For our last session on the prayer life, I felt that the Lord wanted me to share with you on the matter of prayer and watching: watch and pray.
There are several other aspects. We can never finish this whole matter of prayer. It really occupies quite some space in the Word of God, so it is a very important matter. But I do think that, living in the end times, it is of great importance that we understand how to watch and pray.
So we could call this aspect of the prayer life Prayer and the End Times, because we really need, in this hour when darkness is falling upon the whole earth, to be able to come and wait, and be aware of what is happening around us and also within us.
Could we read this morning from Luke’s Gospel, Luke 21:34? I am reading from the New American Standard Bible.
Be on guard, that your hearts may not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life,
and that day come on you suddenly like a trap;
for it will come upon all those who dwell on the face of all the earth.
But keep on the alert at all times, praying in order that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place,
and to stand before the Son of Man.
Then from Luke 12. We can read from Luke 12:29, I think.
And do not seek what you shall eat and what you shall drink, and do not keep worrying.
For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek;
but your Father knows that you need these things.
But seek for His kingdom, and these things shall be added to you.
Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.
Sell your possessions and give to charity;
make yourselves purses which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven,
where no thief comes near, nor moth destroys.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps alight.
Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast,
so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks.
Blessed are those slaves whom the master shall find on the alert when he comes;
truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them.
Whether he comes in the second watch, or even in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
Finally, from Mark’s Gospel, Mark 14:37-38:
And He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?
Keep watching and praying, that you may not come into temptation;
the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Could we return to the Lord in prayer?
Lord, we do want to thank You and bless You this morning that we can sense Your love and Your fellowship with us. Lord, we are so privileged. We, out of billions of people, have come to know You and to be Your children.
Lord, we thank You for fellowship with the Father and His Son, and with one another in the Holy Spirit. Lord, we desire that You commune with us this morning through Your Word, and that You be able to speak to us in such a way that we will be able, in a better way in days to come, to be on the alert, to be awake, and know what is going on.
God, we ask Your mercy upon our gathering. We know that we can do nothing apart from You. But, Lord, we do know too that in Him we can do all things. We praise You for Your presence. Open up our ears; open up our mouths. Give us words to speak, Lord—not only a subject, but the very words that we need.
We thank You for it, and thank You for it, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
This matter of watching is, in fact, a very simple thing to understand. I think it has something to do with being able to know where you are, what you are doing, what is happening around you, and, when we are praying, what you are really asking the Lord for.
Sometimes, when I look on a congregation—at least in Scandinavia—I do believe I can see that, although everyone is there in their bodies, quite a few are not really there. Their minds are all over the place, wandering in their thoughts. They have no concentration.
You know, we have become used to that situation, so we just tolerate in our own lives, and even in our gatherings, that we can be so unconcentrated and, in a way, sleep during everything that goes on.
It is such a problem today to be able to concentrate and know, “Where am I? What am I doing right now?” Even when we have a time of prayer, what are we really asking the Lord for right now?
As I told you last night, if you ask people after a prayer meeting what they required of the Lord, many of them will look puzzled, like a big question mark, because they have become so used to just being together and having a time of prayer without really being aware of what it is all about.
We need to learn how to watch and be on the alert.
My father was a Pentecostal pastor for more than thirty years, and he used to travel with another brother. Sometimes, after they had been travelling for a long time, they came to an evening meeting in a certain church in a certain town in Denmark. This brother would sometimes fall asleep when he was not preaching. My father was doing the preaching, and he was sitting down in the front row. Then he fell asleep.
One day, my father told me, they were up in the northern part of Denmark. My father was there and was about to preach, but really at the beginning of the meeting, while the local pastor was trying to make the introduction and greet the company, this brother fell asleep. But then he had a nightmare.
He was dreaming that he was sitting in the car and that they were driving. Suddenly there was something on the road, and first of all he let out a scream, as though he would warn my father. He shouted, “Put the brakes on!”
Then he woke up and called out. He looked around and said, “Where are we?”
The local pastor was quite a steady person, so he looked down at the floor and said, “Right now, we are in Aalborg at fifty-three.”
Oh, boy. It really is a problem. Where are we? What are we doing? Are we listening? Do we really know what we are gathered for? If that is a problem, we really need to ask the Lord to enable us to be watchful.
Watch and pray. There are several things we should be watching for.
