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[00:00:00] You may want to take a pencil or a pen this morning and just simply note down a few scriptures, for I will be reading a number of scriptures, all of which are related, and then just making a few comments on them at the end.
[00:00:19] It's all really in connection with our school of prayer.
[00:00:23] And there's just one single aspect which I don't think we shall be able to take up during the days remaining to us in this school.
[00:00:36] And so well take it up this morning. First of all. Matthew 26 41 Matthew 26 41 watch and pray that ye enter not into temple temptation.
[00:00:57] The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
[00:01:05] Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. One wonders what would have happened if those disciples had only been alive enough when our Lord said that word to obey it.
[00:01:34] Their moment of temptation was about to come, and they didnt know it. And even when the Lord spoke to them, they were not really aware they were not alive to their need. Our Lord knew the need, but they somehow were not alive to it. And therefore they entered into the severest test that any of them had faced, and every one of them failed.
[00:02:04] And our lord had said to them, watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. He had even understood their condition. It wasn't as if the law was condemning them and saying, oh, dear, you're all so fleshly. You're also bound by your flesh. It seems as if he almost said, watch and pray because your spirit is willing, but your flesh is so weak.
[00:02:31] As if he understood their frame and their physical makeup and their mental sort of makeup. He understood everything about them.
[00:02:40] And so he gave this.
[00:02:43] I don't suppose a single one of us in our time of defeat would have known that kind of defeat if we had only learnt to watch and pray.
[00:03:02] Because you will notice that it is not just prayer. People often wait till theyre in the midst of the trial to pray.
[00:03:11] They wait until theyre right in the heart of the conflict, when everything is dark and devilish and complex and seems as if youre cut off from the Lord and everything else. And then they start to pray.
[00:03:23] Only we would watch and pray. Well, now, well, look at a few other scriptures. Mark 13, mark 13, on verse 33. Take ye heed, watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is. It is as when a man sojourning in another country, having left his house and given authority to his servants, to each one his work commanded also the porter to watch.
[00:03:58] Therefore, for ye know not when the Lord of the house cometh, whether at even or at midnight or at cock rowing or in the morning, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, watch.
[00:04:20] Now that's a very interesting word, because what does it mean? Watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is. The Lord obviously didn't mean that by watching and praying we would know when our Lord was about to come.
[00:04:34] For we know that no one knows the day or the hour.
[00:04:39] And he also said, in a time when ye think not the son of man cometh, what did he mean then when he said what? Surely he meant that by watching and praying we would see the movements in the unseen. And its not that weve got to know when the Lord is coming, except as the general principle. The great need is to be alive to Satan's devices.
[00:05:03] Thats the great need, isnt it? Its not that we should have a perfect prophetic system and know exactly at what point our Lord is about to appear. Its not what the scripture says.
[00:05:15] What the Lord meant was that we should so not only pray, but watch that when the enemy seeks to undo us or trap us or compromise us or put us into a place of pressure, we shall be allied to it.
[00:05:33] There is no doubt in my own heart that when those days come, of which it is spoken of in revelation 13, and which most believers think they are going to be so clear about, the mark of the beast, 666 and all that, that when that day comes, there will be so many pressures that most of the people of God, apart from the grace of God, will compromise, just as we've seen it in this last week. Confusion, perplexity, darkness, weakness amongst the people of God. No clear voice, no clear understanding of the issues involved, because certain other bodies come into things, they all get frightened and almost immediately run to the other extreme.
[00:06:25] And so it will happen in other things unless we watch and pray. Now go back to Matthew 24, Matthew 24 42. Watch therefore, for ye know not on what day your lord cometh.
[00:06:47] Right. He just said, two shall be at a mill grinding. One shall be taken, one shall be left, two shall be in the field. One is taken, one is left.
[00:06:59] Watch therefore, for ye know not on what day your lord comes. Dont let the enemy get you into such a position that youre compromised or defeated or somehow living in sin or something else.
[00:07:12] Here's another scripture coming up. Luke, chapter 21 and verse 33.
[00:07:23] Heaven. No, sorry, that's not right. Verse 36.
