Attributes of an Availing Prayer Life

This morning, if you will, and turn over to the book of James

James 5 · chapter mention

Chapter 5. James Chapter 5.

James 5 · chapter mention

It was great to be able to take our young people and go up to

the mountains for a few days. And we met Pastor Andy Almanza's

church, their Gospel Light Baptist Church and their young

people. And what a great group of young

people between the two churches. And I'm so thankful that, that,

that we have young people who still want to live for the Lord.

And I, I believe that all of our young people do I, I don't see

anybody in their church that doesn't want to live for the

Lord either. It's a great opportunity for our

young people to get together iron sharpening iron.

And that's why, by the way, that we're very, very careful about

the churches that we have fellowship with.

I know it makes us sound a lot of times like isolationists,

like we're, we're better than you and whatever else.

That's, that's certainly not the the intention behind it at all.

But I'm not going to allow our young people to be influenced in

the wrong direction just because we want to have fellowship with

somebody else. We, there's too much at stake.

This, this generation of young people is what's going to carry

on Christianity and, and true Christianity and strong

Christianity. And if we want to have some more

friends, So we, we, we drop all the standards and let them, let

them be influenced by a lot of young people who don't want to

live for the Lord. It's not helping us at all.

I would rather have 23456 churches that we can fellowship

closely with and know that when our young people get together,

they're not talking about the world's music and the world's

movies and boys and girls and all of those kind of things.

But they're talking about, you know, things that are wholesome

and uplifting. And we get them together around

the preaching of the word of God.

And it's just, it's just a wonderful time together.

And so appreciate you sending your young people and allowing

them to be a part of that. And you're the ones that are

doing the hard work. We're just here to help you out

with it and maybe give you some direction and some guidance with

those things. But the, the real work is done

in the home and what happens in the home is what is, is what's

going to happen with your kids. You can't just bring them to the

church and expect that the church is going to fix them.

You got to be doing it at home and don't have anything to do

with the message this morning. But I thought I'd just throw

that in there for free as part of your as part of your tie this

morning. How about if we call it that,

James Chapter 5, and I'm just going to read one verse here and

James 5 · chapter mention

we're going to look at a couple other verses in this passage.

But just by way of getting started here, verse #16 is a

pretty familiar verse to most of you, I would say.

But the Bible says this. Confess your faults one to

another and pray one for another that she may be healed.

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

I think every Christian needs to be as involved as they possibly

can be in their local church. But every every Christian is not

going to be called to be a pastor.

Every Christian does is not physically able to canvas their

neighborhood and knock on every door and and talk to every

person about Christ. Every Christian is not able to

do that. Not every Christian can sing.

Not every Christian can play an instrument.

Not every Christian can take part in the music service of

their church. But I'll tell you this.

Every Christian can pray. Every Christian not only can

pray, but should pray. We ought to strive to have more

than a prayer life. We ought to strive to have a

fervent prayer life. We ought to have a hunger for a

fervent prayer life. And if I ask you to raise your

hand this morning, how many of you think you can pray more?

Every hand would go up because we're going to always pray more.

We always, we, we should have more of a prayer life, but it's

more than just that. It's not just praying for the

sake of praying. It's not just praying for the

sake of being able to say that you did it or praying to be able

to say, I prayed this much this morning.

It's to try to get a hold of God, to try to try to move

heaven by our prayers. In our text this morning, I want

you to notice that word availeth the effectual fervent prayer of

a righteous man availeth much. That word means to be strong or

to have power. It means to have strength to

overcome. What a desire it ought to be for

every single one of us to have an availing prayer life, a

prayer life with power and strength to overcome.

If there was ever a time in our in our history, the history of

our country, the history of our churches, we need powerful

prayer warriors who know God more than any time that we've

ever needed them in our history. We need powerful prayer warriors

in our church. We need powerful prayer warriors

on behalf of this nation. Our country is in a mess

spiritually. Leave out the politics.

We're spiritually destitute as a nation.

We need to get a hold of God, but that's only going to happen

through effectual, fervent prayer.

We're in desperate need of a building right now, and that's

very important to the destiny of this church.

Where we end up is probably where this church is going to be

planted and where it's going to be until Christ comes back.

We need it. We we, we've been praying for.

It's an important decision in this.

This building that we're looking at needs serious prayer.

We need God to move. God has to move.