The first thing I would mention is that we are expected to watch the Lord—to watch Him: what He is doing and what He is trying to do.
In connection with prayer, if you look in the book of Habakkuk, you will see in Habakkuk 2:1 that Habakkuk, that little prophet, had really learned the lesson to watch.
I will stand on my guard post,
and station myself on the rampart;
and I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me,
and how I may reply when I am reproved.
“I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me.” This is in a situation of prayer. You know how Habakkuk prayed in the third chapter, how he cried to the Lord over the terrible oppression coming upon the people of Israel. He was really in the ministry of prayer and intercession.
You see, he knew that prayer is not only to pray about certain things and then forget about them. He had learned to watch—to watch the Lord. He was not satisfied merely to pray the prayers that needed to be prayed, but he wanted an answer. He expected the Lord to move, and he expected the Lord to speak.
Oh, how precious this is. If we could have the same faith within us, we would expect the Lord to speak to us. We would expect Him to answer our prayers.
When we speak of waiting upon God, we must not misunderstand this as having anything to do with being in a state of passivity. Not at all.
Some people think that it is very spiritual to be passive and sort of leave everything to the Lord Himself to take care of. But it is the wrong idea altogether. Waiting upon God is an activity. It is to turn our activity in the right direction, first of all.
You can sense in this little prophet that there is something going on within him. He is really tense. He is really looking to the Lord. He is on the alert. He wants the Lord to speak, and he wants to hear what He will say to him.
In the same manner, we really have to watch the Lord: what He is doing right now, what He is speaking to us, and what He will answer through our prayers.
If you turn to Psalm 123, we have another picture there on that matter.
To Thee I lift up my eyes,
O Thou who art enthroned in the heavens!
Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
until He shall be gracious to us.
Here is one who has learned to watch. He is watching the Lord.
Like the Lord Jesus Himself, He was watching the Father. He said in John 5, “I can do nothing of My own initiative. But what I see the Father doing, I do also.” In other words, He was following the Father’s movement.
He was able to know where the Father was going, what the Father wanted to do, and what He was doing. Watching is like that. We must watch the Lord so that we know what He is doing.
Keep our eyes closely and constantly upon Him until He is gracious to us, until He acts. Then we follow Him, and we act together with Him, because we are really servants. No servant is able to do his own thing; he must wait for the master to give directions.
This is a matter of really watching the Lord, so that we know what He is doing.
It is the same when you turn to Isaiah 62, which we have been considering in our brother’s teaching. Isaiah 62 speaks of these watchmen:
On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen;
all day and all night they will never keep silent.
You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves;
and give Him no rest until He establishes
and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.
They are watching the Lord and expecting the Lord to do something. They will not give up day or night until He really does something. They keep their attention concentrated upon the Lord, and that is essential.
Because when we speak a little later about watching the enemy, we shall never forget that we must first of all learn to keep our eyes upon the Lord and upon what He is doing. We must keep our eyes on the Lord all the time. Otherwise, we could become too occupied with the darkness and with the enemy.
We must look to the Lord and look to Him. Even here on the walls of Jerusalem, when the watchmen in the literal sense were watching the enemy in order to warn the city if any army drew close, first of all we have to learn to watch the Lord and look unto Him.
Also in Isaiah 21:
For thus the Lord says to me,
“Go, station the lookout, let him report what he sees.
When he sees riders, horsemen in pairs,
a train of donkeys, a train of camels,
let him pay close attention, very close attention.”
Then the lookout called, “O Lord, I stand continually by day on the watchtower,
and I am stationed every night at my guard post.
Now behold, here comes a troop of riders, horsemen in pairs.”
And one answered and said, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon.”
When I read these verses, I had the feeling that sometimes we are not getting the message—not a message that Babylon is fallen, but a message that many of God’s people do not know that Babylon is fallen. We are not aware of it. We do not see the works of God, or, for that matter, what is happening in our nation. We are just not awake.
We need watchmen who can receive the messages that we need for this time, for this hour, from God—prophets who can pass on the message that God has for us right now. What we need more than anything else is the prophetic word from God for this very hour.
If we are going to receive that, we need someone who really watches the Lord and receives the message when He speaks.
That is one aspect of watching. Another is that we are awake and watch over our meetings, our fellowship, and one another. We must really be awake, so that we know what is going on.
A year ago, we had a fellowship meeting where we all meet and there is no specific ministry. We just sit around the Lord and worship Him, and then we listen.
