Podcast appearances and mentions of John Hyde

In this episode, we dive into the life and prayer habits of John Hyde, also known as "Praying Hyde," a missionary whose fervent intercession transformed lives in India and beyond. Discover how his relentless pursuit of God's presence challenges and inspires us as husbands, fathers, and leaders in our homes.

I decided animals needed an election postmortem after being erased from the political and media agenda by self-centered anthropocentrism; so I wanted to use this media platform with my friend from Oregon, Dr. Debra Merskin, to collectively grieve, vent, and discuss how we really feel this week as animal rights activists, vegans, environmentalists, social justice advocates, human animal earthlings, and feminists who were excited to have America's first women president after 200+ years! While the show is hopeful and uplifting in parts, that was not actually my aim. I just wanted to get real in explaining my despair and my fears and to share in some communal grieving and exhaustion that I know so many of you are feeling. In this 33- minute spirited discussion (it really gets going in the middle), we talk about how wild animals and domesticated animals (and all of us in a climate crisis) are likely to be negatively impacted (progress backtracked and undone) by this federal trump administration and all his (potentially unscientific and inappropriate) appointees, empowered by a conservative judiciary and legislative branch. We try to re-affirm biocentric values and discuss how we can put other animals on the political and media agenda so they are not continually ignored and forgotten, especially as we humans are largely the source of their harm, extinction, and exploitation and thus are responsible for rehabilitation; reminding us that we are all interdependent beings in a shared vulnerable biosphere (the ultimate reality apart from the post-truth mediated realities). We end with a “what to do now” variety of options on how to continue to be an activist for all marginalized communities of beings, if you even have the strength to be an activist at all anymore – local and community activism vs national or global solidarities -- collective resistance and non-compliance with authoritarian tactics and harmful policies. But maybe just for now, allow yourself to be sad and rest (and eat good vegan food). In Tune to Nature is a weekly radio show airing on Wednesdays from 6:30-7pm EST on Atlanta indie station WRFG (Radio Free Georgia) 89.3FM hosted by Carrie Freeman or Melody Paris. Please consider donating to support this 50-plus-year old independent, progressive, non-commercial Atlanta radio station at www.wrfg.org  PHOTO CREDIT: Photo by John Hyde. Female brown bear in Katmai National Park, Alaska.  Republican administrations tend to be harsher/deadlier toward omnivorous/ "predator" species like bears, even though these species are imperiled and we have decimated their populations and habitats. Vote to take care of yourself and others, including other species -- who need us to be their voice!

CMFI Annual prayer and fasting crusade - KOUME2024. The burden and our heart cry to God is the revival of the people of CMFI worldwide

In this episode of the Crazy Wisdom Podcast, Stewart Alsop welcomes John Hyde, founder of Turf, to discuss the fascinating intersection of decentralized technology and virtual worlds. John shares the origin story of Turf, a virtual world built on Urbit, and delves into his experiences as a developer navigating the unique challenges and opportunities that Urbit presents. The conversation also touches on topics such as the future of decentralized computing, the business potential of Turf, and even John's personal journey with Orthodox Christianity. For those interested in following John's work, you can find updates on Twitter at @turf_on_urbit, or join the Turf group on Urbit. Additionally, John hosts "Turf Time" every Thursday at 1 PM Pacific, where participants can engage in discussions and explore new features in Turf.Check out this GPT we trained on the conversation!Timestamps00:00 Introduction to the Crazy Wisdom Podcast00:37 What is Turf?02:19 John Hyde's Journey into Development03:37 Challenges and Frustrations with Hoon14:08 Orthodox Christianity and Mysticism19:01 Future of Urbit and Turf's Business Potential27:28 Guest Introduction and Initial Discussion27:53 Building a Marketplace in Brazil29:51 Challenges and Successes in Business31:09 User Statistics and Platform Growth33:28 The Philosophy of Social Networks35:12 The Future of Distributed Computing37:17 Generational Perspectives on Technology41:17 The Tech Scene in the Bay Area41:56 Funding and Business Costs47:30 Product Roadmap and Development48:29 Technical Aspects and Tools52:51 Closing Remarks and Contact InformationKey InsightsThe Origins of Turf: Turf is a virtual world built on Urbit, designed by John Hyde, who was inspired by the idea of creating a multiplayer game where users could program their own items. This evolved into Turf, a decentralized platform where users can create, customize, and explore virtual spaces, reflecting the ethos of the Urbit ecosystem.Urbit as a Decentralized Platform: Urbit is not just another computing platform; it represents a complete reimagining of the internet's infrastructure. John explains how Urbit aims to replace the current centralized internet model with a decentralized one, giving users more control over their data and interactions. This decentralized nature is what makes platforms like Turf possible, where users can interact and transact without relying on centralized servers.Challenges in Hoon Programming: John discusses the unique challenges of programming in Hoon, Urbit's native language. While Hoon offers powerful capabilities for building secure and efficient applications, it also presents a steep learning curve, particularly due to its unconventional syntax and limited documentation. Despite these challenges, John sees potential in Hoon for creating robust, decentralized applications.Orthodox Christianity and Modern Technology: John, who was born and raised in the Orthodox Christian faith, touches on the interesting trend of Westerners converting to Orthodox Christianity. He connects this to a broader search for truth and tradition in a fragmented, digital world, seeing parallels between the decentralized, self-sovereign nature of Urbit and the spiritual grounding provided by his faith.Building a Business on Urbit: John is optimistic about Turf's business potential, particularly through the sale of virtual items. He envisions a marketplace within Turf where users can trade items, leveraging the decentralized nature of Urbit to ensure authenticity and ownership. This business model reflects the growing interest in digital ownership and NFTs in virtual environments.The Future of Urbit: John is hopeful but cautious about the future of Urbit. He believes that while the technology has the potential to revolutionize the internet, its success depends on continued innovation, improved usability, and sustained financial support. He also emphasizes the need for more user-friendly applications like Turf to drive adoption.The Cultural Impact of Urbit: The conversation highlights how Urbit is fostering a new kind of online community, where quality interaction and thoughtful engagement are prioritized over mass adoption. John observes that while the Urbit community is still relatively small, it is growing steadily, attracting people who value the platform's decentralized principles and the opportunity to participate in building a new internet paradigm.

This week Meg is joined by John Hyde, Deputy News Editor at The Law Society Gazette. They sat down to discuss the latest developments in the Post Office Inquiry including what the next phase looks like, the impact on the victims and the SRA's involvement. They also spoke about the latest on Axiom Ince, analysing Pragnesh Modhwadia's property company being shut down, the SRA's review into consumer protection and the compensatory fund. Finally, they touched upon National Apprenticeship Week and how important apprenticeships have been for the legal industry. 

3 Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules” ….17 “Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. 18 O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. 19 O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”Daniel 9:3-5, 17-19 (ESV)2 “When you pray, say:'Our Father in heaven,Hallowed be Your name.Your kingdom come,Your will be done,On earth as it is in heaven.'”Luke 11:2 (NKJV)“What needs to shift?”We have a role to play in living in God's kingdom, doing God's will, and making earth as it is in heaven…and that happens  “when we pray” (Luke 11:2)“There are many other things Jesus did. If every one of them were written down, I suppose the whole world would not be big enough for all the books that would be written.”John 21:25 (NCV)Jesus begins his instructions on prayer by issuing an expectation for us to pray“He (Jesus) said, ‘When you pray,' which means you learn how to pray by praying…prayer is on the job training, and you grow by doing it…When it comes to prayer, I always tell people to start, and the Holy Spirit will begin to teach them as they pray.“Corey Russell“Have felt led to pray for others this winter like never before. I never before knew what it was to work all day and then pray all night before God for another. In college, or at parties at home, I used to keep such hours for myself, or pleasures, and can I not do as much for God and for souls?“John Hyde“the effect was felt throughout all India, and the breath of Heaven sweeping over the land could be traced to the kneeling figure of 'Praying Hyde”“Give me souls, or I die.“John “Praying” Hyde“True prayer is the trading of the heart with God.“Charles Spurgeon“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.”Ezekiel 36:26-27 (KJV)1)Prayer shifts our source.“I believe in the truthfulness of this instinct (when man calls out to God in moments of distress), and I believe that man prays because there is something in prayer. When the creator gives His creature the power of thirst, it is because water exists to meet that thirst. When He creates hunger, there is food to correspond to appetite. Even so, when He inclines man to pray, it is because prayer has a corresponding blessing connected with it.“Charles Spurgeon2) Prayer shifts our perspective.“Jesus allowed His disciples to watch him pray because He wanted them to watch Him engage with the Father in Heaven.”Corey Russell“When you think prayer, you think list, but I (Jesus) think person. I want to introduce you to a person, a place, and the person's name. It's our Father in heaven, by the way…”Corey Russell3) Prayer shifts our will.Intercession is the action of intervening (through prayer) on behalf of another“19 O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”Daniel 9:19 (ESV)“2 In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. 3 I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks.”Daniel 10:2-3 (ESV)4)Prayer shifts what we occupy (position of persistence)James 5:16-17 (NKJV) says “the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”“4 On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river (that is, the Tigris) 5 I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, a man clothed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. 6 His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightening, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude. 12 Then he said to me, 'Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. 13 The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the king of Persia, and 14 came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days.'”Daniel 10:4-6,12-14 (ESV)“the word prince has the idea of a ruler or authority. This fits well with the New Testament idea that angelic ranks are organized and have a hierarchy. These angelic ranks seem to include both faithful angels and fallen angels (demons). Apparently, this (prince of Persia) was a demon of high rank that opposed the answer to prayer.”David Guzik“The correlation between Daniel's time of self-denial and prayer and the duration of the battle between the angels and the prince of Persia establishes a link between Daniel's prayer and the angelic victory.”David Guzik5) Prayer shifts us to engage in spiritual warfare (As it is in heaven, or as it is in hell?)“There be hindering factors of which a praying Christian knows nothing as he wonders why the answers to his requests are delayed. Nevertheless, he is to keep on praying. It may be that he will not receive an answer because he has given up on the twentieth day when he should have persisted to the twenty-first day.”Archer“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”Ephesians 6:12 (KJV)2 Corinthians 10:4 (KJV) says “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.”“Prayer is the great exposer of reality”Corey RussellIf we want our reality to be as it is in heaven, then...

John Hyde speaking on John 13:34-35 Photo by Noorulabdeen Ahmad on Unsplash

Welcome to another episode of "The Power Of God's Whisper Podcast". Today we are unpacking a powerful statement made by Jesus in the book of Matthew 28:20. This is a verse that holds a beautiful promise - "Be sure of this: I am with you always."The Power Of God's Whisper is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.This promise of Jesus forms the cornerstone of our faith, reminding us that we are not alone and that He is always with us. It's a testament to God's constant presence in our lives, and His desire for an ongoing relationship with us. Through a deep dive into this verse, we will uncover three enlightening points to consider.Point One - Assurance of His Presence: The first point of reflection is the assurance of His presence. Jesus doesn't leave any room for doubt or interpretation - He is with us always. This promise applies to all circumstances and all seasons of life. God is not just passively observing, He is actively involved and engaged in our lives.Point Two - Constant Communication: Taking inspiration from John Hyde, the famous missionary to India, we see a profound understanding of God's continuous presence. He experienced his relationship with God as a constant conversation. This implies that we are invited not only to speak to God but also to listen, and to be in constant dialogue with Him.Point Three - Beyond the Tangible: God's presence isn't confined to physical spaces or circumstances. As believers, we are temples of the Holy Spirit. God dwells within us, making our bodies, minds, and spirits a sanctuary. This deep-seated understanding transforms how we approach every aspect of our lives.Closing Conclusion: In conclusion, Jesus' promise in Matthew 28:20 is a powerful reminder of His enduring presence and willingness to engage in constant communication with us. The truth is, God is not distant. He is closer than our very breath, intimately involved in our lives, and is always ready for conversation.Call to Action: Let's take a moment today to acknowledge God's presence, start a conversation with Him, and listen for His voice. Allow His promise to guide you, reassure you, and transform your relationship with Him.Closing Prayer: Dear Jesus, thank You for Your reassuring promise that You are always with us. Help us to remember this truth in every circumstance. Guide us as we seek to deepen our relationship with You, learning to converse with You openly and honestly. May our hearts always remain open to Your guidance and comfort. Amen.Thank you for reading The Power Of God's Whisper. This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to My Reasons To Believe at myr2b.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to another episode of "The Power Of God's Whisper Podcast". Today we are unpacking a powerful statement made by Jesus in the book of Matthew 28:20. This is a verse that holds a beautiful promise - "Be sure of this: I am with you always."The Power Of God's Whisper is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.This promise of Jesus forms the cornerstone of our faith, reminding us that we are not alone and that He is always with us. It's a testament to God's constant presence in our lives, and His desire for an ongoing relationship with us. Through a deep dive into this verse, we will uncover three enlightening points to consider.Point One - Assurance of His Presence: The first point of reflection is the assurance of His presence. Jesus doesn't leave any room for doubt or interpretation - He is with us always. This promise applies to all circumstances and all seasons of life. God is not just passively observing, He is actively involved and engaged in our lives.Point Two - Constant Communication: Taking inspiration from John Hyde, the famous missionary to India, we see a profound understanding of God's continuous presence. He experienced his relationship with God as a constant conversation. This implies that we are invited not only to speak to God but also to listen, and to be in constant dialogue with Him.Point Three - Beyond the Tangible: God's presence isn't confined to physical spaces or circumstances. As believers, we are temples of the Holy Spirit. God dwells within us, making our bodies, minds, and spirits a sanctuary. This deep-seated understanding transforms how we approach every aspect of our lives.Closing Conclusion: In conclusion, Jesus' promise in Matthew 28:20 is a powerful reminder of His enduring presence and willingness to engage in constant communication with us. The truth is, God is not distant. He is closer than our very breath, intimately involved in our lives, and is always ready for conversation.Call to Action: Let's take a moment today to acknowledge God's presence, start a conversation with Him, and listen for His voice. Allow His promise to guide you, reassure you, and transform your relationship with Him.Closing Prayer: Dear Jesus, thank You for Your reassuring promise that You are always with us. Help us to remember this truth in every circumstance. Guide us as we seek to deepen our relationship with You, learning to converse with You openly and honestly. May our hearts always remain open to Your guidance and comfort. Amen.Thank you for reading The Power Of God's Whisper. This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to The Power Of God's Whisper at myr2b.substack.com/subscribe

Summary:  “Revival comes from heaven when heroic souls enter the conflict determined to win or die-or if need be, to win and die!”― Charles Finney Historically, most outpourings, awakening, revivals, and moves of God have come in the midst of some of the most thunderous and difficult times. It is the Church awakened that can bring healing and hope in the darkest of times.  We are in a critical time in history and our only hope is to see revival and awakening. Let's continue to cry out to God for revival and healing.  Share this message with a friend and subscribe for weekly encouragement and inspiration! Visit AWordInSeasonPodcast.org for a free 30-Day Devotional, Show Notes, and to see previous guests. Learn more at: SomebodyCares.org and join us to support this ministry and disaster response efforts.   You can also receive weekly Provoke-a-Thought emails, monthly teaching emails, and periodic ministry updates, or join our prayer team by signing up here!   FOLLOW US ON:   Facebook: @SomebodyCaresAmerica  Youtube: SomebodyCaresAmerica  Rumble: SomebodyCares or  Twitter: _SomebodyCares. Instagram: SomebodyCaresAmerica LinkedIn: Somebody Cares America    

Prayer can break down any obstacle, open any door, and change any circumstance. This truth is exemplified in the life of John Hyde, the son of a Presbyterian minister, who moved to India in 1899 where Christians were the minority. Physically challenged through partial deafness, John Hyde soon realized something that was stronger than his weakness: the power of prayer. After nine years of very little success and very few conversions to Christ, John Hyde began to pray what many thought to be an impossible request: “God, give me one soul today.” On this episode of Godly Goosebumps, Pastor Dudley Rutherford shares the stunning results of John Hyde's prayer.