[00:07:29] But watch ye at every season now and mark it. But watch ye at every season making supplication, making inquiry entreaty that ye may prevail to escape all these things that shall come to pass. And to stand before the son of man.
[00:07:47] Just before that, the Lord said, but take heed to yourselves, lest haply your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life. Most people would feel that surfeiting was rather wrong.
[00:08:00] Many would. Undoubtedly, all would feel that drunkenness was totally wrong. But the cares of this life are something that every single one of us have got.
[00:08:11] And maybe it will not be surfeiting or drunkenness that will undo many a child of God. But the cares of this life, just the routine of life. That's what I find the most sad thing about the people of God. We're all the same. We get into a routine, and round we go into the routine, you know, and as it gets busier and there are more and more pressures on us and more and more calls on our time. So we just go on round and round and we don't watch. We're just in a bit of machinery that's going on and on. Watch ye at every season making supplication, enquiry. That's very interesting. That ye may prevail to escape all these things that shall come to pass. Now, I want you to look at two more scriptures and then a few more after that. Ephesians, chapter six, verse 18.
[00:09:04] We'll read from verse 17 and 18. And take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, with all prayer and supplication. Praying at all seasons in the spirit and watching thereunto in all perseverance. Now, mark that little phrase. Watching thereunto in all perseverance. What is there unto here? It is taking the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, with all prayer and supplication. Praying at all seasons in the spirit. That's the thereunto. Watching thereunto in all perseverance. In other words, this matter of watching, we really. We need perseverance. Now, I find that so often, if you use the word watch, people seem to get a kind of theological connotation to it immediately. You talk about watching, people have got something. Watch night services and sort of that kind of thing, watchmen on the walls. All of which is right. But if you just remember that a watchman is someone who keeps awake while everybody else sleeps, you will get nearer to an understanding of what it is to watch for. The greek word just means keep awake.
[00:10:31] If you think of it like that. It's so keep awake, keep alert, keep alive.
[00:10:37] You can't watch if you're drowsy.
[00:10:42] You just can't do it if you're half asleep, you will not notice anything.
[00:10:50] So the word is watching thereunto with all perseverance. This is a matter where we've got to take ourselves to task. You don't just stay awake.
[00:11:02] There are times when you feel like sleeping, especially when the night comes, when no man can work. That's the normal time with the darkness to go to sleep.
[00:11:13] And if we're going to watch, we're going to have to take some strong spiritual black coffee to sort of keep us awake, sort of give us a bit of pep, a bit of life. Keep us alert and alive.
[00:11:33] We won't be able just to rest on natural resources or natural energy. We shall need something more than that. Now. Colossians chapter four, verse two.
[00:11:44] Colossians four, two.
[00:11:48] This is how the apostle closes this letter before he makes all his sort of sends all his greetings to all the various ones he finishes like this. Colossians four, two continues steadfastly in prayer watching therein with thanksgiving, withal praying for us also.
[00:12:11] Continue steadfastly in prayer, watching therein. Now, here's an interesting word with Thanksgiving. Now, some people's idea of keeping awake is that the whole thing is a grim, doer business.
[00:12:27] And the more doer you are, the more awake you are.
[00:12:32] You've got to be sort of so solemn about this matter of keeping awake, of watching. You know, you've got to sort of be intense. But it's interesting, it says, with Thanksgiving, let there be a bit of joy in this keeping away. Actually, I imagine, quite honestly, that being joyful probably keeps you awake much more than anything else, don't you think so you've got a bit of sort of joy and you don't feel like going to sleep in the same way. Well, now, mark that. Continue steadfastly in prayer watching therein with thanksgiving. In other words, don't let this just be a kind of grim ministry focused on the powers of darkness, where all the time we're looking at the powers of evil and the powers of darkness and the way they're insidiously working and their devices and their authority and all the rest of it.
[00:13:35] You don't give thanksgiving for such, do you?
[00:13:40] You give thanksgiving for our lord, for his power, for his throne, for his mercy, for his grace, for what he is.
