Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: I suppose the counterpart in the USA would be "Now I lay me down to sleep," and I don't know that one. But I do know the other one because I said it every day as a small child. It was the only prayer, I guess, my mother knew to teach me, and so she taught me what she knew.

But there was another prayer. It wasn't really a prayer; it was a sort of poem, and it was part of my wonderful heritage in A.A. Milne and Winnie the Pooh and all of that stuff. It was A.A. Milne's beautiful vesper prayer that Christopher Robin prayed.

And to my surprise, as I looked at it, I found out that I remembered it because when you pray a prayer, and it really wasn't a prayer, but it was the only thing my mother knew to teach me how to pray, you sort of remember it. Maybe you know it:

Little boy kneels at the foot of the bed,

droops on his little hands, little gold head.

Hush, hush, whisper who dares,

Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

God bless mummy, I know that's right.

Wasn't it fun in the bath tonight?

The cold so cold and the hot so hot.

Oh, God bless daddy, I quite forgot.

If I open my fingers a little bit more,

I can see nanny's dressing gown on the door.

It's a beautiful blue and it hasn't a hood.

Oh, God bless nanny and make her good.

Mine has a hood and I lie in bed,

and I pull the hood right over my head,

and I shut my eyes, and I curl up small,

and nobody knows that I'm there at all.

Oh, thank you, God, for a lovely day.

And what was the other I had to say?

I've said bless daddy, so what could it be?

Oh, now I remember, it's God bless me.

Little boy kneels at the foot of the bed,

droops on his little hands, little gold head.

Hush, hush, whisper who dares,

Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

Now our churches are full of Christopher Robins. Christopher Robin begins: God bless mummy, I know that's right. Well, that's a good start. It's nice to know you're doing something, right, when you hear all these talks on prayer about conditions and all of that sort of thing.

But if Christopher Robin is still saying, "God bless mummy," when he's 30 years into his Christian life, we've got a problem. When I first became a committed believer at the age of 18, I began to pray Christopher Robin prayers. I remember being at a prayer meeting and intoning fervently, "God bless Africa."

At the end of this very intense and very sincere prayer, a mature Christian came up to me and said, "Which part of that great continent is your concern? Which mission are you thoroughly informed about? Which particular tribal problem are you well acquainted with? And what specific answers to your prayer requests have you received?"

Well, I knew that God bless Africa wasn't going to do it. Now, in the poem, Christopher Robin goes on to more important matters. "God bless mummy, I know that's right. Wasn't it fun in the bath tonight?" Isn't that something?

So many of us who suffer from Christopher Robin-itis find our thoughts wandering, and what they wander to can be as irreverent and irrelevant as the water in the bathtub. And then, of course, we have the, "If I open my fingers a little bit more, I can see Nanny's dressing gown on the door," et cetera. What do we have here? A peeping Christopher Robin.

Have you ever seen one of those in church? Have you ever been one of those in church? As we open our fingers that little bit more, we don't see Nanny's dressing gown on the door, but we do see Mrs. Smith's new dress or how funny Mr. Roberts looks like when he prays.

Now, the root of the problem is that Christopher Robin is saying his prayers. He has never learned to pray. And may we be forgiven a little boy's prayer, as I open this series. If perhaps right from our hearts, in a childlike, not childish, way, we pray, "Oh, thank you, God, for a lovely day. And what was the other I had to say? I've said God bless daddy, so what can it be? Oh, now I remember, God bless me."

Having grown up since my Christopher Robin days, I've discovered God wants me to be childlike, not childish, in my praying. And to this end, this series called "Prayer that Works" has been crafted.

Now, we're going to be in the book of James, in James chapter 5, because that's where the character that we'll be looking at is introduced in the New Testament. James, if you remember, was the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was called "camel knees" because he knelt so often and so long in prayer.

And when James wrote his epistle, he looked for someone for his mentor and model in the matter of prayer. And he figured out Elijah had to be the man. And right at the end of his epistle, he has these words for us in verse 13.

"Is any one of you in trouble, he should pray. Is anyone happy, let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick, he should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well, and the Lord will raise him up. If he's sinned, he'll be forgiven. 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."

And I will be coming back to that one text over and over and over again. Elijah was a man just like us. Don't you wish? But apparently, he was. He was a man of like passions, the King James says. And if he was a man of like passions, we can be like him in our passions. We can be like him in our prayers. And that's the challenge.

