Teaching on Prayer #04

I think perhaps the prayer numbers are here, and I want to read a little bit from the Book of Luke, chapter 18: and just read to about the first 8 verses, before we go to prayer.

Now the premise set forth is that evidently people are doing things wrong, and there’s a right way to do them.

And we’re about to get some correction here; and especially this after the 17th chapter of the Book of Luke, which is an end-time portion, where the Bride is separated by the Rapture from the foolish virgin and the lost world, and where the soma, the carcass, the healthy eagles, and the healthy food in dew season are gathered.

So, it’s not likely that this is given by a circumstance outside of the present situation.

So, there at the end time, after the days of the Son of man, where at the place of separation, where at the place of many things that evidently are going to be confusing and divisive.

He said he spake a parable unto them to this end, where he spoke a parable because of this for if you get this certain understanding that men are always to pray and not to faint, saying:

Now you see two extreme cases.

Evidently the judge doesn’t believe anything worth believing, and the woman evidently seems to come with what might be a valid, but could be a flimsy basis, for some desired to remedy for an ill that has been received by her.

So, she has a lack; she’s got a problem.

Luke 18:

And so, based on the unjust judge avenging the widow, although she might have had a good claim, or might not have had a good claim, she had a problem.

This man that was in the position, really, to give her anything, or could give her something, depending on his whim, he evidently, according to his whim, gave into her, and he said:

So, you’re into a situation here that’s going to be very much evident amongst us. I would say that we should take heed to it. And, if we should take heed to the lesson that is given to us.

Now the lesson is in the first sentence: and he spake a parable unto them to this end: that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.

So, this is just a story with a moral to it… not just a moral, but a lesson based on the fact that men ought always to pray and not to faint.

Now, first of all, the word ‘prayer’ it simply means ‘to supplicate’; it means ‘to come to God’, it can also means ‘to worship’ and, you know, ‘praise’ and things like that.

But I don’t think that this, although the woman might have employed all of that she thought she might flatter the judge, she might praise him.

And say, “We know you’re certainly a fine man, that you always do listen to justice, and you adhere to things that are right. We believe that we come to you, we have every right to believe that you’re a good person.”

And she might have said, “I remember your mother was a fine woman, and I know you’ve done a lot of fine things.” There were a lot of things that she could have come to him, you know, praising.

But, you know, he was a tough old boy. He really didn’t regard her whether she praised him, she flattered him, she said the truth, or didn’t tell the truth.

He knew that this woman was a persevering person, like Brother Branham spoke on “Perseverance”. You’re going to persevere; this woman was a persevering person; so, she got her desire.

Now, as I say, there’s a key to it. And the key to this little story, with the truth in it, the picture, that we should never give up praying and give way to fainting. You should never cease the one and give way to the other.

The word ‘faint’ seems to be a pretty poor translation to me, because the actual root means ‘depraved’ or ‘injurious’, and also has the aspects within it as being ‘bad, harmful, evil or noisome’.

Now you will never think of that when you just read that. You just think, “Well, now, ‘He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray.’”

Well, the moral is that, when people leave prayer, like they’ve left out of school, they’ve left out of poems, you have only one recourse to get what you want, and that’s to fight for it, whether you’re going to knock somebody’s teeth out, knock his head off, or pull a gun and kill him.

And that’s the law of the jungle, and that’s what’s going on today. And that’s what’s going to continue to go on.

Because, if men do not commit to God their needs, there comes a time when they’re going to do something about it either physically, or will deteriorate into carping, noisome complaining, always-finding-fault people.

Now he uses the judge as being an entirely unscrupulous individual. And he uses the woman, not a man, although he says, “men ought not to.”

So, with this idea that you have a choice of going to God, or a choice of deteriorating into your natural instincts and what you really are.

We find then, this parable clearly speaks that all people, women equally, as well as men, because they talk about men and jump to the women, for a woman is mentioned here in particular as a better example than a man, for she will usually prove to be the weaker, physically, and unable, and especially without her head being her husband, and especially, if she can’t get what her husband legally got for her.

