The Prayer Orchestra

I want to speak about prayer in terms of an orchestra, that is a whole assembly of different instruments, and I want to speak about the instruments that make up the prayer orchestra. I want to do that this morning. God has given us, I think, a new vision or corporate prayer. We’ve had some exciting experiences, especially in Belfast last November. Some very powerful and dramatic experiences of what happens when people pray together. But whether you are in a group praying or whether you are all the members of one body scattered over a city, when you pray in a certain sense it comes up before the Lord’s presence as one corporate sound.

So this morning I’m going to speak about twelve different types of instruments in the prayer orchestra. I’m not a musician. I can’t really make much use of musical types and pictures, but we know that in an orchestra there are many different types of instruments. Who knows how many? I haven’t got the faintest idea. There’s what we call the percussion and there’s the woodwind, and there’s the strings, and amongst all those there are many different divisions and sub-groups. I’d like you to think about praying as the body of Christ, as the people of God, as taking your place in the orchestra and playing your instrument. I don’t to suggest that you’re confined merely to one instrument, but I think as I go through this list you’ll find that many of you will immediately will say, ‘Well, that’s really the instrument that I play.’

Let’s begin with just a general statement in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 18. Somebody got an NIV that I could borrow? I’ll read this—this is the New King James and than I’ll read the NIV which just makes it, I think, a little more plain.

“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests.”

(NIV)

I just wanted to read that out because of the all kinds of prayers. That’s what I’m going to be talking about this morning is all kinds of prayers. I have here a list of twelve. I hope I’ll be able to get through

them and I want to way right at the beginning, this is not exhaustive. There is more. But this will probably keep you busy for the morning.

I would always like to begin with thanksgiving and I’ll join with that praise. I think it is very, very important to begin there because as I understand thanksgiving and praise are the two ways of entering into the presence of God. And if we do not practice those we will not have real direct access to God. At the best we’ll be like the ten lepers who came to Jesus for help, and stood and cried from a distance and said, ‘Lord, have mercy on us.’ And He did have mercy on them, but they never had access to Him. A lot—oh millions of Christians pray like that, ‘Lord help me. I need help. I need money. Heal me.’ But they’re crying from a distance because they haven’t learned the secret of access to God. And in that story you’ll find one leper returned to give thanks. And when he did that he had direct access to Jesus. It says all of them were healed but it only says that one was saved. He’s the only one that got the spiritual benefits, and it all came through what? Giving thanks.

It’s my personal practice never to start praying, except in a real emergency where you’re about to slide into another car ahead of you—you know you don’t have time to do a lot of talking—but apart from that I never begin to pray without starting to thank God. That’s a principle with me.

I was speaking in Jerusalem last summer and an old Christian—I mean old every way, he’s as old as I am and he’s been in the Lord longer than I have, a very senior respected man of God—and I was talking about this and I thought this is something everybody knows. And he came up to me afterwards and he said, ‘You caught me right between the eyes about that, not trying to get into God’s presence without thanksgiving.’ So he’d been a Christian fifty years. Apparently he’d never understood that. There is no access God, into His immediate presence, without thanksgiving and praise.

“Let’s read Psalm 100 verse 4 which states it so clearly. There are many, many other passages.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.”

The first thing you go through is the gate, the gate leads into the courts, the courts lead into His presence. How do you get through the gates? Thanksgiving. How do you go through the courts? With praise. And then you’re there.

What’s the difference between thanksgiving and praise? Well, let me say first of all very simply, and this could be oversimplified, you thank God for His goodness, you praise God for His greatness. Essentially you thank God for all He’s done for you. And you see if you begin by thanking God for what He’s done for you, that immediately stirs faith in your that He’s going to do the next thing you’re going to ask Him to do. Also, It’s good manners.

I made a startling discovery—many of you know I have an African daughter, Jesika, who comes from a certain tribe in Kenya called Maragolis. I discovered they have no word for thank you in their language. I couldn’t conceive of a language without thank you. And then I began to meditate on this and I really believe that in the places where the Bible has not penetrated people don’t know what it is to give thanks, because in other African dialects the word for thank you is good. But that’s very different from thank you.

