A Testimony Of A Life of Prayer

Now I have a huge heart for missions and so when we talked about this and I said to Pastor Ed, I really would love to get to know the ministry and this fellowship just because of our love and our interest in the lives of missionaries all over the world and also in Bible colleges and theological schools, so thank you, but I struggled because I texted him yesterday and said, you know, I don't know if I should be there tomorrow morning. That's a terrible thing if you are a guest speaker and you don't want to come, isn't it? But it wasn't like that, I just felt I so wanted to hear about what God was doing in this trip to India and also to Sri Lanka and I want to say to you this morning, if you ever find a possibility to find yourselves in another country to be involved in missions, it's just an unbelievable privilege that God has given us to do that and so we want to stand with that aspect of the ministry as it relates to the fellowship here, so thank you for allowing us and then I've asked if I could give you some material because what we have been privileged to do for many years is to be involved in what we call prayer summits. You know, brother and sister, if we can't get through to God, how are we going to get through to people? Someone once said, he that often speaks to God about people will often speak to people about God and the secret of praying is praying in the secret place and I learned the principles of prayer in a mountain in our farm in Africa, I was brought up in Africa and as a young, was saved at the end of my first year in a theological school in the city of Cape Town, I went to seminary and you say, why did you go to seminary? Because it was virtually a cemetery, but there was a student that was my roommate and he challenged me one Sunday night at the end of my first year in the seminary and said to me, Gerard, if you die tonight, where will you spend eternity? Now, if you know anything about South Africa, in those days, the country was saturated with what we would refer to as Dutch reformed churches.

We, Janice and myself, I lecture in the Netherlands every now and again and you know, the Dutch people are quite amazing and I often say to them, they have wooden heads, they wear wooden shoes and they've got wooden heads and they wouldn't listen and that's the way you get their attention, to get the Dutch to listen to you, but that's the way that I was brought up. We were brutally religious. On the farm we used to say to ourselves as children, our ducks wouldn't even bark on a Sunday afternoon.

I mean, it was just amazing and that's the way that we were brought up. I went to study theology, didn't know Christ and enjoyed the studying, you know, began to preach and on that Sunday night this student turned to me and he said to me, if you die tonight, where will you spend eternity? And I looked at him and I thought, you know, where are you coming from? Why would I study theology if I'm not rightly related to God? And I said to him, you know, I haven't done people harm and I haven't done this and I've been religious and we were brought up with the Word of God. I mean, it was unreal the way that our lives were committed, for prayer in the evening with the family and singing the Psalms and all of that kind of stuff.

And I said to him, I think I'm okay and he just turned to me and he said, Gerard, you need to understand, you must be born again. And, you know, it was the first time that it really clicked, this concept of the new birth and regeneration. But I kept defending myself.

I said to him, listen, I was born in a Christian home, I was baptized, I was, you know, went through Sunday school, catechism and everything and I said, I got to be okay. And he said, no, he said, you must be born again. And I said, what do you mean? I'll never forget this.

He said to me, you know what? If you were born in McDonald's, he didn't make you a hamburger. Well, it got my attention. And I went alone.

I said to him that night, because, you know, I was serious with God, brother and sister. I mean, you don't mess around with God. And I went alone.

I said, I'm going to pray about this. And I went into the men's common room at the seminary and began to pray about this about 10 o'clock at night. And I found myself in my face before God all night.

And about three o'clock the next morning, God came to my heart and the spirit of God convicted me that I was missing heaven by 18 inches. You could have it all here, but it's not here. And I was lying on my face before God.

And I said, God, I'm lost. I'm lost. I'm lost.

You know, Christ came to see, to seek and to save those that are lost. And, and I said, I need mercy and I need to be saved. And I came to Christ three o'clock that morning.

Wasn't the Damascus road experience? To be honest, if you ask him to come into my life, ask him to forgive me my sin, confess the fact that the Psalmist said, behold, I was born in iniquity and in sin that my mother conceived me. And I asked God to come into my life, no deep emotional experience, but just a fact and a reality. And that morning we went back to my room.

Fellow student was with me. We were up to have a quiet time center. And I turned to him and I said to him, Davia said, I trusted Christ to save me.

And he turned to me and he said to me, he said, I can't tell you that you are born again. I don't know about you. You know, we live in North America.