He prayed earnestly, heartfelt, stretched out, fervently. The word means flat on his face. And it didn't rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, the earth produced its crops. "My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone bring him back, remember this: whoever turns a sinner from the error of his ways will save a soul from death and will cover over a multitude of sins."

So here we have James's model, his hero, in the matter of prayer. And if James had a hero when he was such a good prayer, I want to know what it was that intrigued him about him.

Now, when I call this series "Prayer that Works," I thought immediately that some of you would say, "Now, wait a minute. That's an oxymoron." Prayer, isn't it mystical, passive? Works, isn't that physical and active? You know what an oxymoron is? Jumbo shrimp is an oxymoron. Military intelligence, somebody said. Civil War.

The two words somehow shouldn't belong together. And "prayer works" sounds as if there's a lack of faith, or we've not got something right somewhere. But I believe that it involves the whole person, the whole time, for your whole life. And that's work. And "prayer that works" works. It's a sort of play on the word.

Don't we want our prayers to work? Then we have to work at prayer. There is no way 'round it. If you want to see the showers come, if you want to be a rain man, there is no way 'round it. You're going to have to get to work, and so am I.

Now, let me just run through a couple of things here that are obvious to remind you of what you already know, but knowing something doesn't mean you're already doing it, so let me remind you anyway. Prayer takes time. It involves the art of leaving things undone, that the greatest thing must be done. It means waiting on the Lord. It means keeping others waiting while you're waiting sometimes. But he's waiting for you to wait, so don't keep him waiting.

Prayer is the practice of stepping out of time into eternity, and that's work. It takes work to leave things alone in order to be alone with God. But prayer that really works, works at that. It may mean sleep deprivation. That takes work. Better than God deprivation, isn't it? Better than prayer deprivation?

Jesus got up a great while before day, and he also stayed up a long time after bedtime. I think of him feeding 5,000 people, doing all the clearing up, and then climbing a mountain to pray. Takes effort, not just time. It has to be learned.

Often you hear the phrase, "the school of prayer." We are in school. We are like Christopher Robin. We are at different stages. But we need to graduate from kindergarten, where we are with Christopher Robin, and grow up. You know, if you've got a class in school, all the personalities are mixed together. And they all have to graduate, and they all have to learn the same stuff.

And so don't think, "Well, she's a good prayer," or "He's a good prayer, and I'm not," and "This is a matter of personality." Mary and Martha, we think of Mary praying and Martha doing and being busy and Mary being mystical and sitting at the Lord's feet. Calvin says he thinks that Mary was Martha before she was Mary because she chose the better part.

And so it isn't a matter of personality because whatever sort of personality that you have, we're in the school of prayer, we're all in the class together. We all need to graduate, we all need to learn, we all need to do the homework. And homework is work. And the homework of prayer is prayer. It's praying. It's doing it.

Now, you know all this. But are we doing all this? So, prayer takes practice. When Pete was young, he wanted to learn an instrument. He wanted to learn the drums, if you call those an instrument. Well, I bought him a clarinet, which was a terrible mistake, because, of course, the clarinet never got played, and that was the end of his musical career.

However, I did notice him polishing it up one day as he zoomed out to school for the new semester, and I said to him, "Pete, what are you doing?" And he said, "Mom, I've got tryouts today." So I said, "What for?" He said, "The orchestra." And I said, "Oh, and what are you trying out for?" He said, "First chair clarinet, of course." And I looked at him and I said, "Pete, first chair clarinet?" "Yes," he says, "I'm going out for first chair clarinet. Pray for me."

So I said, "Pete, let's have a little talk. I can't pray for you." "Why not, Mom?" "Well, you haven't practiced." "If I'd practiced, I wouldn't need you to pray."

Now, you know, sometimes we're like Pete, a little bit Christopher Robin-ish. That's what we use prayer for. We don't do any of the things fulfilling the conditions of prayer, but we say to our friends, "Pray for me." Have we practiced?

Prayer takes practice. Prayer is vital. It's the Christian's vital breath. There's some sort of animal, and I don't know what it's called. I was zooming through a book, and I found it, an old book. Moody was writing on prayer, and he talked about this animal that lives under the water for extended time. But it cannot live under the water forever, and it has to come up for air. And maybe you know what the name of it is. But it is mostly under the water, but it has to have air.