MYR2B MINISTRIES THE POWER OF GOD'S WHISPER TITLE: THE LUNCH BELL EPISODE: 22-169 VERSE: [Jesus said,] “Be sure of this: I am with you always.” MATTHEW 28:20 ✔️ - John Hyde, the famous missionary to India known for his radical life of prayer... ✔️ - The presence of God always seemed to him to be a tangible reality. ✔️ - Many considered Hyde to be a little odd. ✔️ - He's in the hearts of those who believe in Jesus as their Savior. TAKEAWAY: He invites us to explore our fellowship with Him from every angle and at every level of our lives. He is with us not just to watch silently; He is active with us to be deeply involved in our lives. PRAYER: Jesus, You are with me even as I read this, even as I pray this prayer, and even as I think about all the truths You have revealed. My circumstances, my relationships, and my thoughts are all in plain sight to You. Teach me how to be a good conversationalist with You in every area of life. ▌ABOUT US ▌

Pt. 1 Terissa Kelton is an Executive Vice President & Co-Founder of Rehab Entertainment in Los Angeles, CA. She recently executive produced Harriet the Spy for Apple TV and will executive produce Flight of the Navigator with Disney+. In 2020, after a four-year producing partnership, Terissa Kelton and John Hyde co-founded Rehab Entertainment, with Kelton serving as the EVP of Development, Production, and Distribution. While running day-to-day operations, Kelton also oversees Rehab Entertainment's diverse development and production slate. In the feature film department, Kelton is Executive Producing relaunches of both FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR & SHORT CIRCUIT, based on the 1986 films, and PROPHET, based on the Image Comics series created by Rob Liefeld, with Sony. In children's and family television, with The Jim Henson Company, Kelton is Executive Producing an animated series based on the classic novel, HARRIET THE SPY, as well as a television series based on the popular pre-school book, THE KISSING HAND. In digital, Kelton produces the LGBT drama, PRIDE: THE SERIES, which is now available on Amazon Prime. In distribution, Rehab Entertainment manages Short Circuit, Flight of the Navigator, Space Precinct and The Player. Kelton is an active member of the Hollywood Radio and Television Society and the Television Academy. Thank you for listening & supporting the podcast! Please down load the podcast episode. Donations & tips $ :) https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sneakies or https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/anonymouscontent, https://enchantedbooks.godaddysites.com/ Books and merchandise. Please Subscribe to our YouTube:) https://www.youtube.com/user/Fellinijr/videos Subscribe & Support ;) https://tinyurl.com/5h6xkwp9 Other awesome podcasts: Enchanting Book Readings (Top 1%), Thrilling Stories, "Ghostly Stories & Strange Things" & Girl's Guide To Investing. Zombie Diaries: https://youtu.be/tBmgi3k6r9A Subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Buy our books :) Young Adult wizard book series: "Margaret Merlin's Journal" by A. A. Banks at Amazon! :) Margaret Merlin's Journal ~The Battle of the Black Witch ~Book I https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Battle-Black-ebook/dp/B01634G3CK Margaret Merlin's Journal ~ Unleashing the Dark One ~Book II Science fiction action adventure https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Unleashing-Dark-ebook/dp/B01J78YH6I Margaret Merlin's Journal ~ The Mask of the Parallel World ~Book III An Adventure in Italy https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Parallel-World-ebook/dp/B01KUGIZ8W/ Margaret Merlin's Journal ~The Quest for the Golden Key ~Book IV https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Quest-Golden-ebook/dp/B076FTTDQN Children's Books at Amazon: Jack the Bear and Golden Hair by Sir Herbert Sneakies Skip Boots Big Safari Adventure by Sir Herbert Sneakies Adventures of Mooch the Pooch by Sir Herbert Sneakies Blueber Goober the Monster In My Closet! by Sir Herbert Sneakies https://www.instagram.com/margaretmerlinsjournal/ TikTok: Sneakies Instagram: marylinartist If you would like to be a guest on the show email: jobsmh(@)live.com If you would like to sponsor the show email: mystuffmah(@)gmail.com Thank you for listening. Free music. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/filmaddicts/support

Pt. 2 Terissa Kelton is an Executive Vice President & Co-Founder of Rehab Entertainment in Los Angeles, CA. She recently executive produced Harriet the Spy for Apple TV and will executive produce Flight of the Navigator with Disney+. In 2020, after a four-year producing partnership, Terissa Kelton and John Hyde co-founded Rehab Entertainment, with Kelton serving as the EVP of Development, Production, and Distribution. While running day-to-day operations, Kelton also oversees Rehab Entertainment's diverse development and production slate. In the feature film department, Kelton is Executive Producing relaunches of both FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR & SHORT CIRCUIT, based on the 1986 films, and PROPHET, based on the Image Comics series created by Rob Liefeld, with Sony. In children's and family television, with The Jim Henson Company, Kelton is Executive Producing an animated series based on the classic novel, HARRIET THE SPY, as well as a television series based on the popular pre-school book, THE KISSING HAND. In digital, Kelton produces the LGBT drama, PRIDE: THE SERIES, which is now available on Amazon Prime. In distribution, Rehab Entertainment manages Short Circuit, Flight of the Navigator, Space Precinct and The Player. Kelton is an active member of the Hollywood Radio and Television Society and the Television Academy. Thank you for listening & supporting the podcast! Please down load the podcast episode. Donations & tips $ :) https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sneakies or https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/anonymouscontent, https://enchantedbooks.godaddysites.com/ Books and merchandise. Please Subscribe to our YouTube:) https://www.youtube.com/user/Fellinijr/videos Subscribe & Support ;) https://tinyurl.com/5h6xkwp9 Other awesome podcasts: Enchanting Book Readings (Top 1%), Thrilling Stories, "Ghostly Stories & Strange Things" & Girl's Guide To Investing. Zombie Diaries: https://youtu.be/tBmgi3k6r9A Subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Buy our books :) Young Adult wizard book series: "Margaret Merlin's Journal" by A. A. Banks at Amazon! :) Margaret Merlin's Journal ~The Battle of the Black Witch ~Book I https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Battle-Black-ebook/dp/B01634G3CK Margaret Merlin's Journal ~ Unleashing the Dark One ~Book II Science fiction action adventure https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Unleashing-Dark-ebook/dp/B01J78YH6I Margaret Merlin's Journal ~ The Mask of the Parallel World ~Book III An Adventure in Italy https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Parallel-World-ebook/dp/B01KUGIZ8W/ Margaret Merlin's Journal ~The Quest for the Golden Key ~Book IV https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Quest-Golden-ebook/dp/B076FTTDQN Children's Books at Amazon: Jack the Bear and Golden Hair by Sir Herbert Sneakies Skip Boots Big Safari Adventure by Sir Herbert Sneakies Adventures of Mooch the Pooch by Sir Herbert Sneakies Blueber Goober the Monster In My Closet! by Sir Herbert Sneakies https://www.instagram.com/margaretmerlinsjournal/ TikTok: Sneakies Instagram: marylinartist If you would like to be a guest on the show email: jobsmh(@)live.com If you would like to sponsor the show email: mystuffmah(@)gmail.com Thank you for listening. Free music. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/filmaddicts/support

Pt. 1 Terissa Kelton is an Executive Vice President & Co-Founder of Rehab Entertainment in Los Angeles, CA. She recently executive produced Harriet the Spy for Apple TV and will executive produce Flight of the Navigator with Disney+. In 2020, after a four-year producing partnership, Terissa Kelton and John Hyde co-founded Rehab Entertainment, with Kelton serving as the EVP of Development, Production, and Distribution. While running day-to-day operations, Kelton also oversees Rehab Entertainment's diverse development and production slate. In the feature film department, Kelton is Executive Producing relaunches of both FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR & SHORT CIRCUIT, based on the 1986 films, and PROPHET, based on the Image Comics series created by Rob Liefeld, with Sony. In children's and family television, with The Jim Henson Company, Kelton is Executive Producing an animated series based on the classic novel, HARRIET THE SPY, as well as a television series based on the popular pre-school book, THE KISSING HAND. In digital, Kelton produces the LGBT drama, PRIDE: THE SERIES, which is now available on Amazon Prime. In distribution, Rehab Entertainment manages Short Circuit, Flight of the Navigator, Space Precinct and The Player. Kelton is an active member of the Hollywood Radio and Television Society and the Television Academy. Thank you for listening & supporting the podcast! Please down load the podcast episode. Donations & tips $ :) https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sneakies or https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/anonymouscontent, https://enchantedbooks.godaddysites.com/ Books and merchandise. Please Subscribe to our YouTube:) https://www.youtube.com/user/Fellinijr/videos Subscribe & Support ;) https://tinyurl.com/5h6xkwp9 Other awesome podcasts: Enchanting Book Readings (Top 1%), Thrilling Stories, "Ghostly Stories & Strange Things" & Girl's Guide To Investing. Zombie Diaries: https://youtu.be/tBmgi3k6r9A Subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Buy our books :) Young Adult wizard book series: "Margaret Merlin's Journal" by A. A. Banks at Amazon! :) Margaret Merlin's Journal ~The Battle of the Black Witch ~Book I https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Battle-Black-ebook/dp/B01634G3CK Margaret Merlin's Journal ~ Unleashing the Dark One ~Book II Science fiction action adventure https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Unleashing-Dark-ebook/dp/B01J78YH6I Margaret Merlin's Journal ~ The Mask of the Parallel World ~Book III An Adventure in Italy https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Parallel-World-ebook/dp/B01KUGIZ8W/ Margaret Merlin's Journal ~The Quest for the Golden Key ~Book IV https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Quest-Golden-ebook/dp/B076FTTDQN Children's Books at Amazon: Jack the Bear and Golden Hair by Sir Herbert Sneakies Skip Boots Big Safari Adventure by Sir Herbert Sneakies Adventures of Mooch the Pooch by Sir Herbert Sneakies Blueber Goober the Monster In My Closet! by Sir Herbert Sneakies https://www.instagram.com/margaretmerlinsjournal/ TikTok: Sneakies Instagram: marylinartist If you would like to be a guest on the show email: jobsmh(@)live.com If you would like to sponsor the show email: mystuffmah(@)gmail.com Thank you for listening. Free music. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/filmaddicts/support

Pt. 2 Terissa Kelton is an Executive Vice President & Co-Founder of Rehab Entertainment in Los Angeles, CA. She recently executive produced Harriet the Spy for Apple TV and will executive produce Flight of the Navigator with Disney+. In 2020, after a four-year producing partnership, Terissa Kelton and John Hyde co-founded Rehab Entertainment, with Kelton serving as the EVP of Development, Production, and Distribution. While running day-to-day operations, Kelton also oversees Rehab Entertainment's diverse development and production slate. In the feature film department, Kelton is Executive Producing relaunches of both FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR & SHORT CIRCUIT, based on the 1986 films, and PROPHET, based on the Image Comics series created by Rob Liefeld, with Sony. In children's and family television, with The Jim Henson Company, Kelton is Executive Producing an animated series based on the classic novel, HARRIET THE SPY, as well as a television series based on the popular pre-school book, THE KISSING HAND. In digital, Kelton produces the LGBT drama, PRIDE: THE SERIES, which is now available on Amazon Prime. In distribution, Rehab Entertainment manages Short Circuit, Flight of the Navigator, Space Precinct and The Player. Kelton is an active member of the Hollywood Radio and Television Society and the Television Academy. Thank you for listening & supporting the podcast! Please down load the podcast episode. Donations & tips $ :) https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sneakies or https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/anonymouscontent, https://enchantedbooks.godaddysites.com/ Books and merchandise. Please Subscribe to our YouTube:) https://www.youtube.com/user/Fellinijr/videos Subscribe & Support ;) https://tinyurl.com/5h6xkwp9 Other awesome podcasts: Enchanting Book Readings (Top 1%), Thrilling Stories, "Ghostly Stories & Strange Things" & Girl's Guide To Investing. Zombie Diaries: https://youtu.be/tBmgi3k6r9A Subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Buy our books :) Young Adult wizard book series: "Margaret Merlin's Journal" by A. A. Banks at Amazon! :) Margaret Merlin's Journal ~The Battle of the Black Witch ~Book I https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Battle-Black-ebook/dp/B01634G3CK Margaret Merlin's Journal ~ Unleashing the Dark One ~Book II Science fiction action adventure https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Unleashing-Dark-ebook/dp/B01J78YH6I Margaret Merlin's Journal ~ The Mask of the Parallel World ~Book III An Adventure in Italy https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Parallel-World-ebook/dp/B01KUGIZ8W/ Margaret Merlin's Journal ~The Quest for the Golden Key ~Book IV https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Merlins-Journal-Quest-Golden-ebook/dp/B076FTTDQN Children's Books at Amazon: Jack the Bear and Golden Hair by Sir Herbert Sneakies Skip Boots Big Safari Adventure by Sir Herbert Sneakies Adventures of Mooch the Pooch by Sir Herbert Sneakies Blueber Goober the Monster In My Closet! by Sir Herbert Sneakies https://www.instagram.com/margaretmerlinsjournal/ TikTok: Sneakies Instagram: marylinartist If you would like to be a guest on the show email: jobsmh(@)live.com If you would like to sponsor the show email: mystuffmah(@)gmail.com Thank you for listening. Free music. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/filmaddicts/support

One of the best ways to pray is to study the Scriptures, listen to Jesus, and hear the voices of those who have prayed well. Today in this Watering Wednesday, Travis explores the disciples' desire to pray and the prayer life of one amazing man of prayer, the missionary John Hyde, who will inspire you to pray more fervently for God to work in our fallen world today. Sign up for our https://linktr.ee/apolloswatered (newsletter). Help support the ministry of https://apolloswatered.org/support-us/ (Apollos Watered) and transform your world today!

Un articolo di John Hyde del 5 aprile 2022, pubblicato su The Law Society, riportando una survey sullo smartworking dei lawyers americani e inglesi, conclude che la maggior parte degli avvocati non desidera un ritorno a tempo pieno allo studio, nonostante quasi la metà di loro vi abbia fatto rientro cinque giorni alla settimana.>> Leggi anche l'articolo: https://bit.ly/3jtKdJ5>> Scopri tutti i podcast di Altalex: https://bit.ly/2NpEc3w

Today's promo is from The Jury Room Podcast: https://juryroompodcast.com/Today's sponsor The Downtown Grower's Market: http://www.downtowngrowers.org/Today I am joined by Lydia as we discuss two terrible cases of spree killing in New Mexico. Eric discusses the recent case of spree killing where several bodies were found at the Albuquerque International Sunport. Lydia is covering the John Hyde case. References: https://www.abqjournal.com/news/metro/507703metro10-31-06.htm https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna18127174 https://www.abqjournal.com/1049018/john-hyde-may-still-face-trial-in-5-slayings.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9480419/Police-searching-New-Mexicos-lava-tubes-11-victims-serial-killer.html https://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/2021/04/13/sean-lannon-new-mexico-murders-grants-albuquerque-east-greenwich/7192817002/ https://apnews.com/article/us-news-woodbury-new-jersey-new-mexico-missouri-tigers-mens-basketball-d2ac672be586e5332a7bc36e3b9e47c0 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sean-lannon-confession-killing-16-people https://www.krqe.com/news/crime/sunport-murder-suspect-sean-lannon-now-charged-in-death-of-fourth-victim/ https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/02/us/new-jersey-new-mexico-murders/index.html https://pix11.com/news/man-held-in-nj-killing-charged-in-new-mexico-deaths/ https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/sean-lannon-new-mexico-murder-charge/2849164/https://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/2021/06/15/sean-lannon-new-mexico-murder-albuquerque-apostalon/7710755002/ https://www.inquirer.com/news/south-jersey-sean-lannon-jennifer-lannon-new-mexico-murders-michael-dabkowski-20210413.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/31/travel/into-a-lava-lined-underworld-near-albuquerque.html Decapitation and Dismemberment of the Corpse: A Matricide CaseBy: Kamil Hakan Dogan, M.D.; Serafettin Demirci, M.D.; Idris Deniz, M.D.; and Zerrin Erkol, M.D. doi: 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2009.01266.x https://caselookup.nmcourts.gov/caselookup/app?component=cnLink&page=SearchResults&service=direct&session=T&sp=SM-61-FR-202100067

Deeper Christian Podcast • Episode 171 You may pray … but do you have a "desperate" prayer life? Leonard Ravenhill was a great man of God who had a passion for revival and a deep burden for prayer. Spending hours a day in prayer himself, he often talked about the necessity of not merely going through the motions of prayer, but travailing in prayer and intercession. In this powerful exhortation, Leonard Ravenhill uses Hannah's burden and prayer from 1 Samuel 1 to talk about desperate prayer … while highlighting the prayer lives of Ravenhill's favorite Christian prayer warriors – like Duncan Campbell, Rees Howell, John Hyde, Edward Payson, EM Bounds, David Brainerd, AW Tozer, And Robert Murray M'Cheyne. Be inspired in your prayer life with this message called "Desperate Prayer" by Leonard Ravenhill. View the shownotes for this episode and get other Christ-centered teaching and resources at: https://deeperchristian.com/171/ (deeperChristian.com/171/) Support this podcast

2.9 Erindringer - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

2.8 Under Helligåndens ledelse - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

2.7 Hans barnlige lydighed - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

2.6 Hans kærlighed til sjæle - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

2.5 Glæden i Herren - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

2.4 Lovprisnings offer - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

2.3 Taksigelsesoffer - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

2.2 Overvættes nåde - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

2.1 Bønfaldende under tårrer - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

Back by popular demand, Kate spends this week exploring the evolution of the legal sector and discovering what life is really like behind all the Latin and jargon. Joined by John Hyde, deputy news editor for the Law Society Gazette, and Slater and Gordon experts, Martyn Beauchamp and Alicia Alinia, Kate gets the bottom of legal aid, the truth behind the compensation culture and whether tech has finally caught up with the law.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

13 Tre af hans mest fremtrædende karaktertræk - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

12 Sagtmodigheds Ånd - Sejr under prøvelser - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

11 Sejr over mørkets magter - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

10 En hviletid i Wales - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

08 Et levnede budskab - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

09 Fredens vej - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

07 Indenfor forhænget - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

06 Forbønnen - en bestandig tjeneste - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

05 Bønnens byrde og dens visse resultater - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

Kap03 I bønnens skole - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

Kap04 Mesteren set fra en ny side - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