In the Latin languages, the romance languages—French, Spanish, Italian—all of you know that know any of those languages the word for thank you is directly connected the word for grace. And I don’t think there’s any grace without thankfulness. I think it also takes the grace of God to make us thankful. In Greek it’s charaisto (?). It’s the same word. Charis is grace. So there’s a direct relationship between grace and thankfulness. And without thankfulness there really isn’t much grace, believe me. And an ungracious person is hard to get on with. Isn’t that right? You struggle, but… What makes a person easy to get on with really is thankfulness. Practice it. Not just in your relationship to God, but in your relationship to your fellow-believers, and to all people. All right.

“Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.
And as you know, I think it’s Psalm 48, it says,
Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.”

So praise is directly related to His greatness. When you begin by thanking God for what He’s done for you and acknowledging His greatness, you see you’re on a different level of faith. You’ve got a great God who’s already done thing for you. Psychologically it’s the best approach. All right. I don’t want to dwell on any of these, but those are two of the first instruments in the orchestra, and I think all of us should be playing those instruments—thanksgiving and praise. I think they should be ascending to God day and night everywhere God has people on the earth.

In Northern Ireland in a place that Ruth and I have had a lot of contact in with, Bangor, there was a group of monks who for more than one hundred years maintained unceasing thanksgiving and praise to God, twenty-four hours of every day, every week, every year. They were pretty tough, those old monks. If they thought they might fall asleep on the job, you know what they did. They waded out into the river and stood up to their necks in water. That would keep you from falling asleep. And there’s something different about that place. It’s a different place from anywhere else right around there. There are two cities, absolutely two towns next door to one another, they border on one another. The one is called Bangor the other’s called Holywood. Bangor has had visitations of God, many. Holywood which is absolutely contiguous has never had a visitation until the last couple of years. Bangor’s got a history of continuous praise. Holywood is called Holywood because it contains a grove which was sacred to the Druidic worship. See the difference? And until we discern the reason why the Spirit of God never rested on Holywood, nothing happened there. When we understood that we had to break this satanic power over it, there was something of a release of God’s Spirit there.

The next that I want to speak about is worship, and I’d like to turn to Psalm 95. Thanksgiving and praise are vocal. They come out of our mouths. Worship in the Bible is primarily an attitude. Every single word that’s translated worship either in the Old Testament or in the New has got to do with an attitude— bowing the head, bending the body and stretching out the hands, prostrating the whole body, kneeling down. Every single word describes an attitude. I think that’s very important that we understand that worship is not so much what we say, it’s our attitude. It’s an attitude in the immediate presence of God. So we’ll read Psalm 95, the first few verses, in fact we’ll read to verse 7. You’ll notice there’s some strange verse divisions if you have your Bible and you’re following, but I think they’re inspired. It begins with thanksgiving and praise, loud jubilant praise, I mean really loud. Let’s never be embarrassed about being loud in our praises.

“Oh come, let us sing to the LORD!
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
[How many churches today have people who shout joyfully to the Rock?]
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. [Now why.]
For the LORD is the great God,
And the great King above all gods. [Notice what we’re emphasizing—His greatness.] In His hand are the deep places of the earth;
The heights of the hills are His also.
The sea is His, for He made it;
And His hands formed the dry land. [All that’s His greatness.]”

Now we have come by the way of access—thanksgiving and praise. What does that lead to? It leads to worship. So we ought never to let ourselves be stopped by praise. That’s the way there but it’s not the end. Now I don’t mean to say that worship cannot be expressed vocally, but it’s not worship if it isn’t an attitude.

