Skip to content The Access of Spiritual Authority Oct 14 · 43 min ...more
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Dr. Tony Evans is the founder and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, founder and president of The Urban Alternative and author of over 100 books, booklets and Bible studies.
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0:00 The battle of spiritual warfare is against angels because we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and world forces that manage this darkness out of a sphere called heavenly0:12 places. And until we wage war in that realm, we don't wage war at all. We march in a parade. In fact, that's what a lot of people do every Sunday. They come to the Sunday parade. They0:24 come to the Sunday. They march in the church. Then they march out of church. Then they march back in the church. And so he knows he never has to worry about them because they will get mad at the parking lot attendant,0:35 the usher. They'll get mad at the deacon and the elder. They'll get mad at the preacher and the mate, but they won't touch the evil 1. The question is how do we fight this war? You fight this war by the0:47 authority that has been garrisoned in Christ. And that means that if you don't know your identity in Christ, you have lost before you started. If you are0:58 ignorant of your position in Christ, you are a loser, because that means you have nothing to call upon when you need power in order to give you victory. Jesus Christ1:09 has granted Christians authority in heaven. Not our old authority, the delegation of his authority, which means it's dependent upon his power. God has given us a wardrobe1:21 of authority, attire, clothes to put on, 6 pieces of armor, 3 that you're never to take off, 3 that you are to pick up as needed.1:33 The first 3 that you are to never take off has to do with the belt of truth. There must be an objective standard by which you make pragmatic decisions.1:44 Righteousness, that your new identity in Christ, whereby you have been clothed with the righteousness of Christ, is to inform how you live. And then he goes on to say that there1:56 is a carrying of our feet with the shoes of the gospel, the peace of God that should govern our decision making when we're operating according to God's truth, but then take2:07 up, that is have close enough to get you when you need it, your shield of faith, your helmet of salvation, and your sword in the spirit. The only problem with those is that2:19 they can be a little amorphous. You might say, how do I get dressed? I'm being beaten. Satan is whipping me. He is destroying my family. He2:31 is capturing my children. He is destroying my mind. He is addicting me to this kind of influence that is controlling me, whether it's alcohol or or2:43 drugs or relationship or what have you. And I understood what you're saying that I have to have the right attire on if I'm gonna be spiritually victorious. But my question is, how do I get2:55 dressed? And how do I know I've gotten dressed? Can you concretize it? Can you give me something I can grab hold of? The answer is yes.3:07 Because God has given you a powerful way to access the authority that you possess. But he's only given you 1 way to do it.3:19 There is only 1 way to dress up, to fight and win in the heavenlies. It's not by programs. It's not by3:30 techniques. It's not by formulas. It's not by doing some magical act. Some people would have you think if you say the right3:42 words the right way, if you go to this seminar, some of us are seminars out. Not because there's anything wrong with the program, but because we must start at that which God3:53 has given us that works in heavenly places. And he's only given 1 thing. That's why after the discussion of the armor, Paul says in Ephesians4:05 6 verse 18, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times. In the spirit, and with this in view, be on alert4:17 with all perseverance and petition for all saints. To put it another way, prayer gains you access to the4:29 authority of heaven. To put it another way, prayer is what dresses you up. If prayer is not a4:41 dynamic, vital, vibrant, potent, consistent, controlling, encompassing controlling, encompassing area4:53 in your Christian life, you are a nude spiritual saint. He has not only supplied the attire, he has supplied the dressing code. To put it5:05 another way, prayer is the means that we access spiritual authority. In a war, 1 of the first things the government establish5:17 is air supremacy. They want to have supremacy in the air. Why? Because if you can gain supremacy in the air, you'll have less casualties on the5:28 ground. We've got a lot of casualties on the ground because we've got no supremacy in the air. Now we already have superiority in the air because that was gained by the victory of5:40 Christ at the