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ABC Prayer Crusade

ABC's of Prayer

Glenn Coon

1-An Amazing New Kind of Prayer

Well by now you know that we believe in joy and we believe in joy because we believe in Jesus and anybody that doesn't have joy has not yet found Jesus.

I don't care how many Bible studies he gives.

If he hasn't found joy, he hasn't found Jesus because in his presence there's fullness of joy.

I'm going to ask a special question in favor of the parents, not the faculty, but the parents this evening first of all.

How many of you parents here this evening really are hoping that your young people will get some help this week.

All the parents who hope your young people get some help.

Now while you're standing, I'm going to just give you the first hint, how to help them.

You know, tonight our subject is on a new kind of prayer.

Where before you'd say, Lord, bless Jim, my son, and help him to behave himself, you will now say, Lord, help Jim's daddy to behave himself.

Dear Lord, make me a nail upon the wall, fastened securely in its place.

Then from this thing so common and so small, hang a bright picture of thy face, and we thank thee in Jesus' name, amen.

Like you to notice this evening, many facts, several facts about a new kind of prayer.

First of all, this new kind of prayer we call the prayer of reception.

The kind of prayer that most of us have heard more about than any other kind is a prayer of commitment.

The prayer of commitment is the kind of a prayer we pray for sick people.

We commit their healing to the Lord because we don't know whether they fulfill the conditions.

We also commit the how and the when to the Lord in all prayer nearly with the exception of victory and forgiveness of sins and salvation, eternal life, and such like.

There's a prayer of surrender when we submit to the Lord.

There's a prayer of repentance when we tell the Lord how sorry we are that our sins crucified Christ.

There is actually a prayer of praise, if we choose to term it such.

The prayer of reception is based on such texts of Scripture as Matthew 21, 22.

All things that you ask in prayer believing, you shall receive.

Mark 11, 24, what things, whoever you desire, when you pray, believe that ye receive them.

Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.

There is a kind of prayer that we have a right instantly to ask and to believe and to thank God we have received.

And this is not perhaps the most important kind of prayer, but it is the most neglected of all kinds of prayer.

And when any individual picks up this new kind of prayer, not new to the Bible, not new to Jesus, but new to most Christians today, When he picks up this new kind of prayer, it will completely revolutionize not merely his own life and his concept of God, for it'll make God a new God to him, but it'll also help him to be a tremendous soul winner because he will find that his whole life has changed, his whole outlook has changed, his whole concept of God has changed because now he has found a different kind of God than the God that many of us parents have presented to our young people.

He'll find that God is not a God that's looking down his nose to see all the reasons why he shouldn't come to our aid.

God is not a God that is eager to condemn and scold and belittle us.

This kind of prayer is based on claiming any 1 of the promises of the Bible Which 1 of our older ministers who read the Old Testament through 69 times and the New Testament 71 Found and added them together and found there were 3573 promises So we say there are at least 3, 573 promises or clusters of promises.

Somebody came to me some time ago and said I found many more as though I was trying to limit the promises.

I said I wish you could find 20, 000 And we're not just trying to say there are only that many, we're saying there are all that many.

So there are all of that many or more, 3, 573.

So first of all, we'd like to have you know how you can remember the number.

It begins with 3, it closes with 3, and 57 varieties in the middle.

And the ABCs of claiming these promises from the lips of Jesus himself, A is ask, Matthew 7, 7.

Believe that ye receive and ye shall have.

For when I go to the baggage claim at the airport, when I claim my baggage, I receive my baggage.

Jesus actually thanked God that he received.

And he's taught us this all through the Bible.

John 11, 41, At the grave of Lazarus, Jesus said, I thank you, Father, you have heard me.

That isn't the way a lot of people pray today.

I find people pray long back slidding prayers and then they wonder why their young people don't like prayer.

I remember when I was in the academy, several many years ago, I went across the road to an old people's prayer meeting.

It was my first and last trip and I'll tell you why.

It was because it was a long backslidden prayer.

They didn't know anything about asking and believing and taking hold of the answer, I still remember 1 of the prayers that was offered.

Oh Lord, he said, you know all about our financial reverses.

And I was a boy in my teens and I said, the man is even trying to go to heaven in reverse.

God wants us to go in straight high gear to heaven.

He doesn't want us to go into reverse and whine and sigh and cry as though it were a pilgrimage going to heaven.

Heaven is a good place to be because God is a good God.

So there's 3, how many promises everybody?

Jesus said, and I believe him, how many agree?

Right on the spot, by the way, for the gift is in the promise.

Somebody said, I think I found more promises.

I looked through the manuscript and I found they had some things listed as promises that I don't exactly categorize as promises.

1 went something like this, thou shalt come to thy grave.

2-Seven Great Bible Facts

I'd like you to notice this morning 7 great Bible facts.

Number 1, Jesus is coming again, Revelation 22 12, behold I come quickly.

Number 2, he's coming for righteous holy people, Revelation 22 11, he that is righteous let him be righteous still and he that is holy let him be holy still.