God has to answer in a big way. But that's only going to happen

through fervent availing prayer. Charles Spurgeon said take no

rest from prayer and give prayer no rest.

That's the only way that we're going to have that happen.

The Bible says pray without ceasing.

Pray without ceasing, and I know that you've heard this said many

times, doesn't mean that you got to walk around on your knees

with your hands, folding your eyes closed and driving down the

road and you're praying with your eyes closed.

That's a dangerous thing to do, right?

But pray without ceasing means that we ought to be in a

constant attitude of prayer. We ought to be having a constant

conversation with God all day, every day.

That ought to be what that ought to be.

What characterizes your prayer life?

And yes, there will be times when we get on our knees before

God and we we specifically focus on the different needs that we

have to bring before him. But we ought to pray without

ceasing and we ought to have a a effectual fervent prayer life.

Do you know how to get ahold of God?

Somebody says, hey, this, this big issue is happening right

now. Will you pray?

Do you know how to get a hold of God?

Do you think that God's listening when you stop and

pray? Do you think that God stops to

listen when you pray? Well, he wants to.

We know that there's a lot of verses in there about prayer and

a lot of verses about answer to prayer and everything else.

But I'm not talking about prayer, I'm talking about you.

Do you know how to get a hold of God?

Do you have a fervent prayer life?

Do you have, as we had we talked about here, an availing prayer

life, a powerful prayer life with God?

What about you? I hope you want that.

I want to have power with God. So what I want to share with you

this morning is a message that's simply entitled Attributes of an

availing Prayer life. Attributes of an availing prayer

life. And let's take a few minutes to

dive deeper into this verse and see what we need to do to have

God's power and God's strength through prayer.

Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you so

much for your goodness and thank you so much for an opportunity

we have to get here together this morning.

May you use the message in our hearts.

May you help us to become people of prayer.

May you help us to be men and women who have an availing

prayer life, who have that effectual fervent prayer that

knows how to get a hold of you. May the message help us this

morning. We thank you again for all you

do for us in Jesus name, Amen. The first thing that I want to

give you this morning is the prerequisite of an availing

prayer life. James chapter 5 and verse #16

James 5 · chapter mention

the beginning of that verse says confess your faults one to

another and pray one for another that you may be healed.

Now, obviously, if you go back to verse #13 it's talking about

prayer for somebody who is sick and the prayer of faith.

The Bible says healeth the sick. And I believe that with all of

my heart, I believe that that that we can see great answers to

prayer. We can see people healed through

prayer. God has to do that work.

It's not some Shazam kind of power.

It's not some I breathed on you and you were healed.

It's not, it's not those kind of things.

It's, it's God that has to do that work.

But God can't heal through prayer.

The forerunner of success in the matter of an availing prayer

life is the confessing and removal of any sin, any

shortcomings, any spats that you might have with somebody else

that may be present in your personal life.

Psalm 66 and verse 18, the Bible says if I regard iniquity in my

heart, the Lord will not hear me.

We're told here to confess our faults one to another.

That's, that's not just the big sins before God.

Oh, you should be confessing those big sins before God.

Those are things that you better get right if you expect God to

listen to you when you pray. Because if you regard iniquity,

if you have sin in your heart when you're coming before God,

the Lord will not hear you. He is actively turning out,

tuning out your voice if you have sin in your life.

And this certainly I think has a tendency to humble us before we

come before the throne of God. By the way, that cuts out a need

for a priest. Confess your faults one to

another and pray one for another that she may be healed.

I don't need to go to a priest and get confession.

He's a man just like I am. I'm a man just like you are.

I can't. I can't forgive your sins.

Who am I? I'm a Sinner too.

I don't have any power to forgive sins.

Only Christ can forgive our sins.

He's the only one that was sinless.

I don't have any ability to do that.

Neither does any other man, and I'm not one that's in a position

to judge. But what wisdom here?

In the words of James, We're told to pray for one another,

and the two could not go hand in hand any better.

If we prayed more for others, we would blame less.

We'd be far more tolerant of other people.

We would do, we would not do nearly as much wrong in their

life. And there's nothing that makes a

man so loving as that which he has himself suffered.

You go through something that somebody else is going through

and you can talk about that to somebody else.

You understand what they're what they're dealing with.

It's like a, it's like a, an old veteran that's gone through 100

battles and some new guy gets out in there and first time

bullets start flying, real bullets start flying around

them. He starts shaking like a leaf

and he forgets everything that he knows.