[00:13:49] So we are to continue steadfastly in prayer, watching therein with thanksgiving, watching therein. In other words, prayer. This continuing steadfastly in prayer is also to be mixed with this keeping alive. I feel that so many times our prayer ministry deteriorates into just prayer, and it sort of just becomes routine, if you know what I mean, because we are not alive. We're not alert, we're not watching what's happening. We're not keeping awake. We don't see the shifting scenes, as it were, in the heavenlies. We don't see the movements of principalities and powers and world rulers of this darkness.
[00:14:28] If we would only keep alive and awake. God has given us eyes to see.
[00:14:34] He has given us spiritual eyes to see. He doesn't want to be all the time carrying us like babies.
[00:14:42] He wants us to use our faculties, our spiritual faculties. Well, now, just a few more coming up. One Corinthians, chapter 16, verse 13.
[00:14:58] We've seen the connection now with prayer, and now we have one or two that are sort of just on their own watch. Ye stand fast in the faith, quit you like men. Be strong.
[00:15:14] Let all that ye do be done in love. Isn't that an interesting word?
[00:15:20] The apostle Paul ends another letter by saying, watch.
[00:15:26] I don't hear very often any word on watching. People seem to think of it as a kind of subsidiary thing.
[00:15:37] But the trouble with most of us is this. We wait till some terrible thing has taken place and then we wake up.
[00:15:44] Only then it's too late.
[00:15:49] It happens even amongst us. Sometimes. Someone sort of is going downhill. No one has watched. No one has been alive. No one's been awake.
[00:16:00] And the collapse comes too late.
[00:16:04] Oh, how we need to keep her alive, keep awake. It happens in big situations where small things that we don't even know we can let go of. Certain things that God gave to us in our earlier years, just let them go. Because we're getting bigger. We're getting bigger. Can't cope with it now, can't do this, can't do that. We let go of it before we know where we are. We've lost something which is very, very precious, and the enemy knows it.
[00:16:30] So very, very small things lead to very big consequences, and it's all part of watching. Now, here's another one coming to you. One Peter, chapter five, verse eight. One Peter, chapter five, verse eight. Be sober, be watchful.
[00:16:50] Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, whom withstand steadfast in your faith, knowing that the same sufferings are accomplished in your brethren who are in the world. Now there again, you've got the same thing. Be sober, be watchful. It's no good just being sober. Some christians are certainly sober, but they're not watchful.
[00:17:14] I know many sober christians who are getting as compromised by the enemy as some of the others, just simply because they are sound.
[00:17:26] Oh, yes, they're sound, and they dot their I's and cross their t's, but they're not alive, they're not awake, and therefore can be as easily trapped by the enemy. He walks round seeking whom he may devour as a roaring lion. Do any of you know the devil as a roaring lion?
[00:17:46] You know, a roar is something. I remember when, years and years ago, we took our Sunday school class to the zoo.
[00:17:54] And of course, those kids were just dreadful. They were all over the place. And I had visions of hands vanishing into sort of tigers stomachs or panthers or something. And there were only two of us. We were doing our best to keep our eyes on these 14 little demons. And I think, if I'm right, that there were two or three that were not. They were extremely pious, but the rest were demons.
[00:18:22] And I remember that in the end, I decided the best thing to do was to stand with one's back to the cage and watch, you see, so that I thought, well, now I can keep them. And without my knowing, this great creature behind me. Roar.
[00:18:36] It was just. I don't know whether it was calling to its mate somewhere else or something, but believe me, to the delight of all the demons, I nearly collapsed into a heap. Now, the scripture says the devil is walking around as a roaring lion. That means something. You know, sometimes the devil can roar, and his very roar makes us almost feel that we've been eaten.
[00:19:05] Of course we haven't. His roar is nothing. His bark is worse than his bite.
[00:19:12] And that's why we must withstand him. Don't bother about the roars of the devil.
[00:19:18] Just because he roars right in your ear doesn't mean a thing.
[00:19:23] You're as safe. As safe as you can be, if only you'll be sober and watchful. Keep alive, keep awake, or you may find yourself in the stomach of the roaring land.
[00:19:39] Now. One. Thessalonians, chapter five.