So, she’s a good example. And so, we say then: that all people should learn to pray and commit all disputes and wrongdoings, real or imagined, unto God, the Strong One Bound by an Oath, than to take things into their own hands.

Now the example here then, being, that this person would be pestered into giving this woman what she desired. Evidently, he didn’t even look into it, whether she was right or wrong, or whether she had a right to it.

He just said, “Well, I can see that she’s going to be a nuisance, and I’m not going to do this because I fear God, I haven’t got any love for God or man or anybody else. I don’t even claim that I serve the devil.”

“The point is that she’s going to keep this up, and there’s going to come a day when I’ve got to deal with her, call for the Mafia to liquidate her, do something about her, or I’ve got to give her what she is making a claim to.”

Now we know that you can’t go to God with false claims. So we know that the claim that the woman brings is just. She’s a widow; she’s been beat by a swift-talking lawyer, or some relative or somebody that’s not a right person.

And so, she keeps going to the judge. But now, we’re told to go to God, Who is the Judge, the Strong One Bound by an Oath, and we are to let God arbitrate.

You know, she didn’t call a jury, where she might’ve worked up all the widows and all the other people to feel sorry for her and, thereby, tell the judge, “Hey this woman should have something.”

And so, you notice that it’s an arbitrator that the judge has become. And an arbitrator is like a ombudsmen or a mediator. And a mediator is of one.

So that, God does not call two people in who have a little forum, although its not wrong for two people to agree upon anything and call upon God; that’s scriptural.

We’re talking here, though, about any two people or anybody deciding what this person should have.

What we’re looking at here is: God is the Arbitrator, the Mediator, if she comes being the weaker one, you can talk about Bride now, swing it to Bride if you want to, being the weaker one, with any just cause, any real desire that is based upon the Word, that which is lacking, that which is true, that which is right.

Even though God will take some time, He’s not going to take all the time in the world, because you could be dead, you know. If you get healed of cancer, you can’t die of cancer.

If you get healed of TB, you can’t die of TB. There’s got to come a time when the thing is under control. So, there comes a time when things are under control, and it’s not going to take too long, because God sent an answer.

Now he says, “I tell you that God will avenge them speedily.” In other words, not to exact revenge and you’re going to get your enemy hit on the head, and God’s going to denude him of that which belongs to you, and everybody else is going to put him to an open shame.

You’re not dealing with things like that. That’s way down the road. What you’re dealing with is an everyday situation where God can, will, and does take care of people’s needs as those needs should be met.

But you notice in here he says, “I tell you that God will avenge you speedily” why, on the grounds, “shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though He bear along with them?”

So, the big picture here is that, instead of taking things in our own hands, just to quietly stay before God, even day and night, waiting upon God to make all of the moves that are propitious, in order to help us get those things which we are entitled to by the Word.

Now, of course, the greatest blessing is to get the blessings of God in our souls by revelation, to build up in the most holy Faith, which is once delivered to us; that is the passive. But you can apply this to the physical or the active faith in your life.

And that is: do not quit praying; do not believe that God is not going to answer your prayer; do not at one time harbor in your heart any sense of what kind of justice you want delivered upon anybody. Now that’s a tough one right there, because we’re in the hour of judgment.

We know the devil’s going about like a raging lion, because time has run out on him; everything conspires to make us highly nervous, radical, and jumpy, and ready to blast.

Like I’ve said many times myself, I’m so fed up, if God doesn’t pull the pin, I’m just about going to do it; I’ll do it for Him. And, if the Lord doesn’t give us a pope from America, I’m going to start lobbying for one.

That’s my own crude… I think sometimes I call it cute, but I call it stupid at the same time… way of letting you know, that, “Hey, things should be finished by now.”

Well, it’s not scriptural, whether I do it or you do it. Not scriptural. Scriptural is to be patient; because you only learn patience by tribulation, by persecution, by trials that come.

So, all right. Your lesson here, then, is in the first sentence which is the introduction. The parable is, the story is, the moral is, the way of life is this: do not give way to vengeance.

