Teaching on Prayer #06

Now, just a little tiny reading here it’s a very outstanding portion of Scripture. It has an application for this hour, but it also has an application through the ages when It comes to certain principles that are cast or the context cast around or become the context or a part of the tremendous prophecy.

In Mark 11:22 it says:

And this is based upon the barren fig tree, which is a type of Israel. There was no fruit; there was lots of green leaves. And it wasn’t the time of the fruit; there were lots of green leaves there. And it kind of reminds you of the hour in which you live.

Brother Branham mentions the leaves of the tree rejoicing and all that were Pentecostals, but not fruit. They didn’t have fruit. The chaff merely contained the life, the seed, but it didn’t have anything of itself.

And you notice in there which Jesus said:

And there you get Malachi 4; the burning and leaving neither root nor branch. I’m just hitting this casually, because you’re old enough by now in the Message to know just where I’m coming from and where I’m going.

And then, you’ll notice he overthrew the moneychangers in the temple and the seats of those that sold doves, and so on.

He said, “You’ve made my house a house of merchandise,” which is definitely Christ with his disciples in judging the false iniquitous church, the organizational church, Jerusalem, which is on earth here, which was Babylon, and which Rome is Babylon today.

And of course, one Babylon moves to the other Babylon, and pretty soon the pope will be over there. And you see the golden calf scheme.

That’s when the people, then, completely come against… They’re amazed at the doctrine, and of cause they come against the doctrine, and you see the sign for this hour, the very same thing.

And then, he cursed the fig tree. And we know it was a green leave and no fruit. And, even though the tree was not supposed to have fruit at that time, he still cursed it.

And you see the same thing today where people are up-in-arms about the fact that Brother Branham would say this is cursed; that the countdown has started; this generation was indicted; “I don’t pray for America.”

But, if Paul’s right in true harmony, based on the foreknowledge of God and predestinating power of God, that, when the Pentecostals should have gone on, because they were the last ones… the final age that come, the baptism with the Holy Ghost, which means the true Holy baptism would have given them the understanding that Brother Branham was that man, that they didn’t have it; so, the people were cursed.

And that’s one of the things you notice Brother Branham would later on mention in a sermon that Los Angeles, that the environment there, was cursed, and so on.

Now they came by a little later, and they saw the fig tree was dead, withered away. This would let you know the vindication of everything that Jesus had done, which was highly satisfactory to God, because it was God doing it.

Highly unsatisfactory to the people, because they didn’t believe God would do that. And so, they worshipped the God of their imaginations.

So the apostles… the disciples I should say, were astonished to see that the tree was dried from the roots up. Now you’ll notice that this tree even had its roots die, were dead.

When it comes to the Gentile tree, the life is in the roots. And the manifestation in Pentecost is all carnal, humanistic. Even though genuine gifts where there, there’s no fruit there.

And, of course, this is the great age everybody talks love. So, if you think there’s love in that age, you just don’t… well you don’t believe like me. I can’t tell you I’m right as though I’m right, I just know I’m right.

You can do what you want about it, your love and what your thinking is. I can just tell you flat: I don’t buy it. I don’t buy peace outside the Word. I don’t buy faith outside the Word. I don’t buy love outside the Word. I don’t buy anything outside the Word.

Because, if that Word is not the conduit of the Holy Spirit, I don’t care what this Word says, it just isn’t going to work.

Because the only word that will not return void unto God is His Own unadulterated, truly revealed Word. Everything else is dead. Now nothing outside this Message comes to life.

So, they marveled at how quickly the fig tree withered away. And Jesus at that time says, “Have faith in God,” which the literal translation is: “Have the faith of God.” Now, of course, Brother Branham was God to the people.

And Brother Branham spoke and said, “If God told me to raise Abraham Lincoln from the dead, I’d challenge the armies of the earth to shoot me down, if they could do it.” Brother Branham also said, “You’re looking at me aren’t you.”

He said, “‘THUS SAITH THE LORD’ and these other things have happened so perfectly are not William Branham. I had nothing to do with these. I was just a voice and one standing there, and He used me; and against my better judgment. I wanted to be a trapper.”

…you know, skunk skinner. If you can stand it, fine. God has something better for the man. He’s got something better for us than skinning skunks, anything else.

So, He says, “Have the faith of God.”

Now, what I’m trying to say there is not just have faith in God; have the faith of God, which positively would mean, that as God had faith on the grounds that what He said would come to pass, and did come to pass.

