossal mistake this time. I want to tell you the movement hasn't missed a lick, gone on so powerfully because of the heart of this young man and he put his burden into the heart of young people like this and it's carrying on to this day even greater because they were almost making God out of him, but I'm telling you about it. Bill Gothard conducted his memorial service. Ralph and I were on our way to that service near Chicago and got caught in a snowstorm and we couldn't get through. But we've known him for many years when God first came on him and we were in close contact with him on the phone many times and sharing what God was doing with us and what God was doing there and so forth and sharing notes and comparing. But look at what's on his tombstone. He knew God. He loved God. He walked with God. He believed God. He lived and died for the glory of God. Can you write it any better than that? Can you write it any better than that? Here is the hope and focus of our prayers that the kingdom of the enemy shall fall and all the false hopes of the enemy shall be exposed and no more shall our God be laughed at and mocked at. And that's the burden that should drive us to intercessory praying about everything about our life. God's name we were made for his glory and he's not receiving the glory he should receive from neighbors and sons and daughters and husbands and wives and we want them saved not primarily for any other reason, thank God for all the serendipities, but we want them saved that God will receive the due reward for his name that he created them for, made for the glory of God. You're going to receive on the way out a plea for pure prayer motives. One time when I gave this message somebody sat in the pews and while I was preaching this person wrote a poem on my message and I quote it to you and you'll have it to take to pray over it later. Purify my motives Lord for when I kneel to pray so often selfish wishes come through the words I say. I have trouble in this area and have so often found in asking for some blessing self-seeking is the ground. The intent of my heart cries from you cannot be sealed since through your holy searchlight wrong motives are revealed. Lord I confess this problem which really is a sin. I ask for your forgiveness and cleansing deep within. Deliver me O God from vain requests which to my heart seem so dear. Remind me Lord O holy God such prayers will not hear. A holy God such prayers will not hear. Through your blessed Holy Spirit sanctify my motives when I pray so I may truly know my in heart you'll hear the words that I say and we all say Amen. Let us pray. Let us pray. O Heavenly Father come upon us tonight with Holy Spirit conviction about the false motives in our praying. Lord we thank you for bringing us to an hour like this where you open our eyes to this truth in a real way. Perhaps we were not even aware of it and so in our sincerity we were not even aware of it. I thank you Lord that you give us the opportunity to open this truth to our own spirit that we can say Lord thank you for revealing it to us and we would say even in our ignorance or blindness to this truth forgive us Lord and Lord we want this night to be a night that this is the beginning that everything about us and everything about our praying is for the honor and the glory of God's name. Save them Lord for your glory and your name's sake. O God give us such a view and such a love of you. Give us such a holy view of who you are that nothing is greater than that that you receive the due honor reward, the honor from that one that we're praying for for whom you created him, for which you created him. Lord God purify our motives. Show us the selfishness of our praying. Show us O God that we want you just for ourselves to meet our needs. O God set us free. Let us see your kingdom and your cause. Let these my dear young people here tonight, let them catch a vision of the eternity of your cause and your kingdom and put their teeth and say Lord I want to live for your glory. What you want to get out of me Father everything is for your glory. Whatever it means, wherever it should lead. O God that your name should be glorified in my life supremely my desire today. God forgive us for any other motive in our praying tonight. O God I thank you for speaking to me.