Number 3, no man can make himself righteous and holy.

Romans, the 15th chapter and the 16th verse being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.

0.5, when the Holy Ghost comes into our comes into our hearts, he sheds love holiness, not just law holiness.

The evidence that the Holy Spirit has come into our hearts is He sheds love holiness, God's love holiness.

The love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost.

Not the love of man, not carnal love, not publican love, not pharisaical love, God's love.

And 0.6, then we become instruments of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 1.8, ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto me or instruments.

And 0.7, Psalm 51, 10 to 13, Then sinners will be converted through our instrumentality.

I will teach transgressors your way, and sinners will be converted unto you.

So Jesus is coming again for a righteous people, a holy people.

But we can't make ourselves holy, so we must depend on the Holy Spirit to make us holy.

The type of holiness he brings into our lives is not merely a legal holiness, it's a love holiness.

The kind of love holiness he brings into our lives is a God love holiness, which loves his enemies.

And this love sends its rain on the evil as well as the good, and its sunshine on bad and good.

God's love holiness doesn't treat the sinner as he deserves, but as he needs.

So when the Holy Ghost is shed abroad in the heart, he sheds God's love, not a pharisaical love, not a love that is dependent or conditioned on the on the situation of the individual, but it flows from God because it comes from God and it's part of God.

And anybody who thinks that he can get love power any other place than from the Holy Spirit might as well start his learner all over again.

And anyone who thinks that he cannot receive God's love power through the Holy Spirit needs to learn.

Just as an individual cannot make himself holy by himself, so an individual filled with the Holy Spirit will far exceed the holier-than-thou attitude.

Then sinners will be converted because he's an instrument.

Our study revolves around the experience of a medical doctor whom I shall call my friend because we were very close friends.

He was the first elder of a church, which I was pastor.

And naturally, being the first elder, he and I were thrown together more often, and I found his family was a wonderful family.

I depended on him for counsel every now and then.

He was not a yes man, neither was he a negative type thinker.

A wholesome, happy, delightful Christian.

Sometime after I left that church of which I was pastor, my wife began our traveling ministry.

Little messages seeped through to us that something had happened to my friend.

Somehow he'd lost his way and it almost broke my heart.

I was made almost heartbroken to think of my friend having become confused, frustrated, lost.

Years passed before I learned what was the trouble, and then it all came out.

He had helped a younger relative of his through medicine.

He'd helped him financially and with encouragement, which means a great deal also.

After his young relative was through medicine, my friend took him into practice with him and did well by him financially.

And just at this time, a dirty rumor broke out against my friend, a rumor that had no basis in fact at all.

But the amazing thing is, his young relative believed the rumor.

You know, the Bible speaks of the mystery of righteousness and the mystery of iniquity.

1 of the aspects of the mystery of iniquity to me is, how that a dear friend whom you've known for years can all at once believe some rumor that has come from somebody who may have come from Europe or Asia or Australia who might have been a horse thief himself and yet he can spread a rumor and how a person who claims to be your close friend will accept the rumor, it's part of the mystery of iniquity.

And my friend's young relative seemed to base his conclusion on a very wrong cliche.

Where there's a lot of smoke, there must be a little fire.

Were that a fact, then Jesus Christ himself would be a criminal for spies hounded his steps all over the land of Judea and Galilee and other parts with express purpose of scattering the rumors, read in Desire of Ages, the crisis in Galilee.

And you'll find that it came about as a result of the rumors of satanic origin.

Where there's smoke, there's fire, but the fire may be the fire of envy and jealousy, and the wise man states it's the worst type of cruelty.

Don't ever believe anything against a human soul, ever, unless you see it with your own eyes and hear it with your own ears.

No individual has a right at any time under any conditions to pick up a rumor against his neighbor.

He who will lessen the influence of another, says our favorite author, is as gilly as though he were to swear.

My friend turned to his younger relative again and again.

He said, you've known my life, you've known my experience, you know my character.

How in the world could you believe a thing like that?

And his relatives said, well, where there's smoke there's fire.

And then my friend made the mistake of his life.

Isaiah 45 22 says, look on me and be ye saved.

The antithesis is look away from me to humanity and be ye what?

And by looking at his younger relative and observing and thinking and meditating on the mistakes that his younger relative made and the unfaithfulness of his younger relative and the disloyalty his love turned to bitterness and when you get your eyes off Jesus Christ on a humanity and the failures of humanity When you take your eyes from love, you lose love.

For by beholding, we're changed in the same image.

And by beholding the unworthiness of his loved relative, He became like him.

He lost the love of God and the bitterness of the enemy filled his soul.

And his love turned to hatred and his hatred to murder.

1 day he returned home, opened his coat and showed his wife a badge.

He pulled out 2 guns and said, I'm gonna shoot the cuss.

She said, honey, you'd never do a thing like that.

The idea while we 2 are together, nobody around has a defender of the law.

