Honestly, feel like a. Little league baseball player in the midst of the major leagues. Having the privilege to to open the word to you, but the Lord has been so good to us, maybe he'll maybe he'll be good to us for the next hour or two. What a subject and what a. What a lesson he's he's been giving us and. We couldn't think of a more important matter. And this is all the work of the Holy Spirit. This is not something that we dreamed up. This has been the work of the Holy Spirit in us for a while and has continued to just increase and drawing us and working in us, moving us. He has his work to accomplish through us. And as as he's been drawing us, it's just been precious to get to know him More and more. It's been. Precious to see answers to prayer. And we believe that we've only begun to scratch the surface. Honestly, believe that. So we're talking about prayer and intimacy with God during this meeting and. Well, there's no other way to be intimate with God. And it all comes back as I was studying, you know, it all comes back to the word and prayer. It does. And then we're drawn just to know the Lord through through reading and studying his word and prayer. So as I thought about that, I was drawn to James chapter five. And some of this brother Nathan did a wonderful job already. And others have had said things. But I. I feel like we ought to understand a few things that. I believe that I'm getting a grasp on and I want to try to help you this morning, it's honestly, it's my heart's desire, I love I love the flock here, and I am torn that the Lord seems to be moving us on to plant a church. I love the brothers there. He's given us a burden for the city, and we have a heart for prayer, that the ground of everything that he's doing is prayer. I told the brothers there when they asked me to be one of the elders, I said, I'll do it if you're a man of prayer. If not, then there's no sense in us going on. I mean, planting churches, anybody can do that. I mean, men, we're a genius. We've got all kinds of plans. We can get together and market and advertise. Nowadays, they don't just go somewhere and plant a church. They strategize, and I've learned Well, I've learned we've learned a few things about from different people about church playing, but I do know one thing. The work of God is done primarily through prayer. As we gathered for the vision meeting and I saw the 50 something people that had gathered to hear the burden and to determine whether the Lord would have them join with us, my first thought, and then I told them, I said, you know, right here, you you people right here, if you would just you would dedicate yourself. To prayer, if you would pray for these three men. God could turn this city upside down through the prayers of the saints. I know that's true about Rockport. If the people of God would dedicate themselves and commit themselves to prayer. No telling what God might do. He would certainly do a great work in our lives. James says, In verse number 16, therefore, confess your sins one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed. And then, although I'm using the ESV, I really like the King James version here. It says the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elijah was a man of like passions, As we are and he prayed fervently that it might not rain and for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth. So our father, we we do ask you to teach us to pray as we've talked about during this entire meeting, Lord, we're. We're needy people, Lord. We need you to teach us to pray, to draw us, to pray, to strengthen us, in our prayer, to comfort us in our prayer, to give us the confidence that our brother preached about. We need you, Lord, and we ask you during these next few moments that you might give us some insight through your word. You might enlighten our eyes and cause us to see with the eye of faith that you have called us through the life of the Lord Jesus Through the exhortations of the Scripture, we're told of the availability and the potentiality, the possibilities, the wherewithal of prayer. You bid us to pray. You help us to pray with groanings that cannot be uttered. You intercede for us as we pray. Lord, teach us to pray in Jesus name. Amen. Well, as we think about praying. I I want to talk first about the ground of our praying. And that is Jesus Christ. It says that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. I thought about that for a long time on any number of occasions and and I believe I finally come down to understand that this has to do with the new covenant. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man simply means those whom God has redeemed. That's you and I. So right there we qualify. Now, I understand that that we can't be in open sin and rebellion, of course, who would want to? But also understand that the Scripture is not talking here about someone who is absolutely righteous in and of himself. Later on, he goes to say that Elijah was a man of like passions as we are. In other words, he's saying that he was a mere man. He was he was a mortal. He was a natural man. He went through the same inclinations as we are. He had like passions. He has similar affections. It's not saying that he was a sinful man with a disposition to yield to the flesh, but that he had the temptations, he had the infirmities as we do. When Paul and Barnabas went to Lystra and they healed the cripple man and everyone began to Call them by names of the Greek gods and to worship them, they held them off. They said, wait a minute, we're we're mere men that we're just we're just like you. But look what God did through them. So a righteous person is one who is in Christ. Second Corinthians teaches us that God has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God. And so, Church, God has made us righteous, he has qualified us. Colossians says he's