Sister Karen Sunday Evening 6/12/16

Because I have had a real battle with prayer I thought, “Something is wrong.  I am not getting through.  I have prayed about things for years.” 

The enemy was really opposing me in prayer.  I got out the book by E.M. Bounds on Power in Prayer.  It helped me to get turned around and believe in prayer. 

He was born in Missouri, August 1845.  His father was the county clerk.  Often in their home there was held court sessions.  He became challenged to study law.  He became a lawyer and practiced until the age of 24.  At that time he felt the call to be a minister. 

He was good at studying.  He studied the word and enjoyed John Wesley’s writings.  He took a church and at that time there were confederate sympathizers in his congregation.  He was arrested because of that as a confederate sympathizer.  He spent a year and a half in a federal prison. 

After that he became a chaplain in the confederate army.  He worked with the soldiers right before the Franklin battle.  There were many soldiers killed and many injured in that battle.  He was there praying with and for the soldiers.

That battle was a turning point in the war.  He stayed and pastored a church there in Franklin Tennessee.  The church sent him to Georgia where he met his wife.  They had three children and after three years she died.  Then he married her cousin.  They had six children together, giving him nine children total.

Then he moved back to Tennessee and became an editor for a newspaper.  That gave him the ability to write several books. 

He went back to Georgia after finishing his job there.  He spent the later part of his life writing Intercessory Prayer and preaching revivals.  He died in 1913. 

Two books were published before his death.  Some of his friends had been blessed by his writing and worked to publish them.  “They are living voices whereby he being dead yet speaketh.” 

This is not from someone that just knows of prayer. These were his experiences of praying. 

His writings cause one of two different reactions.  You are either inspired to move to God with a greater desire. Or you consider him a fanatic that bothers our traditional lukewarm values.  You either stay near to enjoy the warmth or move away because the flames are too much to bear.

E.M. Bounds:

IN any study of the principles, and procedure of prayer, of its activities and enterprises, first place, must, of necessity, be given to faith. It is the initial quality in the heart of any man who essays to talk to the Unseen.

He must, out of sheer helplessness, stretch forth hands of faith. He must believe, where he cannot prove. In the ultimate issue, prayer is simply faith, claiming its natural yet marvellous prerogatives -- faith taking possession of its illimitable inheritance.

True godliness is just as true, steady, and persevering in the realm of faith as it is in the province of prayer. Moreover: when faith ceases to pray, it ceases to live.

Faith does the impossible because it brings God to undertake for us, and nothing is impossible with God. How great -- without qualification or limitation -- is the power of faith!

If doubt be banished from the heart, and unbelief made stranger there, what we ask of God shall surely come to pass, and a believer hath vouchsafed to him "whatsoever he saith."

Prayer projects faith on God, and God on the world. Only God can move mountains, but faith and prayer move God. In His cursing of the fig-tree our Lord demonstrated His power. Following that, He proceeded to declare, that large powers were committed to faith and prayer, not in order to kill but to make alive, not to blast but to bless.

At this point in our study, we turn to a saying of our Lord, which there is need to emphasize, since it is the very keystone of the arch of faith and prayer.

"Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

Mar 11:22  And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.

Mar 11:23  For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Mar 11:24  Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

“And shall not doubt in his heart.”  That is the secret.  We have to get the doubt out.  “Believe that you receive them and you shall have them.”

My burden has been to pray for VBS for the lessons, the children, the outreach, and for every part.  It is prayer that will make a difference.

E.M. Bounds, The Necessity of Prayer:

Yet faith is called upon, and that right often to wait in patience before God, and is prepared for God's seeming delays in answering prayer.

Faith does not grow disheartened because prayer is not immediately honored; it takes God at his Word, and lets him take what time he chooses in fulfilling his purposes, and in carrying on his work.

There is bound to be much delay and long days of waiting for true faith, but faith accepts the conditions-knows there will be delays in answering prayer, and regards such delays as times of testing, in the which, it is privileged to show its mettle, and the stern stuff of which it is made.

Fear not, O tempted and tried believer, Jesus will come, if patience is exercised, and faith holds fast. His delay will serve to make his coming the more richly blessed.

Pray on. Wait on. You cannot fail. If Christ delay, wait for him. In his own good time, he will come, and will not tarry.

Brother Gary

I came to church tonight with the song, “A wonderful power in prayer.”  The writer was a lady school teacher.  She also wrote, “More about Jesus would I know.” 

She taught school a little while and then was injured while helping discipline a child.  She became an invalid.  In this terrible happening you and I are enjoying the efforts of God using her.

This song takes me in my memory to the little place where we first worshipped when my folks came out of organized religion.  Sister Steigmeyer had a tough road in life.  She was fought every step of the way by her husband that believed differently.  She would pray and come into church with a song in her heart.  I like the memory of her and David singing special songs. 

We were poor then.  There was seldom two special song books and there was no such thing as a copier.  David could play the piano and he would play.  David would try to play and sing.  Sister Steigmeyer would raise her hand and start getting blessed and the book would start bouncing.  David had a hard time following the book.

If the battle of life is tough, that is the reason that it is called life.  When my wife comes home from work and I ask her how it was, when she said, “It was tough.”  I told her, “That is why it is called work.”  People that don’t work have a tough life. 

Just because you are saved doesn’t mean that there won’t be testing times.  Just because your heart is burdened… we know the price of sin.  We have seen what it does.  Sin is terrible. 

We are going to have times of deep, heavy burdens, burdens for sons, daughters, and grandchildren.

“Perhaps you are seeking a soul far astray, that name to the mercy seat bring… there is wonderful power in prayer.”

I was encouraged in this season lately, “There is nothing too hard for God.”  Some that we are burdened for are yoked in sin and not only that but they are yoked to beastlike spirits.  They have sold their soul to money or what people can give them.  There is no yoke worse than being in bondage to some ungodly individual. 

God has been merciful to Karen and me.  When we were so poor there were rich people that said, “We are going to help you.”  When I found out that it was help with bondage, I was not interested.  The help we have in Jesus Christ is wonderful.

Jesus taught us that no man can come unto Him except the Father draw him.  Brother Martin was a staunch catholic.  I don’t know who prayed for him but God began to draw upon heart and soul.  God began to move on that situation. 

Brother Martin was such a catholic that when he got saved his family disowned him.  Sister Phyllis never knew what it was to have an uncle or an aunt.  When they came to God they paid the price.  This song says:

No matter how hard goes the battle of life
God’s children need never despair,
His conquering grace giveth peace mid the strife
There is wonderful power in prayer.

We know that the roses will not always bloom
The skies will not always be fair,
But go to the Father to brighten the gloom;
There is wonderful power in prayer.

Perhaps you are seeking a soul far astray
That name to the mercy seat bear.
The Shepherd himself will go with you today;
There is wonderful Power in prayer.

Through all the swift changes that come to us here,
Till white robes in glory we wear
We look up to Jesus for comfort and cheer;
There is wonderful power in prayer.

Wonderful power, a wonderful power in prayer,
For it moveth the arm that moveth the worlds,
There’s a wonderful power in prayer.

We look back over our life at all the changes and God has never failed.