In this hour we have what Brother Branham said: the absolute perfect faith as never before. We have that genuine faith of God. Just like the Bible says.

Paul says:

He never said he lived by his own faith; he lived by the faith of the Son of God, which knew that God would raise him from the dead and bring every single thing to pass, which is now coming to pass, God Himself doing it.

So, we are hooked into that particular faith. That’s the big thing we’re looking at.

Now He said:

Now you know that any person outside of the faith of God could not say that. Only a truly vindicated prophet like William Branham could say, “You, city that called yourself by the name of the angels, ‘THUS SAITH THE LORD,’ you’re going to be under the water.”

And so, this has come to pass in our day. Now the mountain itself, the valley itself, has not plunged in the water; but, if you have any doubts about it going in there, you don’t believe this Message. You don’t believe God.

You just don’t qualify. See I’m not talking about you? I’m talking about me. The word ‘you’ is a principle.

I am too used to using the word ‘you’, because many years when I preached faith, people just didn’t believe like me. They just didn’t.

I had an extraordinary measure of faith in those days, but my ministry was not in that particular area. The same faith I had those days is now transferred into the passive, which is to believe this Word.

Now William Branham was the one that said it. William Branham said to Billy Paul, “Billy Paul, let me tell you flat: where you’re standing now, the sharks will be swimming.”

The same man that said, “If I can’t raise Abraham Lincoln, shoot me down,” is the same man that said that.

And I told you how it was in this place called Northland or Northup or something, in Los Angeles, California, the shock came and leveled to rubble the May’s Department Store, absolute rubble.

So we had that happened on 3rd too.

And hey, listen, nobody’s happy that people are dying and all, but I’m going to tell you something flat, better they than me. I’ll tell you the honest truth. I’m not some great hero that’s going to say, “Hey, better me than they.”

You say, “Well, I am.”

Well, good. I’m glad for you. Let me see it happen. No, you’ve got to look at what’s here, and it doesn’t have one thing to do with you and me.

No matter what you read anywhere, even Paul saying, “For I could wish that myself were accursed…”

That statement, in my books, was made by Paul concerning his own hungry heart for people dying round about him that knew not what he knew and fought against it. He felt terribly, terribly sorry for them.

But I’m going to tell you one thing: Jesus was cursed for the sins of the people. Don’t Paul or anybody else try to rise up and say, “Hey, I could do that.”

Now you can give your body to be burned. You can do a lot of things, but, we must be very careful, we don’t try to get where Jesus got and do what he did.

The church is full of people who want to grab the ball from somebody and run with it. That to me is ludicrous.

Now he said here, because someone is going to say this; it’s got to happen that someone is going to say it. Therefore, I say it to you in your capacity, what I’m going to say concerning this man and his capacity, “Whatsoever things you desire.”

Now he never said that this man desired to see the mountain move.

He just said, “If you say to this mountain, ‘be moved’,” and you’ve got what it takes, which is the faith of God Himself, which is exactly the predestinated Will, a part of history.

You’re going to stand there and you’re going to believe it, it’s going to come to pass, because this is an authentic prophecy.

Now bringing you down a step. “Whatsoever things you desire.” It didn’t say this fellow desired; this fellow desires. When you pray, believe that you receive, and you shall have.

Now there’s a principle there that faith… that rather prayer is motivated by… not motivated but prayer works through believing. The motivation is the desire.

And the desire, even though It says you shall receive and have them, you must be very careful, because James was standing there, the brother of Jesus, and he wrote factually concerning this, that most people pray to receive and simply use it for themselves.

To consume upon your lusts simply does not mean something that has to do with sexual things or sexuality. The word ‘lust’ in the Bible means ‘pleasure’.

And some people would be fat as four horses and three elephants, if they could simply get from God, you know, not baloney sandwiches, but caviar, turkey, rib roast, baked potatoes, quantities of gravy to consume it.

Like the Bible said, “Their god is their belly; their glory is their shame.” In other words the life is more than the meat, and the body is more than a raiment.

Now there are people who would not take it any further than a self-aggrandizement. And James says, “You [have not, because you ask] not. And, when you ask, you only ask to consume it upon your lusts. And therefore, you don’t have it.”

And then, because you don’t go the Bible way, there’s all kinds of rivalries among you. There’s all kind of impertinent things going on, all kinds of fights and everything else: jealousy, malice and the whole bit.

Now, if every one of us today had a nose exactly like this and three inches long, we wouldn’t then be the guy with the nose two inches long.