The Bible warns you, “Vengeance is mine saith the Lord; I will repay.” Do not give way to being disquieted. Why art thou disquieted and cast down O my soul? We must learn, and we are in a very sloppy age to learn.

And I’ve had many years to overcome, but believe me, it’s no different from you, to learn not to give way to fainting spells, which definitely include depravity, injury, bad attitudes, harmful attitudes, evil toward people, loud-mouths speaking against it.

The big thing is to keep our spirits under control, and our souls, hoping with live through the Word of the living God, not to give way to something which ends in depravity, and not to faint, but to keep just talking to God about it.

Not necessarily trying to storm the gates of heaven every single day until suddenly you see an angel appear and something happens; I don’t go for that; I don’t think you do either.

But, more or less, when we have prayed, to begin to quietly believe God and praise God, worship God, to thank God that this lesson here is in the Bible. We see it everywhere we go.

The world practices it; judges, men of authority. It’s very difficult to get away from someone that’s persistent, and especially in the right way, which is simply keep knocking on the door to the judge.

It says, “How much more then should God avenge or answer or give what that one is crying for.”

He said, “I will avenge them speedily.”

In other words at the end time things are speeded up. You won’t have too many years or days to go before it’s all over.

And then, It says, “Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes.”

In other words, during this period of the Son of man ministry on earth, when you see gifts of healings and all these things taking place under the false anointed, there’s a little word of warning here.

You can easily say, ‘Well, look, all these guys are getting answers. Everybody’s happier than we are. Everything looks like they’ve got ten jumps ahead of us and what are we doing sitting here? Where’re we at?’

And you can destroy your whole concept of faith, the whole life that you are depending on having, moving on with God. It’s just that simple.

You got to come to the place that I came, and I came many years ago before I understood Son of man, I knew what Brother Branham was all about.

I’d already decided that the only way for me to get ahead in the ministry, and I was very strong for divine healing, discerning and everything honest out there just… If my name wasn’t Rip my name was Snort. So, it was a matter of Rip-Snort or religious boy; I was all for it.

And I told my wife, “You’re a blond, so the thing to do I guess is to going to have you dye your hair black, paint your eyebrows and eyelashes black, and we’re going to get the speediest Cadillac in America. I’m going to cut a swath for God like you can’t believe, because it looks like that’s what it takes.”

So, I was just on the verge of what I’m telling you… warning you about. You’ve got to watch your spirits and watch yourselves.

Well, I knew I couldn’t quite do that, I didn’t mind being a hypocrite, but I didn’t think I’d get my wife in on the deal that easy. She would have rebelled.

At least I told her years ago that, if I’d ever went haywire, “Don’t you dare follow me; you’ve got to account to God.”

That’s shortly after Brother Branham took me aside and told me concerning the ‘Anointed Ones at the End Time.’ And I began to see, like David saw, when the rich got richer and they spread themselves like the big bay tree.

They’re out there doing things or what ever, he did something, God just beat the living tar out of him.

I know he got another man’s wife and all; I appreciate that David was skuzzy when he did it, but God just beat the living daylights out of that guy for that, until he got scared to make a move, and Shimei cursed him, and he said, “Let him be, he said, God told him to do it. Let him do it.”

So submit prayer… The greatest force of prayer is actually submission to the Will of God. As Brother Branham said, “When you go before God, don’t ask for a lot of things; you just live the life.” But he said, ‘You don’t try to change God’s mind. You’re there for God to change your mind.”

So prayer is very important here in this particular aspect. We’re not out here quoting, “God, you’re a god of battle; you never lost a battle; you’re the great warrior; the shout of the King is in the camp.”

Listen, all those things are true, but you can cut yourself to death with quoting the Bible and go plumb to hell and get the choicest place in hell, which is the longest place in the Lake of Fire, just quoting the Bible. You’ve got to do it with understanding.

Prayer is not a steamroller device. It’s only a steamroller device when there’s something urgent that’s, you know, that’s just not for long: we’ll say doesn’t necessary expand over years, but is something that you can lay your hands on, perhaps like your sick, you’ve got a bad case of pneumonia.