And you know, that reminds me of the Christian. The vital breath of prayer is the thing you have to come up to the surface for at some point. You cannot live under the water forever. That's how God has made us.

So, with that in mind, takes time, takes effort, takes practice. Let me just talk about three things. Prayer that works is developed as trouble comes into our lives. James says, "Is anyone in trouble? He should pray." Keep on praying about it. "Is any of you afflicted, ill-treated, suffering evil? He should pray." That's the amplified. The message, "Are you hurting? Pray."

Now, is anyone hurting here? Anyone spouse left them? Anyone done you down at work? Have you been passed over, meanly treated, had a bad deal? Anyone friendless, loveless, cashless, jobless, childless, powerless? Clueless? Anyone in trouble? He should pray.

Trouble's a great growth hormone. It draws you from a spiritual dwarf to a spiritual giant. And the thing that happens when trouble comes is your prayer life ought to go into high gear. I said ought to.

What I find is it shows me where my prayer life is when trouble comes. And it was now that our family moved into a personal crisis, and I heard myself praying like Christopher Robin, to my chagrin. Worse, I heard myself praying like an unbeliever. I heard myself praying panic prayers, angry prayers, self-pityful prayers, bargaining prayers, promising prayers. Where was my prayer life when I needed it the most?

But what I did was I got down on my knees, and I prayed about my prayer life, and that's where you have to start. Have you ever really prayed, taken 10, 15 minutes to pray about your prayer life? That's what I did. And I decided that this trouble was going to do wonders for my prayer life and my relationship with God. And it has.

Prayer that works is often grown as trouble comes, as trouble troubles us, and we are troubled. Then we go to God, and we learn to pray. I feel sort of sorry for God in a sense. I feel sometimes he's like the father who, his son goes to college, and you only hear from the son when he wants money. And I think God feels like that a bit. And yet he is so full of grace, he'll take it.

Even when trouble troubles us, and like the son that only goes to the father when we want something, we come to him and say, "Father, I'm in a mess," or "Father, this is tough," or "Father, I need money," or whatever. In grace, he hears us, and as a loving father, answers us.

Prayer that works develops us. Prayer that works delivers us. This passage talks about sickness. Let me talk about healing for a minute in prayer. First of all, God can heal. Don't hesitate to ask him. Don't hesitate to ask him. Ask him biblically. You ask for the elders to come and anoint you with oil and pray over you. We are not to go and impose ourselves on people that are sick and say, "We would like to come and pray over you." The one who is sick must ask for the elders of the church to come.

So God can heal, and we have seen that happen. I've been the recipient of that sort of healing myself. Don't hesitate to ask him. God, however, may or may not heal. I think of Paul, who himself was not healed of his thorn in the flesh, and I'll talk about that in a minute. But his companion was Timothy, do you remember? And Timothy was a sickly young man. Paul was constantly with him.

One time he wasn't with him, and he wrote to him, and he said, "You need to take a little wine for your stomach's sake and your oft infirmities," the King James says. He was sick all the time, a sickly sort of young man. Now, how come he was sick if he was with Paul, and God had given Paul the gift of healing, we know that? How come that Timothy wasn't healed?

Then there was Trophimus. Trophimus needed to go with Paul on a very important journey. He needed Trophimus. Trophimus was part of the equation of that evangelistic tour, a very important part. He could do things that Paul couldn't do. He needed him with him. But he wrote a letter, and he said, "I had to leave him sick at Miletus." I had to leave him sick.

So, yes, God can heal, but God may or may not heal. Keep three things in mind. God is sovereign. That's the most sure thing. God's glory is the most important thing. Ask, "Will the answer to the prayer I'm praying bring him glory?" That'll show you whether to go on with it or not.

Number three, God's kingdom comes, and that's the most exciting thing. Ask, "Will the answer to this prayer bring God's grace and glory into someone else's life, if it's answered, or if it's not answered?"

As I lay in a hospital bed at the age of 18, the girl next to me was in agony. She'd had a back operation that hadn't worked. So she'd had another back operation, and that didn't work. And she was waiting for the third one, which we hoped would work, but didn't. And she was in between two and three when I met her. I was wheeled into place beside her, packaged for healing.