If all the women had beautiful baby blue eyes or brown eyes that really opened just nice and wide, the right way, with lovely lashes and all, and high cheek bones.

Look like what is it? –not exactly like Marilyn Monroe… I think she was a fine looking girl, but I think… who do I think? is it Marlene Dietrich? I think she’s beautiful.

Well, if every single one of us… every woman was like a Marilyn Monroe, and who ever the man was supposed to look like, and everyone dressing alike, looking perfectly alike and even walking alike, talking alike; what could you possibly ask for?

You know say, “Well, why would you ask?”

Eight or ten fools have the same car, cause you want to be different—pride. You wanted what you didn’t want and didn’t need. So, James is hitting the nail right on the head.

He said, “Too much of your asking is dependent upon what you want, only to use it in a way that is not becoming, and therefore you have no basis to ask God for what you’re asking.”

Now, we go back to the Psalms. And the Psalms tells us when Israel, the called-out people on the way to the Promised Land, began hankering for the carnal, which was the leeks and the onions… I know they kill bacteria, but with manna you didn’t even get bacteria.

Who needed Russian penicillin, when there’s no germs for the penicillin, the garlic to kill? Manna does not give indigestion. It does not make you regurgitate or burp or anything else.

It’s absolutely fantastic food, energy all day long, and just marvelous. But, see, they wanted something different to consume their lusts.

And the Bible said, “God gave them the desires of their hearts, but sent leanness to their souls.”

Now, praying with the wrong motive, receiving answers, you’ll have the leanest soul under God’s history in this end age, because there’s no Word going down there.

You follow me?

So, you got to watch your praying. The Bible said, “Pray without ceasing. Pray all manner of prayers. Watch and pray.” Well, we can go to hundreds of scriptures. But, we dare just go into scriptures and then say, “I’ll pray…”

Like I told you this guy, that he committed a really filthy sin against me, and I hit right between the eyes on it.

I said, “You wouldn’t even do that to a sinner.”

“Well, I prayed about it.”

I said, “Well, why don’t you pray to rob a bank? You don’t pray about sin; you pray to shun sin!”

This bird was praying to God to give him strength to sin. Then, when he got up enough guts and nerves, he did it.

Why don’t you rob a bank? Anybody here like to rob a bank? You know you can pray and get your nerve up and everything else. You can even pass a lie detector test, if you pray hard enough. Kill somebody.

Yeah, like Ames, who took a lie detector test. Who ran it? What psychiatrist gave him something, where it was his brain power that did it? One of the biggest spies in American history passed two lie detector tests.

A farmer killed his wife many years ago, and they knew he killed her. They couldn’t prove it. Every lie detector test [indicated] he didn’t kill her. Finally, they broke him down.

He said, “Yes, I did.”

They said, “How did you pass those lie detector tests?”

He said, “I prayed.”

Prayer answers many things. Hey, let’s have fun, eh? Don’t fool with prayer and the Word of God. You simply cannot bypass this Word when you pray. Your motives, your intents, the material of your supplication, what you’re going to do with it all depends…

Now He said, “When you pray, you believe.”

Without believing you spin your wheels. Yet, at the same time you cannot stop praying. You must keep coming before God with His Word, until It sinks deep down within your heart.

I had an old friend, Herman Alexander, I think I told you about him. He needed a car desperately, and he never had a plugged nickel.

His mother was a widow; he supported her and his aunt. He was a preacher, very sweet person, wonderful person. So, one day he asked God for a car.

Now he said, “Lord, I realize if I ask You, that’s sufficient.”

He said, “I’m going to praise You for the car that You have already given me. And I’m going to praise You everyday for at least an hour.”

And everyday for at least an hour or better he was in his room raising his hands, praising God for that car.

And one morning he sat up in his bed, and he was sitting there praising God for that car; and a man stormed up to the door, knocked on the door; and his mother opened the door, and he said, “I want to see Herman.”

“He’s upstairs.”

He storms upstairs. He takes a shoebox full of bills; he dumps them on his bed, and he said, “Here is the money for your car that you’ve been praying for!” And he wasn’t even happy.

And Herman said, “Thank You, Lord, for the money!”

And the guy looked at him funny as though it wasn’t the Lord that did it.

He said, “The Lord gave me that money; he just used you as the messenger.”

So, he went downtown, he bought a car he always wanted, and he didn’t really overdo it. He was just a young guy. He bought himself a nice car, a red car with the proper spoke wheels and all. He went by that guys house, knocked on the door.

He said, “Sir, I brought my car to give you a ride.”