cross. But even though we have superiority, we have better machinery operating in the air, we must gain supremacy. Superiority is 1 thing. Supremacy5:52 is another. Superiority says you have the better equipment. Supremacy says you used it. What we need is not only superiority. Now we got we got great theological superiority. He's my6:04 rock, my sword, my shield. He's my wheel in the middle of a wheel. He's so high you can't get over, so low you can't get under, so wide you can't get around him. My roses are sharing my bright and morning star? He's, you6:14 know, he's my all in all. Now that sounds good, and you just told me you have air superiority, but I want to know are you using it for air supremacy? Because if your superiority in Christ6:26 doesn't make you supreme in heaven. You lose even though you're better. You've seen a game or a fight where the better man lost. We got a lot of Christians where the better man loses6:38 because we have supremacy in Christ but not superiority in the heavenlies. And so the issue is, how does this work? In the Bible, demons are6:50 the flee e, not Christians. And without a dynamic, and I say this to my conviction and and condemnation and to us as a church, you7:01 are walking on a spiritual treadmill. Moving fast, covering no ground. We have made all kind of plans, spent all kind of money, made all7:13 kind of effort to improve our spiritual life, only to find out we've been sweating on a treadmill, gaining no yardage. How about trying it God's way? Everything7:25 you need to know is in verse 18. First of all, the significance of prayer. It's in the word with. First word, with.7:37 In other words, prayer is connected to his discussion of spiritual warfare. In other words, you can't get into verse7:49 18 if you don't remember verse 10. You can't benefit from the power of prayer in verse 18 if you miss out on the understanding of the battle8:01 in verses 10 through 17. In verses 10 through 17, he says to stand. What does stand mean? It means don't8:13 give up any of this new territory God just won for you. He doesn't mean passively stand by and do nothing. He says Jesus Christ has won a victory for you in heavenly places. He has raised us up8:25 with him. Those who are under angels have now been raised above angels with Jesus Christ. Don't let the devil take your territory away. And for many8:36 of us, he's taken away the territory of our joy. For many of us, he's taken away the territory of our peace. For many of us, he's taken away the territory of a happy home. For many of us, he's taken away8:48 the territory of confidence in life. He's taken us away from the authoritative position that God has given us. And so he says, with.9:00 That is in connection with the armor that I have described. Make sure prayer is connected to it. But if you pray without a realization of your9:12 standing in Jesus Christ, then you won't pray right. What you do in prayers make withdrawals, not make new deposits. God is not asking you to add to9:23 Christ. He's asking you to drop in and withdraw from the achievements of Christ. But if you don't know what Christ has done, then you're gonna seek to add that which makes Christ9:35 look insufficient. He says in light of this provision of God's armor, in light of the blessedness he's already given us, claim your9:47 authority with prayer. That's how you do it. You do it with prayer. To put it another way, without prayer, you don't get to use any of the things that God has granted you.9:59 With prayer tied to the armor, Satan can't touch you. It's like the father the son who were trying to outrace the prairie fire, and the prairie fire was catching up with him. And so they were gonna be caught because the10:11 fire was moving so rapidly, and so the father and son got off the wagon. And as the fire raced to them, he dug a little ditch and set fire in a circle around10:22 him, his son, and the wagon, and burned a big space. He set on fire, a large space where he and his son stood.10:34 As the fire came upon them, the fire raged in front of them. The son said, dad, we gotta get out of here. He said, son. Stand. He said, but dad, the fire, he10:46 said, son, trust me. Stand. Yeah. But we gotta run. He said, no, we don't, son. All you gotta do is trust your father and stand. How come I'm gonna10:58 stand when I'm surrounded by fire? Because, son, this place where we are standing has already been burnt once. I just set it afire. There is nothing left. All the11:10 fire can do is come up around us. It can't touch us because once it's burned once, it can't be burned again. Jesus was burned once. And if you stand on Christ11:21 and his accomplishment on the cross, you can't be burned again. But we wanna try to outrun the fire. We wanna try to beat the evil 1. And he says, stand11:33 on what Christ has done. How? With prayer. Napoleon was trying to