Kap02 Den inderste hemmelighed ved et liv i bøn - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

Kap00 Forord - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

Kap00 Fortale - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

Kap01 I den levende Guds nærværelse - John Hyde by Biblos.dk - Åben bibel projekt

They Found the Secret - John Hyde (07-13-2016 PM) by Sundown Church

Prayer: My Personal JourneyVarious PassagesFeb 10, 2019 Introduction:A. My guess that in a room this size there are very few people who feel fullysatisfied with their prayer life. On one end of the spectrum you have people whopray very well but feel like they really should pray more and on the other end ofthe spectrum there are people who know they should pray but know very littleabout prayer and not sure how to do it.B. Today we start a series on prayer. I want to start by sharing with you some of myjourney with prayer with the hope that something at some point of my journeymay be helpful to you.C. I know that Satan hates prayer and will do everything he can to stop us fromdoing it, to stop you from coming to hear this series, and if you do come, todistract you as we talk about it.D. So let me start by praying for us regarding this series!• Before I knew Jesus my prayer life was one ofI. Recited PrayersA. I knew only two prayers – the Hail Mary and the Lord’s Prayer “Our Father”.B. Never once did I pray from my heart with my own words. Whenever I wouldpray, I would repeat over and over again these two prayers thinking God waspleased with me for doing this and would therefore give me good things in mylife!• That practice continued until the day that …II. I called upon the name of the Lord to be saved.A. It was a time of desperation after I had destroyed my life with drugs and I was sodesperate that I went to a chaplain’s office for help.B. After he told me how Jesus had helped others in the same situation as mine andthat He could help me as well, he then shared the gospel with me. I remembersaying, “Could I get just a few minutes to think about this?”1. So I went in another room and for the first time I talked to God as I said“God, I do not know if this is some weird religion or not but all I know is Ineed you”2. And for the first time in my life I heard that still small voice whisper in myheart “this is the way, walk in it”C. Then I went back into the room with the chaplain and in a prayer he led I throughI called upon the Lord to save me. Instantly, deeply, and forever my life waschanged. Prayer is powerful and can change the whole direction of your life!• As aIII. New BelieverA. My prayers were very short but much like the time in the chaplain’s office –sharing my heart in my words with God regarding the need of the moment.B. But the more I was around other believers and impressed by their prayers themore I wanted to pray like them because they sounded so spiritual. And the moreI did that the drier it became. Primarily my prayer time was at meals and a fewminutes in the morning. That lasted about three years.• As aIV. Growing BelieverA. God placed in me, from early on, a deep love for His Word. So this is what myprayer life looked like for many years – Spend an hour in the Word and thenspend two minutes in prayer at the end of it. And of course, I prayed at meals.B. Then I ran into a spiritual crisis in my heart. The question in my heart was“where is the power?” I had this two-sided dilemma in my life.1. On the one hand, I knew that the Holy Spirit of God lived in me, that I havealready been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, andthat the exact same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead was mine,the resurrection power of Christ.2. But on the other hand while I felt that I had experienced a touch of all ofthese it was not like rivers of living water flowing from my heart it was morelike a hose trickling out just enough water to keep me going.3. I saw in the Bible that the power I was supposed to have but radical honestywould have to say I did not see it in my life.• From that point there have been numerous things God has taught me to address thispowerlessness in my life. First …V. Praying In FaithA. Read Hebrews 11:61. Rewarder2. I believed that God is, and that God is able, but I did not believe that Hewould do it for me. Another way to say it is that I had a deep dependencyupon God without any expectancy. Need both.3. I had built my prayer life off what I call the exception rather than the rule. Ialways used the great escape clause that would let God and me off the hook ifhe did not answer my prayers. That little phrase “If it be your will”a) I prayed like an extreme sovereigntist - God is God and He is going to dowhat He wants to do and what He has planned to do.b) So when I prayed I would pour out my heart to God but when I withclosed with “If it be your will” I really did not expect God to answer myrequest but to do His will.B. God taught me at this time what I believe to be one of the “great wonders” of theprayer life - “a sovereign God answers prayer.”1. I had allowed my theology of God’s sovereignty to wash away my faith inprayer.• As I began to pray in faith then God led me to another foundational truth. This truthis …VI. Asking as the means to receiving!A. Turn to and read Matthew 7:7-81. The other side of the coin is found in James 4:2, “you have not because youask not!2. God has established asking as the means to receiving in His kingdom!3. J.I. Packer says it this way “God has purposed to give us blessings throughprayer”B. If I want to see God’s power in my daily life, I need to ask Him for it and not justsay my prayers and go through the prayer list!• Then another key truth turned my prayer life upside downIV. John 14:13A. Please turn to this.B. Before I read this let me tell you what my basic disposition was in prayer – “Godplease bless my doings and efforts!” In other words “God, take out your saltshaker of blessings and shake your blessings upon what I do.”C. Read John 14:13-141. I prayed – God bless what I do – Here Jesus is saying “I will do it” – Jesuswill do what we ask!D. Prayer is not about God blessing my efforts and doing but rather about God doinga miracle – Jesus Himself doing for me, what I ask.E. God began to open my eyes to the fact that I do not have the power in my life notonly because I am not asking God to do that in my life. But also because I am justasking him to add a little blessing to my doings rather than the miracle of JesusHimself in all His power - doing things in and through my life!• Next God used a book in my life calledV. Praying HydeA. John Hyde was a missionary to India who felt God’s call on his life to pray for thelost and those in the ministry!1. He would spend close to eight hours a day in prayer.2. The stories that God did through him in reaching the lost and impactingothers who ministered are numerous and impressiveB. What I learned from him is that I need the Spirit of God to enable me for prayer asmuch as I need him to preach or evangelize! He said his secret to prayer was Gal2:20 “not I but Christ” He depended upon the Spirit of Jesus in him to praythrough him!C. From that I have begun a practice of the very first thing I do in prayer is declaremy need and dependence upon the spirit of Christ to lead me and equip me inprayer so that Jesus is praying through me!D. And from that book, I began a practice of setting my alarm at one hour andpraying during that time. To be honest with you, that lasted about a year to a yearand a half then it faded away• Then God used the verse to resolve a major tension I was feeling about the power inthe Bible but not in my life! It was …VII. Hebrews 4:16A. Read Hebrews 4:16B. “May find grace to help”C. I thought, “Why do I need to find grace when I already have it and every spiritualblessing I could ever get? Why do I need to find grace when I already have thepowerful Holy Spirit living in me who raised Jesus Christ from the dead?D. Then the lights went on in my life: prayer is the means by which we experiencethe grace and power of God in our everyday life and ministry, whatever the needmight be.E. Prayer is grace’s withdrawal slip. All the free gifts, all the power of the HolySpirit and the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ that God has depositedinto our lives can be withdrawn and used in our daily lives through believingprayer.• As I was doing my own personal study about the Holy Spirit I noted that repeatedly…VIII. Prayer and ministry of the Holy Spirit are closely associated to one another!A. Turn and Read Luke 11:11-13B. God gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. I already have the Holy Spiritbut to experience His power in my life, all the power of the resurrection of JesusChrist I need to ask God.C. I do not assume the filling, leading, anointing, sanctifying, convicting orconverting work of the Spirit. I come to God and ask Him for those believing Hewill do it based on this verse and others that connect the ministry of the HolySpirit to prayer.• Next God used a meeting we had as leaders withIX. Al ToledoA. Al is the pastor at the Chicago Tabernacle and the son in law of Jim Cymblawhose ministry and church is known for and built off of prayerB. Through that meeting with Al, God pointed out to me something so profound andfoundational about prayer and it was not through any point that Al was trying tomake.1. All night long Al did not use the word “prayer” but instead said “talking toGod”2. It knocked me off my seat – this thing prayer is not about saying my prayersbut about talking to God just as I would talk to Kim in the morning overcoffee or in times of deep stress.3. That has totally changed the way I approach God and even as I pray the senseof what I am doing as I pray – I am not saying prayers but I am talking toGod.• The last thing God has done has spoken to me through another book …X. A W Tozer -Prayer: Communicating with God in EverythingA. His point at the start of the book is very clear – The goal of God in our prayer lifeis not a daily prayer time but a life of prayer – an all-day awareness of God beingwith you and a conversation with God as you walk through the dayB. I have felt bad for years that I was not able to sustain an hour of day in prayer andI felt that I was moving backwards in prayer rather than forward! But the realityis I would pray for an hour, 30 minutes, 10 minutes whatever then I would moveon with the day and not talk to God because I did my time in the morning.C. Tozer was saying that prayer should be a conversation that you have with God allday long, as you walk through life. Guess what? – That is where I have been andGod encouraged me that He would rather I talk to Him all day long as I confrontsituations rather than in the morning and not take a thought of Him again.D. We can know God’s power all day long as we walk and talk with Him all daylong not just a prayer time or prayer meeting.XI. ConclusionA. I believe that God wants to build into MVC a life of prayer and a movement ofprayer and not just time of prayer or a prayer meeting!B. I have asked Josh to tell you about our first step we want to put in place to moveus in that direction - 21 Days of Prayer - Josh

This episode of the Pipecast features John Hyde, the President and CEO of CapitalRock, discussing the impacts of regulation on the financial services industry and the software that professionals use to sell and distribute products. It’s an especially pertinent discussion, looking at the uncertainties of pending rulings and how consumers and advisors must navigate the ever-changing landscape.

Chris brews up with Squadron Leader John Hyde (84) and hears his eventful life-story. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Gordo interviews pianist/accordionist John Hyde about his long career as a musician, special performances and current happenings.  8-24-17  RT 29:53

In the first episode of this two-part series on FDR, we explored the man, his times, and the unusual circumstances surrounding the 1944 Democratic Convention. We discussed FDR’s legendary poker face, his deteriorating health, the fact that his doctor warned him that he couldn’t survive a fourth term, and his dream to create the United Nations; an organization he hoped would make future world wars impossible. We also discussed the Democratic Party bosses’ successful effort to remove Henry Wallace as Vice President from the ticket in 1944.  But as we said earlier, big questions remained. Could the Allies secure a long-lasting peace in the postwar world? Could the United States work with the Soviet Union? Would the United Nations work? Could FDR achieve his vision despite his failing health? We will explore the answers to these questions on this episode of This American President. Conference of the Big Three at Yalta makes final plans for the defeat of Germany. Here the “Big Three” sit on the patio together, Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Premier Josef Stalin. February 1945. (Army) Support We’re very excited what we are creating here at This American President, and want to continue bringing you more fascinating stories about American Presidents. Creating a podcast takes a lot of work: researching, writing, recording, editing, etc. When we started this podcast we made a goal of producing an episode every three weeks, and we’ve been successful for 6 episodes so far. If you like what you’ve been hearing, we now have two ways for you to support our podcast: Patreon and Paypal. Patreon is a service that allows you to support content creators like podcasters, with any amount you choose. You can set up automatic payments that will only be sent when we release a new episode. You can also send one-time payments to our Paypal account. We expect to continue producing episodes about every 3 weeks, mostly monologue stories featuring by host Richard Lim and occasional interviews with special guests. Please visit our Patreon account at www.patreon.com/thisamericanpresident to support us regularly or our Paypal at www.paypal.me/thisamerpres to send us a one time payment. We want to thank everyone for their support!   Show Notes If you want to learn more about today’s episode, check out the book His Final Battle: The Last months of Franklin Roosevelt by Joseph Lelyveld, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H W Brands, and American Dreamer: A Life of Henry A Wallace by John C Culver and John Hyde.

If we were to do an episode on the entire life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it would have to be at least a 12 hour series. Instead, we will focus on a short period of his life that is one of the most fascinating—the end of it. This isn’t the FDR of the famous 100 days—the one who captivated the nation by the sheer power of his strength and charisma. Instead, this is the FDR who, after years of leading the nation through depression and war, found himself physically exhausted, racing against his own mortality to build his vision for a new world. The final photograph of President Franklin D. Roosevelt – taken at Warm Springs, Georgia on April 11, 1945 – the day before his death. By then he believed he was working to save the world from future catastrophe. What we will find is a man who appeared to remain the master politician, mentally still at the top of his game, orchestrating events from behind-the-scenes. But those abilities were put to their greatest test when he faced an agonizing dilemma in the realm of world politics—whether to pursue that vision of a new world at the expense of our deepest values and in cooperation with one of the greatest mass murderers in all of history. And all the while, he was physically at his weakest point and was hiding a secret from the American people—a secret that exposed his country to great risk at a critical time. This is the FDR—whose actions were both inspiring and unsettling—who we will explore in this episode of This American President.   Show Notes If you want to learn more about today’s episode, check out the book His Final Battle: The Last months of Franklin Roosevelt by Joseph Lelyveld, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H W Brands, and American Dreamer: A Life of Henry A Wallace by John C Culver and John Hyde.   President Roosevelt, Vice President-elect Truman and Vice President Wallace, November 10, 1944, after the Democratic ticket’s election victory.

