When Your Prayers Have No More Words

Carter Conlon from the historic Times Square Church in New York City. If you have a prayer now that has no words to it, you're in a good place. You're in a place where God's about to do something that will bring glory to His name, and all He asks of you is, bring it back to me for my glory.

Thank you for joining us for this weekly edition of A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon. Today you'll hear how a wordless prayer gave birth to a voice that turned a nation back to God for 40 years. If you have a prayer now that has no words in it, you're in a good place. You're in a place where God can do a miracle.

Let's discover more as we join Carter right now. I want to share with you from Psalm 13, if you have a chance in your Bible to go there, and also 1 Samuel chapter 1 and verse 13. So Psalm 13, 1 Samuel 1, 13, the two 13s. Father, I thank you, God, for in the scripture, it really does say that darkness was on the face of the deep. This is where everything really began. And you spoke, and the Spirit of God moved in unison, and light came, and life came, and boundaries came. Lord, we think of everything that was created, everything that was good, because you spoke and there was nothing in the darkness to resist your voice. So God, I'm praying now that there would be nothing in any of us to resist your voice. God Almighty, nature itself, the universe itself couldn't resist you, but creating mankind in your own image, you created something that you knew could resist your voice.

That's why we would ultimately need redemption on a cross. So God, would you give us the grace to not resist you? Give us the grace, everyone who's listening online in their homes, to allow your voice to come into that darkened place where there's confusion.

As it says in Genesis, darkness was on the face of the deep. Every place of imprisonment and hopelessness, where the voices of your people are little more than a whisper in the dust, if they can even muster that much. And Holy Spirit, we're asking you in Jesus' name to move in those places, and let there be light, and let there be life, and let there be boundaries, and let there be freedom, let there be joy, let something beautiful be created out of ashes. Lord, it is time for you to work, for this generation have made void your law.

They've cast away your words. And so here we are as your people. We may be on the side of the road. We might be lame.

We might be blind. We might have the disease of sin in our minds, whatever the situation is, but we are still your people, Lord. And God, we ask you that as we cry out to you, that you would do what only you can do as a testimony of your grace and your glory to this generation. We want you to be glorified in this last hour of time.

It's not just for us that we're asking these things. We want you, Lord Jesus Christ, to be glorified. We want you to be lifted up in such a way that men, women, and children will be drawn to you again. They would come out of hiding. They'd come out of their caves in their darkness and come to you for life and come to you for light. But God, if your people are paralyzed, there's no testimony then of your grace and your glory.

It's no glory to you to have a bride that's beaten up on the side of the road. So we're simply asking you to be who you are. Give us the grace to stop resisting you. And Father, I thank you for this. I thank you for what you're going to do through the internet. You're going to do it in Switzerland. You're going to do it in Europe. You're going to do it in Africa, South America, India, Australia, Canada, the United States of America. God, you're going to do what only you can do.

And you're going to do it in multiple places. We proclaim it. We proclaim life, life from death and light from darkness and health from sickness and freedom from addiction and depression. We curse these works of darkness in the name of Jesus. And thank you, God, that you have come to set free and you've come to deliver.

And we give you praise and we give you glory for it in Jesus' name. Psalm 13, the Psalm of King David. And David says, How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord my God. Enlighten my eyes.

Give me vision. Help me to see your love, your mercy, your forgiveness, the pathway forward for my life. Lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest my enemies say I have prevailed against him. Lest those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved. But I have trusted in your mercy and my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. Now 1 Samuel chapter 1 and verse 13 says, Now Hannah spoke in her heart.

Only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. The title of the sharing God's put on my heart is When Your Prayers Have No More Words. I've been there. There's nothing left to say. All that's left inside of you, it's like a whisper coming from the dust. It's a groan. You know that the Bible does say the Spirit of God within us groans for us. Praise with groanings that cannot be uttered. And there are times when we have that interior groaning for something of God that only God can give and we know it.

And there's nothing more to say. There's no more appeals to make. God already knows the desire of our heart. He knows what we are intended to be.

He knows what he's given to us as a future. And we're so tired that all we can do is just maybe go on our knees and we can't even utter the words anymore. But this is the story of how a wordless prayer gave birth to a voice that guided the nation for 40 years.