He said, there'll never be brought any disgrace on the family, I assure you of this, rest assured.

And then the devil came along with his special temptation, now you're a murderer at heart you you might as well go on into sin.

I believe the devil was not cast out of heaven because of smoking.

He wasn't cast out of heaven because he ate a piece of pork.

He was cast out of heaven because he acted like the devil.

But to imagine my friend smoking was something.

The devil said, now you're a murderer, now you smoke, you might as well drink.

And my friend drank and drank, and later he testified to me that he tried everything in his power to drown his worries by drinking and he said I couldn't get drunk.

He just drank and drank and the devil said now the the game is as good as the name they've accused you of immorality take it And I'm not going to describe his immorality for it was sordid.

3-Coon’s Own Nightmare Experience

Father and mother believed in God's promises.

They hadn't categorized it or formulated it as ABC.

We've done merely to help people to remember it.

While I was reared in a family where they expected miracles, I remember that when I was 6 years old my mother was dying of a heart attack, valvular leakage of the heart.

We clustered around, claimed a Bible promise, Malachi 3, 8 to 12.

I will rebuke the devourer for your sake.

And we asked God to do it and we just believed he would.

And God healed my mother right on the spot.

2 years before she died, she said, Glenn, I don't have an ache nor pain.

I said, wait, You get to be my age, mother.

He's not a God looking down his nose to say, look, look at all the mistakes you made.

And you remember you came forward once, and the next day you made another mistake.

God forgives, and God has a forgiving spirit even before people ask.

He said, I'll send the sunshine and the rain on the good and the bad.

You know all of these prayers that are, that are, if it be thy will prayers.

They major, too many, major in the commitment instead of majoring in faith.

Let's stop majoring in commitment and major in faith and still minor in the commitment.

Lord, I'll be satisfied with whatever you do but how can I expect it unless I believe in a God of love you see and if I don't get it the way I expected it'll not change my attitude at it toward you at all but how can I believe unless I believe and reach right out and say thank you?

When I was teaching church school before I entered the ministry I was thrilled with some statements on page 122 of Ministry of Healing.

If you want to find something that'll just thrill your soul through and through it says that we're to take God's promises as though he were looking right at us.

You're to take it just as though he were looking you right in the eyes and saying, Pete, this is for you.

He says there's nothing on earth that has such healing power as God's promises.

God's promises heal the body, they heal the soul, they heal the mind.

I told the students, I said, I believe the day will come when I can take the Bible and I'll take its promises just like a medical doctor, just like a medical doctor takes his little release with the drugs, 1 drug for 1 ailment, another for another.

If God gives you a little light, grab it, just grasp it.

For my friends, you once get a picture of a wonderful, loving God and it'll completely change a man's life.

I used to go to church as a boy and I took my stand for Jesus at the age of 6 and I went to church the next Sabbath and you know what I heard?

Another Sabbath I went to church I heard about 7 last plagues and I backslid.

Another Sabbath I went and heard about Turkey being driven out of Europe.

I said Lord, Lord help Turkey not to get out quite yet.

Well I heard people talk about the plagues until they were a plague.

I heard them talk about pestilence until there are pests.

I heard them talk about the time of trouble till there are troublemakers.

By beholding we're changed in the same image.

It's time we talked about Jesus Christ and his love.

We know the world is in a mess, but my friends, you can talk about the mess till doomsday and you'll only end up being a mess.

But you talk about the love of Jesus Christ and the power of Jesus Christ and the willingness of Jesus Christ and that power will infiltrate and fill the heart and we'll find we're more than conquerors through Jesus Christ.

Every once in a while in my ministry I'd go back to the promises and I'd have fabulous answers.

So it went until 1946, 25 years ago and better.

We're holding a series of meetings in Rochester, New York and as an incentive to attendance we passed out a little leaflet.

Don't ask us where it is because I don't know.

And the little leaflet contained Bible promises, and the name of the leaflet was What God Has Promised.

It's taken from the fourth chapter of the Book of Romans.

What God has promised, he's able to fulfill.

And every time I'd have the ushers pass out this leaflet, there's something about that title that impressed my heart.

It seemed to impress me more every night.

What God has promised, He's able to keep fulfilled.

Then it sort of sort of placed all of these resolutions and the light that God had given me through the years all together sort of putting it in a map.

Why in the world haven't I, Why haven't I trusted him more?

And I said, I'm gonna trust the Lord more.

What happened to what I told the students back there so many years ago?

I was gonna really take hold of these promises and share them with people and any problem could be solved.

I remember I was spending about an hour, an hour and a half in the morning in private devotion.

4-Married, Infatuated, Reunited

I noticed something as we're singing that song.

I noticed a lot of young people happy in the Lord.

Maybe they'll cue some of us older ones in too.

Do you know it's the most economical thing in the world?

Somebody said it takes 65 muscles or so to frown and only 17 to smile.

You know, it's economical to serve God, isn't it?

It's easy on our own faces and bless your heart it's easier on others.

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