conquer the world during his regime, and 1 day, the story goes, he was looking at a11:45 map, and he was stifled because on the map on his wall was 1 red dot. Napoleon is recorded to have said, if it wasn't for that 1 red dot, I could own the11:57 world. The 1 red dot was the British Empire. That was the 1 place he couldn't conquer. Satan is a lot like Napoleon. He looks at the cross. He says, if it wasn't for that 1 red dot. I mean, I would've12:09 had this thing if it wasn't for that 1 red dot. If if God hadn't become a man and entered into time and space, if it wasn't for that 1 red dot, I would've had him. But you got away from12:21 him because of that 1 red dot. The blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross gave us victory over the evil 1. Stand on it. That I don't have to do what I used to do because I'm not I used to be. Why? Because I'm in12:32 Christ. 1 red dot. It is your status in him. But for a lot of us, prayer is like the national anthem before a football game. It gets it started, but it has nothing to do with12:44 what's happening on the field. Yeah. We pray. You know, we pray. Lord bless me today as I go to work. You know? No connection with what's happening on the field. Lord bless this food that I'm about. No12:56 connection with what's happening on the field. Why? Because it's not tied to spiritual warfare and it's not tied to the armor. So then what is prayer? What is it? How can we make this thing called prayer simple?13:09 Let me tell you what prayer is in just a short clause. Prayer is simply communication with God. That's it. Communication with God. You say,13:20 well, now give me something deeper. That's the problem. We wanna get so deep, we don't know what we're doing. We don't need to get deep. That's deep enough. Prayer is13:32 communication with God. See, that's so deep. Some of you missed it. Prayer is communication with God.13:46 See, you wanna talk to me. There's only 1 God. I'm not he. Prayer is communication with g o d. It's like the guy was praying, and he didn't have good English. He was13:58 getting his wasas and izhs and ants and gots and haves and, you know, getting them all twisted. But he was passionate about it. Lady came to him complaining. She said she said, son, you need to learn how to speak after14:09 he sat down. You need you need to learn how to talk because your English is bad, and and you you you have to speak better than that. And she just rail him across the court. He looked at it said, lady, I wasn't talking to14:19 you. Prayer is communication with God.14:32 But if prayer is communication with God, you need to know something about the God you're communicating with. We give great prayers to a puny God.14:44 We give great prayers to a miniature micro God. We've got this great need and we take them to this impotent God. And because our God is14:55 so small, our prayers are so weak. If we knew who God was, we wanna talk to some of you wanna talk to people more than you wanna talk to God. Nothing wrong with talking to15:07 people. But many of us will spend hours with people and a minute with God as though people are God and God is man. Prayer is communication with15:18 God. Paul assumes, based on his teaching, that we are aware of who God is. But because we are biblically ignorant of God,15:30 we are ignorant in prayer. And if you're ignorant of God, and therefore ignorant in prayer, you're not praying, you're doing religious chattering. And a lot of us are15:42 chattering, not praying. We wanna rub Aladdin's lamp, and what we want is this magical genie to show up to service our15:54 needs. That's not prayer. Prayer is not getting God to conform to me. Prayer is getting me to conform to God.16:06 And most of our prayers are spent on our knees telling God what we want him to do for us. Now it's not wrong to make your request known unto God, but you'd best make sure that if16:18 you're going to God to tell God what you want him to do for you, that what you're wanting to him to do for you is that which he wants to do for you. Because if you're praying to God to do for you16:30 that which what God does not intend to do for you, you're wasting a lot of time and energy when you could be praying about something he will do for you. And so ignorant praying,16:42 that is non bibliocentric praying, which means that you need to know a little bit about the revelation of God, will leave you empty in prayer.16:54 Do you know why you have not added a new line to your prayer lately? Same thing. Every day, every morning, every night. Can can quote it with you.17:06 Can quote it with you. Some of you have been saved for years talking about now I lay me down to sleep. Pray the Lord, my soul will keep. If I die before I wake, pray the Lord,17:18 my soul will take you know why that prayer hadn't changed? Because your knowledge of God hadn't changed. And