I want you to hear that. This was a wordless prayer, a prayer that had no more words in it. But this prayer birthed a voice that turned the nation in great measure back to God and guided the nation for many, many years after this particular groaning without words was uttered before God. It's a story about a woman called Hannah who would come annually to the temple of God. It was supposed to be a time of thanksgiving, a time of just offering up gratitude, a time of asking for blessing for the coming year.

But she was so utterly empty inside. She was destined by God to be a giver of life for that to be a giver of life for that is her name. She's a daughter of Eve and that the name Eve really means giver of life. All of us are called to be givers of life.

Jesus himself said we're going to be living witnesses of the reality that he is alive from the dead, not just an argument about God but an actual witness of God in our generation. But this woman would come up every year to the Lord and the scripture says her husband would give Hannah in chapter 1 verse 5 a double portion for he loved Hannah although the Lord had closed her womb. And a rival also provoked her severely to make her miserable because the Lord had closed her womb. And so it was verse 7 says year by year when she went up to the house of the Lord that she provoked her.

That means her adversary provoked her. It's the type of you and I going to prayer and saying, oh is God really faithful to you? Look how empty you are. Look how little life you're bearing.

You're not producing anything that's going to give glory to his name. It's all going to more or less just die with you and and your whole purpose on the earth is not going to be fulfilled. This is this is her adversary provoking her in a sense not to believe God or to believe maybe that God's found some secret displeasure with her that's caused him to close his hands of compassion and generosity over her life. And therefore the scripture says she wept and did not eat.

I don't think it was fasting. I think she just couldn't bring herself to eat. She felt so sick inside probably couldn't contain it.

If she had food in her stomach she would probably lose it. And she was weeping and she was broken. And her husband Elkanah said to her in verse 8, why do you weep Hannah? Why don't you eat? And why is your heart grieved?

Am I not better to you than 10 sons? But this woman had come to a place where she was unpacified with lesser comforts. All the distractions of life, all of the other things. You know it's like you have this inner desire for something that God has promised you or maybe destined your life to be. And people all around you are telling you just cheer up, cheer up. But there's this inner sorrow because you know in your heart that your life is not amounting to the fullness of what it was intended to be. She was supposed to be a giver of life and she knew that she was empty.

That life that's supposed to come through her life had not been conceived and she could not be pacified. And I think it's a good thing when you and I get there. I think it's a good thing if you're that weight that you've tried it all.

You turn on the radio to try to or whatever device you got to try to occupy your time with somebody else's song. It used to maybe give you some comfort now it doesn't. You've tried almost everything. You've tried cheering yourself up. Nothing satisfies. There's this inner sorrow and saying my life was intended to be more than this.

Now listen to me. Your life is intended to be more than just where you are in your room and looking at your wall and addicted to whatever you're addicted to whether it's pornography or drugs or you could even be addicted to depression. It can become a blanket in a sense that sad to say it gives kind of a comfort that God didn't intend you to have. In verses 9 and 10 it says Hannah rose after they'd finished eating and drinking in Shiloh and Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the tabernacle of the Lord and she was in bitterness of soul and prayed to the Lord and and wept in anguish. And Hannah's day was not exactly unlike ours. The nation of Israel at this time was on the very edge of defeat. It was just going to be a short season from there that the ark of God was going to be captured by the Philistines.

This encroaching darkness was going to actually in a physical sense capture the presence of God and take it into a foreign place. The priesthood of that time was deaf and dull to the moment that they were living in. In the natural it looked hopeless. You've got this hugely backslidden priest that's leading the nation.

His two sons are greedy and they're immoral. For Hannah must have looked hopeless on every front. I'm barren. The priesthood is backslidden. The nation's on the edge of captivity and the only thing left to do at this moment is what Hannah did. She prayed as much as she could. She prayed even though there were no words to her prayer.

You see this has always been God's remedy for Christ's times throughout history. He looks for that person, that situation that we in the natural would think would be the least usable in the kingdom of God in a moment like this. Here's a barren woman. She's full of disappointment. She's bitter in soul. She cannot be comforted. She's coming to the temple and honestly she's not really thankful.

It's supposed to be a time of thanksgiving. She's not thankful. She's in anguish. Eli was so unused to seeing somebody pray.

Isn't it sad that he thought she was drunk? She's a woman in anguish of soul. She's asking God for a miracle. She's asking God to do something in her life that only God can do and Eli is so horribly backslidden he doesn't even know what prayer looks like anymore. God help us when the prayer meeting is a strange thing in the house of God but yet in the midst of all this God is about to raise up a voice that's going to turn the nation back to him again. He's going to raise up a judge.