And some old veteran that's never been out in a, in a real

battle might think what in the world's wrong with you?

Get out there and fight. No but a but a, but a veteran

who's been there, who's been in the battle, who has heard those

bullets whiz over his head, can go to that guy and say, hey, I

know exactly what you're going through.

I was there before too. I made it through it and you can

make it through it too. That's you know that there is

nothing like sympathy, which is created by our own experience.

There's nothing like coming alongside A fellow Christian and

saying, I've been there too. I know what that feels like.

Here's how God helped me gain the victory.

And by the way, we are not to be afraid to come to each other for

help. Oh, so many people, so many

people struggle with these things in silence because

they're too proud to admit that they have a problem, too proud

to admit that they need to work on something.

And I'll tell you what, one of the big things and, and we had

AI had a conversation about this in Australia with Dan Western,

pastor Dan, he's one of the, the assistant pastors and they're

actively dealing with a lot of these things, proactively

dealing with a lot of these things in their church.

Pornography is a huge issue that people deal with.

It's a huge thing that people face.

And so many times people get, get wrapped up in these things

and they, they think that, well, if I, if I say something to

somebody else about it, they're going to think way worse of me.

That's just pride. They're going to think worse of

me. That's pride.

So you would rather sit there and I'm not even saying suffer

in silence because it's not suffering when you're living in

sin, the only suffering that comes as a result of your sin.

But you're going to sit there and, and try to go through these

things in silence because you don't want somebody else to know

what you're suffering or what you're struggling with.

And you'll allow that to hinder your prayer life.

You'll allow that to hinder your marriage.

You'll allow that to hinder your relationship with your kids.

You'll, you'll allow it to hinder your effectiveness for

Christ in ministries and in the church, All because you're too

prideful and too proud to say that I've got a problem that I

need help with. And I'm not saying that we ought

to stand up in church and tell everybody, hey, I've got a

problem with this or I've got a problem with that, or I've got a

problem with this thing. I'm not saying that it ought to

be that way, but you ought not to be too prideful to come and

ask for help to get victory over those things.

There's probably other people who have gone through the exact

same thing that you've gone through, and God gave them

victory over those things, and you can have the victory too.

Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another

that you may be healed. That's the prerequisite.

By confessing our faults to one another and praying for one

another, we learn humility on one side, but on the other side,

that large charity that covers transgression, that hides a

multitude of sins. And let me remind you, and you

may be struggling to forgive somebody who's wronged you, but

let us remember every day what Christ is obliged, obliged to

bear for us. Oh, I just can't.

It's like you think about the the guy who had a massive,

massive debt, billion dollars in debt in today's money.

And he went to his master and he said, I can't, there's no way

that I can pay this back. They said, well, you know, I can

put you in prison and you can spend the rest of your life

paying this debt off, but I'm going to forgive you.

And he went to the guy who owned owed him thousands and he

grabbed him by the collar and he said, you pay me what you owe

me. And when that master, when that

king got word of what this man did, he said that debt is back

on your head. Everything that you owe me,

you're going to pay back. I forgave you a great debt, and

you won't forgive somebody that little debt that they owed you.

Oh, you think about how foolish it is when we harbor bitterness

in our hearts against somebody else.

Well, you don't understand what he did to me.

You don't understand how they treated me.

And here again, we're back at pride.

You don't understand how it made me feel.

Hey, how do you think it makes Christ feel when you sin against

Him every single day? How do you think the heart of

God feels when you sin against this Son that He sent to die on

the cross for you, and yet yet He's willing to forgive you

every single time you come to Him?

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us

our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

He'll do that for you, but you won't do that for somebody else.

How do you think that you're going to have a prayer life

that's effectual with God if you're harboring those things in

in your heart against somebody else?

We'll never be for God in prayer what He wants and needs us to be

until we possess that humility that's necessary to confess our

sins before Him, and if need be, to the others that we've

wronged. Can I also adhere?

It almost goes without saying that you cannot have an availing

prayer life if you're not a Christian.

If you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior, you cannot have

a prayer life with Him. If you're not born again, if

you're not a child of God, then your sins have never been

forgiven. And that iniquity that you have

in your heart keeps God from being able to hear your voice.

He's waiting for the cry of a sinful soul who's crying out for

a Savior, reaching out for mercy.

Then and only then can your voice reach the ears of God.