Introduction Well, this morning we come to one of the final phrases in the passage on spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6:18, “praying in the Spirit,” or “pray in the Spirit.” And as I've been saying, week by week on spiritual warfare, the greatest challenge for us is to believe that it's actually even happening that we actually are at war. There's a war going on spiritually we can't see it with our eyes, but it's real. I believe most Christians greatly underestimate the severity of this war and we also greatly underestimate our responsibilities, these commands that are given here in Ephesians, to be ready to fight, to prepare for the fight. We tend to look at the world through our own eyes. We tend to assess dangers based on what we see from our own physical, fleshly perspective and our prayerlessness in particular is key evidence of our self-reliance and our complacency, the fact that we don't pray in the Spirit about spiritual warfare shows that we are essentially on our own, we think we're fine, we don't need any help. Prayerlessness is a clue to our self-reliance. Now, this is not a new problem, Jesus' apostles struggled with the same thing, they had to be trained to no longer rely on themselves, but on God who raises the dead. They had to be trained that way. It doesn't come naturally. Now, a key example occurs for us in Mark 9, Jesus went up on the mountain, With three of his disciples, Peter, John and James and they went up and there he had that experience with them, he was transfigured, and made glorious before them, but he left nine apostles, not on the mountain to carry on ministry. Now by that time, he had given them the authority to drive out demons and perform signs and wonders to perform healings. They had that power. They'd already done it, but then a specific man came to them with a specific problem, a son, and the disciples failed to drive the demon out from that boy. When Jesus comes down off the mountain, he comes into a scene of tumult of arguing and conflict. Lots of arguing, lots of conflict. The teachers of law arguing with his disciples, Jesus found out what had happened, a man had brought his son to the disciples, the son was demon-possessed, he had been demon possessed from childhood, and the demon often threw the boy into the fire or into the water. The boy's life was constantly threatened by the demon. And he was very distraught, because at that moment, the boy was down on the ground frothing at the mouth. Then the father said, a devastating thing, “I brought him to your disciples but they were unable to drive him out. Now if you can do anything Jesus please help.” “If you can,” said Jesus, “All things are possible to him who believes.” So they had a low opinion of Jesus based on what the disciples had done or hadn't done. Jesus rebuked the evil spirit, came out of the boy throwing him down, so violently everybody thought the boy was dead, but he wasn't, he was healed, and Jesus took him by the hand and helped him up, and he was healed, he was made well. Now, later on the disciples came privately to Jesus. Don't you imagine, it was private? And they said, “Why couldn't we drive it out? What went wrong?" And Jesus said, “This kind only comes out by prayer". Wow. So what does that tell you about the disciples? It means they hadn't prayed. They were prayerless. They tried to drive out a demon in their own strength, by their own techniques, by their advanced skills and driving out demons. Can I ask you a question? What kind of demon doesn't come out except by prayer? Is there any demon that's going to fear our piety, and our godliness, and our spiritual technique and run from us? Never! So the disciples struggle with prayerles-ness in spiritual warfare, just like we do. Same thing, prayerlessness is a sure sign we are underestimating the power of Satan and demons, and we are over estimating our own strength, prayerlessness, we are told in Ephesians 6:10, “be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.” So we come to the topic of prayer, as the kind of the unification and the final step of spiritual warfare, praying in the Spirit is essential to victory in spiritual warfare. I. Prayer and Spiritual Warfare Praying in the Spirit Essential to Victory in Spiritual Warfare Now, Paul has been training the Ephesian Christians, getting them ready to fight an invisible foe. Look again at verses 11-13, “put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything to stand, stand firm then with the belt of truth, buckled around your waist” and he goes on from there. So how does prayer relate to the whole armor of God? How do we understand prayer and all this? What prayer is clearly treated differently than all the other elements. How Prayer Relates to the “Whole Armor of God” Paul goes through six elements in a kind of an analogy, to teach them the full armor of God. The prior is treated differently now, all the other elements of the spiritual armor, actually were named as some physical thing that you would see on the body of, maybe, a Roman soldier like the belt, and the breastplate, and the shoes, and the helmet, and the sword, and the shield they're things you could imagine actually being put on the body. And they corresponded to a part of the body, but they were named spiritually, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness. It's been an analogy etcetera. But prayer's just handled differently here. We're not told to put it on. It's not linked to any piece of armor. It's just handled differently. So I think what's happening is in conjunction with all of the armor that we've been talking about, you're going to deal with each one of them by prayer in the Spirit. You really could look to the very previous one, verse 17, The sword of the Spirit, you should take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying in the Spirit. So there's a harmonization of taking up the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit with praying in the Spirit. But I think it extends to the entire thing as we saw earlier that beautiful hymn. “Stand up, stand up for Jesus, stand in his strength alone, the arm of flesh will fail you, you dare not trust your own, put on the Gospel armor. Each piece, put on with prayer.” I think that's it. Where duty calls or danger, be never wanting there. So each piece you're going to be praying in the Spirit. I think that's how it works. II. Pray in the Spirit: The Spirit Helps Us in Our Weakness Essential to Genuine Prayer: The Ministry of the Spirit Now, let's talk about praying in the Spirit. I want to zero in on this particular phrase, and the rest of the time I'm going to be talking to you today, I'm just zeroing it on that one thing. Now, you may think we're never going to finish Ephesians, “We're down to three words at a time, pastor, are we ever going to finish?” Rest assured we're going to finish. Today, we're going to just talk about praying in the Spirit, next week, we're going to extend to talk about intercessory prayer, and all of the things Paul says about it, in verse 18, and then we're going to extend to praying for the spread of the Gospel and with that our look at Ephesians will end. But let's look now at praying in the Spirit, essential to genuine prayer is the ministry of the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit, The Spirit is given to assist us in prayer. In Romans 8:26-27, it says, “In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We don't know what to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.” That's just so beautiful, isn't it? But what does the text say? It says the Spirit helps us in our weakness in prayer, we are weak in prayer, all of you, I think, can say amen to that. Does anyone want to say, “I actually am very strong in prayer.” I don't think anyone would say that. We all feel weak in prayer, we're not good at praying and we need help. How are we week? Well, we don't know what to pray for. And we don't know how to pray, and we don't stay with prayer, we don't persevere in it and we don't pray fervently or passionately or in faith, there's just so much weakness to our prayer life. Very weak. So the essence of the call to spiritual warfare however, is a call to be strong, to be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, so the Spirit has come to make us strong in prayer, and we need that help don't we? And isn't is it beautiful how it says there in Romans 8 that the Spirit is interceding for us? The Spirit is praying for us, according to the will of God, and it's beautiful because just in a few verses later, there in Romans 8, it says that Jesus is doing the same thing. In Romans, 8:34, "Christ Jesus, who died more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is interceding for us." So, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus, and the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit are both interceding to God for us, praying for us. So when we enter into prayer, especially spiritual warfare prayer, we are entering into a fervent prayer time that's already going on. The Son and the Spirit are already praying for us, according to the will of God and that's a beautiful thing. And what a mighty resource for victory, we have in the Spirit. What is it to Pray “In the Spirit”? Well, what does it mean to pray in the Spirit? Well, first of all to be in the Spirit, in this case, it's not the same as being indwelt with the Spirit. You can be indwelt with the spirit and not pray in the Spirit. I actually think many of our prayers are not prayers in the spirit, though we are constantly indwelt by the Spirit. What do I mean by that? Well, I believe when you come to faith in Christ, when you believe in Jesus as your savior, at that moment, the Holy Spirit enters into you, it says in John 14:17, “The Spirit of truth lives with you and will be in you.” How beautiful is that? So if you're a Christian, if you're a child of God, you have the indwelling Holy Spirit of God It says in Romans 8:9, "if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ." So conversely, if you do belong to Christ, you do have the indwelling spirit. But that doesn't mean that every time you pray you're praying in the Spirit. I actually don't think that's true. I think we can pray many rote prayers, we can pray cold prayers, we can pray kind of machine-like prayers. My daughter was talking to me, I was raised Roman Catholic, and she asked me about the rosary and I was raised praying the rosary, and it's just these beads, and you pray 10 Hail Marys. I'm forgetting my Catholic training now. Alright, so it's 10 hail Mary's and then in our Father, 10 Hail Mary’s. You work your way around this chain, but it just gets to be like a machine. And you see the same thing in Buddhist prayer sometimes there's this prayer wheel spinning and there's just this machine-like praying. Christians can do that too. I talked to her this morning. I said, wouldn't it be cool if you could just record your prayers on your smartphone, and just hit play and then go back and get some sleep while your smartphone did your praying for you? But that's obviously ridiculous, but some people pray like that, it's like it's a recording. They're not really thinking about who they're talking to or what they're saying. So that's a problem. Praying in the Spirit, I think means to be controlled by the Spirit. Empowered, indwelt. I would say filled with the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit. It says in Ephesians 5:18, “Do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery instead be being filled with the Spirit.” So I think that's what it means. It means to be controlled and I would go beyond that. I think ultimately to pray in the Spirit, means to be lifted up above your immediate circumstances, so that you are actually in some sense, elevated by the Spirit in perspective and in feeling. You're actually almost lifted up and you could have a sense of almost being lifted up out of yourself and praying in the spiritual realm. I think it can get to that level. You remember that earlier in Ephesians 3, you can look back, if you want, in Ephesians 3:16-19 there Paul talks about his own prayer life for the Ephesians, and there he said, "I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide, and long, and high, and deep is the love of Christ.” Remember that? The infinite dimensions of the love of Christ. You could almost sense the length and width and height and depth like you're almost traveling in your mind to the expanses of God's love for you in Christ and to know that love that surpasses knowledge, that you would be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God that's praying in the Spirit, when you are filled to the measure the infinite measure the fullness of God. So we would learn to that time, remember that some brothers and sisters have had experiences of spiritual ecstasy almost of being so elevated by the Spirit that they actually didn't even know if they were alive or dead, or awake or asleep. Remember Jonathan Edwards, laying on the ground for one hour and had a vision of Christ in the heavens and his greatness on the throne of God. Remember that? And his wife Sarah another time she felt herself to be like a dust speck floating in a beam of light. She didn't know if she was awake or sleep, alive or dead. She just knew that she was filled with joy and pleasure. Filled with the Spirit. So I think you can pray like that but there are ordinary levels of praying in the Spirit, too. You don't have to reach ecstatic levels, but there are ordinary levels to pray in the Spirit. I think then it, means to pray for the right things in the right way. We could just keep it simple. You're praying for the right things and you're praying in the right way, your demeanor. The right things have to do with the work of salvation, God is doing in the world that we've seen unfolded so beautifully in the Book of Ephesians, how God before the foundation of the world chose people to be saved in Christ, and how in Christ, by his blood, we have been redeemed and our sins forgiven and how he is doing this, taking this Gospel and extending it to the ends of the earth and people all over the world are hearing about Jesus and they're finding forgiveness of sins, and they're finding themselves in a right relationship with God because of Christ. And this is going on all over the world, and so, to pray in the Spirit means to pray in light of that, but in the immediate context to pray in light of demons and Satan and his opposition and that there's warfare going on, and you can see that going on, and you pray the right things and it means also to pray in the right way, to pray passionately to pray empowered, inflamed. You remember how on the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came, like tongues of fire that came down on the heads of each one, and that flickering flame, there's a sense of the life, and the heat, and the light of the fire and the Spirit comes and you're alive, and your energetic and filled with life and heat in your prayers or the rushing wind. There's a sense of a great movement of God, the power of God in the wind praying in the Spirit. III. Prayer “In the Spirit”: Four Visions from Patmos Well, I was thinking about this phrase, the other day. Now we're going to get really, really weird. Okay, this is going to be really interesting. This was going to be a subset of the sermon and it became the entire sermon. So I was thinking about the phrase “in the Spirit”, and I remember that it was at of John the Apostle John on the Island of Patmos. So I'd like you to turn to Revelation 1, effectively we're done with Ephesians today. Okay, so just go to Revelation 1. And I want to give you four visions from the island of Patmos, of what it means to be in the Spirit. The phrase, “in the Spirit”, is used four times in the Book of Revelation, and they give an amazing insight into themes that should be part of our prayer life in Spiritual warfare type prayer. Four beautiful themes. In the Spirit: Vision of Christ Glorified Now, before we get into each of the four times the phrase in the spirit is used, the first in Revelation chapter 1, so you can turn there Revelation. 1:10-11. So just turn there. But just listen, what I'm going to say is that to be in the Spirit means to be, in some sense, lifted up out of your immediate circumstance and transported to see things in the spiritual realm you had not seen before. That's what I think it means. So, a vividness and reality to spiritual things that happen. So I think of it as an elevation and you're lifted up out of immediate circumstances. So, we're going to see that because three times in connection with, “in the Spirit,” an Angel says to John come and I will show you. And then the angel takes him to a place and shows him something. It's just amazing. First time he does, there's not a common, “I will show you,” but it begins on the rocky island of Patmos, the rocky island of Patmos. There, John the Apostle was in exile. Toward the end of the first century around 90 AD. He's on a small rocky island off the coast of modern day Turkey. He's being there. All the other apostles have been killed, but he was exiled, he's an old band and he's there. There's not much to do there except write the Book of Revelation, which is enough to do. And what happens is he's praying on the Lord's Day in the Spirit. So that's how it starts. Look at Revelation 1:10-11, “On the lord's day, I was in the spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet which said, write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches,” and what did he see? Well, turning around in Revelation 1:12-16. “When I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man dressed in a robe, reaching down to his feet with a golden sash around his chest, and his head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire, and his feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters and in his right hand, he held seven stars and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. And his face was like the sun shining in all of i's brilliance.” Well, this is a picture of the crucified, resurrected, glorified Jesus and he's moving through seven golden lampstands and the Golden lampstands represent local churches that were in modern day Turkey in Asia Minor, real churches, and he's moving through them and ministering to them. It's a picture of Jesus ministering to local churches as a priest, as a mediator, glorified and exalted. Now, look at John's reaction in verse 17, when I saw him, “I fell at his feet as though dead,” he was so overcome with this vision of Christ, the exalted, glorified Christ. So stop, to pray in the Spirit, means to pray mindful of Jesus. Let's just start there, mindful of Jesus as your mediator, your great high priest, as your atoning sacrifice, mindful of that. Start there. So you're in the middle of spiritual warfare, you're fighting sin, you're struggling, you're going to pray in the Spirit. The first thing the Spirit is going to do is exalt Jesus, he's going to exalt Christ in your own mind. You will know as you're praying in the Spirit, without Jesus, you have no access to God. It is by Jesus's bloody death on the cross, by his resurrection, by his saving work in your life, by him as mediator escorting you into the presence of God, that's how you can pray. Without Jesus, you can't pray. God hears everything, God sees everything he's omniscient. That's not the problem, it's not that God doesn't see your prayers or hear your prayers, it's that your sins