Will you please turn to 2 Chronicles 20? We will read from verses 20 through 23.
And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem: believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper.
And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed them that should sing unto the Lord, and that should praise in holy array, as they went out before the army, and say, Give thanks unto the Lord; for His lovingkindness endureth for ever.
And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set liers in wait against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, that were come against Judah; and they were smitten.
For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them: and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another.
This is a most wonderful and unusual story that we find in the history of the children of Judah. A great multitude from Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir came against that little kingdom of Judah, but they were destroyed.
When Jehoshaphat the king heard that this great army was coming, he was afraid. And he had every right to be afraid, because they were such a small country. They had no way to fight against their enemy.
But Jehoshaphat set his heart toward the Lord. He proclaimed a fast, gathered the children of Judah together, and there he prayed.
His prayer was:
We have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon Thee.
After that prayer, the Spirit of God came upon Jahaziel, and he said:
Fear not, neither be dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s.
To-morrow go ye down against them.
Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you.
So the next morning they rose early and went forth. As they went forth, Jehoshaphat consulted with the people. He encouraged them and said, “Believe in the Lord your God, and ye shall be established.”
They had such faith in God that they appointed singers to the Lord. These singers were clothed in holy splendor, and they marched before the army. There never was such a scene before.
When they began the song of triumph and praise, the Lord set liers in wait against the enemy, and the enemy helped themselves to destroy one another. It was a great victory.
Now, this passage came to me two days ago. You know, this will be our last prayer time for the conference. As the conference draws nearer and nearer, probably we begin to feel the pressure upon us.
There are so many needs that must be met. Now, thank God, most have been met already, but there are still more. And we know that if the Lord is working, the enemy is busy.
So far as we ourselves are concerned, we have every reason to be afraid. You know, when the conference is a year ahead of time, we have boldness; but when it is just at our doors, we begin to tremble. How can we undertake such a big thing?
It is not only in the numbers, but in what is behind the scenes. A spiritual battle is waging, and it gets fiercer and fiercer as the time comes.
Now, the only thing we can do is set our faith upon the Lord. We will acknowledge, as Jehoshaphat did, that we have no might and we do not even know what to do, but our eyes are upon the Lord.
If our eyes are upon the Lord, we will see that the battle is the Lord’s, not ours. It is true that we have to have our weapons shined and ready. We have to set ourselves and march to the battlefield, but we are not to fight. The Lord will fight for us. It is His battle.
If we believe in the Lord, we will be established. Now, do we believe in the Lord? Do we believe that this battle is truly His?
If the battle is His, He has already overcome two thousand years ago on Calvary’s cross. He has crushed the enemy’s head. The victory is already there, and we are to go forth and see that victory.
Now, do we believe in the Lord? Of course, so far as the regular order is concerned, you first pray and then you praise.
But if you pray and you have faith, then even before you see the answer, you have already received the answer. So you can start the praise. You do not need to wait until everything is finished and then praise. You can praise by faith.
It is almost like what you find in Mark 11:24. The Lord said:
Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
You must first receive it in faith, and then it shall come to pass to you. Do we have such faith in our God? Do we need to wait until we see the fact before we can start to praise?
Or do we have such faith in Him, knowing that Calvary gives us such assurance? Because the battle is His, He has already won. Therefore, we can praise Him beforehand.
I believe this is what God wants us to do tonight. This is the time that we shall set singers in holy splendor. This is the time that the singers march before the army.
Now, it does not mean that the army does not need to go forward. The army has to go forth with weapons shined and ready. But they are not to fight. The Lord will fight for us.
Now, this praise before the fact is not only a sign of faith, but it speeds us to victory. Because the Bible says, “When they began the song of triumph and praise.”
They sang the song of triumph and praise. They sang the song of praise as if it were already done. The victory was already won, and they praised. When they started to praise, God started to work.
So I do believe that tonight, while we still need to pray and the army has to go forth, let us have the singers go before the army.
Also, let us not forget: after the victory was won and they plundered the enemy for three days, then they entered into the valley of Beracah. There they gave thanks and blessed the Lord.
After the victory is won, we have to go to the valley. We have to humble ourselves and bless the Lord. Why? Because it is not by our might nor by our power, but it is by His Spirit that this is done.
So may the Lord encourage us as we continue to pray, and let us start to praise.
Will you please turn to 2 Thessalonians, chapter 1? Verse 3:
We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, even as it is meet, for that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the love of each one of you all toward one another aboundeth.
Verse 11:
To which end we also pray always for you, that our God may count you worthy of your calling, and fulfil every desire of goodness and every work of faith, with power.
Here we find in verse 3 the apostle Paul, with Silvanus and Timothy, thanking God always for the Thessalonian believers. They thank God because their faith increases, and their love for one another abounds.