made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in life. In other words, in Christ, we're qualified. That's why Paul could say, come boldly then to the throne of grace. That's in Hebrews chapter 4. Let me just read that. A number of these passages have been referred to and read already, but they're so precious. Hebrews 4, verse 14 says, Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but who in every respect has been tempted, as we are, yet without sin. Let us, therefore, with confidence or come boldly, draw near to the throne of grace that we might receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need. So here is the strong encouragement to hold fast He's our high priest has been said already. He's our he's our advocate. He's our guarantor of a better covenant. Hebrews chapter seven and verse twenty two. Jesus is the guarantor. Of a better covenant, he is our surety, if you will. In verse 25 of that same chapter, it says, Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. You see, what I'm trying to say here is when the Scripture says that it is the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man, we are already qualified in Christ. We don't have to work our way up somehow by a performance to pray. We don't have to do that. We can come now. He bids us to come now. We have such a great high priest. Hebrews chapter 8 there says, now the point of what we are saying is this. We have such a high priest. one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man." How wonderful is that? You see, we are qualified in Him. He has given us His righteousness. He's interceding on our behalf. He's seated at the right hand of the Father. Chapter nine, verse eleven, when Christ and I know these have been said already, but we've we've we've got to get a grip on this. We've got to get a grip that we have access to the father because of Jesus. Our our ability to pray is not because of our performance is because of a person. The Lord Jesus Christ has made us righteous. Have we believe that? Do you understand that? Do we understand that he's made us holy? He's clothed us in his righteousness. In chapter 9 of Hebrews, verse 11, it says, When Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and of calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. Look at verse 24. We'll just go on through this. Hebrews chapter nine, verse 24, for Christ has entered not into the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. He is there appearing before God the Father for you and me. Isn't that amazing that he ever lives, that he is continually interceding, that he is in heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God? Look at verse 28. So Christ Having been once offered to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him. He was once offered. He bore our sins. We've been forgiven. We've been cleansed. We've been justified. We've been sanctified. Hebrews chapter 10, and by that will, in verse 10, by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ Once for all. Isn't that what it says? Verse number 12. When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until His enemies should be made a footstool for His feet, because for a single offering, He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. That's you and me. He's made us righteous in himself. He has qualified us. We can pray. So when he's talking about the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man, that's not a special someone who really has it all together. It's a child of God that God has rescued. I remember the first time that I prayed. We are taught of God, the Bible says. And I don't talk, I've shared my testimony here. I don't talk a lot about this part of my testimony, but it's who I was. And I don't brag about it, but it's an example of how God can cause anyone to pray. I didn't know anything about free. I was lost. We all were dead to God, knew nothing about God. And I remember a little place in California in a little apartment. At a man's house where we used to buy drugs, sitting in the corner, I can see myself sitting on the floor with a with a with a sock tied around my arm and a needle in my arm. and God beginning to convict me, telling me that that was not who I am. It never dawned on me before. He said, that's not who you are. It wasn't but a few days because of a church in Festus, Missouri, Second Baptist Church, who had sent some people by to talk to my mother and my sister, had given them the gospel and they had gotten saved. And that church was praying for the rest of the family. I was out in California, sitting in the corner of an apartment with a needle in my arm, and the Holy Spirit of God got a hold of me and began to work on me for two weeks and made my life miserable. I remember that corner and that first nudge and sitting in the chair, I remember when the Spirit of God said, come here. And as I sat there, I didn't get up immediately, but it was as the Spirit of God said, come here now. The Bible says He commands all men everywhere to repent. And He commanded me and brought me forth. And I went home as fast as I could and asked God to keep me alive. When I got home, I began to pray. I prayed for hours. I knew how to pray. It was another language, if you will. It was still in English. But I knew how to talk to God and I talked to God for the longest time and poured out my heart and confessed all these sins. And I was just different. He's able to save to the uttermost means to me that he has me completely covered. He's made me completely righteous. Why would I not cry out to him in prayer if I'm qualified to pray? If you think that you're qualified because you've worked it up religiously, then you've misunderstood the gospel. You don't have to go to church and read your Bible and pray and do all these things to think that you can be successful in prayer. Right now, you can say, God has qualified me in Christ. He's