And I remember lying in that hospital bed, watching this poor girl in absolute agony, visited by an Anglican clergyman called the Reverend Robert Neal. He got in his little bag, and he brought out a little vial of oil, and he anointed her with oil, and he laid his hands on her and prayed. I had never seen such a thing in my life. I was without God, without Christ, without hope. I was absolutely fascinated. I watched expectantly to see if something would happen with this magic, whatever. Nothing happened. She was still in agony. She didn't get better. She wasn't healed. And I thank God she wasn't.

What would have happened to me if the prayer of faith in that instance had raised her up, and she'd walked out of the hospital before she'd ever told me that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, which included Jill Briscoe?

And so I wrote her a letter not long ago, and I said, "You know, I've never really realized it was because you didn't get healed, that your body didn't get healed, that my soul was." And so sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn't. God is sovereign, most sure thing. God's glory is the most important thing. God's kingdom comes, that's the most exciting thing.

And that's where you look around and say, "Well, whatever happens, whether I'm healed or whether I'm not, who's going to come into the kingdom because of this? Who's going to be encouraged because of this? What seeds am I going to plant because of this?"

And remember that everybody that Jesus healed died. Everybody that Paul healed died. And sometimes Paul healed one person, and the next time he couldn't heal the same person. But thank God is sovereign.

But what about this thorn in the flesh? Let me read you from a modern translation, 2 Corinthians 12:7-11. "Because of the extravagance of the revelations I have had," said Paul, "so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down. What he, in fact, did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty. At first, I didn't think of it as a gift, and I begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me, 'My grace is enough. It's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.'"

"And once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap, and I began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride and with good cheer. These limitations that cut me down to size: abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over, and so the weaker I get, the stronger I become."

In other words, says Paul, "It's a good thorn." Have you ever thought of your thorn like that? A good thorn? I caught that in my own prayer diary as my heart responded to that thought, and this is what I wrote. "It's hard to think of my thorn as a gift, Lord. Why would you, a good God, give me such a present? Yet all your gifts are good like you. And so I'm beginning to understand this splinter that's always needling me as a good irritant, never letting me forget you're here, waiting to move in on my weakness."

"So I'm going to let Christ take over, take it from here to there, in fact, anywhere he wants to take it in me. I'm his, thorn and all. Help me to stop focusing on the handicap and start appreciating the gift you gave me. Thank you, Lord, for my very own thorn."

Not only does it keep me in touch with my limitations, it cuts me severely down to size. Satan tried to use it to push me over, but he only succeeded in pushing me onto my knees. Mistake. "This is such a good thorn, Lord, because the weaker I am, the mightier you can be for me and through me for others. So when it's hard living with this splinter, throbbing, hurting, swelling, remind me it's far, far better than being giftless, useless, thornless."

"Don't let me forget it, Lord. Thank you for my special gift." And I am trying to learn like Paul, to thank God for the good thorns that sovereignly he chooses for his own hidden reasons sometimes to leave in our lives. Drives you deeper into God. And you learn dependence and a lot of other things, and it sure does a lot for your prayer life. If you have a thorn in your flesh, you're going to be at prayer. It's going to be needling you to do that, and you'll learn in the school of prayer until you're as happy with the thorn as without it.

How do you get to that place? Prayer. I wish I could tell you a shortcut. Flat on your face. Fervently, heartfelt, fervent, effective prayer avails much, works wonders, helps you overcome.

Now, of course, a thorn can be physical, mental, emotional, relational. Maybe it's a person in the shape of a thorn. Any people like that in your life? No, I'm sure you haven't. But have you ever realized that God leaves some people in your lives as thorns? And if you ever thanked him because they can do wonders for your prayer life.

Prayer that works develops us, and trouble is the vehicle. Prayer that works can deliver us and always will deliver us spiritually. You know, when it says, "God will raise him up," you will be raised up spiritually, whether you are raised up physically or not. And I have seen that over and over again. Spiritually, as people pray for you in whatever sickness you are suffering. Maybe it is an emotional sickness. Maybe it is a physical sickness. Maybe it is a sickness of psychology in your, in your psyche. Maybe it is some sort of sickness. But when people pray for you, you will be raised up above it. And you will be able to cope. It will give you coping mechanisms.

Now, what will? Prayer. No, the God of prayer. Because prayer is the room, prayer is the environment. Prayer gives access to God to get into this thing. And as you wait on the Lord, you look around that waiting room. Some of you are sitting in the waiting room, and you realize you've got company because he is there. He's there with you.

