Teaching on Prayer #02

…idea not when people wish to come in and pray before we, you know, call the meeting. I say, sure, that’s maybe the best way to actually do it, it’s just as you have time to come in and pray.

We don’t all have to pray together, pray at one time, because we usually pray our own prayers, and then we decide to depart. So, that would be fine, if you care to do that.

I’m just going to read from the Book of Mark, just a few words here.

And then, there’s an addendum as we were talking about it this morning.

Now, of course, we know that you can read Scripture one way and read it another way, and you can come to the conclusion that, as far as forgive­ness is concerned, it’s all a matter on your side of the ledger whether you ever forgive anybody or not.

And, of course, you’d have to keep prime to have a works program which you would constantly keep before your eyes, hoping that you’ve forgiven enough so where you could be forgiven.

By comparing other Scripture with this, my own thinking is that this has to do with the fact that I mentioned that this morning, that the Bible says: “Agree with thine adversary while thou art in the way with him lest thine adversary turn you over to the judge and the judge to the prison keeper, and you don’t come out till you pay the uttermost farthing.”

I think what we have here before us is an attitude of prayer wherein we realize that, if the Lord has forgiven us, we ought to forgive each other; and It would tell me that, if we have an unforgiving spirit, it’d be very, very difficult to have a real spirit of faith, have a real faith in your heart for the Lord to do anything for you.

Because it’s a lot like where the Scripture says, “If you say you love God and hate your brother, how can you say you love God whom you haven’t seen, and you hate your brother whom you have seen”.

I think all these things you have to put together and work them out. Some will take quite some time to work out, because many times these feelings we have build up over a long period of time.

And that’s the bad part of it; letting them build up rather than to just get them out of our hearts and minds.

So, there’s a warning here in praying. First of all, there’s the understand­ing that whatever you believe… And, remember; faith has to be contingent with the Word; it’s a revelation.

It says, “What you desire you can receive when you pray, but you must believe that you’re going to get them.” Oth­erwise you’re more or less spinning your wheels in the sand.

So, people should really believe when they pray and put their hearts to it, just put their minds to it; put their hearts to it. It’s not like demanding God. It’s more demanding of yourself that you believe God, and you wait upon him.

But then, It says here, “When you stand praying…”

In other words the word means to persevere; and as you persevere in your praying, you don’t let these animosities take control over you; because, if they do, you not only don’t get your prayers answered, but the point is you become a debtor.

Actually, it builds up in your life, builds up in your heart so that there comes a time when you just wouldn’t believe for anything. You just can’t do it.

So, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot more to prayer than just coming and just simply praying, you know, like you’re going to pray the rosary or something like that. That’s not going to work.

So, all right. That’s what we want to think of today for our little medita­tion that… Ask the Lord to help us to have a real, good, clean, forgiving spirit and to mean it.

One thing, you know, we can say something with our lips and not mean it with our hearts. You don’t fool God with that. I mean, God is… He discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart.

So, you just can’t say, well, you know, to the Lord, “I forgive” and down in your heart all the time you’re not only not forgiving, but you’re continually building up a state of agitation against the person.

And I find that very easy to do. You get to the place where you’re so disgusted with the constant dinning’s and drumming’s and the things that people…

Well, there’s just not even the first premise of Christ in their lives that you can see as far as we can see. Only God knows if something’s there or not. It becomes pretty burden­some; it becomes pretty difficult.

But Brother Branham himself said that, when Dr. Davis really did some­thing that was really wrong, and, concerning Brother Branham, he said he went to the cave to pray lest something bad happen to Brother Davis.

Now, that’s a marvelous attitude, but the fact of the matter is that Brother Branham was actually not only doing the right thing toward Dr. Davis, but he was doing the right thing toward himself. So, praying and forgiving are twins; they go together.

And you can see, then, why the Scripture says, “Men ought always to pray and not faint,” because this is no doubt going to take some work. And this is particularly one of the reasons we’re meeting together at this particular time.

So, we’re going to go to prayer, and you pray as long as you want to pray. You pray until you feel that you’ve prayed for the day, at least for this time.

We want to pray particularly to forgive and to forget everything that’s transpired over the years. We did at one time; they brought it back with them. I’m going to have to admit that flat.

I will not take that back for any man living, because I know my heart; but unfortunately, I let my heart get embroiled again with the same things we had before. And perhaps my stand was a bit too rugged.

I have a lot of Scripture to back me. The only thing I know is that perhaps my attitude at that time was particularly wrong. There again, I don’t particularly admit to that at this particular time.

But I know we can all stand with improvements in our hearts, our hard atti­tudes, so that as we persevere and pray which we intend to do coming together for an hour, half an hour, whatever it is, to really pray to ask the Lord to help us and begin to think those thoughts of forgiveness.

And get ourselves out of the way so that the Lord will prosper us and not let any­thing come back upon us due to our refusing to obey this precept to get it out of our hearts and our minds.

Forgiveness really means to absolve the person to the point where the person never even did it. Now, that’s what happened when Brother Branham came back with the Word for the Bride.

If we can come to that place, where we can just absolve the person separate from the act, forgive and forget the whole thing, then, we’re going to be in a much better position spiritually. So, that’s what we have to think of when we consider prayer.

So, we’re just going to pray a second, and you can kneel where you’re at. However you want to move around and pray. Kneel where you want to pray. There’s lot’s of room be­tween the seats, and we’ll do that.

Shall we pray.

Heavenly Father, we’ve read your Word here, and we know that this is a part of the Word that we could look at, and then, just read the first part and forget the rest of It. We know that’s not the way It works.

We pray, Lord, you’ll help us in the person of Christ to truly forgive every single thing, knowing that certain modes of walk and all may pre­clude the possibility of ever entering into any liaison whatsoever with the people. You didn’t ask us to do that.

You just asked us to forgive lest You Yourself would not forgive us, and we then, would be paying a price above and beyond what we already have paid through the offence of the hour. And we know that that is compound interest, which we don’t want.

So, Father, we would ask you, as we have had our minds renewed concern­ing the doctrine and the Word, that we begin to have our minds renewed concerning the utmost forgiveness, Lord, of everything done.

To leave it all in Your hands, to begin to take the place of the good Samaritan, and begin to take the place, Lord, of the person who can really begin to pray with these attitudes and understandings.

So, we just commend this little prayer service into Your hands as we faithfully pray in our own way, our own minds, our own hearts, Lord, and ask You to help us and bring us Lord, to that place where, which we are really hungering to come to.

Not asking You to be previous, Lord, but just knowing that You are bringing us along this highway; and Lord, we believe that soon there’s going to be a passing of time into eternity in the way that it hasn’t been accomplished to this point, but it really will be as we believe and know it to be with the change of our bodies, and Lord, we a part of that Resurrection and a part of the Wedding Supper.

Unto the King Eternal… It’s in the Name of Jesus Christ we ask this. Amen.

We’ll just go to prayer.