Then in verse 11 you find, “We also pray always for you.” Now, oftentimes we think that prayer precedes thanksgiving. You thank God because your prayer is answered.
I think it is right that whenever we pray and our prayer is answered, it is a time when we should give thanks unto the Lord. It would be very wrong if we prayed and the Lord answered our prayer, and then we just went away and never returned to give our thanks to Him.
Just as you find in the Gospels, when our Lord healed the ten lepers, the nine felt fine and went their way. Only one Samaritan came back to the Lord to give thanks to Him. Our Lord said, “Where are the other nine?”
So I do believe that if we have prayed concerning anything and our prayer is answered, we should never forget to return and thank the Lord. If we do not, it shows how ungrateful we are. After we have gotten what we asked of the Lord, we just forget the Lord altogether.
It is true that thanksgiving follows prayer. But in this chapter you find thanksgiving first, and then, after the apostles have given thanks to the Lord for what He has done with these believers, they continue on with prayer.
We often think that after we have given thanks, the case is closed. There is no more to be done. But you find that after we have given thanks, then we should begin to pray again.
Why is it so? It is because there is no limit to what God can and will do. We have prayed, He has answered, He has done something, and we give thanks to Him.
But if we do not continue on with further prayer, we are limiting God, as if that is all He can do, all He will do. But as a matter of fact, seeing how He has answered our prayer encourages us to pray more, so that the Lord may be able to work more and do more.
So the apostle Paul and his companions, after they had thanked the Lord for what they had seen in these Thessalonian believers, continued to pray that God would count them worthy of the calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power.
When we first pray and our prayer is answered, it is like a seed is sown. It has fallen into the ground.
But then, after we give thanks, we continue to pray. It is like watering the seed, that it may grow and give increase.
I think, as we gather here this evening, we do want to thank the Lord for how He answered our prayers during the conference. There is much that we need to thank God for. To mention the least, the weather.
I think if it should be this week instead of that week—but the Lord marvelously has answered prayer. I mean, that is just the simplest thing we can see. There are many, many things, some we have already noticed and many more that we do not even know, in which the Lord has marvelously answered prayer.
I think it is only right for us to return thanks. But do we think that after we have given thanks to the Lord, the case is closed? Or do we feel that we need to continue to pray?
The seed has been sown in the conference, but now it needs to be watered. We have to water the seed with prayer, that whatever the brothers and sisters, young and old, have heard, seen, or received—anything that has been deposited or any seed that has been sown—may grow.
If we do not continue with prayer, we know what will happen. We may not see much increase. That is the reason why people often say that at a conference it seems as if you have a good injection, and then you are stirred up; but after the conference is over, everything is closed. It is finished.
I believe one reason is that before the conference there is much prayer, but after the conference we do not pray. As if it is done. Well, that is just the beginning.
If the Lord has done something at the conference and has deposited something or touched people’s hearts, then there is more reason for us to take these things up and continue to water them with prayer, so that there will be much increase for the Lord.
Of course, at the same time, there are still some loose ends to be tied up. How are we going to tie up these loose ends? We have to pray.
So I do feel that, as we gather here this evening, on the one hand we should never stop thanking the Lord for what He has marvelously and graciously blessed us with. We do not deserve all that He has done for us.
But it is no time for us just to relax, sit back, and be passive, as if a chapter is closed and finished, and we can forget it until next year. If the Lord tarries and we should have another conference, then we have to start to pray again.
I think we should not commit this kind of error. We should continue to hold the conference, whatever has been done, before the Lord until there is much increase for His kingdom.
I believe there are things that are still not fully settled yet, and that is something for which we really need to continue to pray. So that is my feeling before the Lord: as we come together this evening, do not cease thanking Him, but at the same time receive the burden to continue to pray.
2 Chronicles 7:14:
And My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
I wonder how much we relate humility to prayer. I suppose when we think of prayer, we think of faith, confidence, and boldness. But very rarely do we think of humility.
We know that faith is essential, because without faith our prayer will not be answered. If we believe whatsoever we may have asked, and believe that we receive it, we shall receive it. Faith is essential.
We need confidence. We are confident, as 1 John says, that whatever we may ask according to His will, He hears us. We need boldness. We enter into the holy of holies with boldness. We need all these things: faith, confidence, and boldness.
But, my dear brothers and sisters, faith is not something that we can manufacture ourselves. Faith does not have its source in ourselves. Faith is looking off unto Jesus.
If we look at ourselves, we have no faith. But if we forget ourselves and look at the Lord Jesus, then faith rises within us. And we know that is humility.
We need confidence when we come to pray. We need to be confident that He hears us. But what is confidence? We have no confidence in the flesh. Our confidence is in God, and that is humility.