And so we see the prerequisite of an availing prayer life.

But I want you to see this number 2, the Passion of an

availing prayer life, James chapter 5 and verse #16 it says

James 5 · chapter mention

the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

That's the passion. An availing prayer life is much

more than a cold or a casual approach to the throne of grace.

Availing prayer is fervent and effectual.

You think about if you had a business idea and you had all

the, the whole plan put together and it was ready to go and you

were going to be going in front of a millionaire who had money

to invest, how do you think you'd approach it?

You come up there and you say, well, got this idea.

It's not, it's not great, but just wanting to see if maybe

you'd be willing to invest $1,000,000 in this project.

I mean, you know, if you don't, that's fine.

I mean, whatever, but just thought it'd be nice if you

could give me $1,000,000 for this thing.

You think he's going to be motivated.

Not very much, Woody, But if you come and you say I got this

great idea and listen, if you could just put only $1,000,000

into this thing, this thing would take off like crazy and

you'll make so much more money. And here's how this is going to

work. And here's how that's going to

work. And this is the whole plan that

we put together. Oh, you're going to come.

You're going to come fervent. You want that money, right?

You need it. If this thing is going to work,

you need it. And how much more should we be

approaching a throne of God? I tell you, part of the problem

is that we have such a low view of God.

We think we're just going to casually stroll in, stroll into

the throne room and sit down and prop our feet and start cracking

some peanuts and eating them and cracking jokes with God and

everything else. That that's the mindset that

most people have when it comes to approaching God's throne.

This is the God of the universe. This is the King of kings and

the Lord of Lords. This is the one who, who, who

the earth, the Bible says is his footstool.

All of heaven is at his command. The throne of God is a powerful,

powerful place. We don't approach the throne of

God carelessly. We don't approach the throne of

God recklessly. And by the way, when you're

approaching it with sin that you know you have in your life, you

are approaching the throne of God recklessly and carelessly.

You know that God cannot hear you if you've got sin in your

life. You know that God cannot answer

your prayers if you have sin in your life.

And yet you're going to, you're going to just take the mercy of

God as if it's nothing and come before the throne of grace with

sin in your life and ask God to do something great for you.

You know why you don't really approach the throne of God with

any kind of fervency? Because you know, He's not even

listening. It's like, it's like some little

guy standing off in the corner that nobody even knows he's

there and he's talking to the king on the throne.

King doesn't even know he's there.

That's exactly the way that it is when we approach the throne

of God with sin in our lives. And I don't mean to go back to

that point and keep hammering on that, But if we're going to have

a fervent prayer life, it's a passionate prayer life and we've

got to approach the throne of God in the way that He wants us

to approach His throne. If we're going to be fervent in

our prayers, it's going to take more than just callous

repetition. It's going to take more than

just half hearted words to get to the ear of the Almighty God

and move the hand of God. Why pray if that's not why we're

going before His throne? The Greek word for effectual

refers to that which has power. What is the point of praying

without power? What is the well, it's it's not

enough to just say a prayer. We must pray in power.

The prayer itself must be fervent prayer.

It must be a pouring out of the heart to God, must be prayed

from a heart of absolute faith that God can do whatever it is

that the child is bringing before him.

We have an example of that in verse #17 there in James chapter

James 5 · chapter mention

5, Elijah, as the Bible says in this verse, Elias, same man, Old

Testament translation versus the New Testament translation.

But he prayed earnestly. The Bible says that it would not

rain. Verse #17 Elias was a man

subject to like passions as we are.

And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain.

And it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and

six months. And he prayed again, and the

heaven gave rain and the earth brought her fruit.

When we're, when we're telling that story or when we're talking

about that story, many times we skip right over that part,

right? He came before God.

He prayed. He asked God to shut the heavens

up, and God shut up the heavens. And then he prayed again later

and God opened the heavens back up 3 1/2 years, right?

No rain. Look what the Bible says about

Elijah. How did he pray that it might

not rain earnestly? He prayed earnestly that it

might not rain. He knew who he was talking to.

He knew that this was a powerful God.

And I don't know if if Elijah had just said God make it stop

raining, I don't know if God would have answered that or not.

I don't know, but the Bible says that he prayed earnestly that it

might not rain. He knew that God had the power

to do it. He knew that he was on God's

side. He knew that they were going

against God, and that God very easily could stop up the heavens

from raining if he wanted it to. And yet the Bible says he prayed

earnestly that it might not rain.

