This is Robert Jeffress. In response to the horrific attack on Israel, I've written a brand new book called Are We Litting in the End Times?
Go to ptv.org to order your copy. Elijah's first prayer on Mount Carmel brought an instant dramatic answer with the fire falling down. But it was Elijah's second prayer that brought the rain from heaven. So let's look at four principles here for powerful praying that we find in Elijah's second prayer that brought God's promised rain. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress.
When you're going through a troubling issue, is prayer your first line of defense or has prayer really become the last resort? Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress suggests that extraordinary people like the prophet Elijah recognize the power of prayer and use it. It's a message called Practicing Powerful Praying. Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David. Many of our listeners are surprised to learn that Pathway to Victory produces a devotional magazine sent directly to your home. It's becoming one of the most popular ministry resources in our collection. And I want you to get started with receiving this periodical right away. Pathway magazine is designed to help you stay in God's word with daily devotional readings, feature articles about successful Christian living and behind the scenes information about Pathway to Victory.
It's printed in a convenient format so that you can easily carry a copy in your briefcase or purse. And when you visit ptv.org today, you'll be invited to sign up for your first copy at no cost or obligation. Well, it's Wednesday, November 22nd, and we're more than halfway through our practical series on prayer. As a compliment to this important study, I'm pleased to offer you one of the most creative books we've ever offered on Pathway to Victory. It's a storybook about prayer for children written by my daughter, Julia Jeffress Sadler, and it's titled You Can Pray Big Things. This fully illustrated book gives you a creative way to help your child know how to present their dreams and wishes to God. Right after my message today, I'll explain how you can receive your copy of You Can Pray Big Things, a storybook for kids that would make a great Christmas present.
But right now, let's turn in God's word to First Kings chapter 18. I titled today's message Practicing Powerful Praying. Last time, we began looking at Elijah's fifth secret for living an extraordinary life, and that is unleashing the power of prayer. James wrote, the effective prayer of a righteous person accomplishes much. And Elijah is certainly exhibit A, James said, of that kind of righteous man who prayed very, very effectively. And last time, we began looking at Elijah's secret to unlocking the power of prayer in our life as well.
And we find those principles in First Kings chapter 18. If you would, take your Bibles and turn there as today, we talk about practicing powerful praying. Now, last time, just by way of review, remember, we started by looking at the prelude to powerful praying.
You know, the fact is, if you want God to do something dramatic, you need to ask him to do something dramatic. And that was true in Elijah's case as well. Remember, he had this contest on the top of Mount Carmel between himself and the prophets of Baal to prove who was the true God. And Elijah said, now you prophets of Baal, you take an ox, cut it up and put it on your altar, and then I'll take an ox, cut it up and put it on my altar. We will each pray to our respective gods, and the God who answers by fire, he is the true God. First Kings 18, 24 said, and the people answered and said, that is a good idea.
Now, that was an impossible situation. Having an animal sacrifice and asking the fire of God to fall down upon it, Elijah decided to stack the deck a little bit and to make it even harder for his God to answer. And remember, he ordered his servants to douse that sacrifice of his not once, twice, but three times until the water was overflowing in the trenches around it. So, the prelude to powerful praying is always an impossible situation. And that leads us today to talk about the principles of powerful praying. Elijah simply offered a 64-word prayer that resulted in the fire of God falling from heaven. Look at it with me in 1 Kings 18, verses 36 and 37. Then it came about at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah, the prophet, came near and said, O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, today let it be known that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their heart back again.
And verse 38 says, and the fire of God fell from heaven. Why is it God answered Elijah's prayer instantly and dramatically? I think Elijah's simple 62-word prayer reveals three principles for powerful praying, principles that are guaranteed to bring dramatic answers to your prayers as well. First of all, approach God with confidence.
Approach God with confidence. Notice in verse 36 it says, Elijah the prophet came near to the altar. You know, Elijah knew that the fire was about to fall, but instead of moving away from the altar, he got closer to it.
And by doing so, he was saying, God, I know you're a dead-eye shot, but I believe you are so powerful, you can consume this sacrifice without consuming me as well. He had confidence in God. God wants us to have confidence when we come before him.