We need boldness, but our boldness is not because we have merit upon which we can base our approach to God. We have boldness because of the blood of the Lamb, and that again is humility.
So, as a matter of fact, when you really think of prayer—real prayer—it actually is based on humility. If we are so proud of ourselves, so confident of ourselves, and so involved in ourselves, that is presumptuous.
We have no right. We have no merit. There is nothing, really, by which we can force God to hear our prayers. That is the reason why, as we come to pray, we need to humble ourselves beforehand.
Humility is the attitude that we must have when we come to pray.
I believe we remember that parable our Lord Jesus told about the Pharisee and the publican. The Pharisee entered into the temple to pray.
He seemed to have boldness. He was very bold and very confident of himself. He seemed to have lots of faith in himself—not in God, but in himself. But the result was that he was not heard.
But the publican, the tax collector, had no boldness whatsoever in himself, no confidence in himself, no faith. He only cried out:
God, be Thou merciful to me a sinner.
There was nothing in him that he could trust in or base his approach to God upon. It was everything in God. That is humility. And because he was humble, he was heard.
So I think when we come to pray, we really need to have that attitude of humility. That is, when we come to pray, we forget ourselves. We do not think of ourselves. We do not depend on ourselves.
We do not come as if we have faith. You know, if we think we have faith, we do not.
You remember this father, when the Lord Jesus said, “If thou canst believe.” That is the issue. It is not whether the Lord can or cannot, but whether you can believe or do not believe. And you remember that father cried out:
I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.
Now that is faith. So far as he was concerned, there was unbelief there. But he wanted to believe, and he looked to the Lord to help his unbelief, to make him believe. And that is it.
So as we come together to pray, we come as nothing. Do not think that because you have had a good day, therefore you have faith that the Lord will hear you. Do not think that because you have done the right thing, therefore you have boldness to come to God.
Do not think that there is anything in you that deserves His hearing your prayer. On the contrary, we have to come with deep humility. There is absolutely nothing in us. We have no right. We do not deserve anything. It is all up to Him.
With that kind of attitude, we come to pray. And you will find that He hears, because God gives grace to the humble and resists the proud.
This verse, I believe, is very familiar and is often quoted: “If My people, who are called by My name.” We are His people. We are called by His name. As a matter of fact, we gather together this evening in His name.
What does the Lord require of us? He says that if His people who are called by His name would humble themselves, then that is what He requires of us. He requires that we humble ourselves. That is the attitude we must have, and pray.
In other words, before we pray, we need to have a humble attitude. But if we humble ourselves and pray, He says, “Seek My face.” That is what prayer really is.
When we come together to pray, we actually are seeking His face. Prayer is not just presenting to Him what we want. Prayer actually is seeking His face. We want to see Him.
We may have a problem and not know how it can be solved. We want to see His face. We want to see Him. And if only we can see Him, that problem will be solved.
Prayer is seeking the face of God, not coming to twist His arm. Oftentimes you find people pray as if they are twisting God’s arm. That is not prayer. Prayer is seeking God’s face.
But we will not be able to see God’s face if we are not humble. To seek God’s face means to seek to know God’s will, to know what God’s mind really is, and to know what He really wants.
Because when you see His face, everything is open. Everything is clear. You see, our problem is that we do not see Him. That is the problem. It is not a matter of reasonings or of pros and cons; it is really a matter of seeing His face.
If we see His face, then everything is settled. That is all. We need to seek His face.
“And turn from their wicked ways.” I think that is the natural result. If we see His face, immediately it will reflect upon us that our ways have not been good. Actually, our ways are wicked, and we need to turn from our wicked ways.
We have not been walking as we should. If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses us from all our sins.
The light of His countenance, when the light of His countenance shines upon us, will remove all our weakness, all our sins, all our unrighteousness, all shadows and shade.
In other words, we will be really in union and in communion with the Lord. And it is then that the Lord says, “I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sins, and heal their land.”
God says He will hear—not only hear, but forgive; not only forgive, but heal. So in this verse you really see the absolute necessity of humility when you come to pray.
So as we gather together, let us really humble ourselves before the Lord and pray. Let us seek His face, turn from our wicked ways, and then He will hear, He will forgive, and He will heal.
It is not in any way contradictory to faith, confidence, and boldness. We need faith, yes, but faith is looking off unto Jesus. That is humility. In other words, we do not believe in ourselves; we believe in Him.
In a sense, it humbles us. We like to believe in ourselves. We like to believe that we can do it. We would like to feel confident. But it is in true humility that we have real faith, real confidence, and real boldness.
It is not a contradiction. Actually, it is humility that leads us to faith, confidence, and boldness. So as we gather here this evening and begin to pray, first of all, let us humble ourselves and pray.
