Again this evening, I just want to take this opportunity, since we have to fly out very early tomorrow morning to return to Massachusetts, I want to take this opportunity to tell you how much I've enjoyed your fellowship, how wonderful it's been to be with you and to spend time with you, get to know some of you. And I especially appreciate your warmth and responsiveness to the ministry. I shared with you the first night that I was a little apprehensive coming down with people who were really in the Lord for long periods of time compared to myself, and you've just been warm and receptive and responsive, and I really, really appreciate that. And I really considered a privilege to have been here, and I hope that the ministry has touched your lives, and I certainly do hope that we can return sometime. We appreciate your warmth and your hospitality. everything that you've extended to us and we certainly enjoyed our time. I would stay here a little longer but if I stay here much longer I'm not going to be able to sit in any of my clothes. Had a little trouble buttoning my vest tonight and I think it's time that we move on to leaner meals. You certainly eat well here and we appreciate very much your hospitality and graciousness. I know that some of you are here for the first time tonight. Is that correct? Anybody here that has not been in any other meetings? Okay, let me just say for those of you who are here for the first time, we're engaged in looking at prayer as we see it in the Scripture, and we're working from the basic premise. that an effective, powerful prayer life actually revolves out of or revolves out of a real walk with Christ. That as we abide in the Lord Jesus, as we walk in the Holy Spirit, as we're controlled by Him, that one of the benefits of that is an effective, powerful prayer life. And we've looked at experiencing the power of prayer, and then we looked this morning at... the priority of prayer, exercising the priority of prayer. And tonight we'd like to talk about our final subject, which is session four in your little booklet, and that is entitled Expecting the Product of Prayer. Expecting the Product of Prayer. And we deal tonight with God's answers to our prayers. Before we actually look into it, as has been our practice over these meetings, I'd like to ask that we bow for a moment of silent prayer. And the requests are the same, that you really pray that I will be empowered by the Spirit, and you pray that each of our hearts will be open to God's message, whatever it might be. Father, we ask for the real working and power of your Holy Spirit this evening to stir up our hearts to receive the message from your word. We pray it in Christ's holy name. Amen. You know, strange as it may seem, one of the most common feelings or one of the most common problems that we experience in our prayer lives is we simply don't expect much to happen when we pray. I think if we're honest with ourselves that we'll admit that many times we have prayed, we've gone through the motions of praying, and we really haven't expected much to happen. We're praying essentially without faith. And I know that I've been guilty of that many times. And that's proven by the fact that many times when we see answer to prayer, we're surprised. And if we really had faith, we wouldn't be surprised because we knew that God would answer the prayer. And so one of the failures that we have as human beings, as Christians, is sometimes we pray and we really don't expect much to happen. But the Bible teaches I believe that if we are abiding in Jesus Christ and if we are controlled by the Spirit of God and if we are seeking His kingship in our lives, then we will have faith. And then we can expect great things to happen in response to our prayers. A prayer of faith is really rooted in a life of faith. And if we're living a life of faith day by day, we will be able to have prayers of faith. It goes right back to our basic premise. If we're walking with the Lord, one of the benefits is a powerful prayer life and we can expect great answers to prayer. You know, unbelieving prayer is really a waste of time and energy and effort, isn't it? If we're just going to go through the motions and we're really not going to believe that God is going to do anything, then we're wasting our time. Romans fourteen twenty-three clearly states that if something is not of faith, then it's sinned. And Hebrews chapter eleven verse six, that great faith chapter tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God. And so faith comes from abiding in the Lord and a heart that is full of God. A heart that is full of God is a heart that's going to have power for prayer. Many of you have heard of George Mueller. One of the dear sisters that I've gotten to know this week told me that she grew up in the shadow of George Mueller's home or orphanage. George Mueller is a well-known man of faith. And it is said that over his lifetime, he recorded answers to prayer, specific answers to prayer, numbering over twenty-five thousand answers to prayer. And you know, George Mueller is a mighty man of faith, but he wasn't put together any differently than you are or I am. We can have that same faith and we can experience those same mighty answers to prayer if we'll abide and we'll walk with him, with the Lord. We need to have that assurance that our prayer is going to be heard and that God is going to answer it. And not only is our faith important, but actually the object of our faith is even more important. Remember what the Scripture said about Abraham. It said, Abraham believed God. The