Suddenly, one Wednesday evening, a young man came into the meeting. He stood up and began to share. He talked about Jesus, he talked about the kingdom of God, and so on. Everything he said was right, but I had such a strange feeling about it.
So I told the brother sitting nearby, “There is something wrong in this brother, in this testimony. Although the words are perfect, there is something wrong.”
After the meeting, I went to speak to this young man, and I discovered that he was a Jehovah’s Witness trying, in a very subtle way, to infiltrate.
Then I said to the brother, “He will be back. Let us pray about it.” We prayed about it, and we bound it in the name of the Lord. He came the next Wednesday and sat in the same place.
When we had the sharing time, I was watching this young man, but he did not say a word. He kept silent all the way through. He was bound.
Then he came one time more, and he began to open his heart to some of the brothers, and they shared with him about the Lord.
Now, we need to be on the alert when things are happening in the midst of our gatherings and meetings. We must watch. We must not tolerate everything and anything that is going on.
We have been reminded of this heaviness that comes upon us. What do we do about it? Do we sit down and let it remain heavy all the time?
We have learned in our prayer meetings that, if we have that sense—and we very often have that sense, especially when we meet for prayer—of great heaviness and tiredness, and people are just not really awake, what do we do? We bring it to the Lord, and we claim the meeting to be liberated.
We must watch. Keep our eyes open. What is going on around us?
This goes for the part of the enemy, of course. The Lord Jesus is really warning us and exhorting us in this matter that we should watch the enemy’s activity also.
We are living in a time where there is such a cloud of sleepiness coming upon every human being all over the place—such a cloud of sleepiness.
If you look to Matthew 25, the Lord is giving this parable about the ten virgins. In verse 5:
Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep.
That included the five wise virgins as well as the five foolish ones. They all got drowsy, and they began to sleep.
We are living in the end times, very close to the coming back of our Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus. There is no doubt about that. It will be a time when such sleepiness comes, and it will come upon us who belong to the Lord. It is only a matter of how we react to that problem—whether we are able really to watch and prepare ourselves to stay awake while so many are falling asleep.
It really is a great problem, this sleepiness.
In Mark 13, when the Lord is speaking about the time when He will return and what the time will be like, He gives us many words about it. He has foretold how the time will be, in order to warn us that we must really stay awake. In Mark 13:35:
Therefore, be on the alert—for you do not know when the master of the house is coming:
whether in the evening, at midnight, at cockcrowing, or in the morning.
The interesting thing here is that all these possibilities the Lord mentions—whether evening, midnight, cockcrowing, or morning—are periods when people normally sleep. He never mentions daytime. He never says lunchtime or the afternoon.
It has really spoken to me that the Lord is coming back in a time when people normally sleep. Do you understand me? It is going to be a sleepy kind of time, a time when people normally are sleeping.
This has, of course, spiritual meaning for us. The Lord Jesus will come back in such a time when we have great temptation to fall asleep.
You know what happens to me? Very often, when I come back and have an evening off with my family, when the time comes close to midnight, I may be reading a book or watching the late news on television. Very often, something happens to me while sitting there: the book falls out of my hand.
My dear wife comes in, gets hold of me, wakes me up, and says, “Darling, it is time to go to bed.” You know, I have been sleeping there many times.
The last time was before I left. I watched with my son and my daughter. We have this national sport of soccer, and we are very fond of that in Denmark. We had the World Cup, and we watched some of the games. Do you know, one of the most exciting games—I slept through most of the time. Terrible.
How easy it is, when we come close to midnight, to feel sleepy, is it not? That is why the Lord is warning us.
One of my friends was in the military, and they often drove during the night. He once told me a very interesting thing about this problem of sleepiness: we do not know that we have been sleeping until we wake up.
Suddenly we realise, “Oh, I have been sleeping.” But we do not know it while we are in it. Only when we wake up do we know that we have been sleeping. That is the danger of it. We can be sleeping without knowing it.
In fact, you need someone to wake you up in order to see that you have really been sleeping.
This friend was driving a big military truck one night from one camp to another place. They had had a long, heavy day of military exercises. While he was sitting in that big truck, he fell asleep, just for a few seconds.
Then, while driving his big truck, he suddenly woke up, and the truck was heading for a roadside tree. At the last minute, he got the vehicle under control and turned it away. He saved his life. I would say the Lord saved his life, because he is a believer.
