in prayer until God's answer is known. In Daniel's case it was a matter of three weeks. Sometimes prayers go much longer than that. Why? Only God knows. I've told you before the story of a wonderful lady who had a powerful influence in my life as a teenager. When I was in high school she was in her eighties. To look at her face was to look at a road map. It was just worn and wrinkled with years of experience.
And dear Mrs. Wills shared with me on one occasion how she had prayed for her husband George. When they had first been married she became a Christian. George had very little use for her religion. In fact if he caught her praying or reading the Bible he was very severe with her. So she always calculated when he would be out of the field and that's the time that she would pray. She knew that he would always be out in the field between 10 and 12 in the morning.
So that was her time. Sometime in there she would spend her time with the Lord. And of course one of her major prayer requests was that George would be saved. And she prayed for that as a young wife. And she prayed for him for a year and she prayed for him for five years. And she prayed for him for 20 years. And she prayed for him for 30 years.
And it was not until she had prayed for him to be saved for over 50 years that one day sometime between 10 and 12 in the morning he was out riding his tractor in the field. He was a farmer. And he was so overcome with conviction of his sins out there in the field that he turned his tractor off, got down in the dirt beside his tractor and received Christ as a Savior. Isn't that a marvelous illustration
of persistence in prayer? Important praying it's called. Ian Bounds has these statements regarding importunate or persistent praying. Importunate praying never faints nor grows weary. It is never discouraged. It never yields to cowardice but is buoyed up and sustained by a hope that knows no despair. A faith that will not let go. Importunate praying has patience to wait and strength to continue. It never prepares itself to quit praying and declines to rise from its knees
till an answer is received. Well that is the Spirit that Daniel exhibits as he prays for these three weeks for an answer and enters into that conflict in the spirit realm. We are instructed by the Apostle Paul in the sixth chapter, the eighteenth verse of Ephesians to keep on praying in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication for all saints for to keep on praying. And so the next step you see in this cycle is that the believer persists until God's answer is known.
That brings us to step number six in the cycle of prayer and that is the believer experiences new strength and victory as a result of answered prayer. You see seeing God divinely arrange answers to prayer is a great faith builder. It is such an encouragement to persist in prayer and then to see how God is answered. Maybe not the way that we ask but God has answered in perhaps another way. Prevailing in spiritual conflict
brings fresh strength to us. Peter talks about this in the last chapter of his first epistle when he says in first Peter five be of sober spirit beyond the alert your adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour but resist him firm in your faith and then he says in verse 10 after you have suffered for a little while the God of all grace who calls you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself perfect confirm strengthen and establish you.
You see the end result is our being built up our being strengthened our being established and praying and persisting in prayer is part of that. For when we pray we are entering into the spirit realm and we're doing combat there and we are asking God to bring the victory we're asking God to meet the need and when we see God respond we are after we've suffered for a while we are built up with new strength and we are encouraged by that victory. Then the final step in the cycle of prayer
is that the battle continues. Daniel was encouraged he was strengthened by the answer that he got from the angel and then he was told that the war was going on. The angel was going back to continue battling the Prince of Persia and eventually he would also be involved in battling against the Prince
of Greece. The battle continues which gives us as believers cause to then pray yet again and petition God and so the cycle goes on and that cycle will go on just as warfare spiritual warfare will go on from generation to generation until God's purposes are fully revealed. SD Gordon has said the greatest agency put into man's hands is prayer and to define prayer
one must use the language of war. Peace language is not equal to the situation the earth is in a state of war and is being hotly besieged thus one must use war talk to grasp the fact with which prayer is concerned. I'd like for us tonight to conclude the service with the time of prayer.
We're going to do that by allowing you to pray just privately where you are for a couple minutes and I want to ask you to let God lay some person, some need, some missionary on your heart and for you to begin a cycle of prayer and offer your petition to God and then see that God, no rather that God hears and that God is going to respond by dispatching angels which is going to cause Satan to counter then there's warfare and you persist in praying
the answer comes and you're encouraged and built up and the the battle goes on. So who would it be? Who would you pray for tonight? Maybe it'll be the Schwab family we mentioned earlier some missionary friend that you know has a particular need at this time. We got a letter from the Tomaszewskis this last week as perhaps many of you did. They've been passing through very discouraging times there in South Africa. Maybe it's a friend of yours
or a family you know that has a particular need. Maybe there's a George in your life you've been praying for for many years to be saved I want us to do that but before we do I recognize that there may be someone here tonight who's saying pastor I am so heavy myself I'm under such pressure myself
that I can't pray. You know God knows that and I thank God for the Holy Spirit that even when we find ourselves too weak to pray that the Spirit of God is able to pray through us as we are obedient and bow before the Lord.
But this evening if you're in a situation where where you just feel too burdened yourself with your own battle to pray I'm going to ask the elders who are here tonight to come up here to the front row and I encourage you just to slip out while everyone else is praying just to slip out and come up and be seated by them and let one of the elders of the church pray for you. Let them carry with you
that burden. Now we don't have time for counseling session that's not why you're coming but you're coming to ask prayer and just in a brief sentence or two express what the burden is on your heart and not one of our elders one of our pastors pastors who you come up to and if no one comes that's fine but if several come that's fine too. If you can't pray tonight because of your own burden let someone pray for you
will you? We'll close in a few seconds few minutes but let's bow right now in prayer I'm going to ask you men to slip out and come quickly here to the front and if there are some of you who would like an elder to pray for you tonight for your family for your burden then slip out and let them pray for you. Come on up. As the rest of us zero in on prayer for that issue or that person that missionary that we want to remember tonight. Let's all pray together.
We need more information about prayer so much as we need a stirring of the Spirit of God to pray. Father I pray for our church that you would forgive us of the sin of prayerlessness as it exists among us for it testifies all too loudly of our self-sufficiency so we think. We humble ourselves and ask that the Holy Spirit would renew within us as a congregation the sense of dependency upon you that would issue forth in prayer.
Pour upon us the Spirit of prayer and supplication and may today's study Father in your word both this morning and this evening be instructive and stimulating to that end that we might pray more effectively, we might pray better pray with more faith and more understanding of what's really taking place when we pray. May we be faithful believer priests who utilize the position, the access that we have and who in the power of the Holy Spirit bring our petitions to you.
You have heard us tonight as across the auditorium we have lifted our heart burdens, those things laid upon us by the Spirit to pray for. We thank you even now that you are responding in Jesus name, Amen.