object of our faith is even more important than the faith. And we can have faith in God's promise because we have faith in the promiser who is God himself. And that's what we need to remember tonight. So we want to talk a little bit about prayer and our expectation. It's found in session four of your outline. I want to just share with you before we actually start some of the exciting answers to prayer that we've experienced as an assembly recently. I don't have time to share all of them. I'll share a couple of the ones that I feel are the most exciting. But before we do that, I'd like to have you open the word to a familiar verse Mark chapter eleven in verse twenty four. Mark chapter eleven in verse twenty four. This really tells us about expecting great things when we pray, expecting the answer to prayer. Mark chapter eleven in verse twenty four. Now this is one of those verses of Scripture that is precious in itself, but when it is studied in the original language, it becomes even more precious. And I've spent some time studying this particular verse in the original Greek, and I want to point something out to you. Verse twenty-four, Mark chapter eleven. Jesus is speaking. He says, Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. That's the way the translation reads in the Authorized Version. If you were to look at that verse in the original Greek language in which verb tenses are very, very important, you would find it. Jesus said, What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe, that's present tense, believe that ye have received them, the original language says, that's past tense in our English language, and ye shall have them, that's future tense. You see what it's saying there? Jesus says, believe, present tense, that you have received, past tense, and ye shall receive. You see what? Now, many times people stumble over that and they say that doesn't make any sense. But you see what Jesus is teaching there is real faith. Faith is believing right now that we've already received even though it's something in the future. Isn't that what Hebrews eleven one says? Faith is the evidence of things not seen, is it not? You see, and that's the way that reads in the original language. Believe in the present tense that you've already received in the past tense and it shall be in the future. You see? We believe so strongly right now that God will grant our prayers that we're believing as if we have already received. And when we have that kind of faith, Jesus is teaching here, ye shall have them. Very interesting to look at that in the original language and to realize that the kind of faith that Jesus honored is that kind of faith where right now we already believe that we've already received it, even though it's something that may come in the future. It's expecting the product of prayer, and it's really exciting to hope for that kind of faith as we walk with the Lord. A couple things that I want to share with you that have happened to us recently along these lines. Several years ago, we had a little girl in our assembly, a dear little girl. She was three years old, and her family had come from a Roman Catholic background and become Christians and had become really instrumental in the growth of our little church. And when the little girl was three years old, she was diagnosed with leukemia. And it was quite a shock to all of us. And she proceeded to go to Boston and go through the tests and so on. And she had to go through a program of two and a half years of chemotherapy. And at the time, that particular chemotherapy process was gauged to be about eighty percent successful. And so all of us, had it in our minds, of course, that of course she was going to be in the eighty percent of those who recover. And she went through this chemotherapy for two and a half years and lost her hair. She lost her reflexes, all her beautiful blonde hair. She lost her reflexes and time went on. And finally it was revealed that she was in the twenty percent of those who would not recover from the chemotherapy. And up until that time, I think even though all of us had been praying, we had really been sort of trusting in the medicine, really trusting in the doctors. And of course she's going to be in the eighty percent. But we found out that the doctors considered hers unsuccessful and her counts went back up when they shouldn't have gone back up. And the doctors began to prepare the parents psychologically for the little girl's death. By this time she was around six or seven years old. And it was only then that we as Christian brothers and sisters realized that we needed to trust God and not medicine. And we had round-the-clock prayer vigils, twenty-four-hour prayer vigils. We labored before the Lord in prayer as individuals and as assembly. We gathered with special prayer vigils just for that particular little girl, and we poured out our lives and our hearts before the Lord that He might spare her. And shortly thereafter, she went, She went back for her checkup and her count had gone drastically up and that was a real bad sign. And after this extended period of prayer, her count plateaued and the doctors couldn't understand it, but they were very cautious. And we kept praying and kept having prayer vigils and so on. And she went back for her next time and her count had gone down. And that was almost unprecedented. And the doctors had egg on their face and they couldn't explain that anyway. And finally, her count went down to within one percent of a completely normal person who had never had leukemia. And the doctors just could not understand