“Oh come, let us worship and bow down; [Notice, it’s an attitude.]
Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.
For He is our God,”

What is the prime way that we acknowledge God? By what? By one thing that belongs to God only— worship. That’s why he says, ‘Let us worship Him for He is our God.’ That’s the way we acknowledge Him as our God. Whatever you worship is your God. If you worship money, money is your god. If you worship self, self is your god. I heard the other day from David Polson, ‘he said he’s a self-made man.’ He’s talking about somebody—‘and he worships his creator.’ But you see whatever you worship gets power over you. Have you ever dealt with people who have actually worshiped Satan? You know what a struggle it is to get them free. And so many times they have to get rid of everything that was ever associated with Satan worship—the clothes, the rings, the books, everything. If you want God to have power over you, how will you achieve that? By worshiping Him. The more we worship, the more totally He is our God. It’s hard to go back and revoke worship. It’s the most total giving of yourself there is. We really need to cultivate worshiping God because we are living in times when our attitude to God is going to be challenged, I believe much more than it has been up to now. I believe that’s a little hors d’oeuvre we’ve seen so far of what Satan is going to do. And he is doing it. It says, ‘those that know their God shall be strong.’

The knowledge of God doesn’t come through theology, believe me. It comes through worship. Going on reading, verse 7,

“For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture,
And the sheep of His hand. [And then you see, anyone who wasn’t inspired by the Holy Spirit would have put the next line in the next verse, because it’s a new sentence. It says,]
Today, if you will hear His voice:
‘Do not harden your hearts,”

But why is that put there in that same verse? Because how can we hear God’s voice? Worship. If I’m sitting in a meeting and we’re truly worshiping and I get an inspiration from the Word of God or guidance as to the message I’m to bring, I nearly always can be confident that it’s from God. What you get when you’re worshiping is safe. Other impulses and suggestions can come from all sorts of sources, but when you’re really locked in in worship to God, that’s when you should hear His voice. So that’s worship. We’re not going to spend long on any one of these.

Now I want to say that the order is not inspired, in fact it probably could be improved on. The next is the one that most people think is prayer which is petition, asking for things. Now that has a legitimate place in prayer, but it’s a very small place, because we don’t need to tell God what we need. He already knows. A lot of people think praying is going to God with you shopping list. That’s not what He needs. However, petition has a place. Let’s look at two Scriptures—1 John chapter 5. Now there’s some of you here with needs this morning and I’m sure that’s—maybe the Lord has brought you… I want to suggest to you that if you can learn to pray, that’s the greatest answer to your needs. My friend, Bob Mumford, said once—he said, ‘What am I to do? Am I to give people a nugget out of the mine, or am I to show them the way to the mine itself?’ We pray for you and you get healed. That’s a nugget. But what I’m telling you is the way to the mine. Then you can go and get as many nuggets as you want for yourself. 1 John 5:14 and 15.

“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.”

That’s petitions. That’s asking for things. And John says if we know we’re asking according to His will, then we know that He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, then we have what we ask. So if it’s petition and you’re praying in the will of God, you should walk away knowing you’ve got what you’ve asked for, because if you praying according to the will of God then you know He hears you. You know He hears you, you know you have it. One of the great secrets of getting things from God is receiving. Lot’s of people ask but never receive. There’s an old song that goes according to

“In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever.
When you pray, when you pray,
Do you pray believing?
Do you pray the Bible way,
Asking and receiving.”

And it’s the last words that are important. Not just asking, but asking and receiving. I’ve seen people many times. God has touched them with a healing touch, but they don’t receive it. One way not to receive it is to go on praying for it. Some people pray themselves into faith and then pray themselves out of faith. There’s another Scripture which is even more emphatic—Mark 11:24. Jesus is speaking about this very matter of petition.

“‘Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”

Now that’s the translation I’m reading, but it’s not correct or at least it’s not literal. It says believe that you receive them, and you will have them. The NIV says believe that you have received them. When do you receive them? When you pray. That’s right. Now that’s not the only kind of praying. Far from it. But if that’s the kind of praying that when you pray you receive, and you will have. Notice, receiving is not the same as having. Receiving is settling it. Having is the experience that follows. You can receive something from God. You have a financial need. You pray. You’re in touch with God. You say, ‘God we need $1500.00 by Thursday.’ Then you say ‘Thank you, God.’ You’ve received it. Nothing has changed in the circumstances, but you’ve received it. But you will have it. Do you understand? All right, we’re going on.