You could fight that pneumonia out of your body in maybe three solid hours; and it’s gone never to return again. That’s a little quickie. A lot of things take much longer. But the big thing is, is to stay there, stay there.

Don’t get entangled with anybody. This is mostly with life in entanglement, don’t get entangled. Just stay before God. Don’t become a wicked person because of somebody else, that’s easily done. That’s exactly why men kill their wives and wives kill their husbands.

And, if you think you know a little bit about women turning on the men, you’ve just begun to read in the papers what they’re going to do. That’s right.

Lorena Bobbitt’s just a symptom. She’s just a symptom of what women will be doing pretty soon. Why? Because men have been dogs for many years. They beat their women and everything else that.

Say, “I can do it; I’m the man.”

Like fun you can. I’ll see you roast in hell, you pull that around me! Uh-uh, uh-uh. Men have tongues that are bad enough talking to their wives, wives talking to them.

Hey, that’s bad enough. Sometimes tongue whipping is a million times worse than a slap in the chops.

How great it would be if we took a lesson from the Bible. Well, you’ll never hear greater words of wisdom in all your life than you heard today.

But I don’t know what we’re going to do about it… you or me both. It’s up to us. Doesn’t mean you lie down and let people walk over you because you’re a Christian. Let God handle it. Let God handle everything.

Now, if a man’s going to come in your house to shoot you, and you got a gun, hey, you don’t let him kill you and your family. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about this: Don’t bring everything on the outside in on this.

Keep this solid. I’ve got a need; I’ve got a problem; I’ve been rooked; I’ve been euchred, I’ve been taken from; this or that. All right, I’m not going to be a party to it.

I’m not going to be a mean person because of it… a wicked person. I’m going to be a better person. I’m going to go to God, and God will take care of me.

And God will make it up to me, because while that man’s sowing, you’re sowing. He’s going to reap; you’re going to reap. Go to the Book of James; you’ll find everything I’ve said is said just perfectly like I just said it.

So, all right. Prayer is that way with us. I’m not going to belabor the point. I could take and go over this an hour and a half by simply flipping back and forth in the Scripture, quote Scripture after Scripture.

But there’s the point: As you pray, remember this: as we all pray that every time any problem comes, and it may be that pretty soon we’ll number our prayers on our fingers, that’s ten, and on our toes, that’s ten more; twenty times, we’re crying. It doesn’t matter.

It all boils down to one thing: I’m going to become a better person because of this. I’ll in no wise let anybody push me, where I’ll become degraded and go down to their level. See?

Too bad they don’t teach those things in our schools, isn’t it? and the homes? It makes such a difference. They took it all away, and now all hell is breaking loose. Hell is moved from beneath. I think this is a good scripture for chapter 17 of Luke, the days of the Son of man.

So, all right. We go to prayer. Pray as you feel led. Just bring your petitions before God. Remember, you pray for each other in order to get healing.

The person who wants everybody to pray for him and doesn’t think of praying daily for somebody else, and they get healed, but I think he becomes quite lean in soul or she lean in soul.

I believe more and more it’s a real communion family walk, and by the grace of God, may it be family and walk together. Even if it’s just one or two.

Remember, Moses went down to Egypt with a one man army and took over. What would’ve happened if two Moses had gone down. Well, nothing more than happened, really. One man in God is a multitude or a majority. We don’t worry about it. But there’s only one person.

So, there it is. Maybe a thought or two will stick in your minds, stick in my mind, stick in all of our minds. As you realize, you can go to church and become a worse person than when you came in. You can pray, and be a worse person than when you got down on your knees.

Hard to believe this kind of preaching, isn’t it? I doubt you’d get it out of any other church in the world but ours here, because I bite the bullet and I tell the truth, because I know the truth: I can leave here a worse person by far than when I came. Some people do. Some people do.

You will have less faith when you got down on your knees, less understanding, less everything. It’s up to you and me. Here’s where the rest and peace of God comes. Understanding… All your wisdom and all your knowledge; get understanding. All right.

The Lord bless you.

Let’s pray for a little while, shall we?