They're called in the Old Testament a wonderfully empowered man, fearful man in a sense because the spirit of God was so powerfully on and people were afraid when he came to town because he had the power in the sense of speech to turn the nation back from darkness and back to the living God. And this voice was going to be born out of a prayer that had no more words, out of an anguish that couldn't be pacified, out of a situation that looked entirely hopeless in the natural. God was going to raise up a voice. I want to talk to you about the turning point. A turning point that changed everything and maybe allowed God to do something that only God could do at that moment. And here's the turning point. It's in verse 11. It says, then she made a vow and said, O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant and remember me and not forget your maidservant but will give your maidservant a male child, I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life and no razor shall come upon his head.

This is the moment that changed everything. This is the moment where barrenness gave way to conception. She literally put it all in the hands of God and said, Lord, if you will give life to me, if you will do something supernatural in my life, for she knew she was barren. If you will birth something in my life and through my life, here's the promise I make to you. I will not use it for myself. I will not use it to pacify my own need. I will not take it home and make it my own as much as you would have wanted to, but I will bring it back to you for your glory.

That is the moment that changed everything. It's the moment where you pray or I pray and say, God, if you will do something in my life, I can make only one promise. If you will do something in my life that I know that only you can do, I will bring it back to you for your glory.

I will not be silent about it. I will bring it to your house. It will serve you. This testimony will be a testimony of your mercy and grace all the days of my life. If you will do this in me, I will give it back to you for your glory.

This is the moment that God was waiting for. I'm sure there were a lot of prayers that were prayed in the temple, prayers of give me this and I want that and give me this. And you know, the scripture does say there's good things that God gives to us. I'm not negating that and thank God he's good and he gives us good things. But the types of prayers that we pray, James said it in the book of James, we ask to consume it upon ourselves.

It's just really for us. We ask and sometimes God says no to those prayers until we get to the point almost where there's no more words. It's just a groan now and say, God, if you will, if you will. I remember the day I prayed that prayer, I had so much stuff in my life when I came to Christ. I had so many struggles. I had a horribly bad temper.

I was extremely selfish. I was just so self-focused it was nauseating even to think about it today and it was hurting everybody around me and I remember I was brand new to the Lord and I went in my kitchen one day and I was praying in the farmhouse kitchen and I prayed this prayer. I said, God, Jesus Christ, if you will touch my life and set me free, I will live for you all of my days. I had an encounter with God that day in my kitchen that I will never forget as long as I live. Presence of God literally came into that room. Pastor Teresa was there. She witnessed this. Touched me in a way that I've never forgotten, never will as long as I live.

I can't explain it. There's nothing in my vocabulary to explain that touch of God but God came, touched me, released me from these issues of character that held me with cords and that held me almost all of my life. But I had made a promise to Him that if you will do this in my life, I will serve you all of my days. And God was faithful and He did a miracle.

I could have gone to counselors for the rest of my life and still not be free. I could have tried to encourage myself with all the encouragement that people could offer me and anything my own heart could muster but I would most likely still essentially be the same man today that I was then, still trying to be free. But you see, the Word of God came and I believed the Word of God when He said, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. I believed God. When I just let the Word of God touch my heart, then the Spirit of God came and the darkness that was upon the face and the deep of my life had to give way to the light of God.

The prison doors were commanded to open. The blindness of my eyes was washed away by His presence and I began to see a future. And just like Hannah did, I walked out of that kitchen no longer sad but filled with hope that the God who had touched my life in such a powerful way was now going to lead me into something that would give Him glory. And I've been all over the world. There's a few places I haven't been but I have talked to so many people I can't count them and told them the story of what He has done for me.

God is no respecter of persons. What He did for me He will do for you if you will just open your heart and don't resist Him. Let His Word touch you in your barren place, in the place where you are where you don't seem to have a hope of bearing life or ever going forward.

But I'll tell you one thing, if you will let God touch your life and you'll just pray a simple prayer and say, Lord if you will touch me I will bring the freedom you bring into my heart, the blessing you bring into my life, the life that you birth through my life, I will bring it back to you for your glory all of my days. And Hannah did exactly what she had promised the Lord she would do. And when Samuel was weaned that's somewhere they say between two years and maybe as much as three or three and a half years old. When Samuel was weaned she brought him back to the temple for the and it would have been costly to her. This was the desire of her heart.

