R294 Experiencing God Through Prayer

We all believe in the power of prayer, but are we experiencing God in the midst of it? Let's study God's Word and discover how we can. This is The Encouraging Word featuring the Bible-based preaching of Dr. Don Wilton, well-known author, evangelist, seminary professor, teacher, pastor for the last 25 years. As a matter of fact, 25 of those years pastoring Dr. Billy Graham.

You'll discover more about that unique relationship a little later in the broadcast. But right now, let's go straight to James chapter 5 and open God's Word about verse 16 as Dr. Don takes into this concept of experiencing God through prayer. It's something we think is just natural, but sometimes we have to work at it and especially create disciplines in our life that will help us truly experience God through prayer. Now let's open God's Word together with Dr. Don Wilton on today's edition called Experiencing God Through Prayer. Turn with me in your Bibles this morning to James chapter 5. James chapter 5 is going to be our primary text, Experiencing God's Power Through Prayer. That's our subject this morning from God's Word, Experiencing God's Power Through Prayer.

Everywhere I go, people tell me, God has answered my prayer. How can we ever seek to do anything outside of communicating with God? Paul put it like this, he said, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. How do we appropriate the mind of God? Other than that, we communicate with him and one of those wonderful means by which we are able to do so is through the power of prayer. I want us to use as our primary text James chapter 5 and verses 16 through 18 and then we are going to have two parallel passages that are going to run side by side our Bible study this morning as I preach from God's Word. I hope that you have a copy of God's Word in front of you. James chapter 5 and verse 16, therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us.

Can you believe that? Here was a man who lived in the New Testament, the Old Testament. The Bible tells us Elijah was a man just like us.

We're going to discover why in just a moment. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed and the heavens gave rain and the earth produced its crops. Now don't lose sight of that passage in James. Let's turn over to Acts chapter 4, the book of Acts in chapter 4.

One of the most dramatic encounters of answered prayer in all of Scripture. Here in Acts chapter 4, Peter and John appear before the Sanhedrin and they encounter unbelievable opposition. You see there were people who could not tolerate answered prayer.

They could not tolerate the manifestation of God in his majestic power directly because of the prayer of those who loved him. And in fact, right through Acts chapter 4, we encounter the anger of the members of the Sanhedrin. But look at verse 21 of Acts chapter 4, after further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them because all the people were praising God for what happened.

For the man who was miraculously healed was over 40 years old. Now on their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. And when they heard this, they raised their voices together and they prayed to God.

What was the result? Look at verse 29. Now Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.

Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus. And after they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. And as a result in verse 32, all the believers were of one heart and mind. All right, now I want you to turn in the Old Testament to 1 Kings. 1 Kings chapter 17. Remarkable account about God's servant Elijah. I don't have time to read all of chapter 17.

I certainly would encourage you to do so in the privacy of your own home. But here God empowers his servant Elijah to confront the wicked king Ahab. Listen to what the Bible says in verse 1. Elijah the Tishbite said to Ahab, as the Lord God of Israel lives whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word. Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah, gave him instructions. And so in verse 5, he did what the Lord had told him to do. And he went to Careth Ravine, east of the Jordan and stayed there.

Now what happened? The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening and he drank from the brook. Sometime later the brook dried up and he went to visit the widow at Zarephath. And here he encountered a remarkable tragedy. Her son was dying. And once again, Elijah the prophet in verse 20. He cried out to the Lord, O Lord my God, have you brought this tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with by causing her son to die? Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, O Lord my God, let this boy's life return to him. And the Lord heard Elijah's cry and the boy returned to life. And Elijah picked up the child and carried him down into the room and said to his mother, look, your son is alive. Look what happened in verse 24.

Then the woman said to Elijah, now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth. Experiencing God through the power of prayer. We need to study this from two perspectives perhaps today. First of all, the making of a useless prayer. And secondly, the benefits of an effective prayer.

And so I want to ask us a question today, all of us. Is it possible that there should exist such a thing as a useless prayer? Now I don't want any of you to raise your hands this morning because I know that we could all do so. That I wonder if any of you have ever prayed and felt as though your prayers are going nowhere. It's almost as though God is not listening. It's almost as though when you petition him and you share those things that are in your heart, it kind of bounces off the ceiling and just comes straight back. You wonder where God is.