Intercession. Now this is one of the highest arts of Christian life. One of the most difficult instruments to play, could we put it that way. At least it requires a lot of practice, a lot of skill, a lot of maturity. To intercede literally mean to come in between. So the intercessor is one who comes in between God and those for whom he is praying. And in some extreme cases, as with Moses praying for Israel after they’d made the golden calf, he says, ‘God, You’ve every right to strike these people, but remember if You strike them You’re going to have to strike me because I’m standing right between You and them.’

Abraham, when the Lord said he was going to go investigate the situation in Sodom, if you read in Genesis 18 it says, ‘Abraham stood before the Lord.’ Between the Lord and Sodom. He said, ‘Lord, don’t go yet. I’ve got something to say to You.’ And you remember? He bargained with the Lord and brought Him down to ten. He said, ‘If there are ten righteous men will you spare the city?’ That’s intercession. There’s a Scripture in… It’s not the only form of intercession, it’s the supreme form of intercession. Ezekiel 22, a familiar passage I’m sure to some of you. Verses 30 and 31. God has cataloged the sins of Israel. And I mean it is a very complete catalog, and it lists all the different sections of the community. And in English they all happen to begin with ‘P’ which makes it easy. It’s the prophets first, when they fail, failure follows. Then it’s the priests, then it’s the princes the secular ruler, then it’s the people. But notice, and this is very close to the issues we were talking about here this morning, remember the original failure is with the prophets and priests, not with the princes. And don’t imagine that you can solve the problems of America unless you solve the problems of the church. You can’t. The problem in America is the church, and all other problems step from the failure of the church. You can write to all your representatives, may God bless you. But if God doesn’t change the church, there is no hope for the United States. It’s the prophets, the priests, then the princes, and finally the whole people. And that’s just where it has come in America today. Then God says,

“‘So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before me on behalf of the land,”

That’s the intercessor, the one who built the wall and stands in the gap before God. You see the intercessor is God-centered. He’s not problem focused, he’s not focused on what men can do, he has a vision of what God can do. Poor God, you know He gets awfully left out today in the church and in the Charismatic movement. I mean, He’s a kind of accessory. If you need healing, well God is there somewhere, you know—or health or prosperity or whatever. There’s a Scripture in Jeremiah. I didn’t find it but it came to my mind so clearly. Jeremiah is talking to the Lord but he said, ‘Why shouldest thou be as a wayfaring man in the land…’ A traveler, without a home, no one takes you in, everybody’s busy with their own business. It’s your people, it’s your land, but you’ve got no place in it. That’s really the situation today.

I didn’t intend to say this, but somebody handed me just recently an analysis by a totally secular marketing firm, market analyzers, of how to sell to born-again Christians because theoretically there are forty or fifty million born-again Christians. In essence it says they are just like the people of the world. You just have to be a little bit careful of the language you use. Their motives are no different, their attitudes are not different. They’ll buy. You know what that is? That’s truth. That man is writing the truth simply because all he wanted was facts. He didn’t have any ax to grind. He wasn’t protecting anything.

“Well anyhow. ‘I sought for a man,’ God says. Amen.
‘… that I should not destroy it [the land]; [then God says] but I found none.’
Isn’t that tragic. Not one man.
‘Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them;…’”

The implication I think is clear. If God could have found one man He could have changed the situation. But there wasn’t one. We have to ask ourselves, is there one today, is there one? In Isaiah 59 we have the most terrible catalog of the sins of God’s people. I don’t want to dwell on it. Isaiah 59 verse 2,