But that taught him a lesson: we do not know that we are sleeping until we wake up. That is why we have to be on the alert. That is why we have to learn to watch even over our own lives, because we never know whether we are sleeping or whether we are awake.
If we turn to Luke 21, one of the passages we have been reading, verse 34 says:
Be on guard, that your hearts may not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life,
and that day come on you suddenly like a trap.
Now listen to verse 35:
For it will come upon all those who dwell on the face of all the earth.
That includes you and me. That includes Christians. I do not believe in the teaching that we are all going to be away from this time the Lord is teaching about here. I do think we will get our time too, together with all the rest of the people on the earth.
This time will come upon all who are living upon all the earth, including you and me. There can be no doubt about that.
Therefore, the Lord says to keep on the alert, because we need not be among those who are sleeping. Thank God for that. It is not something predetermined that we should sleep. The Lord has foretold that it will be a sleepy time, but, on the other hand, He has warned us in order that we can stay awake.
We do not need to sleep, thank God. Even if there will be coldness in most of those who are upon the earth, it does not need to be that way with me and with you.
Keep on the alert at all times, praying in order that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place.
In other words, we will have to encounter these things, and what the Lord is aiming at is to enable us to escape them. How do we escape sleepiness? Watch and pray.
Without watching and praying, we can be as spiritual as we think we are. We can have as much knowledge as we think we have. We can know all the truth, and we can have the perfect vision of anything and everything. But if we are not people who are watching and praying, we will fall asleep with the most beautiful and perfect vision of the church and everything else.
The Lord has pointed out that the only escape, the only exit, the only way out, is to give ourselves to watch and pray. Brothers and sisters, I do not have to be any kind of prophet to tell you that if you are not praying and if you are not watching, you will fall asleep—however spiritual you are.
This is the only way. Let us not be passive about it. Let us not fall into that false idea that the Lord is taking care of everything, and we just have to sit down on a chair and then everything will happen automatically. We will be protected, we will be led, and the Lord will do everything even if we are not conscious of it. This is not true.
We must cooperate with the Lord if we are going to get through all these things and stand before the Son of Man.
We will not lose our salvation. Thank God, you will get to heaven. But you will lose your reward. That is for sure.
In the Amplified New Testament, it says, “Be on your guard, lest your hearts be overburdened and depressed, weighed down with giddiness and headache and nausea and worldly worries and cares pertaining to the business of this life.”
You know, worries and anxiety give people headaches. It is really a problem that we are busy—so busy, so busy, so busy—that we have not got time to pray.
There are many things that we ought to do—the business of life. I do think this is something that goes home to America. You are so busy over here. Busyness, busyness, busyness. It is a problem.
Some people tend to think that it is all right that they work day and night. If someone just inquires a little, “Could you consider showing up at the prayer meeting?” they say, “Well, there is nothing I would love more to do, but you see, I have to work.”
Then we say, “Well, we understand. Sorry to bother you. God bless you.”
I imagine that on the great day when we stand before the Lord, all these busy people will come to the Lord, and the Lord will say, “Why did you not show up in the prayer meeting?” They will say, “You know, Lord, my business.”
Do you think the Lord will say, “Well, yes, I understand. Excuse Me for asking the question”? Do you really think that the Lord is going to be impressed with that?
I tell you, brothers and sisters, we just have to do something about it. We are here on earth to serve the Lord in His kingdom first of all—first of all.
If your business is trying to weigh you down, get rid of your business.
Amen. Amen.
Look in Luke 12 and see what it is we need to watch. Sometimes we have some funny ideas about what it is to watch.
A young girl came to me. She was very new in the Lord, so I do not blame her. But she said, “Do you know, I am so afraid to go and lie down in my bed and fall asleep, because the Lord is coming. What then, if I am sleeping in my bed?”
I said, “Do not worry about that. We cannot stay awake until the Lord comes—in that sense. Maybe we would have to stay awake for a few years, and you ask our doctor what would happen: you would die. Next after water, I think it is true that even before food, we need sleep for our bodies.”
We have some strange ideas about this watching aspect of the prayer life. But here the Lord is very frank, and He speaks a language that we all can understand. Look at Luke 12:33.
Since He told us that we should seek the kingdom of God and all these things would be added to us, this is the kingdom order. That is why I said that if your business is robbing you of your life in the kingdom and your life to the Lord, get rid of it.