When I have the privilege of leading people to Christ, I never tell them that they are born again. That's the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. I mean, that's why Paul said the spirit of God be a witness of our spirit, that we are the children of God.

And I turned to him and I said, I've trusted Christ to save me. And, and he just looked at me and he said to me, I can't tell you that you are born again. That's the work of the Holy spirit of God.

Maybe you sit here this morning and you've never been born again. Listen, you need to understand that the same sun that is softening the butter is the sun that hardens the clay. And there is a time we know not when, a place we know not where, and it seals the destiny of men.

If you are here this morning, you don't have the witness of the spirit of God that you are saved. You need to wait until someone comes and explain to you that you need to find Christ and be saved by the spirit of God. And so I, he said to me, I can't tell you that you are born again.

And I, and I, I didn't, I didn't understand that, you know, and that morning we stood in our lecture room and one of our professors gave us a hymn to sing. And ah, brother and sister, as we were singing that hymn, I can't remember that hymn anymore. One day in heaven, I probably won't see some of you in heaven because you'd be so close to the throne of God.

I won't be able to see you. I mean, the way that I looked at you, but listen here, we were singing that hymn and as we were singing that hymn, the spirit of God witnessed with my spirit that I was a child of God. That's 50 years ago.

And some days I get so excited about this, it's theologically wrong to say that, but I'm going to give you a piece of my mind that I can't afford to lose anyway. Some days it's so wonderful that I wish I could say to God, I wish I can be saved all over again. Ah, you said, what a heretic are you, aren't you? No, it's not like that.

And that student was standing to my right who challenged me and I grabbed his arm like that and I shook his arm and he looked at me and he whispered, he said, what is it Gerard? And I said, I'm saved by the grace of God and I know it. Oh, brother and sister. Now here's the problem.

Now I was in a cemetery and the Tuesday night I got up and shared with faculty, asked if I could say something, shared with the faculty and told them that I was never born again, lost, and told them how I came to Christ and how God saved me. And you know what happened? Three other students got gloriously saved. And here was the problem.

I had a mother and a father that were godly religious. If I went to my father and say, Papa, if you are a Christian, these are the things that, that you don't do. My father would turn to me and say, son, I've never done those things.

If I would have go to my mother and say, Mama, these are the things that you do if you are born again of the Spirit of God. And my mother would turn to me and she said, son, I've done this all my life. So how do you share the gospel with people like this? You live the life of Christ.

And Andrew Murray was one of my great heroes for many, many years. He used to say when people asked him and said, what would it cost me to give my life to Christ? Andrew Murray would turn to them and said, it will cost you absolutely everything. Because it will cost you more to miss the will of God for your life than it's going to cost you to find it.

And let me just say this before we turn to the scriptures. You say, what happened? I was saved about, I don't know, two or three weeks. We were at 9,000 acres in the African Bushveld, close to the land of Mozambique.

And I came back from the town, about five miles from the farmhouse. Walk into the farmhouse and my mother was in the kitchen and Mama turned to me and she said, son, and I said, what is it Mama? And she said, uh, I had a cottage about 50 yards from a farmhouse and she turned to me and she said, in your cottage is a black man. And I said, uh, what's his name? She said, I don't know.

I said, what does he want? Uh, she said, I think he's a missionary or a pastor and he wants to talk to you. And you know, I walked to my little cottage and walked in and as I walked into the, into the room, um, he sat there, his name was Petros Malipa. Oh, a man who was intoxicated to the presence of God.

People often say to me, can you define the presence of God? And I said, uh, I'm not sure if I can do that. And they said, so what will you say about it? I said, I can't explain the presence of God, but I know when it's not there. And he sat in my little cottage and, uh, I shook hands with him.

And, uh, he said to me, I said, uh, we're going to discuss theology. And he just said, no. And I said, what are we going to do? You need to get this.

He virtually said to me, we're going to be involved in neology. Have you ever heard that? He said, J.C. Rowe, the old Puritan used to say, the way up is the way down. And Jesus learned obedience by the things that he suffered.

And so you say, what happened? My brother and my sister, before I could say another word, this black man, just a short little guy, dynamite comes in small packets, you know, this little black guy fell on his knees on the floor of my, my cottage. And he began to pray. And you say, what happened? He, he climbed underneath the burden of God in the place of prayer.

You see, you see the word burden is the Hebrew word, masa. It's based on the revelation. It's the understanding of God saying to Moses, I've seen the affliction of my, my people.