Ephesians 3, verse 12, Paul was talking to the Ephesian Christians, and he said that they had boldness and confident access through faith. Hebrews 4 says, let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we might receive grace and find mercy to help in our time of need. God wants us to come before him confidently. Approach God with confidence.
Secondly, pray according to God's will. That's the second principle of powerful praying, when we pray according to God's will. Have you ever read the story in 1 Kings 18 and just ask yourself, how in the world did Elijah come up with this idea?
Well, the answer is very clear if you read it in verse 36. In his prayer, he said, let it be known that you are God in Israel and that I have done all these things at your word. God is the one who commanded Elijah to do this. And one reason Elijah was so confident in his prayer was, he was praying according to the will of God. And that gives us great confidence in our praying, when we know we are praying according to God's will.
Now, I know what you're probably thinking. You're probably saying, well, if God would tell me what to do, give me a dance word about what he's going to do, I could be confident in my praying as well. I'll admit there's some things I pray for that, frankly, I don't know whether it's God's will or not. In that case, faith and praying means boldly asking God for what's in our heart, but then trusting him to do what's best. But there are other things that I know when I pray, God is going to answer that prayer because it is a prayer according to the will of God. We can know that we are praying with power when we pray according to the will of God.
Now, hear me on this. There is nothing wrong and everything right with praying for what is in our heart, what is in our interest, praying for the things that we are interested in. We ought to pray for those things, but when we pray about the things God is interested in, we can know he's going to answer our prayer dramatically. A third principle for powerful praying is focus on glorifying God.
Focus on glorifying God. Remember, Elijah had dedicated his whole life to proving that Jehovah was the only true God in Israel. In fact, remember what Elijah's name meant? His very name meant Jehovah is my God. So it should be no surprise that when Elijah prayed this prayer to God, at the core of his prayer was a desire to glorify God.
Look again at verses 36 and 37 of 1 Kings 18. O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, today let it be known that you are God. Answer me, O Lord. Answer me that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God.
That was his singular desire in life, to make people aware that there was only one God worthy of our worship. And when that is your life focus and my life focus, we can know God is going to answer our prayers. Now we've talked about the principles for powerful praying.
Let's look finally at the practice of powerful praying. Go back to 1 Kings 18. Did you know most people think that the climax of this story in 1 Kings 18 is the fire falling down from heaven and consuming the animal sacrifice? But remember in 1 Kings 18, after three and a half years of drought and Elijah being in hiding, God says to Elijah, okay, it's time to go back to Ahab and tell Ahab that the rain is coming.
It is going to rain. And so Elijah did go up on top of Mount Carmel, had this contest with the prophets of Baal, proving that God is the only God, and that brought down the fire from heaven, but the rain from heaven had not yet come. And Elijah needed to pray for that as well.
So look at verse 42 of 1 Kings 18. Elijah went up to the top of Carmel and he crouched down on the earth and he put his face between his knees and he said to his servant, go up now and look toward the sea. So he went up and looked and said, there's nothing. And so Elijah said, go back.
And he said it seven times. So it came about in a little while that the sky grew black with clouds and wind and there was a heavy shower. Elijah's first prayer on Mount Carmel brought an instant dramatic answer with the fire falling down. But it was Elijah's second prayer that brought the rain from heaven. So let's look at four principles here for powerful praying that we find in Elijah's second prayer that brought God's promised rain. First of all, pray privately. Pray privately if you want to experience powerful answers to your prayer. Now there are times that we can pray with other people, maybe our mate, maybe our children, maybe at church.
But you know, I have found in my own life when I'm praying out loud, whether it's before a few dozen people or 10,000 people, I'm so focused on my word choice and how it's coming across and what other people may be thinking that I forget I'm not talking to them, I'm talking to him. And that's why Jesus advised when you pray, pray in private. Matthew 6,6, but you, when you pray, go into your inner room and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. Again, Jesus wasn't saying it's wrong to pray in public, Jesus prayed in public. He prayed before the feeding of the 5,000, he prayed before he raised Lazarus from the dead.