“But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
And your sins have hidden His face from you. [This is written to the religious leaders.]
For your hands are defiled with blood,
And your fingers with iniquity;
Your lips have spoken lies,
Your tongue has muttered perversity.
No one calls for justice,
Nor does any plead for truth.
They trust in empty words and speak lies;
They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.
They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave the spider’s web;
He who eats of their eggs dies,
And from that which is crushed a viper breaks out.
[Verse 7]
Their feet run to evil,
And they make haste to shed innocent blood;
Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity,
Wasting and destruction are in their paths.
The way of peace they have not known,
And there is no justice in their ways;
They have made themselves crooked paths;
Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.
[And then the conditions that follow.]
We grope or the wall like the blind, [vs. 10]
And we grope as if we had not eyes;
We stumble at noonday as at twilight;
[Vs. 12]
For our transgressions are multiplied before You,
And our sins testify against us;
For our transgressions are with us,
And as for our iniquities, we know them:
In transgressing and lying against the LORD
And departing from our God,
Speaking oppression and revolt,
Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
[It’s hard to believe that anybody could give such a catalog. And then in the middle of verse 15 we have the Lord’s reaction.]
Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him
That there was no justice.”

“He saw that there was no man, [listen]
And wondered that there was no intercessor;”

The last and the ultimate failing was what? No intercessors. Everything could have been changed if there had been one intercessor. Do you think that America’s like that today? Not far away, not very far. Well we’ll go on. The next one and this is appropriate—it follows on—is supplication. Now supplication is kind of a complicated word for some people, but when you are supplicating or you are a suppliant, there is only one thing you ask for which is mercy. This is simply a cry for mercy. We’ll look at two passages. Zechariah 12 and verse 10. This is a prophecy directed specifically concerning Israel. The Lord is speaking and He says,

“‘And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication;”

Notice the order. First grace, then supplication. You say, ‘Well, God I want to supplicate You.’ God says, ‘You can’t do it without My grace. If I don’t give you the grace you can’t do it.’ No prayer of any value can be offered to God without His grace. If it doesn’t initiate in the grace of God it’s worthless.

“…then they will look on Me whom they pierced. And they will mourn for me as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.’”

It’s very interesting because it really describes the turning point of God’s dealings with Israel at the point to which they really come to repentance and acknowledgement of the Messiah, and it’s brought about by the Spirit of grace and supplications. God is so logical, you know. Everything He does is in a sense computerized. I mean it just comes out exactly right. You see, when the Lord sent Jesus to Israel, Israel as a nation rejected Him. Many received Him individually. Because they had rejected Jesus, God did not reject Him. He sent them the Holy Spirit. But when they rejected the Holy Spirit, there was nothing more that He could do. And there is nothing more that God can do for anyone who rejects the Holy Spirit. That’s the ultimate. Jesus said, ‘You can blaspheme against the Son and be forgiven, but not against the Spirit.’ But why I say that is because the process of restoration is going to reverse the order.

You see a lot of people think the Jewish people will first be confronted with Jesus. Oh no! They’ll first be moved on by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will reveal Jesus to them. And what I’d like to tell you is that process has already begun. It’s very comical to watch it, because God is sneaking up on their blind side. They don’t know what’s happened to them. I’ve talked to so many and it takes a certain amount of wisdom to know at what point to stop and leave it to the Holy Spirit to finish.

There’s another picture of intercession, or supplication. A beautiful one in Hebrews chapter 4. Isn’t it interesting they’re both related to the Jewish people. Hebrews, or course, is written to Jewish believers. I hope I’m creating in some of you a desire to learn to play your instruments. Hebrews 4:16,

“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

That’s a terrific Scripture. It’s a throne, but it’s a throne of grace. And what do we come for? To obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. You see people say the situation is serious there’s nothing left to do. But God says, ‘The time of need is the time to come.’ And you know about both mercy and grace, there’s one fact that applies to both. They cannot be earned. You cannot earn God’s mercy. If you could you wouldn’t need it. And you cannot earn grace. I am convinced myself is the only people who don’t receive mercy and grace are the people who don’t come. Because if we do come we will receive. What’s the root problem? We don’t come. Why don’t we come? Because we don’t see our own need. What keeps us from seeing our own need, what blinds us? Self-righteousness, religiosity.