That's a man with a fervent prayer life.

God heard him in his pleading against an idolatrous,

persecuting country. So it rained not, the Bible

says, for the space of three years and six months.

And again he prayed, and the heavens brought their reign.

God never says to any of His children, Seek my face in vain.

Now we see the commands and the promises in prayer over and over

and over in the Bible. And if Elijah by prayer could do

such great and wonderful things, surely the prayer of no

righteous man shall return void. The words effectual and fervent

give the idea of energetic supplication. 1 commentator said

such a prayer as is suggested to the soul and wrought in it by a

divine energy. When God designs to do some

particular work in His church, He pours out on His followers

the spirit of grace and supplication, and He often does

it when he's about to do something special for His

church. When a church gathers in an

attitude and in the mindset of prayer, and earnest, fervent

prayer at that, I believe God's about to do big things.

The spirit of prayer is proof that the power of God is

present. A church that is not a praying

church does not have God's power.

A life that is not a praying life does not have God's power.

Isn't that exactly what we need in our church right now?

Isn't that exactly what we need in our nation right now?

We could continue, but we must develop a passion in our prayer

life if we are going to gain the attention of heaven with our

prayers. I want you to see this number

three. We talked about the

prerequisite, the passion #3 the person of an availing prayer

life. Verse 16 of James, chapter 5,

James 5 · chapter mention

the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man.

We touched on this already in the first point, but it must be

the prayer of a righteous man. It's the saved, separated sin,

avoiding Christians that get a hold of God.

Those are the ones that are going to witness the wonderful

results from their time on their knees.

The person of an availing prayer life is a righteous man.

All you sit here and think, I, I want to be a person of prayer

and I don't know how you can sit and listen to a message on

prayer and not think I want to get a hold of God.

I want to have that power in prayer.

I'll tell you how it's going to happen.

It only happens to righteous people so often you see people

sending their thoughts and prayers.

All right, something happens and somebody posted on Facebook and

sending thoughts and prayers or, or we do this a lot and I'm

praying for you. I'll be praying for you, right?

And I do believe that most people mean well, but those are

the same people that in the same Internet session will view

things that they shouldn't be looking at as they're talking

about their thoughts and prayers or as they're talking about, I'm

praying for you. Sitting there scrolling through

and looking at things that they shouldn't be looking at online.

They their view gossip about other people and they'll unleash

their anger and their, you know, and voice their opinion and

they'll watch movies filled with things that are not pleasing to

God. But they're more than happy to

tell you that they're praying for you.

No, thank you. I'd rather just not have you

praying for me at all than to have it be from some unrighteous

lips that are trying to approach the throne of God.

They mean well, but it's that prayer that's not coming from

the lips of a righteous man. It's not making it any higher

than the sound waves bouncing off the ceiling.

And sadly, I think that's the way that most people's prayers

are. Most people, most people do not

know how to get ahold of God. Most people, most Christians

have never seen a direct answer to prayer.

When's the last time that you prayed something specific and

God answered your prayer? When's the last time, can you

remember the last time that God answered a prayer of yours?

Because if you can't, then you don't have an effectual prayer

life. Oh, I prayed that, that all the

lights would be green. And what do you know, all the

lights were green down the down the down the road.

Now, if you're, if you're right with God and you're praying for

that and you need it, God can give you that, But don't blame

God because some engineer got it right.

And you made it down Broad Street with all the green

lights, right? That's what the Hindus do,

right? I talked to Brother Nitin and

when we were over there in India and there's there's thousands of

gods in India. How do you pick which God is the

one for you? Well, they, they pick a God.

They prayed to him. And once, you know, I got

blessed by this God, he answered my prayers.

So that's the God that I'm going to go with.

And they have a little statue of him sitting on the dashboard of

their car and they have a thing set up in their house where they

put food and all these other things out there for him.

That's how they pick their God. That's the God that answered

their prayers. Oh, the effectual fervent prayer

of a righteous man is the only one that's availing much.

Not only is the prayer of an unrighteous man not powerful

before God, but as we already talked about, God can't even

hear it regarding iniquity in your hearts.

The Lord will not hear you. What are you hiding that you

think is unknown to anyone? But you see those those things

are not hidden from the eyes of him that walks to and fro on the

earth. The Bible says those sins scream

out before an almighty God. Unclean, unclean.

And you come before God as an unrighteous man.