There are many times he prayed publicly, but the majority of time he spent praying privately. In fact, remember in Mark 1.35, we find Jesus' habit of prayer. After the biggest and busiest day of his ministry, the next day, Mark 1.35 says, it was in the early morning while it was still dark that Jesus arose and went out and departed to a lonely place and he was praying there. You know, if anybody had an excuse to sleep in that next day, it would have been Jesus. He'd had this humongous day of ministry, but to Jesus' prayer wasn't a nicety, it was a necessity. He had to stay in contact with his Heavenly Father. And if prayer was that important to Jesus, the perfect Son of God, how much more important is it for us if we're going to experience God's power in our life?
Will you notice something about Jesus? First of all, he had a scheduled time that he prayed. For him, it was in the early morning while it was still dark. Now, it doesn't matter when your time to pray is. There's nothing especially holy about morning versus night. The important thing is Jesus had a scheduled time that he met with God regularly.
If it's morning for you, if it's before lunch or after lunch, if it's before you go to bed, that's not important. It's important that we have a scheduled time to meet with God. That doesn't mean we don't talk to God throughout the day.
We ought to keep the conversation going throughout the day, but there ought to be a time that we meet with him privately. And then notice Jesus had a place as well. He went out to a lonely place. I don't think this is the first time he ever went there. I think it was a favorite spot he had where he met with God.
Do you have a place like that? Every one of us needs a period of time and a place to meet with God. Secondly, Elijah's prayer, and by the way, notice how Elijah, his prayer for the fire of God was a very public prayer before all of the prophets of Baal, but Elijah's prayer for the rain was by himself on top of Mount Carmel. Secondly, when we pray, pray honestly.
Pray honestly. Look at verse 42 of 1 Kings 18. But Elijah went to the top of Carmel, and he crouched down on the earth, and he put his face between his knees. That verb, crouched, is the idea of somebody stretching himself out on the earth. It's the same verb used in 2 Kings 4-34 about Elijah stretching out himself over the boy who was dead in order to raise him from the dead.
Why is this important? Because this prayer that Elijah prayed was not one of these little nice folded hands, now I lay me down to sleep prayers. This was a crying out to God. He threw himself on the ground, spread out, Lord, answer me.
Answer me. Send the rain. It was a heartfelt prayer. When we come before God, we ought to pray honestly about what we really want. You know, Philippians 4-6 says, Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known to God.
Do you need a raise at work? Ask God for it. Ask Him for it.
Do you need healing for yourself or for somebody you care about? Ask God for it. Tell God what's really in your heart.
Are you single and you want a mate more than anything in the world? Ask God for it. Ask Him to bring that person, that right person in our life. You know, prayer is not praying what we think should be in our heart. Real honest prayer is praying for what is actually in our heart. And that's what Elijah did.
He prayed boldly for the rain to come. And that leads to a third principle for powerful praying, and that is pray specifically. Pray specifically. You know, James says the effective prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much. He was talking about Elijah, and notice what he says in verses 17 and 18. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn't rain on the earth for three and a half years. And then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit. One thing to notice about Elijah, when he prayed, he prayed with laser-like specificity. He prayed that it wouldn't rain for three and a half years, and it didn't. He prayed that the fire would fall down from heaven, and it fell. He prayed now that the rain would come, and it eventually came.
He prayed with specificity. I've shared with you before, one of the best secrets I know of for having a vibrant prayer life is to keep a prayer journal. I've done that for decades.
It's very simple. I just take a spiral notebook, and I divide each page into half, a line down the center. On one side, I put my requests, and the other side is headlined God's answers. And as I have a prayer request, I write it down, date it. And once God answers yes or no, I write the answer down in the corresponding side.
You know, I've looked back at that prayer journal at times when I've been discouraged, and it has been so encouraging to look back and see the faithfulness of God in impossible situations. It's a great faith-building exercise to do that. But you know, I can say this honestly. I promise, this is not preacher talk.
This is the truth. I can say I'm even more grateful for the no answers many times than I am the yes answers. I read some of those things I was asking for 10, 20, 30 years ago, and I say, what was I thinking? If God had said yes to that, it would have been a fiasco in my life, not to mention the kingdom of God. I'm so grateful God had the wisdom to say no. We need to be specific in our prayer requests. James 4, 2 says, you have not because you ask not. Now finally, and this is so important, pray persistently.