Now you can prevail in prayer and the prayer is legitimate, whether it’s a loaf of bread, hunk of cheese, a house, whatever you actually need, because prayer is based upon need, not upon fanciful desires that will make you the prettiest girl in town, the most handsome man in the universe, and all that sort of crud.

Because you’re already warned, you cannot add a cubit to your stature by taking thought nor keeping one hair on your head, unless you do something about it. You lose it, and it’s really gone. It’s gone until you catch up with it someplace else.

See, prayer is important, very important. And it has very important rules and laws concerning it.

Now it goes on to say, and this is the part that most people do not like to inculcate into their lives. When you stand praying, the word means when you ‘persevere’: you keep on, you keep on, you keep on.

Now, It says, “When you pray, persevering in prayer, forgive, if any have ought against you.”

Now It tells you right there that you can be distracted by what is coming against you, what people are perpetrating upon you, in the midst of your praying, which would discourage you. So, don’t be discouraged. Keep on praying.

Whatever they do, don’t you retaliate. No matter what happens, don’t you quit praying, because you are going to have intensified problems when you pray, because there’s a catch to this whole thing.

Now It says that your Father, also which is in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses. Now, in other words, if we do not…

The word ‘forgive’ here is not that whole word that I have used in preaching, but it literally means more ‘the removing’ and ‘the disassociating’, so that the more you get involved with what is done, you get more involved with the personality.

The more involved with the personality, the less involved with the personality of God. The more you’re consumed with these things, the less you’re consumed with prayer, which is communing with God, and really standing there praising Him and asking Him, believing Him to bring into manifestation what is already ours, because what we want is here.

Because what a man sees, does he yet hope for? No, you want something that’s here.

So, for you to really give your attention to that, you’ve got to come to the place of forgiveness. You must be, otherwise you will be entirely consumed.

And the point is: if we do not forgive, but harbor those things in our heart, which is so easy to do, I mean it’s just our nature to harbor those things, what has been done in unbelief, we simply cannot reach out in faith, believing to get those things that are ours.

Now He said, “That your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”

In other words He may remove from you, and separate you from these things like Brother Branham saw that the circle of the Blood of the earth kept you visible to God with no sin and nothing particular there, because It scattered the sins, until there’s nothing remain.

But It says, “If you do not forgive, neither will your Father, which is in heaven, forgive your trespasses.”

So, what I see in here is that the unforgiving spirit, coupled with the wrong motive, lets you and me know that, when we pray, we are merely spinning our wheels… merely spinning our wheels.

If we ever come to the place where we’re like these men that Allen preached of that go into the closet and lock the door till God does something.

You’ll come out all right, but you can die the same alcoholic he died. You can be the same perverted man with money that he was. You’ll end up in a complete mess.

I found that prayer is not what most people think it is on the grounds it’s…

They say, “Well, it’s just: ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask, and that’s all there is too it, because the prostitute can come; she’s not going to change her ways, and, if she gets healed, and go back to her business.”

Look, I don’t deny any of those things, but I quoted you the Scripture: He sends leanness to your souls. One thing we do not want is to have God answer our prayers in order to find ourselves in a worse position than when we start. And that’s exactly what can happen.

You’ve got the chaff today has gifts. They’re the ones with the prayer lines. They’re the ones telling you all the miracles, everything else, and there’s absolutely no place in them for this Word.

So, all right. What are we looking at in praying? We’re looking at just exactly what I said: there must be the knowledge that we need something. We know that God can supply that need.

Now the thing is, if you can do it yourself, you have no right to pray to God except say, “Lord, you speak to the Spirit within you, You are here to give me strength and help. I’m relying on You now; give me the courage the strength to do this thing with Your help that can be done.”

And it can be done.

So many things here that we need God Himself to really intervene on our behalf… And the thing what you’re looking at then is: if you want God to intervene on your behalf, if I want Him on my behalf, remember how He intervened with the forgiving of sins, the helping us to be reconciled to come to Him.

Then, just forgive that guy, get him out of your life and remove it. Just get him away, forgive him, don’t have any bad thoughts and bad feelings and condemnations. This is a tough one. I admit it.

I can get hotter than a firecracker, and no doubt I miss a lot of answers. I tell you, when I was praying for people years ago, I put in hours of prayer, hours of study. I kept myself in peak form for just one thing: looking to that Word that people might get delivered.

Of course, I was a minister, I could afford that. But, we taking these little hints here, whenever there is an unforgiving spirit, God does not even want you and me to bother Him.