it. And they admitted that the medication and the therapy had not done it. And so we rejoiced and we praised the Lord and we were just so happy because what a dramatic answer to prayer. What a mighty answer to prayer. It was a miracle in our midst. And even the doctors admitted that medicine hadn't done it. And even when medicine had given up on the little girl, We don't take any credit for that because it was only the Holy Spirit who convicted us. Well, time went on and the little girl grew her hair back and she got her reflexes back and she was in school and so on. And everything, there were some problems from the chemotherapy, but everything seemed to be going very well. And then just a few months ago, I don't remember exactly when it was, sometime this spring, probably April or so, we got a call that the same little girl, had fallen on the playground and had hit her head on the asphalt and had fractured her skull. And so I immediately went up to the hospital and I talked with her and everything seemed all right. She was hurt, but everything seemed all right. During that night, she took a decided turn for the worse. And the next morning things looked very grim and they transferred her to another hospital that had better facilities for serious head injuries. And she was semi-comatose and getting worse and worse. And so we called an impromptu prayer meeting in our home, and immediately everybody that was available rushed to our home and began to pray and to cry and to labor before the Lord. While the afternoon went on, and that evening around seven o'clock, I got a phone call that I'll never forget. It was from the little girl's mother, and she was near hysterical. And she said that the brain surgeon had given them a choice between permanent lifetime brain damage and death. And that it was a very real possibility that this little girl, our little miracle child, would die. I was so upset that I just started calling people on the phone to come over for prayer. I didn't even know who I was dialing. I was so upset. And within about a half an hour, cars were all over our street, and people rushed into our home, and we have a rather large room downstairs that we use for meetings from time to time. And the room was completely filled, and people were on the floor, and people were up and down the steps, and people were just crying before the Lord. We talked this morning about being fervent in prayer. We were just laboring before the Lord, just crying our hearts out. Many tears shed. people just pouring their hearts out to the Lord. And this went on for a couple hours of people just in fervent prayer. And about ten o'clock that night, we got a call from the hospital. It said that she had taken a drastic and unexpected turn for the better. And we praised the Lord because He had answered our prayers and He had heard our prayers. She was still in trouble. She was by no means out of the woods, but we knew that the Lord had heard our prayers. And we thanked him and praised him and we went to bed that night. And that very next morning, this little girl who had been comatose and very near death, not communicating with the world at all, her parents walked into her room and she sat up in bed and she said, Hi mom, hi dad, where have you two been? And then I went down to the hospital a little bit later that day and I was in the hall. and one of the most precious things that's ever happened to me, happened, a lady came out of the room and was a little girl gone and she said, she wants to see Mr. Wilson and my heart just melted. Here this little girl, our little miracle child, who almost has died twice now, asked to see me and I was so touched by it. And she rapidly recovered and she's back in school and she's doing fun. And We know that God has something special for that little girl who has spared her twice in a miraculous way. I know I've taken some time with this story, but I wanted to let you know that God answers prayer. When we pray in faith, we expect great things to happen. God is equal to the occasion, and God can still do miracles and override medical diagnoses and medical prognoses. We're just excited. So if you ever think of it, the little girl's name is Carrie, and we feel that God has something special for her. So if you ever think of it, you pray for her. Now going back to our outline, prayer and our expectations, when we get answers to prayer, when we get great answers to prayer, we shouldn't just look at the answers themselves, but we should try to understand what it is that God is trying to teach us. about Himself and about the Christian life in addition to the answer. So when we get an answer, we try to understand, Lord, what are you trying to teach me? One of the things that God reveals is His provision. It seems obvious perhaps, but many times when God answers prayer, it is a provision. I mentioned earlier that we have been living on faith for five years now, and I could spend a whole conference telling you stories about how God has miraculously provided for our needs. And I think one of the most precious things to me about the Lord is, is here is the Lord who is ruling over the entire universe, this vast universe, and he has all the responsibility of the entire universe, and he's concerned about the little things in my life. I remember a couple of years ago, and that my little daughter, Tiffany, and she's in the back there, she wanted this special pair of shoes. She must have her mother's taste because the shoes were very expensive. And there was just no way that living on faith, we felt that we could take the Lord's money