All right we’re going on—the prayer of command. Now we’re in a different area. In Joshua chapter 10. That’s what’s so exciting about the Bible—it is not monotonous. Ruth and I would say to one another, ‘At least there’s one thing we cannot complain. Our life is not dull.’ Joshua chapter 10 verses 12 and following. This is in the middle of a battle. Israel were defeating their enemies but it was getting dark. And if night fell they wouldn’t be able to finish the job off. So it says,

“Then Joshua spoke to the LORD [notice he began by speaking to the Lord] in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he [Joshua] said in the sight of Israel:”

“‘Sun, stand still over Gibeon
And Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.’
So the sun stood still,
And the moon stopped,
Till the people had revenge
Upon their enemies.
Is this not written in the Book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.
And there has been no day like that, before it or after it, that the LORD heeded the voice of a man…”

That’s the prayer of command. You can tell situations and circumstances how to behave, even the sun and the moon, but you can’t do that unless you first contacted the Lord, and you’ve got the anointing, the release.

There was a brother named Howard Carter way back in the early days of the Pentecostal movement in Britain, the author of the first book of the Gifts of the Spirit, and the most, I say, the soundest book. He had a Bible School in London. Well, in World War I he was a conscientious objector and he was put in prison, and the prison was a very damp, leaky place. He was lying in his bed and there was a little stream of water trickling down over him from the ceiling. And he pointed his finger at it and said, ‘I command you to go back in the name of Jesus.’ And it did. You say, well that was a generation ago.

In Zambia last year where we were having the meetings there was a black African girl of about sixteen or seventeen, bicycling to the place where we were eating, and they have vast ant hills in Zambia—twenty or thirty feet high and they’re the homes of snakes. And as she was bicycling past and coming to this ant hill, out came this big black copra out of its hole in the ant hill, and she began to tremble. But the Spirit of God came upon her and she said, ‘In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ go back into your hole.’ And it stopped and turned it’s head and remained motionless. She said, ‘No, I said go back into your hole,’ and it turned around and went right back in. When she got to where she was coming she was trembling. So that was God’s strength made perfect in weakness. But that’s one way we can pray, understand. Particularly appropriate for demons.

All right. The next one is the prayer of commitment, very, very important. Psalm 31 verse 5. Sometimes, you understand, the way to pray about a thing is to stop praying about it.

“Into Your hand I commit my spirit;
You have redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.”

Though of course those words were said by Jesus, the first part of them, on the cross. But there are times when we just have to commit ourselves to the Lord. I remember the first time I ever preached in Denmark in 1947. I was there on my own. Lydia was still in Jerusalem, but it was very important because I was being introduced everywhere as her husband. It was very important that they thought well of me for her sake. So they introduced me the Dane who was to be my interpreter, and I quickly realized he didn’t understand more than fifty percent of what I said to him. And I thought what am I to do in this situation. I mean I was absolutely—I thought this is hopeless. So in despair I said, ‘Lord into Your hands I commit my spirit.’ And I don’t know what happened but we had a tremendous meeting. I don’t know whether he said what I said, or what he wanted to say. But I mean the results were tremendous. I just had to take my hands off. There was nothing more I could do.

“Psalm 37. I’m sure many of you know that, verse 5.
Commit your way to the LORD,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.”

The Hebrew and you may know this—roll your way on the Lord. This became very vivid to me when I was working with students in East Africa. Sometimes we’d run out of rice, and the students would have nothing for supper. So I would have to go down to the local town in my little Morris Traveler Station Wagon, and get two sacks of rice. They weighed two hundred and twenty pounds each I think. And then, one of the things we wrestled with in Africa was as soon as they started to get educated they thought it was demeaning to do physical work. So I used to demonstrate to them that that was not so. So I would drive up to the kitchen, pick up one of these sacks, put it on my back and carry it into the kitchen. Well, it’s easier to get one on than it is to get one off, you know that? Did you know that? So I learned the secret is roll it off.

And that’s what the Lord is saying. When you way becomes too heavy for you and you can’t handle it, just roll it off onto the Lord and He’ll take care of it. Commit is an act. Trust is an attitude. First of all you commit and then you don’t go back and see if it’s working. You trust. It’s like taking money to the bank and making a deposit. You get your receipt and you don’t walk back thirty minutes later and see if the bank knows what to do with your money. You have committed it to the bank. If you commit something to the Lord, leave it.