have separated you from God so that he will not hear, Isaiah 59:2, but because of Jesus, now your sin has been put away, it's been removed from you as far as the east is from the west, your sin has been forgiven, and now through the mediating work of Jesus you can pray. Without Jesus, God wouldn't even look at you or listen to you. I take that phrase from Elisha, who said that evil king Joram when Jehoshaphat was sitting next to him in the Old Testament and they wanted Elisha to prophecy and he hated this evil king of Israel. He said, "I want you to know that if it weren't for the presence of this man, Jehoshaphat here, I wouldn't even look at you or listen to you.” I think that seems a little rude, But that's what prophets can do. They can just say the truth. You're so evil. I wouldn't even look at you, I wouldn't listen to you, but then I started to think, that's what God could say to us, if it weren't for Jesus, if it weren't for the presence of Jesus, he wouldn't even look at us or listen to us. Or like Esther. You remember how Esther was terrified to go into her husband when he sat on the throne? Because if you have not been invited into the throne room of the king of Persia, he will kill you. That's the law. One exception is if he extends the golden scepter, then your life will be spared, but you don't just walk into the throne room of the king of Persia. She courageously put on her queenly robes and walked into the throne room and he extended the golden scepter. Well, that's a picture of Christ to me. In Christ, God Almighty has extended the golden scepter and he's welcomed me into the throne, So, to pray in the Spirit, means mindful of the greatness of Jesus and what he's done for you, to enable you even to have a prayer life. Ephesians 2:18 says, "For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.” We have access, or again, Romans 5:1-2, “since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” So, you have access, you have an opening, you have a new and living way open for you into the throne room of God by the body of Jesus, Hebrews 10. So, to pray in the Spirit, means with a spiritual inner vision of the glory and greatness of Christ as your mediator. In the Spirit: Vision of God Enthroned Alright, number two, the second time that this phrase in the spirit is used in the Book of Revelation, is in Revelation 4:1-2. Revelation 4:1-2. “After this, I looked and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me, like a trumpet said, ‘Come up here and I will show you what must take place after this,’” verse two, “At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in Heaven with someone sitting on it.” Alright, so to pray in the Spirit, I believe, again, there's that image of transportation, come up here. How do you do that? He's on the island of Patmos, the door standing open in Heaven, but by the power of the Spirit, he's lifted up off of the island of Patmos, and he sees this door standing open in Heaven and the voice invites him to come through the door and see things. And he goes through the door, and what does he see? The first thing he sees is a throne with someone seated on it. Friends that is the most important reality there is in the universe: That is the throne of Almighty God, It's the throne of the sovereign creator of the ends of the earth. That is the one to whom you'll be addressing your prayers. The first vision is the one by whom you'll be addressing your prayers, But it is to Almighty God, God enthroned, that you will be praying and how great is that throne, how great is the power of Almighty God, how great is he seated on a throne, Isaiah 40, perhaps one of the greatest chapters on answering that question. Isaiah 40 verse 22. "He sits enthroned above the circle of the Earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy and spreads them out like a tent to live in.” Think of the immense City of God enthroned Isaiah 40:12 says, "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, Or weighed the mountains on the scales or the hills in a balance.” That's the greatness of Almighty God. "Surely the nations are like a drop from the bucket and like dust on the scales. He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. Before him, all the nations are as nothing.” they're regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing, that's God enthroned. That's who you're going to be praying to and think of the wisdom of God, enthroned, Isaiah 40:13-14. Who has understood the mind of the Lord or who has instructed him as his counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way. Can I just tell you about your prayer life? You're not able to give God any advice. When you get on your knees to pray, you're not telling him anything he didn't know already, you're not giving him any wisdom, he's not asking your advice. And frankly, if he needed a counselor, he wouldn't ask you. I mean, let's be humble here. But yet, we want to give them all this advice about our lives or people we know, etcetera. There's nothing wrong with making your request known to God, but just remember who you're talking to. He has already worked out everything, the end from the beginning, he has thought all of these things through, he is perfectly wise, that's God enthroned. And this powerful God, his power, is limitless, the Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the Earth. He does not grow tired or weary. His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak, that's our God, so to pray in the Spirit means to pray mindful of Almighty God on that kind of throne of power. Now, in the New Covenant in Jesus, it also means to see that throne as a source of grace and mercy for you. Grace and mercy. God's power is at work in your life, to give you grace and forgiveness and mercy and love, not wrath and punishment like he could. Isn't it amazing that the throne is pictured in Daniel 7 as having a river of fire flowing through it and that's judgment, wrath, But in Revelation 22, a river of the water of life, flowing clear as crystal. For us as the children of God, we drink from that river and we are refreshed and renewed. And so it says in Hebrews 4:16, "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” So let's go back in your mind to spiritual warfare. That's a time of need, dear brothers and sisters, you need his help, go to the throne of grace through Jesus, go through that door into the throne room of grace and get mercy and grace to help when in need. And that's friends before you sin. It's not just put it this way. A mop to clean up after you sinned, it's power to keep you from sinning, It's grace and mercy in the time of temptation. So that you can say no to the temptation. It's a time of need. So to pray in the Spirit, means to be drawn into the heavenly realms, to see the throne room of God, the sovereign God, your Heavenly Father, who rules over heaven and earth, it is to see his holy hatred for sin, he's pure eyes that cannot look on anything evil. It is to have that vision, renewed by the Spirit to kill all the sin in your life, to put to death every temptation that Satan throws your way. Kill them all and it immediately gives energy and power to your armor, the full armor of God, makes them potent and powerful in your mind. Praying in the Spirit also means to see God enthroned as if on Judgment Day, And what will all this look like on judgment day, and to see God enthroned means to see Satan and his power in light of that omnipotence. Satan's nothing compared to God. Satan is weak, he's a created being compared to God, powerful compared to us, but God could speak him out of existence at any moment. In the Spirit: Vision of Satan’s Kingdom Exposed Third use of “in the Spirit” is in Revelation 17. So look at Revelation 17:1-5. Revelation 17:1-5, third use of "In the Spirit," again in this passage, we're going to get that same sense of come and I will show you transportation. So again, to pray in the Spirit, means you're going to be transported out of the room, you're praying in. It could be your bedroom, it could be your office, it could be anywhere. And then you're seeing things in the spiritual realm. Alright, Revelation 17:1-5, “One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said, to me, ‘Come and I will show you, the punishment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed adultery and the inhabitants of the Earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.’ Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit to a desert and there I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and 10 horns, and this woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering, with gold and precious stones and pearls, and she held a golden cup in her hand filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries, This title was written on her forehead, ‘Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth.’” And then at the end of that chapter, Revelation 17:18, it says, “The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.” So I think it's what Augustine called the City of Man. Well, we could also call it The City of Satan, It's the world in all of its wicked corruptions. It's the world and all of it's alluring temptations, it's the world and all of its hatred to God's people. She's drunk with the blood of the saints, and she's covered in luxury and she's pictured as a horror of luring hearts away from a true, right, love. A pure love. Now again, Ephesians 6, is spiritual warfare, praying right, we're going to pray in the Spirit. So what I'm saying is to pray in the Spirit, thirdly is to be mindful of the wickedness of the world we live in the wicked, evil world system that opposes us, and Satan has crafted it to see it clearly, to see it for what it is to see it how evil it is this spiritual Babylon. This wicked world system to see it in the eyes of God. What does he think of this world in all of its wicked sin to see it in the eyes of Judgment Day, what will all of that sin and that wickedness look like on Judgment Day. To pray in the Spirit, means for the Spirit to take us by the hand on a tour of the evilness of the world, and we can see it for what it is and we're like, "I hate that, I don't want that. It's to see how it'll appear on Judgment Day, to pray in the Spirit, means to see the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life, clearly as the deadly dangers they are to pray in the Spirit, means to see the World Properly, spiritually to look at the political forces, political forces, the military situations that are going on on earth, to look at those things with spiritual eyes, to look at the economic things that are going on to look at the stuff they sell in the mall. The stuff that's in the cyber world, the stuff that you surf the web, and then zero in on to see those things spiritually to see them properly. To see Babylon the great as a vast, dark satanic conspiracy a wicked brilliantly conceived alluring temptress away from faith in God. It's to peer into the invisible realm and see how Satan's organized world, system keeps people all over the world enslaved to lusts and false religions and false philosophies, to enslave them to pray in the Spirit, more than that is to see how those things have made inroads into your own heart. How are Satan's temptations, already putting a rope around your heart and pulling you, so that you can see it with the disgust we should have and cut those ropes and say, "I'm not going to sin, I hate sin.” Praying in the Spirit, is to see how those things are assaulting your soul to see the ways the world is making inroads to look at your spending habits. How are you spending your money? How are you spending your time? What websites are you going to? How are you actually living your life, To see the world system and how it's weakened your zeal for holiness and how it's weakened your zeal for evangelism and missions to see it clearly. In the Spirit: Vision of the Future Glory of Christ’s Bride Fourthly, the fourth vision to be in the Spirit, the last use of the phrase in the spirit is Revelation 21:9-11. And again, we're going to see the same thing, “Come and I will show you” So to pray in the Spirit, means to be transported lifted up from the room where you're praying, your dorm room, your office room, you're praying at lunch, you go into your room and close the door, it's at home, but you're lifted up, that room isn't an ordinary place, anymore. Now, you can see spiritually some things. So what's the fourth vision? We'll look at it. Revelation 21:9-11, one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come and I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb, and he carried me away,” here's the phrase, “in the Spirit to a mountain great and high and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God and it shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a Jasper, clear as crystal. This is the New Jerusalem, it is the heavenly bride of Christ, this is the people of God finished, at the end of salvation, radiant and glorious and shining with the light of the glory of God, so Revelation 17 and Revelation 21, both show us a woman that's a city, or a city that's a woman. There's a complex imagery there of woman/city and so, in Revelation 17, she is vile and corrupt and drunk, and in Revelation 21, she's pure and holy, and radiant and beautiful. What a contrast. So to pray in the Spirit, means to have an eternal view of the Church, the bride of Christ, the people of God as they will look at the end of the world. All of the people, elect, chosen before the foundation of the world. Some of them converted some of them not yet, But they're going to make it all of them are going to be there, They're going to be in Heaven, all of them, they're going to be saved and we can pray. We're going to talk more next week about how to pray and intercede for others horizontally. How to pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests with this in mind, “be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” We'll talk about that next week but it's to pray in light of the Church in glory, it's radiant beauty. So the Book of Revelation gives us four uses of the phrase, “in the Spirit,” first, a vision of the glorified Christ as mediator and how much you need him to be your mediator. Secondly, a vision of Almighty God seated on a throne, high above the surface of the earth infinitely greater in power than Satan. Thirdly, a vision of the world, in all of its wicked corruptions, and sins in the power of the devil in the power of Satan, and then fourth a vision of how the church is going to be pure, and beautiful, and radiant, when all is said and done. Praying for the Right Things Now those four themes are vital to spiritual warfare prayers. Vital. We need to pray for the right things in detail. The Spirit's going to teach you how to pray. He's going to take those themes and apply them and help you to see things, aspects of each one of those things as you pray. So what I would suggest to you is that when you go to pray, calm your mind and your heart, Allow enough time. Try to not be distracted. Jesus went away to lonely places to pray because it is so easy to be distracted. Calm your spirit and wait to be in the presence of God until you know that you're about to talk to Almighty God through Jesus. IV. Prayer “In the Spirit”: Praying the Right Way There was a missionary in India, named John Hyde, he was nicknamed “Praying Hyde,” And Wilber Chapman tells a story, he was an evangelist traveling evangelist and he was having a evangelistic service, and it wasn't going that well. It turned out that John Hyde was in that town, heard about it, and came and wanted to pray for him. Never refuse when a man like that comes and says, "Can I pray for you?" please. And so, they went into the room together and this is the description of what happened. “He came to my room, turn the key in the door and dropped on his knees and waited. Listen to this for five minutes before uttering a single sound,” five minutes. The man said, “I could hear my own heart thumping I felt hot tears start to come down my face. I knew that I was with God and then with an upturned face, with tears streaming down his face, he said simply, oh God, and then five more minutes, nothing else.” And then when he knew without a doubt he was talking to the God of Revelation 4, the God enthroned, the God of Isaiah 40, he began praying and intercession and request came streaming out from him almost like molten lava just pure and powerful and strong. So do that, look at the ways that prayer is rote and mechanical in your life and get rid of them. Don't pray rote prayers, don't pray machine-like prayers, don't pray cold prayers. Thomas Brooks, a puritan and writer said this, “As painted fire is no fire and the dead man is no man, so a cold prayer is no prayer.” “In a painted fire, there's no heat in a dead man there is no life, so in a cold prayer, there is no power, there's no devotion, there's no blessing. Cold prayers are arrows without heads, as swords without edges they are as birds, without wings.” So, they pierce not, they cut not, and they fly not up to Heaven. Cold prayers do always freeze before they get up to Heaven, oh, that Christians would hide themselves out of their cold prayers and chide themselves into a better warmer hotter frame of spirit before they pray. So, you're going to wait until you know you're in the presence of God, lean on Christ, your mediator be mindful that were it not for him, God would not look at you or listen to you. By the blood of Christ, you enter into the throne room, you see the greatness of God, you wait in his presence, and listen to what the Spirit tells you to pray for and then as he tells you to pray, pray. A Message to All Non-Christians: Repent and Believe One final word I want to say, I know that it's possible not everybody that's here today is a believer in Christ. And so I've been talking to Christians about how to pray. But if you came in here and you were not a Christian, you knew you're on the outside looking in, the most important thing you can do is trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. We believe that God sent Jesus, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died on the cross for sinners like you and me. Raised from the dead on the third day. If you trust in him, not by good works, but by simple faith, your sins will be forgiven, Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and you'll be able to pray in the Spirit, as we've been talking about today. Close with me in prayer. Prayer Father, we thank you for the things we learned from your word. We would not know these things, if you didn't teach them to us. We thank you that the word and the Spirit are so closely connected. I thank you for the vision that John had in the Book of Revelation, I thank you for the fourfold use of the phrase “in the Spirit,” I thank you for what he saw each time. I thank you for Jesus, our great mediator, who shed his blood that we might have access into the throne room of God. And I thank you for the throne room of God. A door standing open, not closed, but open for us, and we can in the Spirit go through that door and come to the throne of grace and see Almighty God enthroned. I thank you that by the ministry of the Spirit, we can see the wickedness of sin and hate it like you do, And I thank you that we can also see our future in the bride of Christ in the Church, pure and holy, I pray that you would enable us to pray in the Spirit on all occasions in Jesus' name. Amen.