[00:19:43] One. Thessalonians, chapter five.
[00:19:47] We cannot read it all, but we will read verse four. But ye brethren, are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief. For ye are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. So then let us not sleep as do the rest, but let us watch or keep awake.
[00:20:09] Let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night. And they that are drunken are drunken in the night. You see, sleep is over against watching, drunkenness, over against being sober.
[00:20:23] But let us, since we are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love for a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God appointed us not unto darth, but unto the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, revelation, chapter three, verse two.
[00:20:43] Revelation three, two. Be thou watchful and establish the things that remain which were ready to die. For I have found no works of thine perfected before my God. Do note that in the revised and american standard version, perfected. It's not that I have not found any of your works perfect. I've not found any of them perfected. Nothing's been completed.
[00:21:07] You started well, but nothing's been completed. Or are there not a lot of us like that? We're always starting things which we never finish. We start courses which we never finish. We go in for exams which we never go through with all the time, with the kind of mentality.
[00:21:24] And the Lord says to this church, watch and establish the things that remain, for I have found nothing completed.
[00:21:34] And then revelation 1615.
[00:21:43] And this is a marvelous little sort of parenthesis in a dark paragraph. It's all so awful. This paragraph had all these unclean things coming up onto the earth to deceive everybody. But then it says, behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.
[00:22:12] I was very interested some weeks ago on one of those few occasions that I happened to have some free time. There was something on television about old India hands. I don't know if any of you saw it.
[00:22:31] And they were talking, some of them, about how things were stolen from them whilst they sleep. And really, I can't mention here the things that were stolen from them.
[00:22:44] You could hardly wonder that some of the things could be got off while they sleep.
[00:22:51] But some had others so clever at the thieves that the most incredible things were lost whilst they slept.
[00:23:02] And the Lord says here in verse 15, blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
[00:23:17] In other words, if you dont keep alive and awake, you may lose a lot.
[00:23:22] The enemy will see to that.
[00:23:26] And then lastly, acts, chapter 20, in that great message of Paul to the church at Ephesus. And he says this in verse 31, wherefore watch ye, remembering that by the space of three years, I cease not to admonish everyone night and day with tears.
[00:23:56] So let's sum up these scriptures. First, we need to keep awake, and this watchfulness is related to prayer.
[00:24:09] In other words, it's a great trap that if we see the vital necessity of prayer, it's a great trap if the enemy can get us not to see the need of watching.
[00:24:30] For the two things go together, any prayer ministry that does not keep awake and alert will in the end be a routine matter.
[00:24:45] Secondly, so often we enter trial and test because we do not watch and pray.
[00:25:00] There are things happening in our nation, there are things happening locally, there are things happening amongst us as the people of God, which we need to be alive to awake to and be able to take action in time. Now, do you remember when that evil woman who has opened a number of sex shops in Britain, we got wind of the fact that she was going to open one in Richmond? You remember, and here is a classic illustration of something that many of you were involved in. You will remember that we were keeping alive and awake about this whole matter because we were alive to it. All over the country they thought Richmond was a very good centre for such things, but they were frightened because they knew that there was a strong evangelical minority in Richmond. And they took that run down little shop by the station as a pilot to see if they could get in. Now, on the more or less, not immediately, but on the day they opened, some quick witted, watchful child of God noticed it, came in straight away and told us, and you will remember we had the time of prayer that evening. Do you remember? And why we had a time of prayer now? Some people would say, well, what are they all doing praying about some porn place? Of course, the world's going to pieces says, though, it's going to get worse and worse and worse, and isn't it better for it to sort of come out into the open?
[00:26:33] Anyway, we prayed, as you will remember, and we had a wonderful time of prayer where most folks rose up in faith and stamped all over the pawn shop, destroying it, liquidating it, smashing it up. And I carried away, summed it all up by saying, oh, lord, put a bomb under it and blow it up. You will remember that the next morning, Margaret coming in such sort of hysterics that for a long time she couldn't get it out. And finally it was the pawn shop. And we said, yes. And then she laughed for a little bit more and finally managed to get out. It's blowing up, she said, and you will remember that it was my turn to have kittens then because I suddenly thought oh, but the police will be round straight away because they know we've all written letters and they wrote and said to us they could do nothing about it.