made me righteous in Christ so I can begin praying right now. So the ground of our praying is Jesus Christ. He is the basis of our relationship with God. That's it. Nothing of what we do is the basis of our relationship. Things that you do might be the basis of your religion, but they're not the basis of our relationship with God. That's a person, Jesus Christ. So he's the ground of our praying. And now the motivations and expectations for our praying, seeing we have such a great high priest, My thought here is if if if he's made us righteous, why would he not? Why would we not pray seeing his great love for us, seeing his work on our behalf? Why would we not pray an effectually fervent prayer? And what that what that means, like has already been covered, I'm not going to go into all this has been covered adequately is that prayers work. Elijah prayed effectually, or he prayed fervently. Literally, it means there that in prayer he prayed. You see, you can say prayers and not really be praying. You understand what the text is saying there? He was a man of like passions as we are, yet in prayer he really prayed. He prayed effectually. And so, if you will, there was an inwrought desire and exertion in pouring out his heart before God, which then the Scripture says, avails much. So I just want to caution you that don't let your praying be simply saying a prayer which is totally different from praying a prayer. You may be saying something, but not praying at all. You might be praying to God, but not really praying. Somebody mentioned yesterday and even earlier today, I think, desperation. A man will pray when he gets desperate. I was at the gas station the other day, and I was getting gas, and I looked to see this man walking over to the fellow that was standing beside me. And directly, I realized that he was asking for money for gas. He looked like a fairly decent fellow, and I didn't have any money to give him. But I looked, and he went around to different people, and I thought, You know, that man must be desperate. Most people, we wouldn't normally do that. Most people won't walk into a gas station and start asking people. But this man, as I overheard him, he had something going on, if it was a true story, and he had to get there. And he was willing to humble himself and just go around and ask everybody he had to get enough gas to get home. He was desperate. And basically, we don't pray because we don't feel a need for God. We are deceived, brethren. You are broke down, out of gas, with no money, sitting on the side of the road in the city of North St. Louis, and in your mind all you can see is sunshine. You don't have a need to ask, so you don't ask. Our motivation is that we need Christ. We need God. We need more of God. I was thinking about this passage in Psalm 46, just a beautiful chapter that begins out, God is our refuge, our strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at the swelling, there is a river. Who strains me? This psalm is full of hope, and then it talks about the nations raging, the kingdoms tottering. He makes wars to cease, breaks the bow, he burns the chariots, and then in verse 10 he says, Be still and know that I am God. You have to stop working in order to work at prayer and be effective. You have to stop being so busy in life and consumed with the trivial in order to devote yourself to prayer. And, brothers, we need to be violent with ourselves. Whatever it takes, if we need to go in the home and start wrecking the things that distract us and keep us from God, then let us do it. He says, be still. Isn't that good advice? Be still and know that I am God. The reason why we have so little fear of God is that we have so much fear of man. The reason we have so much fear of man is that we know so little of God. Be still and know God is God. He said, I am God. He does whatever he pleases. He is unchangeable in his nature, in his purposes, in his promises, in his covenants. Jesus Christ is the same. He is omnipotent, he's able to help and deliver. He is omniscient, he knows who we are, he knows our situation, he knows our troubles. He's all wise, doing all things after the counsel of His own will and making all things work together for good to them that love God. He is faithful to His Word. He's faithful to His promise. He's promised never to leave us or forsake us or to let us be tempted beyond what we're able. So be still and know that He is God. I read this in Lamentations. Beautiful passage, beginning in verse 25, says in Lamentations 325, the Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for us to be still and to know that he's God and to trust that he's God, to know that he loves us, to know that he's going to come through. Listen to this. It's good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth. It's good for us to be tested and tried. That's where we get to know God. Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid upon him. Let him put his mouth in the dust. There may yet be hope. Aaron, when God made fire to come out Consume his sons. He kept his silence. He didn't murmur. He held his peace. You see, beware of murmuring against God. You can't see everything that he can see. Now we see through a glass darkly. So the question is when it comes to prayer, when it comes, you see, people get disillusioned. Because of false gospels that are being presented. What are your? I like that book that I think is Paul Tripp came out, what did you expect? I think that's true about the Christian life. Actually, when God saved me in my mind, I thought that I had to go somewhere and I thought that I would have to put on a black robe and just be locked up some way. I thought that's what you did. You just said goodbye to the world. Well, it wasn't a black robe, but it was the black robe of death. Jesus said, except you deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me, you can't be