The historic concept of "praying through" has gone missing in our modern- day version of Christianity. But "praying through" was the essence of the George Muller, Rees Howells, John Hyde, Hudson Taylor, William Booth, Leonard Ravenhill, C.T. Studd model for effectual fervent praying. How do we get this powerful, wrestling, persistent prayer back to the center of Christian life in our day?

The historic concept of "praying through" has gone missing in our modern- day version of Christianity. But "praying through" was the essence of the George Muller, Rees Howells, John Hyde, Hudson Taylor, William Booth, Leonard Ravenhill, C.T. Studd model for effectual fervent praying. How do we get this powerful, wrestling, persistent prayer back to the center of Christian life in our day?

The historic concept of "praying through" has gone missing in our modern- day version of Christianity. But "praying through" was the essence of the George Muller, Rees Howells, John Hyde, Hudson Taylor, William Booth, Leonard Ravenhill, C.T. Studd model for effectual fervent praying. How do we get this powerful, wrestling, persistent prayer back to the center of Christian life in our day?

On this podcast: "Ten Years" by Rafael Karlen, "Now I Know" by Brian Seligman, "Gray Rain" by José Valente, "Listlessness" by John Hyde, "My Little Creature" by Curtis Macdonald and "Opalesque" by Curtis MacDonald.

NAPL, the trade association for excellence in graphic communications management, is pleased to present Episode #9 in a series of podcasts reporting "live from the scene" about the activities and speakers at the GraphExpo Conference, taking place this week, September 7-12, in Chicago. This podcast features a conversation with John Hyde, Vice President and Senior Consultant, NAPL, about steps printers can take to prepare for tightening credit markets for commercial finance. Download the podcast here (13.6 mb stereo MP3 file, 00:09:56 duration). For information about the many benefits of membership in NAPL, call (800) 642-6275, Option 4, or visit www.napl.org. Keywords: NAPL,GraphExpo,Chicago,hyde,credit crunch,financial issues,finance,mergers,acquisitions,paramus,lubetkin

NAPL, the trade association for excellence in graphic communications management, is pleased to present Episode #9 in a series of podcasts reporting "live from the scene" about the activities and speakers at the GraphExpo Conference, taking place this week, September 7-12, in Chicago.This podcast features a conversation with John Hyde, Vice President and Senior Consultant, NAPL, about steps printers can take to prepare for tightening credit markets for commercial finance. Download the podcast here (13.6 mb stereo MP3 file, 00:09:56 duration).For information about the many benefits of membership in NAPL, call (800) 642-6275, Option 4, or visit www.napl.org.Keywords: NAPL,GraphExpo,Chicago,hyde,credit crunch,financial issues,finance,mergers,acquisitions,paramus,lubetkin

NAPL, the trade association for excellence in graphic communications management, is pleased to present the second installment of its NAPL Mergers & Acquisitions Podcast, featuring John Hyde, Vice President and Senior Consultant in NAPL's Professional Services Group. In this podcast, John talks about conservative growth with Richard Kershenbaum, president of Kay Printing, a family owned printing company based in Clifton, New Jersey. John Hyde Download the podcast here (28.7 mb stereo MP3 file, 20:56 duration). You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this podcast here. You can subscribe to the podcast in the Apple iTunes Music Store here. Keywords: NAPL, kershenbaum, conservative growth, hyde, consulting,consultant,merger,acquisition,mergers and acquisitions,M&A,strategic transactions,buyer,seller,sale of business,communication,valuation,company valuation,ownership,exit strategy,NJ, Paramus, podcast, lubetkin

NAPL, the trade association for excellence in graphic communications management, is pleased to present the second installment of its NAPL Mergers & Acquisitions Podcast, featuring John Hyde, Vice President and Senior Consultant in NAPL's Professional Services Group. In this podcast, John talks about conservative growth with Richard Kershenbaum, president of Kay Printing, a family owned printing company based in Clifton, New Jersey. John Hyde Download the podcast here (28.7 mb stereo MP3 file, 20:56 duration).You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this podcast here.You can subscribe to the podcast in the Apple iTunes Music Store here.Keywords: NAPL, kershenbaum, conservative growth, hyde, consulting,consultant,merger,acquisition,mergers and acquisitions,M&A,strategic transactions,buyer,seller,sale of business,communication,valuation,company valuation,ownership,exit strategy,NJ, Paramus, podcast, lubetkin

This podcast features a conversation with Bill Gilmer of Wordsprint Printing & Graphic Communications of Wytheville, VA, a participant in the TMC Conference, about his highly successful approach to selling graphic communications services into niche vertical markets. Hosting the conversation is John Hyde, NAPL vice president and senior consultant. Download the podcast here (13.0 mb stereo MP3 file, 14:17 duration). For information about the many benefits of membership in NAPL, call (800) 642-6275, Option 4, or visit www.napl.org. Keywords: NAPL, customer service,top management conference,tmc,Santa Barbara,forum,conference,printing,press,graphic,communications,NJ, Paramus, podcast, lubetkin

This podcast features a conversation with Bill Gilmer of Wordsprint Printing & Graphic Communications of Wytheville, VA, a participant in the TMC Conference, about his highly successful approach to selling graphic communications services into niche vertical markets.Hosting the conversation is John Hyde, NAPL vice president and senior consultant. Download the podcast here (13.0 mb stereo MP3 file, 14:17 duration).For information about the many benefits of membership in NAPL, call (800) 642-6275, Option 4, or visit www.napl.org.Keywords: NAPL, customer service,top management conference,tmc,Santa Barbara,forum,conference,printing,press,graphic,communications,NJ, Paramus, podcast, lubetkin

NAPL, the trade association for excellence in graphic communications management, is pleased to present the NAPL Company Valuation Podcast, featuring John Hyde, Managing Director of NAPL's Professional Services Group. In this podcast, John discusses situations when a graphic communications company should consider preparing a Company Valuation. John Hyde Download the podcast here (36.7 mb stereo MP3 file, 25:30 duration).

NAPL, the trade association for excellence in graphic communications management, is pleased to present the NAPL Company Valuation Podcast, featuring John Hyde, Managing Director of NAPL's Professional Services Group. In this podcast, John discusses situations when a graphic communications company should consider preparing a Company Valuation. John Hyde Download the podcast here (36.7 mb stereo MP3 file, 25:30 duration).

NAPL, the trade association for excellence in graphic communications management, is pleased to introduce its NAPL Mergers & Acquisitions Podcast, featuring John Hyde, Managing Director of NAPL's Professional Services Group. In this podcast, John discusses what graphic communications companies need to know about using acquisition as a growth strategy. John Hyde Download the podcast here (44.2 mb stereo MP3 file, 31:23 duration).

NAPL, the trade association for excellence in graphic communications management, is pleased to introduce its NAPL Mergers & Acquisitions Podcast, featuring John Hyde, Managing Director of NAPL's Professional Services Group. In this podcast, John discusses what graphic communications companies need to know about using acquisition as a growth strategy. John Hyde Download the podcast here (44.2 mb stereo MP3 file, 31:23 duration).