Pray persistently. Sometimes God answers our request immediately like he did for the prayer for the fire to fall down from heaven. Elijah prayed it. God answered it just like that. But sometimes God doesn't answer immediately.
Have you discovered that? That doesn't mean we should stop praying. It certainly didn't for Elijah. Look again at verse 42 of 1 Kings 18. Ahab went up to eat and drink, but Elijah went up on top of Mount Carmel. Verse 43, and he said to his servant, after he had prayed for rain, he said, go up now and look toward the sea. So he went up and looked, and he said, there is nothing.
And he said, go back. He said it seven times, go back, go back, go back, because there was no sign of any rain coming. Verse 44, and it came about at the seventh time that the servant said, behold, a cloud as small as a man's hand is coming up from the sea. Now just think, what would have happened or what wouldn't have happened if Elijah had stopped praying after the first time the servant came back and said, no rain in the forecast today? What would have happened if Elijah had stopped after the sixth time the servant said, no rain today?
He would have missed out on God's dramatic answer to his prayer. Do you remember Luke 18, verse 1? Luke said, Jesus told them a parable to show how they should pray at all times and not be discouraged.
And Jesus told that parable about the persistent widow who kept asking the unrighteous judge to intervene on her behalf. The point of the parable was, keep on praying. Just don't pray when the answer is obvious and easy. Pray when the answer seems impossible. And keep on praying even after God says no or wait.
Keep on praying until you get a definitive yes or no. Those who prevail in prayer are those who are persistent in their praying, just like Elijah was. You know, whenever we face an impossible situation in our lives, there are many things we can do. But those who have learned how to live an extraordinary life understand the wisdom of A.J. Gordon who said, you can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you can never do more than pray until you have prayed.
That's the secret to an extraordinary life. Pray when it's easy. Pray when it's hard. Pray when you're confused. Pray when you're clear. No matter what, keep knocking at God's door and pray, pray, pray. As we conclude another message together, let me say thanks to those of you who pray for Pathway to Victory and to those who write and affirm the value of this daily radio program.
Not long ago, I heard from Crystal who listens in Virginia. She said, Pastor Jeffress, for all of my life, I relied on my godly grandfather to feed me spiritually. When my grandfather died, it left me feeling adrift, as though God had suddenly stopped listening to me. Through Pathway to Victory, I'm becoming grounded in my direct relationship with the Lord and the reading of the Bible myself. Thank you for this incredible ministry and for helping me find a way to reconnect with God.
Well, never underestimate the power of a grandparent's influence, right? Thank you, Crystal. Your story's an encouragement to us all, especially those who are investing financially in the ministry of Pathway to Victory. It's good to know that your gifts are making a difference. Today, when you give a generous gift to Pathway to Victory, we'll say thanks by providing the new children's book I mentioned earlier called You Can Pray Big Things. It's written by my daughter, Julia Jeffress Sadler, and it's fully illustrated. In addition to this brand-new book for kids, I'll also be sure to include Julia's original best-selling book for adults. It's called Pray Big Things. Now, here's David with all the details.
Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. Today, when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, you're invited to request a copy of Julia Jeffress Sadler's brand-new children's book, You Can Pray Big Things. Plus, you'll also receive Julia's best-selling book for adults, Pray Big Things. To request the two books, call 866-999-2965, or go online. That's at ptv.org.
And when your gift is $75 or more, we'll also send you this month's teaching series, Prayers That Really Work, on both CD and DVD, perfect for watching at home or listening in your car. There are only a few days left to take advantage of these resources, so don't put off calling any longer. One more time, call 866-999-2965, or visit ptv.org. If you'd prefer to write, here's that mailing address, P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. Again, that's P.O.
Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins. When temptation comes roaring our way, how do we avert disaster? It starts with having a strong moral compass. And next time, Dr. Jeffress will show us how to let the Bible direct our steps.
Hear a message called Bright Lights and Night Lights. That's Thursday, here on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Even though we don't know the date when Jesus will return, we need to have our finger on the pulse of what's happening today. So, in response to the war in Israel, Dr. Robert Jeffress has written a brand new book. It's called Are We Living in the End Times? In light of increasing chaos, division, and warfare in our world, this really is a fair question. Request your copy of Are We Living in the End Times? by going to ptv.org.