And so God will raise you up. And lastly, prayer that works drenches us. Now, I want you quickly to turn to the first little story that's familiar, and we won't read it. I'll just tell you. But in 1 Kings, chapter 18, Elijah has been busy praying, and the fire has fallen on the altar that he has built and the sacrifice that he has made. He has taken on the establishment. He has faced off with the prophets of Baal. And God has answered prayer. It is the high point of Elijah's life, career, and ministry.

As soon as the people of Israel see that God is really God, and Baal is nobody, they shout, "The Lord is God! The Lord is God!" And so they dispatch the prophets of Baal, and they go home. Elijah, however, has been showing who really is God by praying that the God who is the Creator God, the God of rain, will show Israel that he is the God of rain and Baal isn't the God of rain. And so he decides it's time to really rub it in and put the exclamation mark at the end of the lesson that God is teaching these people.

And so he climbs the mountain to pray for rain. It has been three years since it has rained. And he gets down on his face, and here's the word again: stretched out, fervent. His body language telling you his heart is in this. This is the heartfelt part. He takes his servant with him, and he says, "Now, your job is to go look for the answer. I'll be praying. Watch and pray, watch and pray, watch and pray."

And go and look for the little rain cloud. So the little guy looks for the rain cloud over the sea. Nothing. Seven times he comes back, and he says, "There is nothing there. There is nothing there. There is nothing there. There is nothing there. There is nothing there. There is nothing there. There is nothing there." And Elijah just kept saying, "Go back." And I believe if it had been 70 times, Elijah would have said, "Go back again, go back again."

And you know, I'm incredibly challenged at that point. The fervent, effective prayer, continual prayer of a righteous man, persistent prayer of a righteous man. When I pray, and there is nothing, there is nothing, there is nothing, there is nothing. Can I go on till there is something? Because that's the work of prayer. That's where the work comes in. That's where the discipline comes in. You see.

And prayer that works drenches us. The rain came, and Elijah was part of the recipient of the blessing. It drenched him. It drenched everybody. It drenched Ahab, it drenched the people. And they were so glad to be drenched. Showers, showers, showers of blessing. Elijah was the rain man. He was a righteous man. What sort of person can pray such prayers that have power with God like this, that know the mind of God, that link into the purposes of God, so that these wonderful things happen?

Well, a man just like us. A pardoned man and woman. He was a righteous man. What does that mean? It means pardoned. The righteous man is the pardoned man. The righteous man is one who knows he's needed pardoning. And only one person can do that, and that's God. God himself, on his terms, his grace, his mercy. And when you get down to grace and you know that you've got to be pardoned, you've got to be forgiven, that's where all this starts. Yes, God does hear the prayers of non-believers, and I will address that at some point.

But it's the pardoned prayer that gets heard and does exploits for God, does the work of the kingdom. The non-believers' prayers cannot do the work of the kingdom. Our prayers can. So it's the man who's pardoned gracefully and is grateful for that, who begins to pray and see things happen. It's the fervent man, the passionate man. He prayed earnestly, amplified, heartfelt. You see, our heart's not in it. God says, "You'll find me if you seek for me with all your heart." And then he says, "You've got to be serious in prayer if you want other people to find me."

It's, you've got to, I mean, when was the last time you really prayed passionately? You lose your passion. I love that verse of the hymn, "Oh for a passionate passion for souls, oh for a fire that burns, oh for a love that loves unto death, oh for a spirit that yearns, oh for a prayer power that prevails, that pours itself out for the lost, oh for a heart like yours, dear Lord, oh for a Pentecost."

I love this because it's "oh." You know, you see that in scripture. "Oh, all you that are thirsty, come to the water," you know, says Isaiah the prophet. This great "Oh." Now, if we are honest, when did we last pray like that? With a great heart yielding, "Oh, God, save this person! Oh, God, help this person! Oh, God, heal this person! Heal this relationship! Bring them together! Bring reconciliation!" Where's the "oh"?

The fervent, passionate prayer of a pardoned man works wonders. And the persistent, the continual prayer avails much. It's in the present. The prayer of the man who keeps on praying, the verse says. Keeps on asking. Keeps on seeking. Keeps on knocking. Would you describe yourself as a persistent prayer who prays till the rain comes? It's the heartfelt, continual prayer of a righteous man that has tremendous power. Another translation says, "tremendous power."