Introduction: Functioning in a World of Mystery In Romans 10:1-4 we come to the connection between Romans 9 and Romans 10. We come immediately at verse 1, to a mystery in the Christian life, and we should be used to that. We live in a world filled with mysteries that we just accept everyday. Most cell phone users don't have the first idea what happens to their voice when they speak into it, and it's heard by somebody on the other side of the world, but that doesn't stop them from using cell phones. I can assure you it doesn't stop them. And most people who try to reheat a meal using a microwave aren't troubled by the fact that they do not fully understand microwave technology, they push the start button and they eat the meal a couple of minutes later, it's not a problem for them. Have you ever stopped to ponder the remote on the TV and say, "I'm not going to use this until I understand fully what's happening with this and with the TV as well, and until I understand it I'm not watching." Now that might be a good pledge for some of you to make, because there's not a lot worth watching. But we are surrounded by mysteries that we just accept. Those are all technological mysteries, but there have been mysteries all along. Most people do not fully understand what happens when a seed is stuck into the ground. Jesus said, "Day and night, it grows so the farmer doesn't know how." He can't give an explanation, a full explanation of how it goes from seed to harvest. Only God knows that and yet he's not hindered from putting the seed in the ground, and he's not hindered from harvesting when the time comes. And so it is when we come to chapter 10 and meet right away a mystery, we realize we cannot be hindered by the fact that we can't fully comprehend how these two things go together. What are they? Romans 9 has been portraying a picture of salvation that it comes from the sovereign will of God, that our God is a king. He rules over all things. And so, we've been wrestling with very deep statements in Romans Chapter 9, things that talk about unconditional election, Jacob and Esau, "before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose in election might stand…" We had already learned that it was before the foundation of the world, this election, this predestination. We've seen that salvation does not depend ultimately on man, a man's desire effort, but on God who has mercy, Romans 9:16. We've seen that God in Romans 9:18 has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. And yet, here we go, in chapter 10:1 and we get Paul saying, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." Now, hold on a minute, Paul. If it's all been set before the foundation of the world, then why pray for it? I don't understand, this is a mystery. And so, we have eternal predestination, and energetic prayer, and they're side by side in the very one who taught it. Later in Romans 10, we're going to get eternal predestination and energetic preaching around the world. How can they believe in the one that they've not heard of? "And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'" Again a mystery, but to Paul, you see in his life energetic prayer for the lost, and we see also this energetic preaching to the ends of the earth that the lost may be saved. Now, this is mystery and I cannot explain it fully, too, because I don't understand it myself. I don't know that the apostle Paul could have plumbed all the depths and fully understood it all, but he knew this, God was sovereign over salvation and we need to pray for the lost. God was sovereign over salvation and we need to preach to the lost that they may be saved, and he knew that. I. Paul’s Heart-felt Prayer for Israel And so we come here in verse 1, To Paul's heartfelt prayer for Israel. Look at it verse 1, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." Now, here we have Paul's amazing and astonishing love for his persecutors. The Jews were constantly opposing him at every turn. They would listen for a while and then at some point, he would say something that would offend them, and they would turn on him, and eventually in many places at least, start a riot. When was the last time you started a riot? Wouldn't that have made you feel bad? Wouldn't you say, "This was not one of my best days? I didn't wake up this morning hoping to start a riot." Well, Paul started at least three of them. This was a man who stirred up deep passions, and it was the Christ-rejecting Jews that were at the heart of all of them. They would pursue Paul from place to place. They weren't content just to hear him and let him go, drive him out of their town. They'd find out where he was going next and they chased him there and they'd start trouble there. Now, Christ had predicted this aggressive Jewish persecution of the gospel when he said in Matthew 23:34, "Therefore, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues, [listen] and pursue from town to town." Isn't that what happened with Paul? And Jesus had predicted it in Matthew 23, and yet here we have in verse 1 tremendous compassion by the apostle Paul for the sake of his persecutors, "brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." We see here a Christlike compassion don't we. Just like Jesus when he says in Matthew 5:44, "I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Oh, is that hard to do. I mean, genuinely to love your enemies, to yearn for the best for them while they're beating on you, to yearn that they might be saved, to pray for those who persecute you, that's what Jesus commanded, and yet Paul is actually doing it. It's the very thing that Jesus did on the cross. In Luke 23:34, Jesus said, "Father forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." And so we see Paul's astonishing love for his persecutors. And we see Paul's response, his heartfelt prayer: "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." It's a genuine yearning he has for their salvation. He wants to see them saved. Thomas Brooks a puritan pastor said this, he said, "Cold prayers always freeze before they reach heaven." That's a heartless prayer, a prayer that you pray and you have no interest in the outcome. John Bunyan put it this way, "When you pray, rather let thy heart be without words, than thy words be without a heart." Sometimes, you can pray without words, you... I don't know what to say. The Lord is reading your heart, he knows what to do in that situation. Another Puritan pastor said, "Many a mute beggar stood at the gate mute and got what he needed from God." So, it's not ornate words, it's the heart, it's the passion behind the prayer. He says, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is their salvation." I believe part of the purpose of prayer is to turn us from the kind of people who really don't care about our neighbor, who really don't care what's happening with those around us, to people who really do care. As we've talked about many times before, that attitude of Cain saying, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Well, Paul didn't feel that way. He felt that he needed to intercede for people who are persecuting him, and so he prayed for them, my heart's desire and prayer. Now, there are serious theological and spiritual implications. As I've already pointed out, Romans 9, I believe, is the greatest chapter in all the Bible on the absolute sovereignty of God over human salvation. I think it really leaves us no wiggle room. I think ultimately it's very clear as you follow the verses you say, "God is the ultimate end of salvation." It comes down to the will of God, ultimately. But then, here in Romans 10, you have these two aspects of a clear teaching on human responsibility toward the lost. We should pray for them, we should preach to them, we should do missions. Later on we're going to commission the Kazakh mission team, you got another team that's going out on a short-term mission trip. I am so excited by the development, the flowering of short-term missions in this church, one of the greatest things that's happened since I've been here, it's a delight to see. And so, we are commanded in Romans 10, we'll get to it later on in the preaching as God permits, to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, to be those feet, the beautiful feet that travel across the mountains and rivers to bring the message to those who haven't heard. And so we have these mysteries, the absolute sovereignty of God and the human responsibility toward the lost. How do you put it together? Putting Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility Together Well, in history, in church history, some have put it together wrongly, some have emphasized the one and denied the other. For example, some called Hyper-Calvinists, they call them, were said to William Carey, "Look, if God wants to save the heathen, he can do it in his own time, in his own way without any help from us." And William Carey, who believed in the absolute sovereignty of God in Romans 9 said, "I think God's ordained that I go as the means to the end." And he went, but the naysayers had that extreme view, they had denied chapter 10, that we need to go and preach and that we need to be praying. But then others flip it around saying, clearly we need to witness, clearly we need to be praying for the lost. And so the truths that are there in Romans 9 just can't be true. Whatever it is you are saying about them, they can't be true. Well, it's right there, what we're saying. God is absolutely sovereign, does not depend on man's desire effort. Can we put these things finally together? I don't think so, but I know this, I want to pray for the lost the way Paul does here in verse 1. I want to pray for them, I want to have a heart of compassion for lost people around me and pray for them that they may be saved. There are so many incredible examples of people who poured out their heart in prayer for the lost and saw them saved. One of the great examples is that of Monica, Saint Augustine's mother, who prayed and wept for her errant son for years before he finally came to Christ and became one of the greatest fountains of theological truth the Lord ever raised up in church history. But it took a long time, he was an immoral young man, he was leading the life of the prodigal son. Wine, women, and song all the time, and then eventually when he started getting awakened to the need for more, he turned to human philosophy, into religious cults, not to Christ. And all along, there is Monica dying a thousand deaths in prayer every day, praying and praying, and he, Augustine told the story about his mother's intercessory prayer life on his behalf in his great book confessions. Confession's like a long testimony of how he came to faith in Christ. But it's written in the second person written to God. "And then you, Lord did this and then you taught me that." And here he talks to God directly about Monica's prayer for him. This is what he says, "And now, you did stretch forth your hand from above and drew up my soul out of that profound darkness, because my mother, your faithful one wept to you on my behalf more than mothers are accustomed to weep for the bodily deaths of their children. For by the light of the faith and spirit which she received from you, she saw that I was dead, and you heard her, o Lord, you heard her and despised not her tears, when pouring down, they watered the earth under her eyes in every place where she prayed. You did truly hear her. Nearly nine years passed in which I wallowed in the mud of that deep pit and in the darkness of falsehood striving off and arise, but being all the more heavily dashed down. But all that time, this chaste, pious, and sober widow such as you love was now more buoyed up with hope though no less zealous in her weeping and mourning, and she did not cease to bewail my case before you. In all the hours of her supplication, her prayers entered your presence and yet you allowed me still to tumble and toss around in that darkness." Well, Monica became so discouraged as she saw Augustine finally turning away somewhat from the immorality at least at one level, to turning to deeper thoughts, but then he gets involved in Manichaeism which was a cult, a pseudo-christian cult, and she'd about had it. She'd been praying for the son all of these years, she goes to this bishop and she talks to the bishop about the fact that Augustine was now wrapped up in this false doctrine and he said, "Well, God will lead him out of it, we've seen God leads so many out," she's not satisfied by that at all. She won't leave the bishop's office. She's not satisfied. Augustine wrote about it like this. "When he had said this, she was still not satisfied but repeated more earnestly her entreaties and shed copious tears still besieging him to see and talk with me. Finally, the bishop a little vexed at her persistence exclaimed, "Go your way, as you live. It cannot be that the son of such tears should perish." When she heard that, she took it as a prophecy from heaven that Augustine would in fact be saved. Augustine wrote this, "As she often told me afterwards, she accepted this answer as though it was a voice from on high." When at last, Augustine was converted to the true faith, Monica felt that her purpose in life was now finished and she died eight days later. It's an incredible story of persistent love in prayer. There are others, there's Hudson Taylor, who poured out his heart day after day for the inland regions of China where he knew that there were no Christians at all. As far as he knew, totally unreached, the teeming millions of the inland regions of China. Yes, the coast line, there were missionaries, but they weren't doing that great a work either. And he just began burden and burden to pray and he prayed until China inland mission came to be. And then there's John Hyde, the Presbyterian missionary to India, in the 19th century, he was nicknamed Praying Hyde. And with periods of outright persecution by Indian natives and few, if any conversions, Hyde began leading his fellow missionaries to pray to intercessory prayer for Indians so deep was it was called a prayer that in 1899, he began spending entire nights, face down before God. And he wrote a letter to his college, he wrote this, "Have felt led to pray for others this winter as never before. I never before knew what it was to work all day and then pray all night before God for another…In college or at parties at home, I used to keep such hours for myself for pleasure. And can I not do as much for God and for souls?" So he began praying, By 1908, John Hyde dared to pray, what was to many at the missionary convention that met every year, an impossible goal. That during the upcoming year in India, one soul would be saved every day. 365 people converted, baptized, and publicly confessing Jesus as their savior. Impossible they said, yet it happened. He saw it happen through prayer. Before the next convention of missionaries, John Hyde had prayed more than 400 people into God's kingdom, and when the prayer union gathered again, he doubled his goal to two souls a day. Do not stop him. 800 conversions were recorded in the following year, and still Hyde showed an unquenchable passion for souls. At the 1910 convention, those around Hyde marveled at his faith, as they witnessed his near violent supplications, "Give me souls, oh God, or I die!" That's the way he would pray. Imagine praying with a man like that, it's going to be convicting, but it might heat you up a bit to just be in his presence. "Give me souls or I die." Before the meeting ended, John Hyde revealed that he was again doubling his goal for the coming year, four souls a day and nothing less. And during the next 12 months, he traveled all over, that's when they gave him the nickname Praying Hyde. He led revival after revival. And one day, he didn't know of four people that were converted, he would spend the night in prayer for them. And the number of converts multiplied and the goal was met that year. Incredible, faithful prayer. And then there's George Muller, one of my favorites, who had in his Prussian discipline this list of unconverted people that he prayed for every single day without an intermission. He prayed for some of them for one year, for two years, for six years, 10 years, some of them for over 20 years, some of them he prayed for until he died, and still the answer had not been given concerning them. I know of one case A. T. Pierson, his biography wrote of one case of somebody who converted after he died, two weeks after he died. He'd prayed for this guy for 40 years, every day, every day for 40 years, prayed for this lost person. And Muller said this, "I have not a doubt that I shall meet them both in heaven for my heavenly father would not lay upon my heart a burden of prayer for them for over three score years if he had not concerning them the purposes of mercy." Now, that's the best I can do to put them together. Is it natural for a human being to care that much about another human being that they would pray that long every day? I say it's not, I say it's super natural. And so, Muller said, they must be elect. God is working, he believed in predestination. God has called on me to pray and I'm not going to stop praying until it happens. Therefore, it is in some way, a means to an end. I cannot fully understand that but I know I want to be like this. I want to pray like praying Hyde, I want to pray like George Muller, I want to pray like Monica. Let me just stop right here in the middle of the message and just do some application. Are You Praying for the Lost? Do you have some lost relatives? And are you beseeching Lord daily for their salvation? Parents, do you have some lost children who are wandering from the fold? They could be fully grown, they might be teenagers or perhaps they're still little and they haven't yet come into a full understanding of the Gospel. Are you praying for them every day the way that Monica prayed for her son, Augustine? Spouses, do you have a lost husband, a lost wife? Are you praying for them every day, that they would be converted? Romans 10:1, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." Neighbors, are you constantly lifting lost neighbors up? Do you know the names of some neighbors that are not saved, and you're praying for them? Coworkers? When I worked as an engineer, I made a list of all the people in my immediate department and I prayed for them daily, and I prayed also that I would personally have an opportunity to share the gospel in the four-part outline, God man Christ response the full Gospel, at least some time while I was there. I saw God answer those prayers again and again. It wasn't 100%, but I had over 90%. I had a little list, woe to me if they ever found it. But I kept it hidden, and I was praying that I would have an opportunity to witness to each one of them. To witness, it was up to the Lord to convert them, but I wanted to pray for them, and to witness for them. Are you praying for your coworkers? Recently, I was speaking to the pastor at Providence Baptist Church, David Horner, and they have a three by three program in which basically just groups of three covenant together to pray each of them for three lost people and to pray for their partners, lost people as well. So you'd be praying daily for nine lost people, every day for nine lost people. And along with the prayer comes a kind of a subtle pressure I guess. "Hey, did you get a chance to invite him to church? Did you get a chance to say anything about the Lord to them?" that kind of thing, or even some have been more aggressive and say the three of us, let's go to each of the nine. And they would set up times and say what we do is we want to talk to you about the Lord. And they would be very intentional about witnessing to these nine folks. And when all nine had heard the Gospel, maybe they would get some new ones, and when they converted, they would start all over again. So you've got in your bulletin a little pamphlet about what we'd like to do here, three by three, and you're going to hear about it more. I don't have the time to go into it right now, but you understand the concept, find two others and do it. You don't need the ministerial staff to do any more than what you've just heard in the last six minutes. You understand, go find two other faith-filled people, and start praying for nine people. Pray for them that they would be saved. There's a lot of things you can do. You can also adopt an unreached people group and pray for them until you see them come to faith in Christ. The Joshua project on the internet has lists of unreached people groups, you can just adopt one. Just because we don't understand how eternal sovereignty and human responsibility fits together, we can't reject it. Let's be like Paul. Let's trust in a sovereign God. And by the way, we're always trusting a sovereign God when we go to Him in prayer, aren't we? Are we going to somebody to God saying, "You think you can do something about this?" We believe that God is sovereign over salvation so we go. And do you think the Lord is going to say, "Don't come to me, that's not my department, I don't save people." Of course he saves people. That's what he's doing, so we go into the throne room and say, "Save him, save her." We keep praying for them. So let's be faith-filled and be like the apostle Paul in prayer. II. Israel’s Ignorant Zeal Now Paul prayed for the Israelites. He says, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." In Verse Two, he says, "For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge." Now I'm not quite sure the connection between verse one and two, I think it's... He's thinking, they are so zealous, they're so powerful in their lives, think what they could be for Christ if they would be converted. Look what the Apostle Paul was, he was zealous for the traditions of the fathers, then he became zealous for the Gospel. "Wouldn't it be incredible," he's thinking, I think, "if they would be converted, for I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge." Now, what is zeal? It's a burning desire, a relentless drive to accomplish something. We're surrounded by zealous people. There are people that are zealous for their business. Their secular zeal is to establish their business and be successful. You can get zealous day traders on Wall Street that spend basically every waking hour and many hours they should be asleep awake looking after stocks and bonds and other things. They're zealous to make money. Olympic athletes, zealous every day disciplining themselves so that they can compete in the Olympics. I've always said it's interesting, the American race walkers, the 50K race walking, do you know a single American race walker? I don't. But these folks every day are training and preparing themselves so they can just compete and finish 23rd place at the next Olympics, but they're totally zealous for their sport. They're dedicated so that they might achieve the best they can. There are political activists that are zealous for their view of politics. They are making phone calls, they're writing letters, they're down where they need to be every day, pursuing their goals, whatever they are. That's secular zeal. There's also religious zeal, friends. We're seeing it just about every day in fundamentalist Islam, aren't we? Radical Islam, some of these people are willing to strap a bomb on their bodies and blow themselves up for their ends. But can I tell you something? Zeal does not save souls. This zeal that Paul's mentioning here, didn't save them, didn't save the Israelites. There is a zeal without knowledge, and that's what we've been talking about. Paul's own life was an avid witness, he was, as I mentioned, zealous for the traditions of the Elders. He was willing to travel long journeys to fight heresy. He was willing to harden his heart against the cries of wives and husbands and children as he broke apart families and arrested Christians. Paul's zeal for Israel and for the traditions of the Rabbis was like a raging furnace. He knew what this was about. The Jews as a nation burned for zeal, burned with zeal for God. Pontius Pilate had a belly full of this. When he brought the legions in and the Legions established their little icons of Caesar and put them in the walls of the temple, the Jews went crazy, they rioted and they would rather die than have those Roman idols in the temple. They were willing, all of them, to die that day. A generation after Christ, what was left of the Jewish Zealots gathered at a place called Masada, and all of them died rather than give in to the Romans. Their zeal was unmatched. That same zeal led them to scream for Christ's crucifixion. They were willing both to be killed and to kill for their view of the glory of God. Christ testified to this zeal for the law that they had. Matthew 23:15, he said, "Woe to you teachers of law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You travel over land and sea to win a single convert and then when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are." He's talking about zeal there, but it's a zeal, as Paul says, without knowledge. Now, what do I mean by that? What did Paul mean by "zeal without knowledge"? Well I think, in context, it's without knowing the righteousness that comes from God. But let's start with this. They didn't know God. So if they didn't know God, how could they know the righteousness that comes from God? They did not know the God they professed to serve and worship. Jesus said this again and again in John 16:2-3, he said this, "They will put you out of the synagogue. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think that he is rendering service to God. They will do such things, [listen] "because they have not known the Father or me." That's zeal without knowledge, friends. They didn't know God the Father, and they didn't know Christ. And Jesus said this again and again, in John 8:19, "They asked him, 'Where is your father?' Jesus answered, 'You do not know me or my father. If you knew me, you would know my Father, as well.'" He said later in that same chapter, Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My father, whom you claim as your God is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not know him, I would be a liar like you." So the Jews didn't know God. Isn't that amazing? The Jews burned with a zeal for a God they did not know, therefore the God they were serving was actually an idol of their own making, was not the true God of the Bible. And so in rejecting Christ, they rejected any possibility of a true knowledge of God. Jesus said in Matthew 11:27, "No one knows the son except the Father, and no one knows the Father, except the son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." So in rejecting Christ, they rejected any possibility of knowing the true God. Now, if they had known God, Jesus said, they would have welcomed Christ because Christ came from God. Instead, they sought to kill him. So therefore, any zeal the Jews displayed was zeal without knowledge because they did not know God. Now that made them ignorant. They were ignorant of the true God. They were ignorant of God's way of salvation. They were ignorant of the Gospel. Peter spoke of that ignorance in Acts 3, it says, "The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers has glorified His Servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed. You disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the holy and righteous one, and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance as did your leaders." You didn't know what you were doing. They didn't know it was Christ, they didn't know he was God in the flesh. Paul said the same was true of himself. He didn't know. 1 Timothy 1:13, "Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor, and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted, [listen] in ignorance and unbelief." I didn't know. Well, one morning on the road to Damascus, Jesus introduced himself to Paul for the first time in His resurrection glory. Well, that's who you are. "Who are you, Lord?" He said. That's ignorance, but he knew he was the Lord, it was Jesus. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." They have a zeal, Paul says, but it's a zeal without knowledge. Now, there is a zeal that saves souls. There is a zeal that saves souls. But it's not our zeal, it's Christ's zeal. In John 2 Jesus made a whip. You remember the story? Wove together a whip and took that whip and cleaned the temple, drove out all the cattle and sheep and doves, overturned the tables of the money changers, "Get these out of here. How dare you turn my Father's house into a market?" Did Jesus not know that Annas, the high priest, in his whole click there was connected financially to these? He knew. Did he not know that they would take it personally, especially when he does it twice? Oh, he knew. Did he not know that Annas would be motivated to kill him for what he had done? Oh, he knew. But his zeal for his father's house burned him from within. And so it said in John 2:17, "His disciples remembered that is written, 'Zeal for your house will consume me.'" Now, the word consume there in John 2:17, is literally "eat me alive", "Eat me up." Christ's zeal for the glory of God, his zeal that the temple of God be pure, his zeal for God's holiness was so strong it led to the cross. So also his zeal for your salvation, his zeal for your righteousness, his zeal to bring you and God together, to be the mediator between sinners and a holy God, his zeal brought him to the cross, and that is a zeal with knowledge, a zeal that saves our souls. Isn't that magnificent? And Christ's zeal for you has not reduced at all from the moment he saved you. It still burns as brightly as the sun and he's never going to stop until you are done being saved. That's the zeal that saves. III. Israel’s Central Failure: Rejecting God’s Righteousness But the zeal that doesn't save is in verse 3. It is a zeal to establish your own righteousness. And that's what the Jews had every day. Look at verse 3, "Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness." They didn't know the righteousness of God. This could mean they didn't know how righteous God is, and I think that's true. They think that God kind of grades on the curve, you know what I'm saying? That God can kind of coexist with pseudo-righteous people. He can't. His eyes are too pure to look on evil. You have to have a perfect righteousness. And so they underestimated how holy and righteous God is. But I don't think that's what Paul's meaning here. They didn't know the righteousness that God gives as a gift. That's what they didn't know. They didn't know that Christ came to give you a righteousness you can survive in on judgement day. They didn't know that. It's what Paul's been talking about over and over in Romans. Look what he says, you don't have to look but listen, in Romans 1:16-17, it says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; for in the Gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, from faith to faith, as it is written, 'The righteous will live by faith,'" There is a given righteousness, a gift of righteousness that comes by simply believing the Gospel message. They didn't know it. They didn't know it and they didn't submit to it once they heard about it. Paul spoke later about that same righteousness in Romans 3:21 and following. It says, "But now, a righteousness from God apart from law has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace, by the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." Jesus died on the cross to take your sins and mine on himself and to extinguish the wrath of God, the penalty against us. He also gives to us the perfect righteousness that he lived in at every moment. It is in that righteousness that we'd stand on Judgment Day. But Israel did not know that righteousness. They didn't submit to it and they sought to establish their own. That means that every day they were seeking to make a building of self-righteousness. They would wake up in the morning and try to establish their own righteousness through good works, through achievements, through religious actions. Everything they did, their sacrifices that they offered, the animal sacrifices, their ritual washings, the way they carried on their business according to the Rabbinic traditions, the way that they did every little thing in life down to giving a tithe of their spices, every little part of their life was for righteousness sake, that they would be able to establish their own righteousness. It's like they were building some kind of tower of righteousness, or maybe a stairway of righteousness through which they hoped to ascend to heaven. And every brick was a good deed, and the mortar that held every brick together was pride. And it stunk to high heavens. As a matter of fact, just like the Tower of Babel, God thought or was as displeased with the spiritual tower of self-righteousness the Jews were building every day as he was with the pagan tower that the Gentiles had sought to build to make a name for themselves. It says in Genesis 11, they built the tower of Babel to make a name for themselves. So also the Jews are trying to establish their own righteousness. And God would not accept it. On judgment day, He would humble them. IV. Christ is the End of the Law for Believers And so in verse 4 it says, "Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes." Israel misunderstood the role of the law. The law was not to save anybody, the law didn't save sinners, it couldn't. As we mentioned last week, the law is like a CAT scan or an MRI to tell you that you have a tumor. It does not do anything about the tumor, it doesn't heal you at all. Instead, it says, "Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes." What does it mean, "Christ is the end of the law"? Well, the Greek word end, "telos", has three possible meanings, all three of them are poignant. First, Christ is the end of the final stage of the ceremonial law. You don't need circumcision anymore, you don't need the ritual life of Moses anymore, you don't need animal sacrifice anymore. All of that's finished because Christ has come and He is our righteousness. And so we're not under the law anymore, in that way. But better, secondly, Christ is the end goal of the law. When you get on a train station, a local train, get on a train at a train station, there's a local train with a lot of stops. And you ask what is the terminal stop? What's the final one? I took a train when I was a missionary in Japan from Kobe to Osaka, Osaka was the final stop. I will never forget that train ride as long as I live. When I got on, I thought the train was full. We had ten more stops to go, and the same number of people got on at each stop. I've never seen anything like it in all my life. I survived but I don't know how, the breathing got tough. I got well acquainted with people I'd never met before in my life. The terminal stop was Osaka, that was it, everybody off. Praise God! And so we got off at Osaka, all of us did. The terminal stop of the law was Christ. The law was bringing people to Christ. It was a tutor, it says in the Book of Galatians, to bring you to Christ. How so? Because you would learn through the law, you could never establish your own righteousness, you can't do it. You can't love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You can't love your neighbor as yourself. So Christ is the terminal stop of the law. Or you could look at it the ultimate goal of the law, that's why the law was given, to bring you to Christ, so that you would find in Christ, your righteousness, the end of the law. But finally, and perhaps best, Christ is the "telos", the perfection of the law. He's the perfect embodiment of the law. The law reveals the righteousness of God, Christ reveals God's righteousness even better. Christ kept every jot and tittle of the law perfectly in his life. Christ is the perfection of a law abiding life. And thanks be to God, that perfect robe of righteousness Jesus wove every day of his law-abiding life, he gives to you as a simple gift. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for believers, for all of us who believe. V. Application Now, what application can we take from these verses that we've looked at? Well, let's go back to the one I made earlier. Will you please do that three by three? Will you just find two other people you want to pray with and start praying for some lost people? Romans 10:1, will you start praying for your lost neighbors, and coworkers and fellow students, if you're a student? Some people you may know that come to church, even that don't know Christ yet. Will you get together with two other people and pray for those nine folks? Pray for the lost that they would have a heart for truth, that God would send witnesses, (that's a tricky prayer, you know). "Oh Lord, please send a witness to this person that they might hear the gospel." You know what's going to happen if you pray that enough. "Here am I, send me," you're going to say. After a while, you'll say, "Why not me? Why can't I go?" And you will. And so, you might lead somebody to Christ this year, wouldn't that be incredible. Pray that those folks would have a conviction of sin, that they would see in Christ the righteousness that they need. And the final application before we go to the Lord's table is this, just understand that Christ is the goal, the end of the law. We're not under law, we're children of God. We're not standing in a legal righteousness every day, we don't crank it out every day. That's not Christianity, friends. We're already perfect in Christ's righteousness and we're just called to live in the righteousness that Christ came to give us. Christ is the end of the law so that there's no legalism anymore. We're not going to be like the Jews building a stairway to heaven brick by brick. Neither is Christ the end of the law so that there may be license. Rather Christ fulfills the law and writes it in your heart and your mind so that you can live it by the Spirit. Close with me, if you would, in prayer.

