ARME 4: Pine Springs Ranch, CA - Jan 2011

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ARME Bible Camp

Martin Kim

Lord Teach Us How to Pray

This morning I just remembered a story, an experience I had at GYC.

I was at our exhibit, the ASAP exhibit, and this mother came by and she said, thank you so much for telling me the other day to stop by the prayer room with my children.

She went there with her teenage girls And during the time of confession, these girls sitting right next to the mother, just being touched by the Holy Spirit, just began confessing all these things, things that they had kept secret from their mother.

And so I share that with you because if you are here with your children and you just want a more intimate relationship with your children, take them to the prayer room.

They say that a family that prays together stays together.

And the best place to experience United Prayer, the blessing of United Prayer, is here at Army Bible camp.

I just want to make a quick announcement before beginning with a message.

On occasion, different people ask me if they could get a copy of the PowerPoint.

What works best is if you could stop by our exhibit upstairs And if you can sign up for our newsletters, and then next to your name, if you could write notes, then I will email you.

That way I can also make our newsletters available to you.

And I want you to get great mission stories.

Most gracious, kind, loving Father in Heaven, we love you so much.

Please, once again, we ask for your Holy Spirit.

And Lord, please keep me hidden behind the cross.

As I share a little about the journey you've led me on, help me to be careful to give you all the glory, honor, and praise.

In Luke 11, verse 1, it says, Now it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place.

Do you have a certain place at home where you meet with God on a regular basis before starting the day.

Friends, it's been said that prayer is best learned by doing it.

You can read books and books about prayer and you can hear many messages about prayer, but you gotta take that time out for prayer.

And when he ceased, that 1 of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples.

Have you ever said, Lord, teach me to pray?

You know, the disciples never asked Jesus, teach us to preach, teach us to heal, or teach us to cast out demons.

Because they saw Jesus spending many hours in communion with the Father in heaven, and they realized they needed to learn to pray.

In the book Man of Blessings, there's this beautiful chapter on the Lord's Prayer, and we're told the disciples had come to connect his hours of prayer with the power of his words and works.

Ellen White says in Christian Service, page 263, could we see all the activity of human instrumentality as it appears before God, we will see that only the work accomplished by much prayer which is sanctified by the merit of Christ will stand the test of the judgment." Okay.

There's a lot of prayerless ministry, a lot of prayerless work, friends.

And it is only the work accomplished by much prayer.

God says, not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit.

And I liked what Pastor Dale Liebman said at the last Army Bible Camp.

His prayer phrase was this, it's not by dedication nor by determination, but by my spirit.

As I read just page 363, we're told, through continual communion he received life from God that he might impart life to the world and his experiences to be ours.

If that is so, could you raise your hands?

In Luke chapter 6 verse 12 it says, Now it came to pass in those days that he went out to the mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God.

We're only told once in the Gospels that Jesus spent all night in prayer.

And do You know what happened the next day?

Very important work, choosing the right man that's going to carry forward the work.

And for this most important work, he spends the entire night in prayer.

Have you ever spent the entire night in prayer before making a very, very important, monumental decision?

Is that because we are much wiser and more capable than Christ?

Friends, if Jesus had to spend the entire night in prayer.

Oh, by the way, I just want to remind you again, we do have the prayer room open tonight.

And we're not asking for you to stay for the whole night, but just to stop by for an hour.

Imagine the blessing, just to have intercession constantly going up from this place to the throne of God.

At GYC, our army team came together and we're like, you know what, on Friday evening to usher in the new year, why don't we have an all-night prayer?

At GYC, they had a special prayer service from 10 p.m.

To 12, but we got together and we started passing out the word, spreading the word, and we said, we're going to stay up all night.

So after the prayer meeting at 12, we got together and the Lord provided for us a nice place and we prayed.

In the morning we had time of testimony sharing and we asked people how was it they ended up there and each person had a unique story about how they ended up in that prayer room, I mean in that room.

1 person was saying that She had often taught children about how Jesus spent the whole night in prayer.

And she had often thought, perhaps 1 day I'll have that experience.

And when she heard about it, she was like, this is my opportunity.

We had other people just walking by that place and heard that we're having all-night prayer and just felt convicted to come and join us.

So I think it'll be really special if we can all commit to spending some time tonight in prayer.

Along the way it says, Often he spent entire nights in prayer and meditation going back in the morning to his active work.

As I mentioned earlier in the Gospels, we're told that only in 1 place we're told that Jesus spent the entire night in prayer, but in the Spirit Apostles we're told that Jesus often spent entire nights in prayer.

When Jesus was upon earth and walked a man among the children of men, he prayed.

How often he spent the whole night upon the damp, cold ground in agonizing supplication, and yet he was the beloved and sinless Son of God.

If Jesus felt the necessity of communion with His Father and manifests as so much earnestness is calling upon Him, how much more should we, whom He has called to be heirs of salvation, who are subject to the fiery temptations of the wily foe, and dependent upon divine grace for strength to overcome, have our whole soul stirred to wrestle with God.

The language of our soul should be, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.

Friends, we need this experience of learning to agonize in prayer with God, saying, God, I'm not going to let you go until you come through for me.

Because there are some people that I need to see come to you.

Before the time of trouble comes, friends, we need this kind of experience.

Spurgeon, the great British preacher in the 19th century.

He has said, anything is a blessing which makes us pray.

Friends, the Lord wants to teach us to pray.

And that's why he's brought us here to Honorable Bible Camp.

He wants to do more for us and just teach us about how to dig into God's Word, which is so precious.

You know, it's really sad, but for most people, they don't learn to pray until they hit hard times.

It was Oswald Chambers who says, we do not pray until we're at our wits end.

But friends, we don't have to wait till we're at our wits end to learn to pray.

Spurgeon has said, anything is a blessing which makes us pray.

If your heart is weighed down with this heavy burden to see your loved 1 saved into God's kingdom, you can thank God for that heavy burden.

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Lord Teach Us How to Pray

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