Is it possible that the Bible could teach us that there is such a thing as a useless prayer? I'm going to submit to you today in the light of God's word that there is such a thing. And there are many, many reasons for this in God's word.

Many of them, probably as many as a hundred. I'm going to share three with you this morning. Number one, your prayer will be useless and you will not experience God through prayer if you pray with the wrong motive. Turn back then to James chapter four. We were back in the book of James. Turn back to James chapter four and verse three and listen to what God's word teaches us in verse three. When you ask, you do not receive.

Why? Because you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. Perhaps God's word is teaching us, my friend, that the first mark of a useless prayer is when you and I pray with the wrong motive. I remember a man in a state that I served in, he was a very wealthy man. In fact, he was a multimillionaire, 51 years of age and he had a heart attack and was taken to hospital. And I went in there, I remember praying with him and he said to me, Preacher, he said, if God gets me out of this hospital room, I'm going to serve him. And God got him out of that hospital room. But for the next year, God never saw anything of this man. Well, he had a second heart attack and I remember going back to the hospital with him and I remember him praying, I remember him holding my hand and saying to me, Pastor, I have so much and I want you to know that if God would get me through this heart attack, I'm going to go back and I'm going to give my life to him and I'm going to go to church and I'm going to be faithful and I'm going to give. And he told me, he said, I'm even going to start tithing. I nearly had a heart attack too.

I wanted to get down and pray with him as well. You know, God got him out of that hospital room, but he never came to church, never gave his life to Christ, never got right. And you may find it hard to believe from a medical point of view, he had four consecutive heart attacks.

But the fifth heart attack that he had, the doctors said that he was dead before his head touched the steering wheel. Now that's a dramatic illustration. But I'm going to say to you, my friend, if we're ever going to understand God's Word, the Bible says that if we pray with a wrong motive, God will not listen to us. Number two, if we pray with sin in our lives, you say, well, pastor, that's a generic term. It encompasses everything, including wrong motive.

Of course it does. Listen to what the Psalmist said in chapter 66 and verse 18. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. The presence of sin separates us from God.

The prophet put it like this. He said, God's eyes are not blinded that he cannot see us. His tongue has not been cut out that he cannot speak to us. His arms have not been cut off that they cannot reach out to embrace us.

His legs have not been amputated that God cannot run to us. His heart has not been plucked out that it cannot beat for us, but rather it is our sin which has separated us from God. Sin has come between you and me and God our Heavenly Father. He cannot and he will not tolerate our sin. And you may say to me, well then, pastor, what good is there for me ever to pray? The sin of a righteous man availeth much. 1 John 1 and verse 9 has the answer. If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all our unrighteousness. Beloved friends at First Baptist, I have no right to stand in this pulpit this morning ever.

You know why? Because I'm a sinner. If any of you think because I'm the pastor of the church that I'm not a sinner, you're wrong. I'm a sinner. I don't deserve to stand in this pulpit. The only reason I can stand here is because of 1 John 1 line that if I confess my sin, he is faithful and just to forgive me for my sin and to cleanse me from all my unrighteousness. My righteousness, my friend, is not because of Don Wilton.

It is because of the Lord Jesus Christ and he shed blood. And there is hardly ever a time that I ever step into this pulpit that I don't bow my head and say, Lord Jesus, how can I have the audacity to stand and to preach and to teach thy word? Would you forgive me for my sin and cleanse me from all my unrighteousness so that now I can stand here and I can talk about the things of God and I can say to you, I'm a righteous man not because of anything that I am but because of everything that God has done for me in the Lord Jesus Christ. Would you say amen to that?

It's a wonderful thing. You're listening to Dr. Don Wilton, our teacher here on The Encouraging Word. Please don't go away. He'll be right back in just a moment with the rest of today's message, Experiencing God Through Prayer. But as we study prayer and hear Dr. Don preach about prayer, you need to know we're available to pray with and for you right now.