I remember years back in Ireland there was a little boy, a cousin of mine, who was six years old and he’d planted some potatoes. It was a farm. But he was so anxious to see if the potatoes were growing that he would go back and dig them up. He never got any potatoes. A lot of Christians are like. They plant their potatoes and then they dig them up to see if they’re growing. If you commit then you’ve got to trust, and while you trust the Lord is doing it.

All right. The next prayer is dedication. John 17:19, this is part of what we call the High Priestly prayer of Jesus, and He’s talking now about His relationship to His disciples and to the Father, and He says, ‘And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.’

Now to sanctify means to impart, to set something apart to God. Whatever you want to set apart to God, you sanctify, and then it belongs to God, it’s in His hands, and you are not allowed to do what you want with it. Jesus said in John 10:35 that the Father had sanctified Him and sent Him into the world. How did the Father sanctify Jesus? He didn’t make Him holy because He was already holy. But He set Him apart to a work that no one else could do. Now Jesus at this point says, ‘I sanctify Myself. I set Myself apart to the work for which God has already set Me apart.’ That’s sanctification. Understand? Always the initiative is with God. You can’t sanctify yourself in that sense for something for which God has not sanctified you. You don’t have to be a volunteer. You have to find out what God has set you apart for, and then you set yourself apart. It won’t work until you set yourself apart. But if you set yourself apart for something for which God has not set you apart, it won’t work either. Understand? So you have to find out what God has set you apart for, and then you have to respond with your own will and decision, ‘I set myself apart.’ And after that you are not your own property. Understand? Don’t play games with God. Don’t set yourself apart on Tuesday and ask for yourself back on Wednesday, because God doesn’t meet you on that basis.

“There’s another example of this in a well-known passage in Romans 12.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”

So Paul says you are to sanctify your body to the Lord. You’re to present your body to the Lord. It’s an amazing thing that multitudes of born again Christians have never discovered that. God has set us apart, but it doesn’t become effective until we set ourselves apart. Understand? And God wants your body, because when He’s got your body, He’s got you. And when you set yourself apart your body to God, you don’t make the decisions. It’s not your body any longer. You don’t decide what it will wear or what it will eat or where it will go or what it will do. It’s not your property.

You see, whatever you sanctify to God becomes His property. You don’t have to do it. It’s voluntary. The Bible says don’t vow and then ask for it back. That’s the way to get God angry. Be careful what you say. But, when your body is sanctified to God remember it’s God’s responsibility. God has a different attitude towards the property that is merely leased to Him and to the property which He owns. Understand? He accepts maintenance responsibility for what He owns. Some people, that’s the answer to your problem. Give God your body. You’ve struggled with it long enough. So that’s the prayer of dedication.

Then there’s the prayer—we’re coming near the end—the prayer of persistence. Luke chapter 11 verses 5 through 10.

“And He said to them, ‘Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves;
‘for a friend of mine has come to me on him journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; [A terrible disgrace in the Middle East to have nothing to set before your friend.] ‘and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut,”

“and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you’? [Typical Middle Eastern scene.]
‘I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he need.”

In other words, you stay on knocking, just letting him know he’s not going to get any sleep that night until he gets up and gives you the bread. Now Jesus commended that.

“‘So I say to you, ask [and keep on asking], and it will be given to you; seek [and keep on seeking], and you will find; knock [and keep on knocking], and it will be opened to you.
‘For everyone who asks [and keeps on asking] receives, and he who seeks [and keeps on seeking] finds, and to him who knocks [and keeps on knocking] it will be opened.’”

You see that’s quite different from the other which was the prayer of receiving. You pray, you receive, you say ‘Thank you, Lord,’ that’s it. This is a different kind of prayer. You’ve got to go on knocking, knocking, knocking, knocking until the door is open.