Acts 1:14:
These all with one accord continued stedfastly in prayer, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren.
In one place, we are told that at one time our Lord Jesus, after He was raised from the dead, appeared to five hundred brethren. Now, we do not know whether that happened at the time when our Lord Jesus was taken up. Very likely, that was the time.
So actually, you find five hundred brethren. They saw the Lord, and probably they heard what the Lord told them before He was taken up: that they should go back to Jerusalem and wait for the promise which the Father had given.
That is, they would receive power from on high, and then they would be witnesses from Jerusalem to all Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
But after the ascension of the Lord, we find in the first chapter of Acts that only one hundred and twenty returned to Jerusalem, gathered in that upper chamber, and gave themselves with one accord to continual prayer.
Five hundred brethren saw Him and heard Him, but only one hundred and twenty acted. They went back to Jerusalem, waiting for the promise of the Holy Spirit.
But they did not wait there passively. They waited actively by giving themselves to continual prayer, until the promise came on the day of Pentecost.
Now, oftentimes we think that if we have God’s promise, we do not need to give ourselves to continual prayer. If we continue to pray, will it not be an indication that we do not have faith?
But this is not the truth. The truth is that because they had the promise, they gave themselves to continual prayer in order that the promise might be fulfilled.
They gave themselves to continual prayer. They prayed and prayed and prayed. They prayed the same prayer. They prayed with one accord. That is, they prayed with one mind, and that one mind was that the promise should be fulfilled.
I think it is important for us at this juncture. We believe that the Lord has promised for us, especially in view of the conference that is coming within the month. We believe that He who has originated this conference will bless.
But we cannot afford just to sit back and be passive about it, because if we sit back and are passive about it, we may not receive the promise.
I wonder what happened to the three hundred and eighty people who had the promise but did not return to Jerusalem. Maybe they returned home and possibly waited for the promise to come to them, but when Pentecost came, they were not there.
So that should encourage us, we who have His promise, to really give ourselves to continual prayer. We need to pray and pray and pray.
We do not need to feel monotonous about it, tired about it, or think that by praying too much we do not have any faith. The opposite is true. Because we believe His promise, therefore we pray and pray so that His promise may be fulfilled.
We can go over the same thing and pray the same thing, yet it can be living and real. It is not necessarily vain repetition.
The Bible does not forbid us to repeat. It only tells us not to have vain repetition. Vain repetition simply means that you repeat, but your heart is not in it.
You repeat because you have a wrong concept: that if you pray a long enough prayer, then God will hear; but if your prayer is too short, God probably will miss it. That is vain repetition.
But it does not forbid us to repeat and repeat and repeat. Even our Lord Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane repeated three times. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12, repeated three times. Elijah repeated seven times.
So it is not a matter of repetition; it is a matter of vain repetition. If our heart is in what we repeat, it reinforces, strengthens, and builds the prayer before God until the balance is set.
Prayer is like a balance. One prayer is as if you are adding a little weight to it, and then you add another weight, and another weight. When you add enough weight, then the balance begins to tip.
Sometimes we stop before there is enough prayer, and the prayer goes unanswered. So we just need to continue to pray. Not only should we pray when we are together, like tonight, but we really need to give ourselves to continual prayer.
Now, what does it mean to give ourselves to continual prayer? If you give yourself to do something, you do not just do it once a week. You do it all the time.
So this is something that should be occupying us during this month. Here we expect and believe that the promise and blessing of the Lord will come upon His people at the conference. Then we need to give ourselves to continual prayer.
We have not had enough prayer for this coming conference. We need more prayer.
If we who are here tonight can really give ourselves with one accord to continual prayer, then that day of Pentecost will be fulfilled.
When they were praying, you find that they were not just praying over the same thing all the time, because that one thing was in their mind: the promise of the Father. Evidently, they concentrated their prayer on this one thing, and they prayed for ten days.
But also you find that during those ten days, something happened. In the first chapter, you find Peter beginning to share with the people who were gathered there that some adjustment had to be made.
There was a gap because Judas hanged himself. There was a vacancy in the apostleship, and that gap had to be filled as preparation for the day when the Holy Spirit would come.
I do believe this will happen to us too, as we are really praying for the conference. No doubt the Holy Spirit will show us where there are lacks, where there are gaps and vacancies that need to be filled.
As preparation, when the Holy Spirit shall come, everything must be ready for Him. So I do believe that within the last month, this is a very critical time.
It is not simply a matter of praying and praying, but I believe that no doubt the Lord will have to make some adjustments with us, individually or corporately. There need to be some adjustments made, and we should be open to them. We should be ready for them.
If we are open and ready, I do believe that the promise will come.