Don't expect that you're going to have a prayer life that's

going to get a hold of God. Don't expect that God's going to

answer your prayers. And oh, the sadness of the

futility of a man who pretends to be righteous and to others

may seem to be so, but who has no power with God because of

hidden sin. But oh, the effectual fervent

prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Whether he's praying for himself or for others, his prayer is

effective. Again we see the example of

Elijah. Elias, the Bible says in verse

17, was a man subject to like passions as we are?

And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained

not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.

And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth

brought forth her fruit. The man who prays must be a

righteous man, not perfect. Elijah was not perfect, he was

made to be an example for us, right?

A man subject to like passions as we are.

But the power of prayer is proved from the success of

Elijah. Elijah was a righteous man.

You want to know what sets people apart?

How can how can you see answers to prayer like that?

How can God do great things for you?

You're a righteous man, bringing those petitions to God.

What an encouragement to us. Even in common cases, if we

consider that a, that Elijah was a man of like passions.

He had a zealous, he was a zealous, good man, very great

man, but he had his infirmities and was subject to the passions

the same way that we are. Oh, Elijah was not on some whole

plane by himself where he wasn't tempted by the same things.

Even Christ was tempted with the same things that we're tempted

by. Elijah was tempted by the same

things that we're tempted by. The success of the prayer does

not depend on talent and depend on learning.

It doesn't depend on rank or wealth of the man who prays, but

the fact that he's a righteous man that puts us all in the same

playing field before God. You know, I think there's

probably people in churches all across the country who know how

to get ahold of God way better than their pastor does because

it doesn't, it doesn't matter who's the one standing behind

the pulpit, doesn't mean that because I'm behind the pulpit, I

can get a hold of God and you can't.

You know, everybody has that option.

Everybody has that opportunity, but it's the effectual fervent

prayer of a righteous man that availeth much.

I want to show you this. Lastly, not only do we see the

prerequisite, the passion and the person of an availing prayer

life, but lastly, I want you to see the promise of an availing

prayer life. The Bible says the effectual

fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Availeth much that prayer avails much.

It's a great advantage to us and may be very beneficial to our

friends. And we are assured of its being

acceptable to God. Availeth much means it's strong,

means it has efficacy. It prevails.

The idea of the word availeth much is strength that overcomes

resistance and secures the object.

That's the kind of results that I want in prayer.

If I'm going to take the time to pray, I want it to be worth it.

If I'm going to take the time to pray, I want to have the power

in prayer. If I'm going to take the time to

stop and pray for somebody because God brings them to my

mind, I want to be able to get a hold of God.

I want him to hear me. I want to be fervent and I want

to be effectual in those prayers, and I want it to avail

much God. We need a building availeth

much. God, please save this person and

it availeth much God, please. This is an answer to prayer that

I've got to see availeth much God.

We need revival, A veiling prayer.

It's been said that prayer moves the arm that moves the world.

Oh, God's God has the ability to do it, and certainly faith is a

part of that. Believing that God can do it is

a part of it. But prayer, How true.

If there's anything that can prevail with God, it's prayer.

Humble, fervent, earnest petitioning.

We ought to become people of prayer.

You ought to do a study on prayer.

Figure out what prayer is all about.

There's so much more to prayer than just God.

Thank you for this day. Give me this.

Give me that. Give us a good day.

Amen. That's that's, that's the depth

of most people's prayers. And prayer ought to have praise.

Prayer ought to have Thanksgiving.

Prayer ought to have supplication.

There's so much to prayer that we ought to, that we ought to be

doing if we're going to get a hold of God.

We have no power to control him. We cannot dictate to him.

We can't resist him in the execution of his will, but we

can ask him for what we desire. Boy, I'm reading through the the

first five books of the Bible right now and you see the the

availing power that Moses had with God.

How many times God said I'm done with these people, I'm done with

them, can't handle the complaining.

I can't handle their, their, their bicker and I can't handle

the fact that they, they don't even acknowledge me as God.

I'm done Moses, I'm I'm destroying them.

I'm going to start over with you and Moses went to God and said,

God, please don't do that. Think about what it would do to

your name in Egypt. Think about, think about how it

would have an effect on all the people who are afraid of us

getting ready to go into the land.

They're not going to be afraid of you anymore.

They, they, they've all heard about what you did in Egypt.