if your knowledge of God is anemic, if your knowledge of God is weak,17:30 then your prayers will never get to the depth of enabling you to stand. If your knowledge of God is getting deep, then when those deeper problems come, you're gonna go deeper to God17:41 because you've got to know how deep God is. And this is a well that doesn't run dry. The significance of prayer. Through prayer, you gain access to God's17:53 authority. Through prayer, you engage, catch this, the spiritual realm. Now I don't know why God did it. I can't answer this question,18:05 but God decided that there were certain things he would not do apart from prayer. Some of you asked the question because you've asked me, well, if God's gonna do what he wants to do anyway, why pray? Answer. He decided18:16 that he won't do certain things without it. It's like our kids. We say they want some candy. We say ask. Now we intend to give it to them, but we won't till they ask. Why?18:29 Because only in asking are you showing dependency. See, without asking, you can do it yourself. What prayer does is it shows dependency and gains you access.18:41 Let me tell you the story. You don't have to turn there, but in Daniel 9. Daniel had a problem. The people of Israel were in captivity, and it was a big problem. So Daniel said in his18:53 heart in verses 2 and 3 of Daniel chapter 9 that he was gonna take this mess to God. And he got on his knees, and he bent down and he says, now God, we're in a mess.19:05 But verse 2 says, before he prayed, he opened his bible to the book of Numbers. Because before he prayed ignorantly, he wanted to find out what God had said on the matter so he could put19:17 God on the spot. Do you know that prayer gives you the chance to put God on the spot? When was the last time you put God on the spot? When was the last time you backed God up into a corner? You say, wait19:29 a minute. You can't back God up into a corner? Oh, yes. You can. Ask Moses. God told Moses, look. I'm a destroy Israel. Moses said, you can't do that. Now if you're gonna tell God he can't do something, you better know19:41 what you're talking about. He said he said, you you can't do that. I pray tell why not more. Why why why can't I do that?19:53 You can't do that because if you do that, then the nations all around Israel are gonna laugh at us. And they're gonna say that God was big enough to get them out of Egypt. He was big enough to open up the Red Sea, but20:05 he wasn't big enough to take them through the wilderness. And if you do that, your name is gonna look bad, and you will be an embarrassment among the gods. And so in your own best interest, God, I say20:17 that that is not a good idea. I think you ought to preserve your people. You ought to forgive your people. I think we can approach this another way. And the next phrase is, and when God heard Moses, God20:28 changed his mind. When is the last time you backed the God up against the corner? And you say, well, well, well, wait, how did that really work?20:40 It really worked because Moses understood God's nature. And he understood why God has a wrath side. He also has a great side. And if you can appeal to his grace, it'll overrule his wrath so20:52 that you get the benefits of grace and not that what you deserve is wrath. That's the problem with many of us who are walking around saying, I can't. I can't. I can't. That's because you've been believing21:04 a lie. A lie. A lie. I can't save this marriage. You know why? Because you've been buying a lie. I can't get off of drugs. You've been lied to21:16 so long. I can't be that in my heart. No. But Paul says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That's a lie. And until you start treating it like21:28 a lie and tell God see, some of us every day are calling God a liar. God, I can't I can't overcome this habit. You are a liar. And I and I can't be the husband you want me to be. You're a liar.21:40 I can't be the wife you want me to be. You're a bold faced liar. And since you feel that way, why don't you go ahead and tell him? You say, I would never tell God he's a21:52 liar. Every time he says 1 thing and you say another thing, somebody lying. Somebody lying. So let's just get straight. Who's the liar here? Is God the22:04 liar or are you the liar? Then if you're the liar, start thinking in terms of what God said and not in terms of how you feel.22:16 So Daniel prays. And the Bible says, as soon as Daniel opened up his mouth to pray, God told Gabriel, go answer.22:29 Angels were activated by prayer. No movement by Gabriel till Daniel prayed. He got down to pray, but we have a problem. Because22:40 according to Daniel chapter 10 verses 12 and 13, a demon met demon met Gabriel and put up a block in22:52 front of him, put up a defensive line to stop him from answering Daniel's prayer. Why? Because we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in23:04 