The kingdom is first. The Lord is first. We are here to serve Him, and then all these things shall be added unto you.
That is why He says, “Do not be afraid. Do not worry about what you shall eat or what you shall drink.” I do not think, brothers and sisters, that we should spiritualise these things too much, because they have to do with our daily life.
Then He says:
Sell your possessions and give to charity;
make yourselves purses which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven,
where no thief comes near, nor moth destroys.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps alight.
Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast,
so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks.
Now, this readiness in verse 35—being dressed in readiness—has something to do with being able and willing, if necessary, to sell your possessions, in the measure that it is necessary.
A brother came to me here, I think a year ago, and sought my advice. He had received an offer from his company to be promoted to a position as director of a certain department. But that would involve leaving the town and going somewhere else.
It would involve that he had to leave the town and go somewhere else, and he would get such a raise in salary, a free car, and even a house.
So he came and talked to me about it and said, “What can I do about it?”
Then I put a question before him: “How will that promotion affect your service unto the Lord?”
He looked at me and said, “I knew you would say that.”
He said, “Because I know that if I accept this promotion, I will have to be occupied much more. But not only that: I will have to leave the fellowship and go to a place where I do not know if there is any fellowship.”
Then I said, “All right, you have got the answer. Do not get promoted.”
He said, “I am so thankful, because deep down in my heart I really know that this is what the Lord wants.” So he said no, and they were all in the home office wondering, “How could he turn down a promotion?”
But, brothers and sisters, this is what the Lord is reminding us of when He says, “Sell your possessions.” Whatever can come in the way of our commitment to serve the Lord and His kingdom—whatever it is—without it, tell your possessions goodbye.
One of the elders in my church had the same problem. He worked for the government, and he had the same offer of being promoted. He knew he was going to be promoted, but before it came along, he talked a lot about it.
You know what the Lord said to him? “No, you are not going to go further on in your career. On the contrary, you are to apply for reduced working time so that you can help put your hands to the work.”
He is a brother gifted to counsel people, pray for deliverance, and really touch the burden with many people coming to us. So he applied, and they were furious.
His boss came down on him and said, “I tell you, you will never get any chance of coming further in this department.”
He said, “Praise God, I do not desire that. I want to have this time.” Then he gave his testimony, and he got reduced working time.
Now, this is what the Lord is calling us to watch. I am sorry if it sounds strong, but do not become so involved in this world and the busyness of life that you are not able to serve the Lord as you ought to serve Him.
A brother from Thailand came to Stockholm when I was there. Stockholm is a beautiful city, and they have big stores with wonderful things to buy. So they let him see all the big stores and so on.
He was to preach the day after, on Sunday morning. Before he preached, he said, “Yesterday I went to see your beautiful city and these stores, these shopping centres. My word—oh, how much you have got that I do not need.”
Oh, I thought that was really beautiful: “How much you have got that I do not need.” Let it be with us, for this is something very real.
I remember Brother M. One, in order to keep his heart away from covetousness, made an agreement with the Lord that every time he bought a shirt, a pencil, or something else, he would buy four more and give them away to his brothers.
That had two good things to go with it. First of all, he would not be able to buy too much. How much do we have that we do not need? Secondly, he was really keeping his heart warm toward the brethren. You follow me?
I think that was extraordinary. Let us be on the alert, lest we be weighed down with the cares pertaining to the business of this life.
When we speak of the old man and the flesh, the Lord has some words to add in the matter of watching and praying. Return to Mark 14 again.
Mark 14:37-38:
And He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?
Keep watching and praying, that you may not come into temptation;
the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
The Lord is pointing out here that there is no other way to conquer the weakness of the flesh than to watch and pray.
It is true that the old man has been crucified with Christ. Hallelujah. But that is an objective truth. If you look in Galatians, there is a most extraordinary word telling us that we are to crucify the flesh. Have you discovered it in Galatians 5:24?
Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
It is one thing to see that we have been crucified with Christ, that our old man is crucified with Christ. It is another thing to see how we are to work that out in our lives. It is something else.
But we need to know about that glorious truth in Galatians 5:24. This is the working out of that glorious truth. How do we work it out? Only one way, brothers and sisters: watch and pray.
Those who are not watching and praying may have this wonderful truth revealed to them, that the old man has been crucified with Christ, but still they cannot get the victory in actual fact.
We have to watch and pray so that we are not deceived.