And so you say, what happened? He climbed underneath the burden of God. I had no clue about those things, brother and sister, but he climbed underneath the burden of God. And as he climbed underneath this burden, which is based upon the revelation, he began to systematically dissect the burden of God.

You see, there is a thing in prayer that we refer to as praying through, persevering, agonizing, touching the throne of God. Get a sense of God is answering prayer. And I have no understanding about it.

I sat there when he was on his face before God, I didn't sit long. I got, I got on my knees before God and he climbed underneath this burden of God. And you need to understand, brother and sister, theologically speaking, the burden of God brings brokenness.

My eyes, the prophet said, has affected my heart. And brokenness brings purity. There's no power without purity.

And when God brings brokenness and purity, what happens? The Holy Spirit comes. And you know what he does? Instead of being resident in our lives, the spirit of God becomes president. And the spirit of God leads us to the will of God in prayer.

Remember George Mueller of Bristol? Have you heard that name? 85,000 answers to prayer. 30,000 answers to prayer in less than 24 hours. You know the longest that he prayed for someone? Listen to this, 63 years.

You know when that person became a Christian? Three weeks after George Mueller died. Boy, that's the way to go, you know. And so you say, what happened? He climbed underneath that burden and he prayed.

And you know, I just sat there and wept. I had no clue what was going on. And as he was praying, when he came to the end, he prayed for about an hour and a half, my brother and sister.

Can I be honest with you? It felt like five minutes. And after he prayed, he just sat down. He gave me a name.

My name became Umfundisi. And he said, Umfundisi, there's a little mountain on your farm where six of us are spending days and nights of prayer and fasting. I said to him, you know, I'm so stupid.

I mean, you know, some of us, including myself, we don't have enough brain cells to give us a headache, you know. And I turned to him and as I turned to him, I said, what do you mean by fasting? And he said to me, Umfundisi, fasting is praying without words. I thought, oh, okay.

And I said, how do you do that? I said, you don't understand. I said, what do you mean, Petros? He said, we go to the mountain, this little mountain, we call it Kopis, on the farm and the cattle ranch, you know, large areas. And he said, we go to this little mountain and there are six of us and we spend sometimes 40 days in prayer and fasting.

I thought, good night. What are they doing for 40 days? He said, then sometimes 21 days and sometimes 14 days and sometimes seven. He took a little African boy there who had polio, crippled, and he prayed over him for three days and he didn't even lay hands upon him.

He just went and prayed over that boy and God came and healed that little boy and he's healed up to today. And so he said, that's what we do. And I said, what do you do for 40 days? He said, we are waiting upon God.

Do you know the 11 Hebrew words in the Old Testament that speaks about prayer? The predominant concept of the understanding is waiting upon God. Do you know that one of those 11 words is translated in the Hebrew language to the Messiah? And he was, the Messiah was awaiting upon God. And I said, so what do you do? He said, we wait upon God.

And he just finished off. And you know, those men, when they are like prophets, they are in your little cottage and praying. And then he makes the last statement and he just walked out and he's gone.

And I don't know if I would see him again. And I tell you, it was the Friday night. I sat in my little cottage studying the word of God with a candle and nine o'clock that night there was this knock on the window.

Oh, and you know, Africa, the nights get so dark, you can't see your hand in front of your face. I thought, who is this? I got up and I went to the window and opened the curtains and I couldn't see him. I said, why not? It was as black as Africa, beautiful black.

Oh, man. And all I heard was he was saying, he said, what did he say? He said, we are going to a mountain to pray. And he has this young theological student.

I'm as stupid as a donkey. And I followed them, six of them, mile and a half towards this little mountain. And as we walked Petros, Malipa, I was at the back.

He was in front of me and the other five. And as we walked, I said, I thought, I need to know what's going on here. I mean, have I missed God altogether? And he was walking in front of me and I grabbed, grabbed his arm in the darkness of the night and he stopped and he said, what is it And I said, Petros, how do you spend the night in prayer? What do you say to God? We'll never forget this.

In the darkness of the night, he turned around and he looked at me. I couldn't see his eyes. I didn't want to see them because they would have pierced my soul.

But he looked at me and he said, you've got a very, very big problem. Did I ever know I had a problem by that time? He said, you've got a very big problem. And I said, what is it Petros? He said, you are in a hurry and God is not.