He wants us to get first, get detached from all those things that bug us, because, you see, that’s like the cursing part. We want to get attached to all the blessing part.

Well, there are certain things you go through. And one thing is: get all these things to one side that are bothering us, because we can do it. We wouldn’t be told to do it, if we couldn’t. Then, persevere.

Now, watch. I’m going to put the two together. We persevere in praying, don’t stop praying. And, don’t stop persevering in forgiving. Keep talking to yourself.

Keep communing with the Holy Spirit, as David said “Commune with thy self upon thy bed,” I’m not quite sure I thought it was one of the Psalms. “Commune with thy self upon thy bed.”

In other words, in the night hours; the Bible speaks of communing with God. Spend your time, and my time; we must give equal time to forgiving that we give to asking.

Now, to be perfectly honest with you, this age I think, is in the place of more concerned with the issues that are bugging us that need forgiving than we are concerned with the issue of getting rid of it and standing with prayer.

And, as we stand with both, we will come to the place where God gives us the desires of our heart, because He said, “Whatsoever things you desire, when you pray, your motive, what you want, what you want to do with it, He’ll give it to us.”

And that’s true. I’ve seen it. It works, it absolutely works. What you put your mind on, and you want it to work, you’ll make it work.

An old friend of mine said years ago, “You get what you preach for.”

If I were to start a series on divine healing, there’d be a lot of people healed here.

You say, “Well, why don’t you do it?”

Well, because my ministry goes elsewhere. I’m ordained to what I’m ordained to. I have the word of the prophet on it, and the prophet’s words were not casual to me.

I never asked him to tell me the things he told me concerning myself and him and the ministry. He would take me aside at times and say, “I want to talk to you Brother Vayle.”

And I would say, “Fine, let’s talk.”

It never mounted to a long collaborate; it was simply those things he told me. I believed them. And there it is.

So, what you’re seeing here, if you don’t prevail, you don’t stand there when things come against you, things are rough, it looks like you haven’t got the answer; just you keep moving in that direction, and it will come, both.

With this, then, is the expanded life of the beauty and goodness of the Spirit working by His Word in your heart and my heart and mind. And, at the same time, because we can be trusted with the things He would give us, He’ll give us.

Now many people were very jealous of me with Brother Branham. And I have no apologies. I don’t care if they were jealous. I’ve had them come to me and tell me they were jealous, but they didn’t know what I knew. What I knew is what Brother Branham told me.

He said, “Lee, you can come and bring any friend you want, any time day or night, because you never used me.”

I never used him… never used the man. And he appreciated that. He always got up to the platform on time, I always put him forward. He knew I would never use him.

Say, “Well, hey I could get you to Brother Branham, this and that…”

You know, folk, I’m going to tell you something: this thing of being a prophet, especially with that Pillar of Fire, that’s the closest to heaven and to God, millions, if not billions, are ever going to get. And they’re going to miss it by eternal years. Serious, isn’t it?

Well, you people are unfortunate. You always want me to say something, like Jack Bell said, “Lee’s not long winded. He just has got a lot to say about the subject.”

So, we have our time of prayer now, but at least you know where I’m coming from, or where I believe the Word of God is, to prevail, prevail, prevail.

Prevail in believing God for those things you can have, your healing and all. Prevail in overcoming our distaste, our dislike, our anger at what has been done to us.

Okay, let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for the time we come together. We know, Lord, that our prayers are not even to be considered alongside of Your Word.

But we know, Lord, if and when we truly give back to You, Your Word, from a heart that’s been cleansed, from a conscience that’s been cleansed, from attitudes toward others, coming to the place of forgiveness.

Knowing, as You forgave us, it was grace, and we’re looking at You, Lord, for this prayer answered, which is grace. And You want us to extend grace to somebody else, Lord, we should not be too discomfited or disturbed by it.

Help us to be such a congenial spirit, yielded, meek, and happy to do that.

Just exactly, when Jesus was accosted by Judas, knowing that He’d be betrayed him, he said, “Friend.” We know he wasn’t a friend like the others, any more than Cain was a brother of Abel in the true sense of the word. They were just there.

But, Lord, we know that we can start with that spirit of quietness, bringing ourselves down, until we do actually get to the place of absolute genuine forgiveness, absolute believing in our hearts as never before.

So, help us as we pray today and the days to come as we pray in our own secret chambers and those other places where we should pray… praying for others’ for needs. May it always be this way.

We give You the glory in Jesus’ Name. Amen.