And if you kill all your people here right now, then not only is

Egypt going to not fear your name, but all the people that

are in the land that you promised to us aren't going to

fear your name either. And God said, all right, Moses,

all right, all right, I'll give you what you're asking for.

I won't destroy him, but I'm going to kill some of them.

But the power that Moses had in prayer, don't you want that kind

of power with God? Don't you want to be able to

say, hang on, God, please, I can't tell you what to do.

You're the God of the universe. And I'm, I'm just, I'm, I'm a

nobody. But God, please, this is

something that we really need. This is something that I'd

really like to see you do. God says OK, but only because

you're asking me, wouldn't you like to have power like that

with God? It availeth much, but it has to

be fervent. It has to be effectual and from

a righteous man. And God says it will avail much.

What a promise. What a promise.

The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Nothing has been more clearly demonstrated in the history of

the world then that the prayer, that prayer is effectual in

obtaining blessings from God. It's effectual in accomplishing

great and valuable things. There is no intrinsic power in

the words. Power comes from God.

DL Moody spoke with a man who had a mother who practiced

prevailing prayer. This is what DL Moody said in a

message that he preached one time.

He said I remember being in the camp and a man came to me and

said, Mr. Moody, when the Mexican War began I wanted to

enlist. My mother, seeing I was

resolved, said if I became a Christian I could go.

She pleaded and prayed that I might become a Christian, but I

wouldn't. I said when the war was over I'd

become a Christian, but not till then.

All her pleading was in vain. And at last when I was going

away, she took out a watch and she said, my son, your father

left this to me when he died, Take it.

And I want you to remember that every day at 12 O clock, your

mother will be praying for you. And she gave me her Bible and

marked out passages and put a few different references in the

flyleaf. I took the watch in the Bible

just because my mother gave them to me.

Never intended to read the Bible.

I went off to Mexico and one day, while in a long weary

March, I took out my watch and it was 12:00.

I've been gone for four months, but I remembered that my mother

at that hour was praying for me. Something prompted me to ask the

officer to relieve me for a little while, and I stepped

behind a tree away out of those out on those plains in Mexico

and cried to the God of my mother to save me.

Deal, Moody said. My friends, God saved him and he

went through the Mexican War and now he's enlisted again to see

if he could do any good for his master's cause.

We've only scratched the surface this morning.

We have so much to pray for. I believe that God has great

things in store for this church. I believe that God has great

things in store for this country, but it's only going to

happen as we confess our sins to Him and as we become holy and

righteous. Men and women who have learned

the power of effectual fervent prayer, How was your prayer life

this morning? Is it non existent?

Is it non effectual? Perhaps you've never laid your

burden of sin down at the foot of the cross and felt what it's

like to have all of your sins forgiven and to know Jesus

Christ as your Savior. But perhaps for those who are

saved, that's what you need to do.

Again, you want to be effectual in your prayer.

You're not going to do it unless you are righteous man.

You want God to hear you. You're not going to do it with

sin in your life. Take the burden of all that sin

and go do what you did when you met Christ the first time.

Lay that sin down at the foot of the cross and look up and see

the eyes of the one that died for you.

See the eyes of the one that has the ability to answer any

request that you bring before Him.

See the eyes of the one that can help you become a person and a

man, a woman of prayer, and ask Him to help you because there's

a prerequisite. You're never going to get a hold

of God unless you're clean before Him.

There's a passion that comes with true prayer, fervent

prayer. There's a person that can bring

that to pass, and that's the righteous man.

And there's a promise. It avails much.

Maybe it's because you have a life that's full of sin that

needs to be made clean by the blood of Christ.

Perhaps you've allowed prayer to just become something that you

do because you know you should. The effectual, fervent prayer of

a righteous man availeth much. How's your prayer life this

morning? Is it accomplishing anything, or

is it just there? Or is it not there at all?

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you so

much for your goodness to us. Thank you for such a wonderful

promise. A promise that I think if we

were to know all the statistics from all of history is probably

the most underused promise in all of the Bible, but one that

carries so much potential with it for those who will get

serious about this matter of prayer.

And even if the message was just for one person, may it help that

one person to become powerful in prayer.

You helped me to be powerful in prayer.

May help our church to be powerful in prayer.

We thank you for all that you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.

If you stand at your seat through the heads bowed and your

eyes closed this morning, I'm going to give you an opportunity

to respond to the message. So as the piano plays, if God

spoke to your heart, you come.