my disciple. Misplaced expectations. What did you expect when God called you? You see, here's a prevalent problem in the church. Here's a prevalent problem in our marriages. Here's a prevalent problem in our relationship with God. Misplaced expectations and we become bitter. Time and again, I counsel young couples concerning marriage. You know, it seems like we're always trying to lower expectations. They have such a dream of how things are going to be, and they have such expectations, and then they feel defrauded once they're married. And often, we live our Christian life like that. We believe that it's going to be so beautiful because of the false gospel that's being preached, and it's going to be so wonderful. Jesus didn't teach like that. He said, he said, I send you a sheep in the midst of wolves. Blessed are you if you have persecuted for righteousness sake. He was pretty clear, really, he said, take up your cross and die. And the Beatitudes, he taught us that we shouldn't expect much, much of the world are our motivation is to draw near to God. James Chapter four teaches us draw near to God and he will draw near to us. So basically, we're talking about a process. When I say that our motivation is the Lord Jesus and our expectation should just be to expect a life of discipline, of discipleship, of reading and studying the word of God and getting to know Jesus. There is a consistency in seeking him through prayer and Bible study that's required. Christianity is not McDonald's. It's not a quick trip. Listen, if you're expecting from this camp meeting to be zapped into intimacy somehow and for it to just kind of magically occur in your life, it's not going to happen that way. It's not. You can go to all the conferences in the world you want, but unless you dedicate yourself to a life of Bible study and prayer, reading the word of God and getting alone with God for hours on end, you'll never know intimacy with God. You'll never know it. It's a lie. Don't be faked into a disillusionment that there's some experience out there that all of a sudden just just kind of magically puts you into a condition of intimacy with God. People are dying spiritually because they're waiting around on an experience. We find fulfillment and satisfaction. In this process. Effective, effective prayers are the process of a righteous person. Draw near to God, draw near to God, draw near to God. You're expecting the fullness of who God is down here. Well, he can fill us. But I mean, isn't this we're just we're just passing through this. This is not it. It's there's something more glorious. We're going to heaven. We're going to spend eternity in paradise with Jesus. Right now, we got to work to do. When we speak about prayer and intimacy, we're talking a lot about faithfulness. There's no one who knows Jesus intimately who is not faithful in prayer. Make all the excuses that you want. Intimacy begins with being in all of God. You are not going to be in all of God unless you are digesting this word daily and spending time on your face before God, letting the Holy Spirit speak to you and impress you with his majesty. It's about a relationship. Not getting something from him. Now, we prayed that God would move in our hearts in this camp meeting, not just so that we could have an experience, but that the truth would so affect us that we would truly begin to pray and be a people of prayer. That's our heart's desire, is that we're a people of prayer. I want my children to love me for me. not for what I could do for them. And I'll tell you, Saints. I don't know if this is theologically correct or not. But I know the joy that I experience in my prayer closet alone with God. I mean, that until heaven, I don't know how it can't get any better than that. That's. Just knowing him. and being able to talk to God, that's always amazed me, that we can talk to God. That He's promised, I hear your prayers. We've heard that over and over. I hear our prayers. So if our expectations are lowered concerning this world and raised concerning God because it says the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much, our expectations are not in this world. They're there in getting to know and know him. So lastly, what is the fruit of praying? It says the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Then it uses the example of Elijah. He's telling us that there's great power in prayer. And so I was drawn to apply this in a practical way. If this is true, then he is he is qualified us to pray and then he's bid us to pray. And there's great power in prayer. And we've seen God answer prayer. And yes, you you like Nathan said, it was so beautiful. He got to the point that we're talking about an agonizing in prayer. Brethren, there's nothing wrong. with pouring out our hearts and agonizing before God. I know it's become old-fashioned. I know it doesn't seem orthodox, but we are called to pour out our hearts before God. If it's true, and I believe that it is, why would we not pray for our children? If I could begin it all over again, I would pray for my children. I would pray for them like I've never prayed before. God has brought me to that place. But during my entire ministry, as God saved me and brought me into the ministry, I was consumed with working a job. I was consumed with ministry and all that is involved in pastoring and being bivocational. And my children were not bathed in prayer. My wife and I struggled just to feed ourselves spiritually. But our children lingered out there, not being held up by the prayers of their parents. Thomas Brooks said, A family without prayer is like a house without a roof, opened and exposed to the storms. Oh, parents, in the name of God, Look after your own souls in prayer so that you might be able to intercede for your children. How can those who never do anything for their own souls do anything for their children? Are you