And they took me. And they told me, if you can't get through to God, you're not going to touch the lives of people. They took me and they said to me, there's no power without purity.

They took me and they would say to me, if you're going to follow Christ, it's everything or nothing. And I don't know if I would ever see those men in heaven. You say, why not? Because of what I said earlier on, they'd be so close to the throne of God.

I don't know if I would see them. Let's pray. Pastor gave me 45 minutes.

And have you ever seen one of these? $1.50 at the dollar store. You know pastor why I have one? It's because sometimes they don't work. I have about 10 minutes left and unless you give me more time and I'm not going to ask you to do it.

Okay. Don't you worry because you're my friend. Let's just pray.

And then we turn to the scriptures and I share with you one or two things and we're done. Heavenly father, we thank you this morning. You know the struggle that I've had in my heart because these men just came back from India and from Sri Lanka and they've been exposed to a hunger and a thirst after the righteousness of God.

Father, thank you that you have said to us in your word that on the last day, the last day of the feast, Jesus stood up and he said, if any man thirst, let him come unto me. He that believeth into me as the scripture says, rivers of living water shall flow from the innermost of his being. And that he said of the Holy Spirit.

Because the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet crucified. And so Lord, we thank you this morning for the encouraging blessing to be amongst the group of men and women that are serious with God. We say to you afresh today, nothing in our hands we bring, but simply to the cross we cling.

Father, I'm so glad this Sunday morning that you don't need any one of us, that you can do your work far better without us. But in the greatness of your love and your mercy, have you not even given the angels to be able to share the gospel of Christ of people? Lord, I'm reminded of what I just read about George Whitefield, the man that you so mightily used in the revival, that he at one occasion said that if God will give the angels permission to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with people on this planet, that heaven will be empty in five minutes. And here we are this morning, we are precious to you.

Every single one of us are so valuable to God, that if I was the only person on this planet, he still would have sent his son just to die for me. And we thank you for that. Father God, we just pray as we read the scriptures and ponder about it, just bless it to our hearts.

I'm so reminded that the old Puritans used to say, even scripture speaks, that's when God is speaking. We say this morning with the old Puritans, we do not just want to be informed by scripture, but Father God, we want to be inflamed in our relationships with you. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Turn with me very quickly, if you will, to Luke chapter four. We've given you some material. That's what we use when we do these prayer summits in different parts of the world.

And if you want to, we don't have time to do it, but what I wanted to share with you is found on page number three, kind of at the end of the material, and it speaks about the unction or the anointing of the Holy Spirit of God. But let's just turn to Luke chapter four, and let's begin to read from verse number 16. And Jesus came to Nazareth where he had been brought up, and as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read.

And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach the deliverance to the captives, and the recovering of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty those that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and he sat down. And the eyes of all of them that were in the synagogue were fixed upon Christ. And he began to say unto them, this day is this scripture being fulfilled in your ears.

And all bearing witness, and they wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth, and they said, is this not Joseph's son? And he said unto them, you will surely say unto me, physician, heal myself, whatsoever we have hurt done in Capernaum, do also here in thine own country. And he said to them, verily I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you the truth, that many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land, but unto none of them was Elijah sent, save unto Sarephta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.

Let's just stop there if we may. You know, Charles Haddon Spurgeon had made a statement, and I just came across that statement about six weeks ago, because I was reading the life stories of some of these old people that walk so profoundly with God, and I came to the life story of one of them, what Charles Spurgeon referred to, and he mentioned to him that this man had a dream one night, and in his dream he saw Satan, and you need to listen carefully, he saw Satan preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he went up to Satan, and he said to him, the man's name was Thomas Boston, he was an amazing man, quite different, and he went up to Satan in his dream, and he said to Satan, why are you preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, because surely you are doing harm to your own kingdom, and Satan turned to Boston in his dream, and he said to him, Thomas Boston, I am preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ without the unction and the anointing of God the Holy Spirit, and he said, I have found a way, instead of bringing people closer to the gospel, have I actually found a way of driving them away from the gospel of Jesus Christ, I mean can you believe it, and he changed his life for time and for eternity. I just want to mention to you what's happening here in the life of Christ, because you see the Spirit of God came upon him at his baptism, and the Spirit of God came upon him to anoint him, or unctionize him for service.