and buy these shoes for my little girl. But it's something that she really wanted. And so my wife really committed it to prayer. And these shoes were something like thirty or thirty-five dollars or something. I don't know what it was. But my wife committed it to prayer. And the very next day, she happened to be in this place called the Ladies Exchange, which we have where we are. And that's a place where ladies can bring in clothing and so on that their families are finished with, and they sell it off to somebody else, and it helps support the visiting nurses. Well, my wife went in there, and here was the exact same pair of shoes and mint condition in exactly my little girl's size for three dollars. And we felt that that was a dramatic answer to prayer. And so we scooped up those little shoes for my girl, for my little girl. Now, those are, that's just one small thing that I could answer. But the thing that I want to really impress upon us tonight is that here is a God who is running the whole universe, and yet he's concerned with my little girl's shoes. And here is a God who has all the power and all the concern to heal a girl of leukemia and to rescue her from a skull fracture. And yet he's concerned with my little boy's sweatshirt. What a great God we have. Isn't he wonderful? He's concerned with all those things. And he is a God who teaches us about himself when he provides for us. And that's the point I want to make. Oftentimes an answer to prayer is God revealing his provision to us and showing us that he's our loving father. And he's concerned about those little things. And he's our bountiful provider. And as we were singing tonight and speaking about, if he didn't withhold his son, certainly he's not going to withhold any good thing from us. And he reveals himself as our caring shepherd who wants to meet every need of our lives. And oftentimes, God's answers to prayer reveal something about his person. They reveal something about God's person. For instance, if we pray to the Lord and it's a prayer asking for guidance and the Lord reveals guidance to us and helps us make a decision, is He not revealing Himself as the great God of wisdom? Is He not revealing Himself as a God of omniscience? And if He answers by giving us power to overcome a habit or a sin in our life, let's say, is He not revealing Himself to us as a God of righteousness? and a God of holiness and a God of power? And then if the answer is in a natural realm, some catastrophe, some natural catastrophe, if it occurs in the natural realm and we pray to the Lord and he answers that prayer, he's revealing himself to us as the Creator and as the Master and as the Healer and as the Sustainer and as the Omnipotent God. And so every time we have an answer to prayer, we need to realize that God is giving us something beyond just the answer. He's teaching us something about Himself. And if we pray for someone's salvation and they become saved, He's showing us that He's the God of love and mercy and He's the God of grace. And if He answers by comforting someone or relieving loneliness or fear or bereavement, He reveals Himself to us as a God of kindness and a God of omnipresence and a God of compassion. And then if he answers by writing a wrong, he shows us that he's a God of justice and truth. And I don't know about you, but sometimes I go back to the Lord with the same problem over and over and over again. And he answers and he listens and he reveals himself as a God of patience, doesn't he? He's so patient and so gracious with us. And so he reveals much about himself. Just this evening a sister shared with me at dinner a letter. from someone where a woman had to relocate and she got a beautiful, specific answer to prayer. God is a God who reveals things about himself by his answer to prayer. And then he also could reveal his plan. You know, when we ask for guidance for the Lord and He shows us and helps us make a decision, we should not let that decision just stand in itself. We should see how that decision fits into God's overall purpose. You and I should constantly be looking to see how we fit into God's plan. Oftentimes we're trying to squeeze God's plan into our plans, aren't we? But really we should be trying to see how we can fit into God's overall plan. And so when He gives us guidance and He helps us to make a decision, we should be looking at that in terms of His overall plan. How do I fit in to what God wants me to do? For instance, we've been privileged as we've been living on faith that the Lord has been so good to us, and He's provided cars for us when we've needed them and so on. And when we receive a car, our attitude should not be looking at that car as an end unto itself. We should be looking at that car as an instrument for the Lord's glory. How can I use this automobile to work for the kingdom of God? And whatever we receive, whatever answer to prayer we get, we should be saying, what does this say to me is how I can serve God? And then sometimes by God's answers, He reveals His pardon. And that's the blessed assurance that we have, that our guilt and sin is washed away. That when we ask forgiveness, it's a prayer that is answered. You'd be surprised, you'd be surprised how many people out there, Christian people, are hurting, and are crippled because they can't overcome guilt. They could only realize that God has answered their prayer and that they are forgiven, how much better they could function. So as we expect great answers to prayer, we get answers, we also receive victories. And I've listed three kinds of victories that we get