Simon Peter was here with the Lord, and the Lord told him, “Keep watching and praying, that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Peter was not aware of that danger.
The Lord here speaks about the great temptation of denying Him. The Lord prayed for Peter. The Lord’s intercession covered Peter, praise the Lord. We have a High Priest who intercedes for us before the Father, so we cannot lose our salvation. I do not believe we can.
But we can come under the domination of the flesh. This we can. If Peter had known what it was to watch and pray, I do not believe that he would have fallen into that temptation of denying his Lord.
We can only conquer the flesh and the natural man if we watch and pray.
You know, when the Lord spoke to Simon Peter about His way to the cross, Peter turned to the Lord and said, “No, no, no, no. It is never going to happen to You. It is all wrong. Such a wonderful Person, doing miracles and healing the sick—are You going to die? I have never heard of anything like that.”
Simon Peter really loved the Lord. It was out of his natural affection. He would not be without the Lord. He could not bear the thought that the Lord was taken away from them, and so he had a natural affection.
But my word, when the Lord turned to him and answered him, what strong words He used:
Get behind Me, Satan!
For you are setting your mind not on God’s interests, but man’s.
Brothers and sisters, no one in this day, however mature he may be, however many years he may have known the Lord, can be certain in his own being if he is not a man of watching and prayer.
You never know how you are being deceived by your own flesh and acting in your natural man. This whole problem of being Spirit-controlled is not a once-for-all experience. It is something that we constantly have to watch over, that we may live in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit, and not in the flesh.
You know, we have not only bad flesh; we have good flesh too. Fine flesh—wonderfully cultivated, civilised flesh.
No one of us can divide and discern these things if we are not watching and praying. This is the only way: watch and pray.
Oh, my word. In a way, you could say that, if you look at it naturally, how spiritual Simon Peter was. He was able to sleep in the most terrible crisis, perhaps, for the Lord and the disciples. Isn’t that something?
Somehow you can look at it like that and say, “Oh, my word, what a man of faith. The Lord is suffering, His weight is falling down on Him, fear has come into Him, and Simon is lying there sleeping. He is calm. He has got it really well.”
Oh, no. No, no. Sometimes, for us, it is a time to cry; it is a time to weep; it is a time to fight.
In this greatest moment, they did not know what was going on. Brothers and sisters, do we know what is going on? Are we having a good time, feeling at rest because all is well, while a tremendous crisis is going on and the heart of God is burdened and weighed down for a lost world, for the church?
You can never discern it in any other way than through watching and praying. That is where we really get the viewpoint of God on any matter, and we look on reality as things really are.
Lastly, let me say this: I find that the greatest enemy of Christianity today is not communism, but it is another “-ism”: humanism.
It is the natural man and his affections. Oh, my word, what an enemy. “Get behind Me, Satan.” This very thing among lost people too, that always wants to avoid the cross, always wants to get around things without going through and experiencing the cross.
What a horrible thing today—only wanting to have a good time. I agree with Brother Barakong when he opened his conference: I do not believe that when we have a bad time, very often we are on the right track.
Finally, the devil is also trying to devour. If you turn to 1 Peter 5:8-9, we will close with that scripture.
Be of sober spirit, be on the alert.
Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
But resist him, firm in your faith,
knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.
And after you have suffered for a little while,
the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ,
will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
Now, what is it the devil is trying to do here? Just the very same thing. First of all, he will try to get us to avoid suffering willingly. But if we are in suffering, he tries to take away our faith.
There is no question here that we have to go through suffering. But what the devil does while we are suffering is that he tries to take away our hope, discourage us, and bring us down into depression.
It is on that very point that we must learn to watch and pray. He is trying to devour us with depression, with hopelessness, with being occupied in pitying ourselves.
This is the very thing that makes us lose faith—the joy in the suffering that we have to go through.
The only way we can escape is that we need to give heed to the Word: “Be of sober spirit; be on the alert.” As we have in verses 6 and 7:
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God,
that He may exalt you at the proper time,
casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you.
No anxiety. We do not need to have anxiety in suffering. The helplessness can be there, and God can have faith there, but He never adds any anxiety, helplessness, disappointment, or depression of any kind. This is the enemy coming in to devour.
This is why we have, brothers and sisters, to resist him: to watch and pray, to be on the alert. Pray the Lord help us, that we may really take up this matter further and come to stay awake, know where we are, what we are doing, and what we are asking for.