This is a true story. There was a lady, a South African lady, a missionary whose name was Ingrid Chouner (?). She wanted to get into Mozambique which was at that time under Portuguese government, to open a Protestant mission and the country was almost exclusively Catholic. She went to the Mozambique Council and asked for their permission once. She was refused. She went again. She went again. She was refused. She went again. She was refused. Do you know how many times she went? Thirty-three times and the thirty-third time she got permission. That’s asking and keep on asking. If you really believe you’re going to get it, you won’t stop. What’s that lady Bible teacher who’s on the television? Marilyn Hickey. She was talking to us just over a year ago. She kept saying this, ‘Remember, the game isn’t over until you give up.’ That’s the truth. The game isn’t over until you give up. The only way you can lose is by giving up. Don’t give up.

And then two last prayers. The prayer of blessing—Number 6—familiar words to many. Numbers chapter 6 verse 23 and following.

“‘Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, ‘This is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them:”

“‘The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.’’”

You see there are six blessings. Do you want to follow them again. Number 1) the Lord bless you, 2) keep you, 3) make His face shine upon you, 4) be gracious to you, 5) lift up His countenance upon you, 6) give you peace. Now how many of you know six isn’t a perfect number? So when I saw that I thought Lord, there’s got to be some more, and He showed me, ‘So they shall put My name on the children of Israel,…’ That’s the seventh. That’s what makes is complete, putting His name. Parents that’s how you can bless your children. You can put the name of the Lord upon them everyday when they go to school, everyday when they’re out in the roads, you put the name of the Lord upon them and He will keep them. What a privilege it is to be able to bless.

But there’s another side to that. Most Christians are not aware that we are also charged to curse. Matthew 21 verse 21. Remember Jesus walked past the fig tree and it had no fruit on it, only leaves? Like a lot of things we see today, they look as though they’ve got fruit on, but there’s none when you look. Jesus was not indifferent. He didn’t just say, ‘Well nothing there.’ He said, ‘Let no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ Next morning when they passed the fig tree it was withered from the root—twenty-four hours. The disciples were impressed and this is what Jesus said to them in Matthew 21:21.

“So Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done.’”

Now we all focus on removing the mountain, but remember Jesus said you can also do what was done to the fig tree, which was what? It was cursed.

Some of you have heard this story, but it’s a true story and it’s a good illustration. I was kind of an associate pastor of a church in Chicago about 1967 in the North side downtown Chicago, and the church was on a corner, but the actual corner was occupied by a liquor store which was wall to wall with the church. It was a very wicked place. It not only sold liquor, but it was the center of prostitution and drugs and so on. Well sometime in October one year we were having a prayer meeting in the church and I was on the platform, and something came over me and I stood up and I said, ‘Lord, I curse that liquor store in the name of Jesus,’ and I forgot about it. Just around about Christmas time we got a phone call at four A.M. and the temperature was twenty degrees below zero. This dear lady from the church said, ‘Brother Prince, the church is burning. Would you like to come and see?’ So frankly any motivation to get out of bed at that time of night and go and see. So I thought, If I don’t show any interest and the church is burning I’ll be considered somewhat callous.

So reluctantly Lydia and I got out of bed and climbed into the car and drove down. Well we could see the flames two or three blocks away. When we got there we discovered it wasn’t the church that was burning. It was the liquor store, but the wind was blowing off Lake Michigan straight blowing the flames onto the church. And as we there, the wind change one hundred eighty degrees and blew the flames away from the church. And the church suffered no damage at all except smoke damage, but the liquor was totally demolished. And the fire chief of Chicago said to the elder of the church, ‘You must have a special relationship to the Man upstairs.’ Well, I knew why that liquor store burned down. I had cursed it. And I tell you it didn’t make me feel proud. It scared me. I’d better think about what I’m saying from now on.

But it’s there and you see I think a lot of Christians are too indifferent about some things that are evil. I mean you have to be very careful how you do this. But I think if the Spirit of God prompts you, you can cause something to wither like that that’s harming people, deceiving people, frustrating the purposes of God. Jesus was not—He was never indifferent, He was never neutral. He was either for or against and He expected everybody to be like that. He said, ‘He that is not with me is against Me.’

Let me just read my little list of instruments and we’ll close. There are twelve: Thanksgiving, praise, worship, petition, intercession, supplication, command, commitment, dedication, persistence, blessing and cursing.