The Extraordinary Prayer Life of John Hyde Please take your Bibles and open to Romans 8:26-27. We heard those two powerful verses read for us earlier. Today we are going to talk about the mystery of prayer, and specifically how the Holy Spirit helps us in prayer. When I was in seminary I learned about a man named John Hyde, a missionary to India and one of the greatest men of faith and prayer that this world has ever seen. And when he went as a missionary to India, he was soon, as you can well imagine in that populous nation, overwhelmed by the needs that he saw. Being a man of God and being a missionary and a preacher of the Word, he understood that the most significant needs of the people were spiritual. They did not know Jesus as Lord and Savior. And he began to be burdened. And he was not satisfied with the progress that they were making. He was not satisfied with the Word going out and not coming back with conversions. He wanted to see people saved. And so he began to pray. And God led him in a significant way to begin to trust Him for one soul a day. That he would have the privilege of leading one person to Christ every day. And God answered that prayer. And it wasn't long before he added another and started praying for two a day, that he might have the privilege of leading two people to Christ every day. By the time he was finished with his missionary work he was up to four people a day. Trusting God for their salvation, and seeing repeated answers to prayer. So that's what he prayed for, but it doesn't touch how he prayed. And I have an account here of a way that this man prayed related by Dr. Wilber Chapman who wrote about it to a friend. Now Dr. Chapman was an English preacher, and they were having a revival service. And this is what he wrote. "I have learned some great lessons concerning prayer. At one of our missions in England the audience was exceedingly small, but I received a note saying that an American missionary was going to pray for God's blessing down on our work. He was known as 'praying Hyde.' [That was his nickname, 'praying Hyde']. Almost instantly the tide turned, the hall became packed. And at my first invitation 50 men accepted Christ as their Savior. As we were leaving I said, 'Mr. Hyde I want you to pray for me.' He came to my room, turned the key in the door and dropped on his knees and waited five minutes without a single syllable coming from his lips. I could hear my own heart thumping and his beating. I felt hot tears running down my face. I knew I was with God. Then with upturned face, while the tears were still streaming, he said, 'Oh God.' And then for five minutes again, at least, he was still. And then when he knew he was talking with God, there came from the depth of his heart such petitions for me as I had never heard before. I rose from my knees to know what real prayer was. We believe that prayer is mighty and we believe it as we never did before." Now that's a prayer meeting. Have you ever prayed like that? I really can't say that I have. I've had times in which God has lifted me up and I've prayed in a more significant, in a more Spirit-filled way, but never like that. And I think to myself, all of us feel our weakness, especially in prayer, don't we? Don't you feel your weakness when it comes to prayer? Can any of you testify and say, "I am a hundred percent satisfied with my prayer life? It's everything that I want it to be." Can you say that? I can't. And so I feel my weakness. And it's a beautiful thing that this passage on prayer and specifically on the Holy Spirit's ministry to us in prayer begins with a testimony to our weakness. Look what it says in verse 26, it says, "In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness." Do you feel your weakness today? Do you feel the weakness of your faith? Do you feel your weakness in prayer? I. The Promise and Fulfillment of Prayer Well, I want you to know that God has made promises concerning prayer, lavish promises. I think he means to fulfill them in you individually and in us corporately through the power of the Holy Spirit. And only by the power of the Holy Spirit can we pray as God intends. It says in Zechariah 12:10, this is an old Testament promise, an ancient promise, and this is what it says, "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me the one they have pierced." That's a powerful testimony isn't it. A promise that God will pour out on the Jews a spirit of grace and supplication. What is supplication? It is prayer. And not just any prayer, but prayer from the heart. And I will pour out on them a spirit of prayer. We receive these promises, this promise given to the Jews. We receive it by extension, we who are Gentiles, we've come in to all the promises of God, they are yes and amen in Christ. And so we also receive the Spirit of supplication. And this Spirit is fulfilled even in our text. In Romans 8:15 it reads, "You have received the spirit of sonship, and by Him we cry out, 'Abba Father."' We cry out to God Abba Father. What is that, but prayer? It's a fulfillment of Zechariah 12:10 for us who are Gentiles. Every Christian, the moment you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are given the spirit of supplication, the Holy Spirit. And immediately as a child of God, a newborn child of God you begin to breathe prayers to God. You begin to speak to Him and call him Abba Father. but yet God is calling us (I believe) to a deeper a fuller and a richer prayer life than we've ever experienced before. Jesus Christ commanded lavishly in Matthew 7:7-8, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." Lavish promises, and a command to pray. John 16:23-24 it says the same thing. "I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in My name. Until now you've not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete." Jesus said that if you believe, you'll receive whatever you ask for in prayer. These are lavish promises and commands aren't they, for prayer? And we have throughout Church history many examples of those who have believed these promises. Not just praying Hyde, we've talked earlier about George Müller. This man trusted God for over 10,000 orphans; on his knees every day praying for daily bread, and for the needs of these people. 10,000 orphans. Prayed for them daily, and in good Prussian style kept a careful record of all of his prayers. Every single one of them and all that had been answered. Wouldn't it be great to go through those notebooks and see what God did? The details and how strong was his faith at the end of his life. David Brainerd, the missionary to Indians during the 1700s poured out his heart daily in longing for Heaven. "Oh that I might not loiter in my Heavenly journey" he would say. He was praying that his heart would be wrapped up, so wrapped up in Heaven that he would care nothing for the things of this world. That was David Brainerd. Then there was Martin Luther who said he was so overwhelmed with all the work and the business of a certain day that he had to pray twice as long that day. What would we do? Pray half as long if at all. But he believed in prayer and he lavished prayer on God and God lavished answers back. And then there was William Carey who had a world vision in prayer. Many examples of those who have taken these promises. What about you? Where's your prayer life? What about me? Where is mine? As we look at the Apostle Paul, he also is an example of this. Put your finger here in Romans 8, and look back at Romans 1:9-10. And this is a tendency I've seen in the Apostle Paul and confirmed in numerous places. Actually beginning at verse 8 it says "First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world." Isn't that marvelous? What does he thank God for? The faith of the Romans. "Thank you God that they're believers, and not only that but their reputation is spreading all over the world. Thank you God for that." But he goes on. He says "God whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the Gospel of His Son as my witness, how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times, and I pray that now at last by God's will, the way may be open for me to come to you." And so Paul is praying constantly for the Roman Christians. Now, look over at Roman's 15:30 and following. Romans 15:30 "I urge you brothers," he says there "By our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. Pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there, so that by God's will I may come to you with joy and together with you, be refreshed. The God of peace be with you all. Amen." What is he doing there? He's saying "Please pray for me. Pray for my mission, pray for my work. Pray that I might be delivered and rescued from those who would attack me." And so at the beginning of his letter to Romans, he says "I pray for you all the time," at the end of his letter, he says "Please pray for me." He does the same thing in many other epistles, he says "I pray for you." He asked, "Will you pray for me?" And so he is dependent on prayer as he is also faithful in prayer. II. Our Weakness and Prayer But my question is, "What is prayer? Or why are we so weak in it? And, specifically from this text in Romans 8:26-27, what is the ministry of the Holy Spirit to us in prayer?" Let's look first at our weakness and prayer in verse 26, it says "In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness." Well what weakness are we talking about? Well you have to understand the phrase, "In the same way." He's connecting this to what we have just talked about. What did we just talk about? Well in Romans 8:18-25, it talks about our physical bodies and how they're breaking apart, and how the physical world around us is groaning. We ourselves groan and the creation around us groans. And so we learn here in Romans 8:26-27 that the Spirit groans with us. Do you see how that works? We're in a time of groaning. We're in this present age of suffering and physical trial and death. This is a hard world for a believer. And so we're in a time of present weakness and our enemies, which are arrayed around us, are too strong for us. They're too mighty. And so we have indwelling sin, and we have external enemies that are fighting us. And so it's a time of weakness, but it's also weakness for ourselves in prayer. He goes on to say "We do not know what we ought to pray for." And so we have a weakness, we're ignorant, we don't know what to pray for, we're weak in terms of our desire to pray, we don't want to pray. We're weak in every way and so the Spirit has come to help us in our weakness. Now, prayer is part of the work that the Holy Spirit does in us to assure us that we are Christians, right? The whole chapter, Romans chapter 8 is given that we may know with a full certainty of faith, a full assurance that we're going to heaven. God wants you to live that way. And as a matter of fact, if you really understood the reality is what we're talking about heaven and hell, eternity in heaven, or eternity in hell, and you had no assurance of salvation, how would you live? Everything would be different. All of your good works would ultimately be self-focused, I believe. And so God wants to give you assurance of salvation and then send you out to do the good works in a whole different way. And so He's working assurance of salvation in us. Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Romans 8:39 says that nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. No condemnation all the way to no separation. I've repeated that about five or six times, but you get it. Romans chapter 8, it's assurance. It's giving a message of assurance and right in the middle of it is this issue of prayer. And so a healthy Spirit-led, Spirit-endowed prayer life is great assurance for the Christian. Is it not? But what's remarkable to me here is that it doesn't tell us to pray. Have you noticed that? As with much of what Paul does, is there any command in here that we should pray? He's just telling us what is... He's telling us what the Holy Spirit does. He's not telling you to pray, he's telling you actually you're weak in prayer, and so the Holy Spirit is given to help. We have a weakness in prayer. Jonathan Edwards, preaching a sermon in the 1700s, entitled it, "Hypocrites Deficient in Private Prayer." That's a potent title, isn't it? What's a hypocrite? Somebody who claims to be a Christian, but they're really not. And what is he saying? He's saying, there's no secret or private prayer. They don't go into their room, close the door and pray to their Father who's unseen. That's not part of their life. They may pray publicly, they may pray at dinner, they may pray when called upon, but there's no secret private prayer. It's not a part of their lives. But I began thinking about that title, and I said, "Hypocrites Deficient in Private Prayer," who isn't deficient in private prayer? Isn't that all of us? Aren't we all deficient to some degree in our private prayer lives? And so we must understand again, the ministry of the Holy Spirit given to strengthen us in our prayers. How are we weak? Well, first of all, we don't pray. In James 4:2 it says, "You do not have, because you do not ask God." How many things come along in your life and you realize later, I never prayed about that? Whether it be a financial situation or a health issue, or a friend had a problem, you've even perhaps promised to pray and then you realize later you didn't pray. I've tried to get it in the habit of praying immediately for needs that are given me because of this problem that I have. I've sometimes kept a little notebook with me in my pocket to write them down immediately because I feel so ashamed when I see the person later and that situation has been resolved and they thank you for praying and you think, "Gee I hope somebody prayed because I didn't." James 4:2. Oh no, I'm a pastor, this is on tape, isn't it? Sometimes I don't pray the way I should. You don't have because you don't ask God. We also don't pray for the right things. "When you ask you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures," said James. So not only do we not pray, we also don't pray for the right things. We're weak in prayer. He says it here in verse 26, "we do not know what we ought to pray for." We don't pray in the right way, we don't pray in faith believing, we don't pray in humility, recognizing that we're not the king of the world. We don't pray with boldness, the boldness of a child of God, and we don't pray with thankfulness, we don't pray as we ought to. And more than that, we don't persevere in prayer. We pray for a little while and then fizzle out, and so we're weak in prayer. I guess, as we look at it, we have trouble both in the matter and in the manner of prayer. In the matter of prayer, whether we pray at all or what we should pray for and in the manner of prayer, mainly how we go about praying, and in this way, the Holy Spirit has been sent to help us. III. The Holy Spirit Helps Us in Prayer Now, the Holy Spirit helps us in prayer, but I think to be honest with you, the burden of this text is not how He assists us to pray better. The burden of this text is how He just prays for us. Look at it again in verse 26-27, "In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we are to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." Do you see that? It's almost by contrast, we don't pray well, but the Spirit does, do you see that? The Spirit does, He prays for us and He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. So really to some degree, it's a little bit trickery for me to be talking anything at all about your prayer life here. I'm really talking primarily about the Spirit's intercession for you, because that's what the text talks about. But I want to talk about your prayer life because the Spirit does help you to pray. We are commanded elsewhere to pray in the Spirit, and so I think this is a vital text for understanding that. Jesus Christ has not left us as orphans, He says that in John 14, the night before He died. He was about to die, the disciples were about to see their Savior dead on the cross, and they didn't understand what was going on. They were filled with grief, they were filled with struggle, and Jesus is so compassionate for them. In John, He spends time with them, He teaches them, He gets them ready. He said in John 13:19 "I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am He." And so he's getting them ready, and one of the things He does is talks to them about the Counselor, the Comforter that He's going to send. He says, "I will ask the Father and He will give you another Counselor to be with you." Do you realize you have the indwelling Holy Spirit in you as a result of prayer? Jesus prayed for you. And the Father sent the Counselor, the Comforter, to you as a response to Jesus' prayer for you. "I will ask the Father and He will send the Comforter." Do you see the confidence that Jesus has? I will ask and He will send. That's the confidence that Jesus has in prayer. "…the Spirit of truth, the world cannot accept Him because it neither sees Him or knows Him but you know Him for He lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you." Neither has He left us as orphans in our prayer life either. We have fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit and in prayer and so the Spirit prays for us constantly. "The Spirit," it says in Verse 26, "intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." And it says again in verse 27, "The Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will." Well, who does He intercede to? Well, He who searches our hearts is God the Father. He intercedes to God the Father for you. The Holy Spirit is speaking to God the Father for you. He's interceding right now that you will listen to the Word. He's praying for you right now, the Spirit is interceding to God the Father for you and what power is there in God, the Father. He is Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth. He is king of the universe and the Spirit has free access right into His throne and He prays in accordance with God's will. There's a perfect intercession here. In the NIV it says "in accordance with God's will…" But literally in verse 27 it really just says "in accordance with God." The Spirit intercedes for the saints according to God. What does that mean? I think probably two things. Number one is that He was appointed to that task. The Spirit was given the work to do. He's assigned the task. He's given the place, the position of prayer for you and so He's praying for you. It's His place to do so and He's going to be faithful to do that work until the end comes. But in accordance with God also means what He prays for. He knows what to pray for. He prays for you in accordance with God's will for you. What does that mean? Well, in 1 John 5:14-15, "This is the confidence we have in approaching God that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And we know that if He hears us whatever we ask we know that we have what we asked of Him." What is that saying? If you pray according to God's will, what do you get? You get a yes. A yes and Amen. I will give it to you. I've thought often about this. I love sports. What is my batting average in prayer? How often do I get the things that I asked for? I don't know. I'm not George Muller. I'm not a Prussian. I don't keep careful records of all my prayer requests. I wonder what it would be, what my batting average is. How about you? What is your batting average in prayer? How many times do you get the thing you ask for? Now, let me turn it around. What is the Holy Spirit's average in prayer? How often does He get what He asks for? Answer: every single time without fail. And why? Because He prays according to God. In accordance with the will of God, He prays for you. That's how He prays a perfect intercession and He's praying according to God's will. Well, what is God's will? Big picture. Understand what is the big picture of God's will. Read verses 28-30. We're going to look at it more carefully next week, but look, this is the will of God. This is what He's doing. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son that He might be the firstborn among many brothers." I'll read that again. "That He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined He also called and those He called He also justified and those He justified He also glorified." So the end of verse 29 and the end of verse 30 are the same thing. You being conformed to Jesus perfectly and you being glorified are the same thing and that's what the Spirit is praying for ultimately for you and not just for you but for all the chosen of God. We'll talk about that next week but that's what he's working toward. And He gets what He asks for. He prays for you in accordance with God's will that you may be glorified and He knows that there are steps along the way. He knows every step of the journey and He knows not only the big picture but all of the minor pictures along the way and he prays for everything in accordance with God's will. But it's also intimate intercession. It says "He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will." There's a searching of the mind. The spirit moves through the mind of God and the Spirit moves through our minds and brings them together in a marvelous and mysterious way. There's an intimate intercession. The Spirit knows the Father's thoughts completely. The Spirit brings the Father's thoughts to you. The Spirit takes your thoughts and brings them to God. There's an intimate intercession. It's also a spiritual intercession. Look at verse 26. "…the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." The word here in the Greek is usually translated mute. What is someone who is mute? They cannot speak words. There aren't no words when the Spirit intercedes. You say, "How can He do that for millions of people praying for absolutely everything we need, big picture and in details for everybody all over the world that He's praying for? How could He do it? They're just isn't time in the day." Our thoughts of God are too small. I am speaking to you in words now, I'm speaking English, that's the only language I'm fluent in and I used to speak Japanese. If I were to speak some Japanese here you would get nothing out of my sermon. I know because I sat through two years of Japanese sermons and got nothing out of them because I couldn't understand a word. And what do we do? We take truth and we encode it in words, nouns, and verbs and adjectives. And it's like a train, like a freight train, and it pulls into the depot of your mind and dumps its truth in there, word by word, line by line. It's so pedantic, It's so human. The Holy Spirit doesn't need it. He just intercedes for you. Just like that. Do you understand? Just like that, everything you need has been prayed for. Completely. You don't need words, you don't need nouns and verbs and adjectives to talk to the Father. That's our thing. He can speak that in 1 Corinthians 2:9-14, I urge you to look at it. It's a parallel passage to one we're looking at today. It says that, it has not entered in the mind what God has planned. Eyes not seen, ears not heard. Neither has it entered into the mind of man what God has prepared for those who love Him. Read the next part, "These things God has revealed it to us through His spirit." And He who searches them, the mind brings the truth of God to our minds directly. Do You see what I'm talking about? So he can speak English words to us. He can do that. Sometimes He speaks to your mind directly without words. Just boom and you get the truth. But He can speak words and he can put spiritual truth into spiritual words so that we understand. So it's a spiritual intercession as well and it's also a passionate intercession. He groans with you. Do you understand what that means? He's groaning with you. He's feeling your passions. He is a passionate being. The Holy Spirit is not a force. He's a person and He has passion and His intercession for you is passionate. Do you understand what I'm saying? There's a passion there. He rejoices over your successes. He grieves over your disobediences and He prays accordingly based on what you need. Now later in this chapter, not today, we are going to be talking also about Christ's intercession for us. Look down at verse 34. "Christ Jesus, who died, more than that who was raised to life is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us." Do you see that? So you have the Holy Spirit praying for you and you have the Son of God praying for you. Are you not covered in this chapter with prayer? You are just prayed for. You are thoroughly prayed for. Now we as children of God should pray for each other, but you are well prayed for all the time. The Spirit prays for you and the Son prays for you and they do not fail. IV. The Spirit’s Help in the Matter of Prayer Well, that's the center of this message, but I want to talk a little about how He helps you in your prayers too. The Spirit prays for you but the Spirit also assists you in your prayer and He helps you in the matter of prayer. What do I mean by that? Well, I mean what to pray for and whether we should even pray at all. He helps us there. Verse 26, "We do not know what we ought to pray for." We don't have the sense of the purpose of God, do we? The big picture? What is God doing in the world? We don't have that. Nor do we have the detailed understanding step by step of how to get there. We also don't believe or don't understand, or even know the promises of God. So we don't pray according to the promises of God. We don't know the procedures along the way. Those minor things and we don't look to the source the way we should. Now what is the source of information? How do we know what to pray for? Two things; number one, the Spirit instructs us through the Scripture. As you read the Scripture and saturate your mind in the Bible, you will know what to pray for. William Gurnall said, "The mightier anyone is in the Word, the mightier he will be in prayer." Some believe, and I think it's true, we should only pray those things revealed in Scripture or in accordance with what's revealed in Scripture. Christopher Nice put it this way, "Where God has not a mouth to speak, men must not have a tongue to ask." I believe that. I think we should pray according to the promises and the purposes of God as revealed in Scripture. But secondly, the Spirit also directly communicates to you what to pray for sometimes. In Acts 13 it says, "In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers," and it lists them and then it says, "While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.'" And so after fasting and praying, they sent them out. Don't you think after the Spirit spoke that. They prayed differently than they had been before that, They started praying for Paul and Barnabas' first missionary journey. You understand? So the Spirit communicates and navigates through history as new things come up, we start to pray according to the Spirit. We pray in the Spirit as He leads. So He helps us in the matter of prayer, namely what we should pray for, but even more He helps us in the inclination to pray. What does that mean? He helps you to want the things God wants. He helps you to be hungry for what God's hungry for. He helps you to yearn for what God is yearning for. How does He do that? By changing you and moving in you, by working in you. He gives you, as one black preacher put, I love this. "You gotta have the 'want to.'" Do you have the want to? Do you want to pray? When given a choice of the way to spend the afternoon, do you spend it in prayer or something else? Do you have the want to? The Spirit gives you the want to. He gives you the inclination and to want the things that God wants. And I think that's why we need to pray. We are not done yet, are we? We were not finished in our salvation. Do you want what God wants for you? Or do you want something else? The Holy Spirit moves in you to want what the He wants for you and to give you the inclination to pray. V. The Spirit’s Help in the Manner of Prayer Well, the Holy Spirit also helps us in the manner of prayer. Not only do we not know what to pray for and not only are we not inclined to pray at all but when we pray our prayers are weak and lifeless, they lack zeal. What is the model of our prayer? Is it not Jesus, how did Jesus pray in Gethsemane? You remember that? In Luke chapter 22 it says and being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. Hebrews chapter 5 says during the days of Jesus' life on earth He offered prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save Him from death and He was heard because of His reverent submission. And so He prayed fervently. James 5:16 says in the King James Version "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Are your prayers effectual and fervent? Are they prayers on fire? Do you pray in the manner of the Spirit? Well the Spirit helps us, He gives us empowerment. Our prayers are weak because they are faithless. We don't believe that God will answer and so we don't receive answers. Thomas Watson said this, "Prayer that is faithless is fruitless." If your prayer life is fruitless, could it be that you don't believe that it's going to do anything? The Spirit works faith in us. Jude 20, "But you dear friends," write that one down. That's such a great verse Jude 20. "But you dear friends build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit." Do you hear that? I think build yourselves up in the faith means read the Scripture. And then pray accordingly. Pray in the Spirit. He gives us faith. He also gives us endurance, He works endurance in us. Colossians 4:12, "Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you that you may be matured and fully assured." He's wrestling, would you like to have an Epaphras praying for you? He's wrestling in prayer for you. Images of Jacob wrestling with the angel, wrestling, he's not giving up, he's going to keep at it, he's going to keep praying. How's your endurance in prayer? Is it good? The Holy Spirit can work endurance in you. The Holy Spirit can also work passion in you. He impassions you in prayer. Cold and lifeless prayers are unwelcome in heaven. Thomas Brooks said this, "Cold players always freeze before they reach heaven." I love that. We don't need cold players, we need prayers on fire, prayers like John Hyde prayed. Praying passionately. Hudson Taylor looked at a map of China and he knew that all the missions were along the coast, just along the coast and they were vast inland regions of China that had never been touched with the gospel and he just fell on his knees before the map and he said "God give me China or I die." Give me China or I die. Do you pray for anything like that? Maybe if your child had a dread disease or your spouse you might, but we could pray for the things of God that way too, Hudson Taylor did and John Hyde did as well. In passion. And then finally the Holy Spirit works integrity in us. God does not listen to the prayers of people who choose sin. I'll say that again, God does not hear prayers from people who choose sin. And I'm not talking about stumbling, the Scripture says we all stumble in many ways, James says that. And this is how David put it in Psalm 66:18,"If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have heard my prayer." Do you hear that? If I cherish sin, if there's some pet sin, something I'm holding on to, God will not hear your prayers. Your prayers are ineffective. Isaiah 59:1-2, "Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save nor is ear too dull to hear but your iniquities have separated you from your God and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear." And so if you want a healthy strong fruitful prayer life, you must have integrity, you must be a consistent spirit-filled Christian following the Holy Spirit putting sin to death in your life and God will see that you receive answers in prayer. 1 Peter 4:7, "The end of all things is near, therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray." Turn it around, if you're not clear minded and self-controlled you will not be able to pray. John Bunyan put it this way, "Prayer drives sin out or sin drives prayer out." They're mutually incompatible. Has sin driven prayer out of your life? Ask the Lord by the power of the Spirit to bring it back and then chase sin out of your life. Today we've looked at what the Holy Spirit does for us in prayer, He prays for us according to God, He also moves in us that we may pray according to God's will as well. He instructs us what to pray for, He gives us an inclination to pray, that's the matter of prayer, and in the manner He gives us empowerment through faith, building our faith. He gives endurance to stay with it and pray daily sometimes for years. He gives us impassioned prayers, not cold prayers and He gives us a life of integrity so that God will hear our prayers. VI. Application Now I've given you some applications on your bulletin, you can look at them when you get home, but we're coming now to a time with the Lord's Supper. And this is a good time for you to humble yourself before God, to just bow down right in the pew where you are, and to take advantage of some quiet moments to allow the Holy Spirit to search your heart. To allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you, about your life, about your prayer life, yes but about everything. And that you might be clean through confession of sin and ready to receive the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is for Christians, it's for people who have been baptized, who have trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, welcome at the Lord's Supper. It's for sinners, but sinners who have been forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ. But we must come and eat in a manner worthy of the Lord. Take advantage of these few minutes or a few moments to allow the Holy Spirit to search you, that you might be prepared to take the supper of the Lord. And then after a little while, I'll lead us into the Lord's supper.