As I was thinking of an illustration to end this talk, I thought of a friend of ours, who is only a casual friend. I feel privileged to know him, called Rochunga Pudaite. He is the son of a headhunter, and he is Indian. And one day a missionary walked into his village. His name was Watkin Roberts. Have you ever heard of Watkin Roberts? I haven't till I read this. He's a rain man. I don't know anything about him, except in 1910 he walked into an Indian village, taking his life in his hands because they were all headhunters.

And in this man's, Rochunga's father's words, "Our forebears had handed down a teaching that in order to enter paradise, we must behead our enemy and celebrate it." There was always the danger of losing one's head before taking one. And so this missionary, whose name was Watkin Roberts, the rain man, walks into the village, starts to preach, and Rochunga Pudaite's father came to faith, headhunter though he was.

And he began 80 years of ministry telling the gospel story, traveling 4,000 miles every year on foot to tell the gospel to his people. He saw 90% of his own tribe of 150,000 converted to Christ. He was whipped, stoned, tortured, threatened, but he carried on.

I just took a few little clips out of his son, Rochunga Pudaite's, tribute to his father. "My grandfather was a tribal warrior and a headhunter. He trained his son, my father, to become another headhunter like him. But father was born again and became a joint heir with Jesus Christ through the inner working of the Holy Spirit. In spite of severe opposition from his father, relatives, and friends, Chawnga never turned back. He was disowned by his father and never saw him again."

"Without a Bible, without a teacher, without a church, he survived and walked with God. He attended a mission school for one year as an adult, learned to read and write in Lushai, the only language in which the gospel has been translated. After my grandfather died, my father returned to his mother, whom he led to Christ. Grandmother became his partner in evangelism. Soon the rest of the family was converted. He didn't stop telling others about Jesus and his plan of salvation," et cetera. "He was consumed by the hope of the second coming of Christ. He wanted to do everything he could to hasten his coming."

"When God gave me," this is the son talking, "the idea," let me tell you what it was. The idea, the God idea, that came to Rochunga Pudaite, the son of Chawnga. This was the idea: that he would like to send a Bible to everybody in the phone book in the whole world. Isn't that a great idea? I mean, it has to be a God idea, huh? But what a good idea.

Because everybody in the phone book in every country in the world can read, probably. And everybody in the phone book in every country in the world would have influence, probably. And so if we could get somebody that could read a Bible in their own language, in every country in the world, and that, he says here, would be about a billion Bibles, then people could go to heaven.

So that's the idea. "When God gave me the idea of sending a copy of the New Testament to every telephone subscriber in the world as a means of letting the world know about Jesus and his redemption, my father listened carefully and said, 'Rochunga, God has given you a great idea for all of us to go to heaven alive. When you drop the last of the billion Bibles in the mail, I will listen for the trumpet.'"

"It is too late now for him to hear the trumpet. He received his trumpet call ahead of us. One day he told his pastor in 1992, 'Jesus will come on July the 14th, 1993.' He came for father. One hour after July the 14th was ushered in, 'Hallelujah! Amen!' he shouted as he walked into gloryland, telling us that all he preached about Jesus and heaven was true."

Who was this missionary? This Robert Watkin. When he went, a little cloud, no bigger than a man's hand appeared. And the grandfather, the father was converted, and the rain began to drop here and there. And then his son, Rochunga, and that was an incredible story too, how he came to faith. Had this idea, and the rain began to gather, and the clouds began to come. And soon there was a storm of blessing that is still continuing to this day as he busily packages up Bibles for the world and sends them to the telephone subscribers in every country, in every land, on every continent. He's a rain man. He's a rain man.

Do you want to be a rain man? I want to be a rain man. Pray with me. Lord, you said tremendous power is made available through a good man's earnest prayer. First, let us make sure we are good, righteous, because through grace you forgave us our wrongness. And perhaps even in the quiet there may be somebody here that isn't even sure. Perhaps you realize that Christ has never been invited into your life. You can just open your heart right now and say, "Lord Jesus, I need you so badly. Come into my heart and be my savior. Forgive my wrongness." Only forgiven people can really do the prayer work of the kingdom.

Lord Jesus, make us passionate people. Passionate people pray passionate prayers. Forgive our passionless less. May there be the fervency factor about us when you look in our lives because there's pure passion for God, fueled by the Holy Spirit there. The Holy Spirit of prayer. Birth this earnestness in us, God. Remind us that our heart is the prayer room of your Holy Spirit. Make us your rain men for Christ's sake. Amen.