heavenly places. And so the demon, the prince of Persia, blocked him. So powerful was the demon against God's angel Gabriel that23:16 Gabriel had to send back to heaven for help. And so God said, Mikey. That's Michael. Now23:28 now you gotta understand why he called Michael because see Satan is an archangel and is either high ranking. He's a bad dude. So he got Michael who's also23:39 an archangel. Michael, the prince of Persia, is trying to stop the divine program of God. Now, Michael, if I get in it, it's not fair. Because23:51 if I get in it, I can destroy him, and I won't have demonstrated my power through creatures who can depend on me. So rather than me just go out there and just wipe him out, why don't you, archangel, go24:03 meet the other archangel and and let him know that greater is he that is in you than he that is in him. So finally,24:15 finally, Gabriel breaks through, breaks through. Comes to Daniel. Daniel's frustrated because he'd been praying for 3 weeks. He says, for 3 weeks I've been on my knees and nothing happened. Anybody here like24:27 that? Anybody been praying and nothing has happened? Happened, and you thought God forgot about God, didn't forget about you? There are defensive linemen in heaven trying to stop the angels of24:39 God from bringing the answer from God to you. Keep on praying because 1 day, God's gonna call Mike. And when Mike breaks through24:52 so Gabriel comes and said, we got a 3 week delay. Go ahead and forgot about you, so don't quit. Prayer is necessary because the battle is spiritual. Focusing on flesh and blood25:04 is the wrong focus. When you pray properly, it is a restraining order against the powers of darkness. Prayer is your withdrawal slip25:17 against the backdrop of Christ's deposit. And if you don't know 1000000 spiritual dollars have been put in your spiritual bank account, you're gonna live like a spiritual pauper when you could have been a25:29 spiritual millionaire. And a lot of us are living like spiritual paupers. So the significance of prayer is that it gains you access. Let's look at the scope of25:40 prayer. Verse 18. Prayer, all times, all perseverance, all saints. Key word is what? All.25:52 The scope of prayer. If you're gonna see this thing work, then prayer cannot be an addendum or an attachment.26:04 It must be the controlling agenda. Paul put it this way in first Thessalonians 5, pray without ceasing. The key word is all. First of all, all types of26:16 prayer. All prayers. You know in the bible, prayers came every which way. They were praying standing, praying kneeling, praying laying prostrate, praying26:28 walking. You know, you can pray driving, you can pray in your mind without even moving your mouth because you're praying with your mind and thought. Prayer involves thanksgiving, it26:39 involves praise, it involves supplication, it involves intercession. He is saying bombard the heavenlies with prayer.26:51 That's not what we do. When a country is in a war, they don't launch 1 missile. They bombard. They pound. They pound27:03 with missiles. Because those missiles keep the enemy back. You are to bombard the heavenlies with prayer. He27:15 says all types. And he says on all occasions, pray when you feel like it. And pray when you don't. Pray when you want to.27:27 Pray when you don't want to. Pray when you feel like praying. Pray when you don't feel like praying. You say, but if I don't feel like praying, how can I pray? Tell God I don't feel like27:39 praying. Because when you tell God you don't feel like praying, you just pray because you had to tell him that. Bombard the heavenlies with prayer on all27:50 occasions. Now, anybody who's serious about prayer knows something. It's work. Why do you think it's so much work? I'll tell you why it's work because it's28:02 war. Satan doesn't want you praying. That's why sometimes you get on your faith and your mind be going every which way. You can't even focus on what you're doing. So he will distract28:13 you. That's 1 way. Another way he will do it is he will make you too tired to pray. Okay? So you you kneel on the side of your bed and you sleep after 1 minute. Right? Right?28:25 Turn that TV on, you wake. Bow down to pray, you why why? Why you think you think that's just chant, oh, I'm a get around to it, and some of us have been trying to get around to it for years, and we haven't gotten around28:35 to it. Why? Because Satan understands that if you ever bombard the heavenlies with prayer, you're gonna knock him back. You're gonna force him back. He won't be able to he won't be able to do his thing if you keep him28:46 like that. And that's why you you plow through that thing. On all occasion. By the way, the more intimate relationship, the easier the prayer.28:58 Still work. Anybody who's married knows this. Remember when you were dating, you