there. Victory over Satan, victory over sin, and victory over self. Now I'm sure... that I can't tell you too much about Satan that you don't already know, because so many of you are so much more mature in the Lord than I am. But I'm sure that we all need to realize that our prayer life is part of an ongoing spiritual warfare, isn't it? There's a constant spiritual warfare going on between the Lord and Satan. And our prayer life is part of that ongoing warfare. And Satan will do whatever he can to hinder our prayers and to cause resistance to our prayers because Satan does not want us to pray. Satan fears our prayers because he realizes that he's in trouble when we're on our knees. Many of you have heard that expression that the devil trembles when he sees a saint on his knees. Prayer is the Christian exercise that Satan works hardest to hinder. And that's why we have to have a series like this, because what we're doing is divulging the strategy of the adversary, aren't we? He's working overtime to try to hinder our prayer lives. And he does it in many of the ways that we've discussed. And when God answers prayer, Satan suffers great loss. And when we abide, God answers prayer, so Satan wants to keep us from abiding. And he will do anything to keep us from abiding in Jesus Christ. He will do anything to keep us from being controlled by the Spirit of God and yielding to him. And if we don't enjoy the victory that we have in Jesus Christ, Satan will. And the message to us tonight is not to allow our lives to be that battlefield in which Satan gains a victory. Don't let our lives be that battlefield that Satan can claim as a victory. He's trying to hinder our prayer lives. And he will attack us body, soul, and spirit to keep us off our knees. He'll give us convenient excuses. He'll give us convenient distractions. He'll do anything he can to keep us from praying. Because he knows that when an abiding Christian is on his knees, that great things are going to happen. And we can have victory over Satan. by being on the alert, First Peter five, abiding in the Lord Jesus and resisting Satan in prayer. We need to ask the Lord to overcome Satan in our lives. We know that the power in us is greater than the power in the world, First John chapter four. But all so often we fall to those evil, subtle strategies, don't we? And Satan has his way and he keeps us from praying. He may attack our trust in the Lord. He may attack our faith in the Lord. He may interfere with our appointed time of prayer. He may try to block our communication channel. He may wear us down physically or emotionally or mentally so that we don't have the strength to pray. But what he wants to do is gradually push us into that darkness, and so we're not in the light of prayer. Sometimes I know that I fall into that, where I fall into the darkness, and I've fail to see the necessity of prayer. But the victory is ours if we will claim it. The victory has already been won at Calvary. But we need to claim it, and we need to expect it. We really need to examine our prayer lives and expect great things to happen. Let's not go through the exercises of prayer, not really thinking much will happen. Let's realize that we have an almighty God who hears us and who can do miracles. And let's really expect Him to do great things in our lives with that battle over Satan. And then there's the battle of sin. And I don't need to elaborate on this one because we're all familiar with it. We all know the battle that we face with sin. And the temptations are all around us, perhaps greater than they've ever been before because of the media and television and books and magazines and so on. There's so many temptations all around us. So many lures and there's a constant battle of sin. But what we need to do is not waller in deceit in this battle against sin, but expect answers to prayer. Expect victory. Expect that Jesus Christ is going to overcome. We expect that our prayers will be heard and that we'll be empowered to overcome the temptations that surround us. And perhaps the greatest battle that we face is the battle over self. You know, one of the things I guess probably ranks as one of my favorite verses in all of Scripture is First John chapter three and verse two. Many of you know that verse. But the part that I like says that one day that I will be like him because I will see him as he is. And you know why that's so precious to me? Not only because I'm going to see my dear Lord face to face, Not only because I'm going to be able to look in the face of one who loves me so much, but because I'm going to be like him, and when I am like him, I am not going to have this battle with myself anymore. We all know what that war is like inside. Our selves, our old nature, our sin nature, our old man wants to do the things of evil. Our new nature wants to do the things of God. There's warfare. I don't like that warfare. I'm tired of having evil desires. I'm tired of having evil thoughts. I'm tired of having sinful desires. And when I see Jesus Christ, I'm not going to have those anymore. And I'm excited about that. I'm looking forward to that time when I won't have this battle with self going on all the time when I see the Lord Jesus. But you know, if our prayer life is what it should be, we can experience that victory to some extent right now, can't we? Because we can see the Lord Jesus. as He is by the eyes of faith as we abide in Him, and as we expect answers to prayer, we can experience victory over ourselves. I'm looking forward to that. We know the battle, the victory comes in abiding. And then