content for them to go out into the world and take to the streets and prostitute themselves to those who clamor for their attention and affection out in the world? They are on the way there. The Bible says they are children of hell. They are children of wrath. And nowadays we take care of our pets better than we take care of our children. We don't avail ourselves of the great power of prayer for our children. What kind of a heart is that? What kind of a heart? Do you have that you can endure that your children should be cast away from God into eternity, suffering under the torments of sin and demons forever, separated in utter darkness throughout the endless ages of eternity, when you've got the power of prayer to snatch them from the hand of the devil and sin and see them gloriously saved? You have that power of prayer. We should not call ourselves parents if we're not parenting by nurturing our children in the Word of God and holding them up in daily prayer. Zipporah called Moses a bloody husband. Surely we're bloody parents if we allow our children, our children, to experience the neglected prayer of hard-hearted parents. The angels themselves are astonished at the hardness of our hardened hearts that we have so trivialized Christianity as to not pray daily for our children. Parents, pour yourself out in daily prayer. The Bible says in Job that Job offered for his children, each one of them by name. And then it says, and this he did so continually. Continually. I beg you, I beg you to not let a day go by when you're not on your face crying out for God, that God would save your children. That God would open their blinded eyes. You might say, some more convenient day I'll pray for my children. Would you leave your baby in a pit of rattlesnakes? You're deserting your protection for them if you're not praying for them. It's not enough to merely mention the name of your child once in a great while. We're called to a life of self-denial. to devote a good part of our time to intercession for our children. Church, there's nothing more powerful. Nothing. We can put them in Christian schools and send them to church and have devotions, read the Bible. We can do all these things. But my friends, if we're not praying fervent, effectual prayers for our children, they're in danger of dying and going to hell. Will our children be in hell and be able to say that my mother and my father did not pray me into the kingdom? We ought to fast and pray like David. It might be that your child will not see without fasting and prayer. It might be that type of a stronghold in your child. Jesus said to the disciples, some you can't cast out like that. There came a time when Faith and I realized we had not prayed for our children. And I'm not bragging on our prayer life at all. I'm saying it was God that brought us to a place of desperation. We saw what was happening in the lives of our children. And God caused us to fast and pray. And God gloriously saved my son just a few years ago. Both my sons are in the gospel ministry to the glory of God. He saved my daughter. I mean, God answers the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man. Fast and pray. Wrestle with God. Receive no denial. Tell God, I will not let thee go until thou bless me and save my children. We pour out our hearts for your children all the time. As the elders, we cry out in our elders before our children, God, please save our children, every last one of them. Don't let us lose one to the devil. Don't let us see. Don't let them see. Don't let us see them wander out into the world and live, live sin scarred and sin stained life to come crawling back from the wickedness of the world, only that we might have realized we never held them up in prayer. We neglected to pray for them. Set them down on your lap as little children and let them hear you pour your heart out to God in prayer, saying, God, save my baby. Let them hear the agony of a parent who realized that his child is on the precipice of hell. Unless God intervenes and opens his eyes, they'll be lost forever. There'll be no hope. Do we have a zeal? We have the ability. Is their salvation not worth it? Are we satisfied just to merely mention their name? This is not just for the fathers. The Bible says that a virtuous woman looks well to all the ways of her household. Parents, I tried in my heart. I said, Lord, I don't want to give a condemning word. This is not to condemn you, but I'm saying that we have the privilege to avail and we have the promise of God. It will be effectual. God will hear our prayers. But it's clear that it's more than just mentioning their names once in a while. If somehow I could formulate the words in love and say somehow, friends, We should be ashamed. Our children are going to hell, and we think it's going to magically happen. We're so calloused and cold-hearted and indifferent that we're not going to pour out our lives. Why would we not be a people of prayer? Many could be swept into the kingdom if this entire church would rise up as a people of prayer. Many could be swept into the kingdom. All of our children could be gloriously saved. We could all die happy because God has intervened and answered our prayers. Do you have a heart for your children? You have the ability. It says right here, the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man has great power. As it's working, it avails much. Why will we not start in our homes? That's where most of the people are saved. God uses praying parents to redeem the children and for them to have a godly heritage. But Satan is out to destroy your family, to wreck your marriage, to drag your children screaming off into hell. I'm talking about the reality of it. I'm talking about the reality that faith and I almost experienced. You say, oh, it's all in the sovereign hand of God. Brethren, God has called us, the Holy Spirit is really calling us to pray.