Our phone number is 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673 and it would be our privilege, our joy, to pray you through whatever's going on in your life. We also have some wonderful resources that will strengthen your prayer life on our website at www.tewonline.org. That's www.tewonline.org and one of the disciplines Dr. Wilton reminds us of is a unique set of time aside for spending time in God's Word every day and we have a tool. Dr. Wilton sends out an email every single morning that you can sign up for called The Daily Encouraging Word email. It's on our website, www.tewonline.org, and will literally infuse your day with that moment of just reading God's Word, getting some application from Dr. Wilton, maybe some guided prayer. It really has become a catalyst to so many of us in our study of God's Word and our Experiencing God Through Prayer.

Again, all those details are on our website at www.tewonline.org. Now back to today's great teaching with Dr. Don Wilton. Praying with the wrong motive, praying with sin in your life and praying with an unforgiving spirit is another mark of a useless prayer. In Mark chapter 11 verses 25 and 26 we read, When you pray, if you hold something against anyone, forgive him so that your Father in heaven may forgive you. Now, Jesus said, Lord forgive us our sins in the same way as we are forgiven by you.

That was in the Lord's Prayer, that was Jesus' instructions. The Bible says if you and I have an unforgiving spirit, you may be in this congregation, you may be watching by way of television today and in your heart there is unforgiveness. The Bible says, my friend, your prayers are rendered useless until you forgive others for what they have done for you. You say, Pastor, how can I forgive? You don't know what he or she did to me. You cannot forgive in your own power.

You can only forgive by the grace of God. The making of a useless prayer. But what then are the benefits of an effective prayer? The Bible tells us so many benefits of effective praying. If we want to experience God, my beloved friends, we need to understand that a hallmark of the spiritual prowess of this great church has been the church's prayer life, the intercessory prayer ministry. God is on the move. If we are to experience God through prayer, we're going to become to understand the benefits of effective prayer.

Let's look at them. Let's look at six benefits of effective prayer. Number one, we will be empowered to speak His word. We will be empowered to speak His word. Back in Acts chapter 4, as we already read, it was apparently obvious. Look at verse 29 in chapter 4. The Bible says, now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great power. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that great? Go back to 1 Kings chapter 17.

It'll boggle your mind. 1 Kings chapter 17, faced against unmitigating circumstances, God's prophet Elijah said, As the Lord God of Israel lives, whom I will serve. And he made that pronouncement and he began to speak the word of God with power. I cannot tell you, friends, there are times contrary to public opinion when I stand here on Sunday mornings and I don't feel like preaching, if you'll beg my pardon. There are times that I come here on Sunday mornings when things have gone on during the week, needs and ministries that bring us great joy but weary the soul. Sometimes on Saturday nights when we have emergencies in our community and our pastors are called out until early hours of the morning and there's no sleep and you get up and get to the church at 6.30 a.m. and you worry and you come through and I stand here and I come into the congregation of believers and I say, God, how in the world am I ever going to be empowered to speak thy word? And the God of grace reaches down from heaven and he says, if you seek my face and you pray, you will experience God and I will empower you to speak my word. May I say so respectfully and so thankfully, folks, there are many times I preach that I get shocked by what I say.

I know you do. It's about me now. There's a sense in which I, did I say that? Folks, when God begins to empower us to speak, it is God reaching down from heaven when we begin to experience him. He fools us from head to toe and he empowers us to speak his word with boldness.

Oh, I wouldn't change that. Not for all the money in the world. Not for all anything that anybody could ever give. There is no greater joy than speaking the word of God with his power. Number two, we gain his provision for all needs. Here in 1 Kings 17, the Bible said there was nothing in the land to give and yet God sent the ravens to feed him.

The brook that was dried up gave him water. God moved, God acted. In Psalm 34 in verse 10, the Bible says, Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

Isn't that amazing? Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. You see, my friends, the benefits. God moves. We are empowered to speak his word. We gain his provision for all of our needs. But number three, we experience God's miracles in our lives. Here in 1 Kings 17, God's miracle was unapologetic. This boy was brought to life through God's servant. In Acts 3, a man lain from his mother's womb. The two prophets of God looked at him and said, In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

And the Bible says immediately strength came into his feet and ankle bones and he went walking and leaping and praising God. We experience God's miracles. But number four, we are victorious against the enemy. We are victorious against the enemy. In Acts chapter 4 and verse 21, the Bible tells us they decided to let them go.

Elijah was victorious against Ahab, a ruthless king. Friend, let me tell you something, the Sanhedrin didn't decide to let Peter and John go. God did.