Now we need to understand, he was blameless in his birth, and he was supernatural in his life, and when he came to John the Baptist, and said to John the Baptist, I want you to baptize me, you remember what John the Baptist said, he said, I can't do that, he said, I'm not even worried to loosen your shoelaces, and Christ turned to John the Baptist, and he said to him, I want you to do this so that all righteousness could be fulfilled, and ah you remember when John the Baptist baptized the Lord Jesus, and his disciples were, some of his disciples were there, and as he baptized the Lord Jesus, an amazing thing happened. The Holy Spirit came in the form of a dove, and came to rest upon him, and he was anointed for service. You know the dove is quite amazing, because what if I, if we could have done this this morning, we would have looked at the promise of the anointing of the Spirit of God upon the life, the life of Christ, and my brother and sister, there was the symbol of his promise, and there was the sacredness of his promise, and the symbol was the Spirit of God coming in the form of a dove, to anoint Christ for service, and the dove in the scripture speaks of a number of things.

It speaks of power, it speaks of purity, and it speaks of passion. You know David came in the Old Testament, and he said, he spoke about the gentleness of the dove, and so when Christ was anointed, in this promise, and there are three things, there's the promise of the anointing upon his life, there was the purpose of the anointing upon his life. Why was he anointed? My brother and sister, he was anointed so that he could heal the broken heart, that he could preach the gospel, and so that he could die for us on the cross, and so in this promise, we discover three things, so let me just mention them to you.

This promise consists of the the secret of the life of Christ, to the degree that it was a life of holiness, it was a life of yieldedness, and it was a life of prayerfulness. You know, I don't know about you, but I've been really struggling with this concept that those early disciples had such a difficult time to try and understand prayer, because you see, they did not know the Holy Spirit, brother and sister, to the degree that they would have known him until after the day of Pentecost. All they knew was Christ, and Christ, the more he tried to explain to them, the more they found it impossible, because you know, Paul said in Corinthians, he said the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit, because it's foolishness unto them, and he can't know them, and those early disciples, they did not understand the work of the Holy Spirit.

That's why in John 14 to 16, Christ came over a period of 48 hours, and the gospel of John, and he in great detail began to explain to them that the Holy Spirit was not going to be a something, the Holy Spirit was going to be a person, and the Holy Spirit will never speak of himself. You say, what will the Holy Spirit do? The Holy Spirit will bring us back to the life of Christ, and the word of God, and in John 14 to 16, he took them aside, those disciples, and it's what we call private ministry, and he said to them, when my Spirit come, my Spirit will be with you, and my Spirit will be in you, and when my Spirit come, my Spirit will testify of me, and when my Spirit come, my Spirit will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. Oh, brother and sister, we can't convict people of sin.

I mean, we are so desperate ourselves to live a set-apart life unto God, and Christ tried to explain to them, and you know, forgive me for saying this, they never got it. They never got it. They never understand the fullness of the Holy Spirit until the day of Pentecost.

So you say, what happened? His life was a life of holiness. They didn't understand that. They didn't understand when he prayed in John 17, and he prayed for those early disciples, and he said, God, I sanctify myself for the sake of my disciples.

You see, brother and sister, the meaning of the word sanctification, and this is what Andrew Murray said, the meaning of the word sanctification is not for us so much to be separated from this world as it means for us to be separated unto God. Ah, you see, I meet people, and they are so separated. I mean, I've been in churches who refer to themselves as independent churches, and I said to my wife, you know, they are so independent, they're virtually independent of God, and here was Jesus in the sanctity of his life, never sin, never yield to temptation, carried with him a fragrance that demanded a supernatural explanation.

It was a life of holiness. Now, you and I sit here this morning on the service, and you say, what about us? Because you see, legalism is a brutal thing. Legalism is when my convictions determine my relationship with God.

Boy, it's awful. It can be a mess what's going on underneath. You say, Pastor, then what is the difference between legalism and what you are speaking about? No, no, we speak about a life being filled and baptized and saturated, and the fullness of the Spirit of God, where it's not our convictions, it's our relationship with God that determine our convictions, and I'll walk with him.

Now, you say, what about us? Ah, you know that beautiful epistle of the Apostle Paul? I've been studying the life of Paul the last number of weeks. Do you know the Apostle Paul? You know, Pastor, there was hardly a week that someone didn't try to kill him. I mean, it was brutal, and the Apostle Paul prayed for the church at Thessalonica, and he was the one that said, come out from among them, be separate, and I will be a father unto you, and you shall be my sons and my daughters, and here in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, listen to this, I love this.