used to communicate all the time? That's right. Because you used to like each other. That's why. You communicated29:10 all the time because you used to like each other. Now how was your day? Fine. What did you do today? Nothing. The lack29:22 of communication reflects the lack of relationship. People will say, well, why don't you talk? As simple as to why the other person didn't talk. Because the relationship relationship has been interrupted.29:36 And that's what's happened. I wanna guarantee you something. I know I'm going out on a spiritual limb. If you will bombard the heavenlies about the need in your life, God will give you some answers. Simple as that. I29:47 don't he'll he'll use vehicles, he'll use people, he'll use church, he'll use a lot of different things as mechanisms, but if you will blast the heavenlies, you'll see more miracles in29:59 your life. You know why the church of Jesus Christ doesn't see miracles anymore? It's not because God doesn't do miracles. It's because we don't know how to work from the heavenlies. That's30:10 why. All perseverance, don't hang up too soon. Be on the alert with all perseverance.30:23 When you pray, you enter into a whole another realm. You enter into the heavenlies. And anyone who is thinking an airplane knows that the higher you get, the more orderly things look below you. No matter how chaos this30:34 world looks, take a plane flight. The fields are perfectly squared. You know? You don't even know who the criminals are anymore because you're too high to see them.30:47 See, once you take a high enough flight, you get a different perspective. We've been on the ground too long. That's why we can't see anything. We have the wisdom from below, not the not the power from above30:59 where Christ is in heavenly places. And so we don't see what God is doing. We only see, well, he shouldn't have said that to me. He shouldn't have I don't have to take that.31:11 See, all we did was look below. We didn't take a flight to heavenly places. Because up in heavenly places, you'll God will tell you that that person has a messed up need in their life where they need some grace, not just31:22 you to retaliate. But you only get that from up there. He says, for all saints. Remember, the Lord's prayer is not my father who is in heaven, it's our father who art in heaven.31:34 Whenever you become a selfish Christian where you're the only 1 you are praying for, God's not gonna help you because this is a family affair. And that's why it's our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. In31:46 other words, I'm not in this by myself. We are in this together. And that is why praying as a congregation is so important where we are concerned about the needs of others so we can celebrate how God used our prayers for31:57 them so that they can celebrate how God used their prayers for us. It's a collective thing. So if you only pray for you, God won't help you to become a more selfish Christian.32:10 Selfish saints will be unassisted by God. Finally, the sphere of prayer. He says pray in the spirit. In32:22 the spirit. Now that sounds rather ethereal. How do you know you are praying in the spirit? Well, in the spirit is always contrasted in scripture with in the flesh.32:35 This has to do with environment. Now now, stay close to me on this 1. You must be in the spirit. Now hold your Bibles here and turn to first Corinthians chapter 2.32:49 Let's look at it real quickly. Pray in the spirit. Things which I have not seen, verse 9 says, ear hath not heard, which hath not entered into the heart of33:01 man all that God has prepared for those who love him, for God revealed them to us through the spirit. For the spirit searches the deep things of God. Who among men knows the thoughts of a man except33:12 the spirit of a man, which is in him even so, the thoughts of God. No 1 knows but the spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God that we might know the33:24 things that are freely given to us by God, which things we speak, not in the words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual33:36 words. If you're gonna pray in the spirit, a couple of things have to be present. Spiritual thinking. He says spiritual thoughts. He says if33:48 you think like the world, you're gonna pray like the world or act like the world so you won't be in the spirit. If you're gonna be in the spirit, you must be you must34:00 have a mindset that is reflecting the thinking that comes from God and not the thinking that comes from the world, we still have too many secular saints. We34:11 still have too many Christians who are getting their thought patterns from television. The only reason why we have Christians who are going for no fault divorce is that the culture has gone for no fault divorce. And34:23 guess what we're doing in Christianity? Defining deviancy down. You know what