On the topic of prayer, we see that we’re to ask.  We’re to seek.  We’re to knock.  We’re to continue to be in the presence of God.  He’s promised that He will fulfill in each and every one of our lives these great promises.  Though heaven and earth passes away, His Word will not pass away.  These covenant promises are sure to a thousand generations.  Hallelujah.  What are some of the things that we need to get glimpses of if our prayer lives are going to become more effectual, to where we can spend sufficient time to acknowledge the visitation of God in our lives, or as we shared this morning, quoting that phrase that we’ve used for so many years, “Pray until you’ve prayed”?  You know when God has spoken.  You know when God’s presence has brought you rest and peace, and you can get up and walk out of that prayer closet in absolute assurance; amen?  Nothing can sway you from that moment.  We’ve seen it in many areas of our lives.

Let’s turn over for just a moment to the book of Matthew.  We were dealing with that admonition to watch and pray.  We’re in an hour in this last time of the great falling away.  Again, watching Jimmy Swaggart as he was preaching along the lines of God being sufficient and being with us there in the wilderness, then he began to declare that we’re on the precipice of seeing the greatest revival of all times, and multitudes are going to be saved in these last moments and the belief for that.  I would differ some in my understanding of the Scriptures.  I absolutely believe that the heart of God is greater than multitudes.  God is not willing that any would perish; amen?  The Scripture gives us a little bit more of an understanding as we go through the New Covenant and get a look at some of the Pauline theology built upon the truth, the reality of the statement of Jesus that few are going to find this narrow path; amen?  Few doesn’t mean most.  Few does not mean multitudes.  Few means few.

What we’ve done in the minds of professed Christians, we’ve taken Christianity, and made the church other than what the Bible reveals it to be, and we have this great, broad way of people with all of their different beliefs thinking that the greatest thing for the church to do is to come into a spirit of tolerance, a mutual acceptance.  These idols have been built by their own hands.  Romans 1 makes it so clear, that Jesus is being created in the image of all of these self-proclaimed prophets of these people.  They wouldn’t say this, but these people that will stand there and tell us they are greater than Abraham, than Moses who saw God face to face, of Elijah the great prophet, of the teachings of Jesus Himself, of the anointed writers of the New Covenant and come up with a new doctrine promoting it in the “spirit of love” when one of the simplest truths in all of the Scripture is this, Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  Amen?  John, the disciple that Jesus loved, bringing that great truth to us.