You understand this was not just oh here's a baby well I'm going to bring it back. She's bringing this child to Eli who's a backslidden priest into a temple that looked like it was going to fall apart into a season of captivity encroaching on the nation. She brings the most precious thing in her life and gives it to God for his glory. And the rest is history.

Samuel is probably the greatest judge ever raised up who made it right through to the end and stayed a righteous man all the days of his life and turned the nation back from the brink of judgment to the service and worship of the one true God. All of that came from a prayer that had no words. So take heart. If you have a prayer now that has no words to it you're in a good place. You're not in a bad place you're actually in a good place. You're in a place where God can do a miracle now. You're in a place where it has to be all God and none of you. You're in a place where God's about to do something that will bring glory to his name and all he asks of you and me especially in this generation is bring it back to the Lord.

Bring it back to me for my glory. So father in Jesus name we recognize that you gave your all on the cross so that we might have life. That's what you promised us. You said that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly. So Lord we're just going to take you at your word and I prayed for everyone who's online listening who doesn't have life and they don't have the abundance of your blessing.

They're just empty vessels and their prayers are little more than a whisper now. But this is where the miracles of your hand find their deepest expression. This is where we know in our hearts that what's been born in us has been given us of God. And so father in Jesus name I simply ask you to stretch your hand out and do miracles in homes. Miracles in rooms. Miracles in minds.

Miracles in families. God you will bring sons and daughters home but we will dedicate them to you for your glory and we will bring them to your house for your glory. And father just thank you God for what you're going to do. Thank you for setting people free in Jesus name from addictions, from depression, from selflessness, from darkness, from listlessness, from from a lack of purpose.

God there's nothing worse than being created in your image and having a lack of purpose on the earth especially being part of the church. Lord we ask you to break this log jam. We ask you Lord to do everything that you came to do.

We ask you to do it. We ask you to stretch your hand out in Australia, in India, in China, in Japan, in Sweden, in Finland, all the places in Canada where these prayer requests are coming in from around the world, in Mexico, in Central and South America. God we ask you to be God in this generation and move upon the face of the deep one more time and speak into every heart and move by the power of the Holy Ghost and cause the darkness to be dissipated. Bring about new boundaries, new borders, new life, new songs, new purpose, a new glory in the earth that can only be attributed to our God. Raise up out of our wordless prayers, raise up a voice that will turn people back to you again. Oh God I'm asking Lord for you to raise up evangelists that are listening to my voice, pastors, teachers, leaders, my God in every sphere of this society that will raise their voice for you and declare what you have done and bring the miracle back for your glory, back into your house for your service. Help us Lord not to take the life you give us and take it home and just hoard it to ourselves. Help us to bring it back to you and thank you Lord that you wait for us. You wait God. You waited for Lazarus to be dead before you raised him for your glory.

You wait until our prayers have no more words and then you do what only you can do. Oh God I believe you. God I believe you.

Jesus son of God I believe you. I believe you with all my heart that this is an hour for your church to rise out of the dust again. This is an hour for the Hannahs and the Samuels again my God to be raised in this earth to call as many as can still hear your voice back to you.

Thank you for hearing our groan. Thank you Lord that when our prayers don't have any more words you still hear us and you know what's in our heart. You know the thoughts of our heart. We don't have to speak words. You know what we're thinking.

You know what we're feeling. So God I just want to say thank you. I want to say thank you. I want to say thank you for the people that are rising up right now. I want to say thank you for the light that's coming into darkened minds. I want to say thank you for the freedom that's coming into those who are shackled with selflessness and addiction. I want to thank you for the marriages that are going to be healed and the sons and daughters that are going to come home and they're going to live for you. I want to thank you for reviving your church one last time before you return to the earth to take us home. God I thank you.

God I thank you. And we throw our lives in with our prayers. We're not going to ask people to do what we're unwilling to do. We come to you Lord and we throw our lives in with our prayers and say oh God glorify your name.

And you say I have glorified it and I will glorify it again. Hallelujah. The message today has been brought to you by Carter Conlon from Times Square Church. For more information log on to tsc.nyc. That's tsc.nyc. Plan to be with us next week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.