very quickly, I want to move on to our final category in this short series that we've had, and that's expecting the product of prayer, prayer in our evangelism. There are many categories that I could have put here. I chose evangelism because evangelism is so very, very important. Leading people to Christ is of the utmost importance. It's so, so important. And I wonder sometimes if we pray for a person's salvation and we really don't expect that they're really going to get saved. If you ever do that, you prayed for someone to be saved, but really deep in your heart, you couldn't picture that person saved, and you really didn't think much would happen. I have a very, very close friend. I witnessed to him for six years, and this friend owned his own business, very intelligent, very capable person, lovely wife, two lovely children, everything material that you could hope for, real nice family business in town and so on. and he was very cocky, he was very sure of himself. And I witnessed to him for six years, but I have to confess to you that I really didn't think you would ever come to the Lord. I really didn't, because he just seemed to have no need for the Lord. He seemed to have everything going for him. And I prayed for him, but I don't think I really believed much would happen. And then one day, about four years ago, his wife called me up on the phone, and she said, We have everything we could possibly want. We have a nice business. We have a nice home. Two nice children. And she went on and on. And she says, but something is missing. And she says, we want to come to your church sometimes. And I could tell that she was ripe for the gospel. And I said, Well, wouldn't you like me to come up right now and talk about it? She says, oh, no, no, no, there's plenty of time. I'm wanting to jump through the phone because I knew she wanted to come to the Lord. We make a very long story short. It was only within the next two months, both she and her husband came to know Jesus Christ as their Savior. And it was a precious time. There were tears shed. And they're two of our closest Christian brothers and sisters right now. And the point I want to make is I'm not the one to judge whether God's going to save somebody. I prayed for them, but I really didn't believe they would come to the Lord, but they certainly did, and they're wonderful Christian people. So in this matter of evangelism, you and I have this responsibility, and it's all of our responsibility to reach out with Jesus Christ. Your neighborhood is your mission field. Keystone Heights is your mission field. This assembly is your mission field. They're probably unsaved that come in and out of this assembly. We need to pray that people will come to Christ and we need to pray for them by name and specifically, and we need to persist. I mentioned to you that my mother prayed for me for eight years for my salvation before I came to the Lord. And I know there's a lot of mothers that have prayed a lot longer than that for their children. Of course, one of the things that I want to encourage us not to do is to pray that God will send someone to somebody when we could go ourselves. There's no reason why we can't go and share our faith in many of these people that we're praying for. I want you to still pray for them, but don't pray that God will send someone to them when you could go yourself and share the message of Christ with them. But our evangelism, our prayer life, our evangelism goes, as I've listed here, family and then daily contacts and so on. Locally, our families, all of us probably have unsaved relatives. We need to pray and believe that God will save them. Because oftentimes living before them in prayer are a lot more effective than what we say to our own family. I know, for instance, it's very hard for me to talk to my dad because, you know, I'm his son. And, you know, he doesn't always put a lot of stock in everything that I say because he's raised me and he's taught me much of what I know. So I have to live the life before Him and I have to pray and I have to believe that God will do great things. One of the things that I would really encourage all of you here in the park to do is to daily pray that God will give you an opportunity to share your faith. You know something? God will answer that prayer. There are many, many times in my life when I have specifically asked that God would give me someone to witness to that day and He has done it. He will hear and answer that prayer. And each of us could share our faith on a daily basis if we'd abide in the Lord and expect Him to give us opportunities to share our faith. And as we pray for people, I've listed here proper motives. Always make sure our motives are proper, that when we pray for someone's salvation, it's not only to keep them out of hell. It's not only to make our life easier if it's somebody we have contact with. But the major reason that we pray for a person's salvation is because every time someone gets saved, Jesus Christ is glorified. And that's the motivation to pray that Christ be glorified. And then we move from a local evangelism to a worldwide evangelism. And I want to talk here for a moment about missionaries. I know that some of you have actually served as missionaries. I know that some of you regularly support missionaries, perhaps as an assembly as well. But I wonder if we really pray for our missionaries regularly. Do we pray for them specifically? Do we pray for them by name? I know many of you do, and I hope that all of us do. One of the things that we like to do at our home before the children leave