defining deviancy down means? It means look how low the world goes. You just stay a little above it, and you're okay.34:36 God's standing is up here. And if the world keeps going down, you're not just supposed to go down and just stay a little above it. You're supposed to stay up here. You're not supposed to define deviancy down.34:48 So the world comes up with no fault divorce. And so what do we got? We got Christians who want no fault divorce and get mad if you tell them it's a sin. Talking about stay out of my business. They want35:00 God at the altar. They don't want him in a divorce God divorce court. This because we do not understand that as long as you have secular thinking, then you'll have a secular result. You must have spirit thoughts. Now how35:12 do you get spirit thoughts? He says they come combined with spiritual words. In other words, you get spirit's thoughts from the scripture. Now follow me here. Don't leave35:23 me now. Watch this. The only way you're gonna get spiritual thinking is from a spiritual book. So now watch this. You can't35:35 pray like you ought to pray unless you know the word. Let me say that again. You can't pray like you ought to pray. 90 percent35:47 of many of our prayers could be thrown in the trash can because they have nothing to do with God's revealed revelation. If you don't know the word, then you won't be praying right and God is not gonna35:59 bless prayer unless it's consistent with his word. So what you must do is be captivated by the mind of Christ, which comes in the spiritual words of God, so that you are36:11 addressing the spirit's concerns, the spirit's way. Turn to Acts chapter 4 and close it. Acts chapter 4. And let's see what in the spirit means in prayer, because you have it in Acts chapter36:22 4. Here is a prayer in the spirit, an actual in the spirit prayer. And this 1 will rock you. Acts chapter 4. The believers are being36:34 persecuted. They've now been released in verse 23, and look what happens. And when they had been released, they went to their own companions and reported36:45 all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. Now watch this. And when they heard this, they lifted up their voices to God with 1 accord and said, oh Lord, look at the36:57 theology, it is thou who did make heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them. Now they've been threatened. They've been beaten. Who by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of David thy37:09 servant said, why do the Gentiles rage? And the people devised futile things. The kings of the earth took their stand and their rulers. They gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. Now guess what?37:21 Did you just see what happened? See, some of you didn't see what You don't have your Bibles open. You see, did you just see what happened? Let me tell you what happened. That prayer. They say, God, before we tell you37:32 about the mess we're in, let me tell you how great you are. You you you too good. We in a mess, but you're a big God. Now God, in case you forgot the Bible that you had written,37:44 let us quote back to you 1 of your verses. In other words, we're gonna put you on the spot with your own word. Giving God back his own word. Telling God what37:56 God said. Because just as God could say negative thing and bring judgment, he can say powerful things and bring blessing, They quote God's word back to him. And watch this. He says, this city38:08 that we're gathered to against thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint. Verse 29. And now, Lord, take note of their threats, because you already told us what you're38:20 gonna do, and grant thy servants boldness that we may speak with all confidence. We're gonna do what we're supposed to do, but we need help from you to do it. While you extend thy hand to heal, and signs and38:32 wonders take place through the name of thy holy servant Jesus. Now, catch verse 31. And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken38:44 and they were all filled with the holy spirit, they're in the spirit, and began to speak the word of God with boldness. Do you see what happened? When you pray right, something gotta38:56 shake. Verse 31 says, the place shook. How come we don't see places shaking today? How don't we see impossible homes that can't be brought together shaking and people falling back in39:08 love today? How come we see people addicted and they can't get off of it today? How come we see people depressed and they can't get out of it today? I'll tell you why. Because we don't talk to the same God that these men39:20 talk to. They talk to a God where they would reach into the Bible, pull out the appropriate verse, and tell God about it. And because you said it, God, I'm gonna believe you're gonna do it. We were at theShow more
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