Paul prayed for the church at Thessalonica, and he said, I pray that the very God appears, sanctify you through and through. I love the German translation because of my background. You say, what did he say? He said, Heiligenbruch und Bruch.

Do you know those are two statements in the Greek language that are distinctive? It's halotilios and halokleros. It means he sanctified us thoroughly in every aspect of our relationship with God, and I wonder if I can ask you this morning, and I'm speaking to myself, I want to ask you this morning, is God in the process of purifying us? If we walk in the light, this year's in the light, we fellowship one with another, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleansing us from all sin. Let me close, it was a life of prayerfulness.

Oh dear, have you ever tried to imagine the prayer life of Jesus? Early in the morning, deep in the night, 19 references to his prayer life in the four gospels, early in the morning, deep in the night, he went into a secret place and he prayed. Jesus hardly ever spoke about prayer, my brother and sister, that was not answered, hardly, because here's the secret of prayer. If we pray in the will of God, the answer is always yes.

You say, are you serious? Listen to this, John the Apostle said, this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, listen to this, his present imperative mood, he is in the process of listening to us, and if he is in the process of listening to us, we will receive those things that we ask him, and sometimes the answer is no. Oh man, but if we pray in the will of God, the answer always becomes yes. It's not a question of this or this or this, it's a question, is it the will of God? Let me close, if I may, you know, one of my incredible heroes when it comes to Christian reading, and you know, we work with students in many countries, Bible college students.

In Germany, some time ago, out of 106 students, we spent a week in prayer with them, and Friday was a day of prayer and fasting, and Friday morning, you know what happened? God came to church, and 37 of them were gloriously saved. I was speaking in Steinbeck, Manitoba, and you know, the Mennonites, I mean, it takes you five minutes to get to know someone, five minutes to find out who you relate to. That's Steinbeck, and we were in the Evangelical Free Church, brought all the churches together for a prayer summit.

Pastor Ed and myself talked about a prayer summit, you know, you need to start with the pastors before we can touch the people, and I was speaking in that Evangelical Free Church in a week of prayer, and then the Sunday morning preaching at quite a large church, preaching the church, and when the service is over, I was praying with some people at the front, and a young fellow, blonde hair, lovely guy, came and he sat there, and I look at him, and I thought, do I know you or not, and I'm not sure, and he came closer, and closer, and closer, and eventually he came, and he sat next to me, and he said, I want you to pray with me, and I said, oh sure, I would love to, and I said, why do you want me to pray with you? He said, you know Gerardi Toy? I said, what is it? He said, I was a student at Borden Seehoff, at Friedrichshafen, in Tapenreu Bible School, and we had 106 students, and I said, yeah, I remember it. He said, you remember the Friday morning? I said, yeah, 37 of you guys got saved, I mean, and he looked at me, and he said to me, can you just pray with me? I said, why? He said, because I was one of those 37, and I took my bag, prayed with him, took my bag, and went to the door of this big church, the foyer, and a young guy jumped up, oh, he's about six feet seven, skin as a rat. I nearly look at him, I said, you know, you need to drink black coffee to make a shadow.

And he kind of looked at me, I said, yep, could be that you need to jump around under the shower to get wet. I mean, he's skinny, and he said, I need to talk to you, and I said, what is it? He said, I was a student at Cape and Ray, New Zealand. He took us through a week of prayer, and the Friday we spent a day of prayer and fasting, he said, it scared the life out of us.

I mean, when we took him for a day of prayer and fasting, I wish you could hear the tummies, all day, because they couldn't eat, you see. And he just looked at me, and he said to me, Gerard, I said, what is it? He said, I got saved that Friday. And he said, I'm ablaze for Jesus Christ.

You know, why did this happen? Because five o'clock that morning, I phoned my wife, you live in White Rock, you know, and I phoned her five o'clock in the morning, I said, my ministry with students is over. And she said, you need encouragement, daddy. And so I said, why don't you pray that God will do it this morning? And these two students turned up.

I mean, thanks pastor. I've gone over my time, will you forgive me? Gerard? Well, hey, thank the Lord. It's good to be encouraged in prayer, isn't it?