Why? Because he is God. But number five, we enjoy spiritual unity as a result of effective prayer. Did you notice back there in Acts chapter 4, something remarkable happened. The Bible says that they were all unified in heart and in mind. All the believers in verse 33 came under the experience of God. And when they began to seek God's face, all the believers became the recipients of the grace of God.

What a wonderful thing. When God's people pray, all the believers will be in one heart and one mind. The benefits of effective prayer, we're empowered to speak his word, we gain provision for all of our needs, we experience God's miracles, we are victorious against the enemy, we enjoy spiritual unity. And number six, we receive credibility. We receive credibility.

I like that, don't you? 1 Kings chapter 17 and verse 24, the woman said to Elijah, Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is the truth. Credibility.

God gives us credibility. What a powerful time of teaching from God's word today with Dr. Don Wilton. As he's been sharing his heart and teaching us about this concept of experiencing God through prayer, there is an initial prayer that opens the door to see God do remarkable things in our life, and that's saying yes to him as Savior and Lord. I pray that you take a moment as Dr. Wilton comes into the studio. You've heard him in the pulpit now in the studio as he shares his heart. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ?

I'm so happy to hear that. Why don't you pray this prayer with me today? Dear God, I know that you love me very, very much, and I know that the Lord Jesus Christ came and died on a cross so that I might be forgiven of my sin. Today, I repent of my sin. I confess my sin to you, and I invite you to come into my heart and into my life, I pray in Jesus' name I pray. If you prayed that prayer, let me be the first one to welcome you to the family of God.

This is wonderful. I hope that you know how much I'm going to be praying for you and how very important this is for me. Call us so that we can talk to you and connect you in the right place so you can begin this wonderful journey. If you just prayed that prayer with Dr. Wilton, you gave your life to Jesus Christ or rededicated your life to Christ, we want you to know that we're so excited and encourage you to tell someone. As a matter of fact, why not tell Dr. Dodd? He would love to hear from you, love to hear your story, and he will commit to pray for you.

We all will. If you want to give us a call at the 866-899 word number, it will get to Dr. Don as well. 866-899-9673. But many are enjoying the opportunity of emailing Dr. Wilton. His email is Don at T-E-W online dot O-R-G. Just his first name, Don, D-O-N at T-E-W online dot O-R-G. Again, we'd love to know, he'd love to know how God is using the ministry of the encouraging word in your life to encourage you, strengthen you, challenge you. Again, his email is Don, D-O-N at T-E-W online dot O-R-G. You can also call as well if you'd like to get through.

That's 866-899-9673, 866-899-9673 or online at T-E-W online dot O-R-G. And that's the place you'll discover great resources like this. We need to encourage one another in times like these. Speaking of encouragement, I have a life-changing ministry resource to send you from a good friend of mine this month for your gift of support to the encouraging word, The Loneliness Solution, Finding Meaningful Connection in a Disconnected World, book by Jack Eason.

The Loneliness Solution is a great resource to encourage people on how to discover genuine friendships with others. I want you to get a copy for yourself and copies to keep on hand as you go about your day to give to others. You will never know how much a word spoken or a gift given at the right time can change someone's life.

Call us today at 866-899-WORD to request The Loneliness Solution book for a gift of $15. Thank you for your prayers and continued support of the encouraging word as we share the gospel to deliver lost souls from the clutches of darkness around the world. As we wrap up today's broadcast, I mentioned it earlier, sign up today if you would for the daily encouraging word email from Dr. Don. Today Dr. Don was talking about this great verse from Matthew 632, Your Heavenly Father already knows all your needs. It's a concept of understanding that God is our supporter.

He's our backer. There's more great insight if you'll just drop by our website, www.tewonline.org and check it out there. Or again, if you sign up today, you can have it sent to you every day. That's how I get it. Email-a-phonically.

Love it. My bride enjoys the hard copy. Again, it's free and available for the asking if you want to call 866-899-WORD. Again, I know I mention this often, but I do believe that God's word in our lives on a daily basis with discipline is what Dr. Don reminds us, the most powerful thing we can do. So get it in your heart, get it in your hands. You can find it online at tewonline.org. Take care and God bless.