for school is that we get out the little book that's put out by CMML and we pray for the missionaries that day and we pray specifically for missionaries that we help to support as a family. And it's been a real help for our children to see the need of praying for missionaries and really bringing them before the Lord. You know, for most of us, there are only two ways that we can reach a soul in some far-distant land, say Africa or something like that. Most of us won't get the chance to go there. There are only two ways that we can reach a soul in a far-off land, and that's through our prayers and through our giving. And those two go hand in hand. It's not right to give to a missionary and not back up that gift with prayer. And it's not right to pray for a missionary if we have the ability to help that missionary with the monetary gifts as well. And so you and I have a chance to be involved in the excitement of seeing someone come to Christ in a far-off land through our prayers and through our giving. You know, it's very, very exciting, as I was saying the first night. It's very exciting to see someone come to know Jesus Christ. And it's exciting to be a part of that. And to me, the greatest thrill in life is to see someone come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. And we've seen some real dramatically changed lives recently where we are by the power of Christ. We've seen an alcoholic transformed. We've seen a person who was in the occult transformed. And it's exciting to see those things. But it's also exciting to hear of a soul that's won in Japan or Africa or something like that. And we can have a part in that by our prayer and by our giving. And the last thing I've had listed here, and this is something that we sometimes overlook in our prayer lives, we need to pray for the political situation in many of these countries because the political situation determines the liberty that the missionaries will have. And so if we pray for favorable political conditions, the missionaries will have more latitude and more ability to serve the Lord. Well, we must conclude now, and we've really just scratched the surface of this very deep topic called prayer. But I hope, if nothing else, that the Lord has impressed on each of our hearts that an effective, dynamic, exciting prayer life is possible for each of us. And that if we will abide in the Lord Jesus, if we will be given over to the control of the Holy Spirit, if we will be constantly seeking Christ's kingship in our lives, we will experience mighty prayer. In evangelism, in dealing with our own problems, all the kinds of prayer that we've talked about. And I hope that through the Word of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit, we've exposed some of the strategy of Satan, how he would lull us into an apathy about prayer. I hope that the Lord has rekindled in our hearts that we can truly experience the power of prayer. I hope that prayer will become a priority in each of our lives if it's not already. And I hope that each of us will be encouraged by answer to prayer so that we will expect great things to happen. Prayer can transform a life. Prayer can transform an assembly. Prayer can transform a community. and prayer can transform our country and the world. It's up to us. We have this tremendous power at our disposal. The Lord has given us this tremendous privilege. All we need to do is walk with Him, abide in Him, and exercise, experience that power, make it a priority in our life, and we will see great things happen. Many of you probably know Jeremiah thirty-three. How many of you know it? Who wants to quote it? Anybody? Go ahead. Okay. Call unto me, and I will show you great and mighty things, which you know not. That's the Lord. He is capable of doing great and mighty things that will call on Him from a heart that is full of the Spirit of God, from a heart that is full of love, from a heart that really makes prayer important, from a heart that really is full of faith and expects great things to happen, He will show us, you and I, great and mighty things. That's exciting, isn't it? I really hope that our prayer lives will have been examined these couple days And they'll be transformed by the Spirit of God that we might see great and mighty things from the Lord who just loves to give those things to us. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we bow in your presence to praise you and to thank you for all that you are and all that you've done. Lord, help us to truly cherish the privilege, this priceless possession of prayer. Lord, help us to experience its power. Help our relationships to be right with you, with our spouses and with others. Help us to have the proper spiritual condition. Lord, be with us in our attitudes and our actions. Lord, please help us make prayer a priority in our lives. May it have first place. May we give of you quality time to devote to prayer. May we constantly be seeking the kingship of Jesus Christ in our lives, constantly walking in your spirit that we might see great and mighty things. Father, help our prayers to be biblical. Help them to be spirit-led. And Father, as we realize what a great God you are, help us to expect, answer to prayer. Help us to realize that you are a God who can do all things, and help us to, as we walk with you, greatly appreciate that we can see great things happen when we call upon the name of a Lord who loves to give. Father, may each of us have transformed prayer lives, not for our glory, but for the glory of our Lord and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you