[00:27:29] And so they will come round and they will probably say Mister Lambert, have you any reason to suspect any member of your congregation who might possibly put a bomb under this shop? And I would say of course not. But I thought they might go to one or two of the more naive amongst us and they may say no, no. But our minister did pray that the Lord would give a bomb.
[00:27:53] And I had visions of myself trying to explain that before some magistrate.
[00:27:59] But all my sorrow and trial was to no avail because as Margaret finally said, no, no, no. The gas heater overheated and it's blown up and there is. It has really wrecked the place. And the most wonderful thing of all was that they were not insured. They were going to sign the insurance the next day and they lost everything. The place closed down. And thank God we never had the sex shot. Now that we have to be careful because the enemy's heard that and he'll be in to do something if he can. But you see my point is this. If we had waited till some big thing developed then we have a mess on our hands. But just because we were watchful on a small issue the Lord came right in and dealt with it just like that. Isn't that a lesson? That is a lesson in cameo of what God would like to do about all kinds of national, international church situations.
[00:29:03] If we were only awake.
[00:29:07] But most of us, we just jog along and we don't really know what's happening until it is so blatant that finally we have to see it.
[00:29:21] And that leads me finally just to say we need to watch and pray concerning international and national matters.
[00:29:33] Don't ever throw in the sponge.
[00:29:37] God told Jonah to go to Nineveh because he was going to destroy that city off the face of the earth.
[00:29:43] And Jonah, like many of us, had got that idea of God that when God says something well anyway hes going to do it.
[00:29:50] It was rigid and legalistic. And he went and he gave his message after quite a roundabout way of course via the big fishs stomach and a few other related lessons. He finally got to Nineveh. And when he got to Nineveh and delivered his judgment with all the gusto that was in him, for he rather enjoyed it. He had no particular love for the Ninevites or the Assyrians.
[00:30:16] When the whole place repented, God deferred judgment for a whole generation. The judgment did come and Nineveh disappeared from the face of the earth, but God deferred it for the whole generation.
[00:30:31] Now that to me shows that God is not a machine.
[00:30:36] He responds to intercession, he responds to real prayer, and he responds to repentance on the part of those who would be judged. Therefore, we need to watch and pray on international and national situations. We need to watch and pray on church situations. Oh, what a need there is to see the people of God brought together.
[00:31:00] Thank God for some of the things he's doing amongst believers throughout the earth. But there are many, many excesses, many, many dangers, many things that the enemy is seeking to come in on and divide the people of God again and to, oh, all kinds of things. How we need to be alive and awake locally, we need to be alive and awake. And don't you think, parents, that you need to be alive and awake?
[00:31:28] Some parents idea seems to be that the state cares for their children materially, the school cares for their children educationally, the church cares for their children spiritually.
[00:31:44] And really all they do is live with them.
[00:31:53] And then they wonder why their children dont come to the Lord.
[00:32:01] I have noticed that where God has really started to save families, it's often been that someone in that family has got up early and prayed.
[00:32:10] They have not been heavy handed all the time pushing the gospel, but they've watched, they've been awake and they've prayed.
[00:32:25] And I think that that's the kind of concern that God takes note of.
[00:32:30] And after all, parents, your prime responsibility in the Lord are your children.
[00:32:41] So on every level, we need to watch and pray that God, by his grace and in his mercy, may keep us awake and alive unto his coming. Shall we pray now, Lord? We commit ourselves to thee and we pray, Lord, that thou wilt indeed really teach us to watch and pray, Lord, thou knowest perhaps some of us need a real experience of thy holy spirit to waken us up.
[00:33:15] Certainly all of us, Lord, need new life. We need resurrection life and power.
[00:33:22] O Lord, fill us anew with thy dear holy spirit so that we may be full of faith and full of wisdom, and full of power and full of grace, full of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:33:36] We give ourselves to thee now, Lord. Use this little word on watching and praying to thine own end, Lord, and for the building up of us all, we ask it in thy name. Amen.
